A submission to the Premier’s Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence in Queensland
Introduction
Thank you for according me the opportunity to contribute my ideas in relation to this pressing social concern. My submission touches on all six elements of the Task Force’s Terms of Reference, but with perhaps a slightly stronger emphasis on:
- Educating and engaging Queenslanders to create a community that supports respectful relationships, practices positive attitudes and behaviours and promotes a culture of nonviolence
- Defining the scope of violence, assault and abuse to be addressed in a domestic and family violence strategy and whether it would be appropriate for such a strategy to focus on particular or defined sections of the community in order to have the most impact.
The true nature of domestic violence
Domestic violence (DV) comprises man-on-man, woman-on-woman, man-on-women, and woman-on-man violence. There is also a very substantial incidence of bi-directional violence, whereby both partners perpetrate violent and/or abusive acts against one another.
The US organization ‘Stop Abusive and Violent Environments’ (SAVE) examined DV research results from around the world and noted that “These studies show that rates of female perpetration are very similar to male perpetration rates.
The authors concluded that the results of this review suggest that partner abuse can no longer be conceived as merely a gender problem, but also (and perhaps primarily) as a human and relational problem, and should be framed as such by everyone involved.
These conclusions mirror findings in the United States, where research shows men and women initiate most forms of abuse at equal rates, for similar reasons, and rarely in self-defense.” [1]
I applaud the fact that the Task Force’s Terms of Reference do not demonstrate the gender bias that is otherwise widespread within the debate regarding domestic violence, and amongst many of the staff of relevant agencies and advocacy groups. Such bias promotes a view of ‘domestic violence’ that is overly simplistic and which misrepresents DV as ‘men’s violence towards women’.
This focus on violent men and their female victims is more indicative of the pervasive influence of feminist ideology within the DV sector, rather than being an accurate reflection of patterns of DV perpetration.[2] Further, this systemic gender bias against men constitutes a significant barrier to effectively addressing domestic violence and better supporting the welfare of all victims of DV.
It is my firm belief that a solution to the problem of domestic violence will continue to elude us as long as agencies continue to only acknowledge and address one piece of the puzzle.
Others who have advanced a similar perspective have been accused of seeking to ameliorate the behavior of male perpetrators and/or to downplay the suffering experienced by female victims. I wish to assure members of the task Force that this is most certainly not my intention.
How has the misleading view of domestic violence as being synonymous with male violence towards women become so worryingly widespread?
DV advocacy groups, social commentators, and even senior members of the public service, have repeatedly stated that “the overwhelming majority of domestic violence in Australia is perpetrated by men against women”.[3] This is quite simply untrue. Numerous respected and non-ideologically biased researchers have found that between one and two-thirds of the victims of domestic violence are male.[4] The variation in findings was dependent upon variables that included the country surveyed, sampling techniques and the definition of ‘domestic violence’ employed. Other research has also highlighted the fact that large numbers of men commit suicide as a result of either being subjected to domestic violence, or after having been falsely accused of perpetrating domestic violence.[5]
Indeed I can assure members of the Task Force that much of the data about patterns of domestic violence that appears in the media, and in the web sites of DV agencies, is woefully misleading. This is unfortunate as suitable data, albeit sometimes imperfect or incomplete in some regards, is available for those who genuinely seek it. From this one might conclude that misleading statistics are at times being deliberately advanced in order to support a particular ideological perspective that, as previously noted, is held by many working in the field of DV. And in fact there is clear evidence that this occurs relatively frequently and with complete impunity.[6]
One red flag for astute observers is the absence of comparative statistics for male victimisation within much of the literature about domestic violence. In some cases this is because men were not surveyed, or failed to ask the appropriate questions regarding female perpetration and male victims. In other cases the relevant comparisons were available but were not reported, presumably as doing so might undermine a predetermined narrative and/or preferred conclusion.
The view that is put forward by most within the DV sector is that their preoccupation with male violence is justified because the number of female perpetrators is minimal – that female abusers are virtually an insignificant aberration.
When provided with irrefutable statistics showing near gender symmetry in rates of perpetration, the fall-back position is typically that a focus on male offenders remains valid because females only perpetrate violence in self-defence, that the physical violence they perpetrate is less severe, and/or that the impact of DV is greater for women than men.
The first statement is demonstrably false[7] and the subsequent statements demand careful qualification to be of any value in framing an appropriate policy response.
Focusing wholly on male perpetration of violence masks the extent of female perpetration of domestic violence, as well as a trend of increasing violence by women and girls generally
The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) prepared a submission to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. RAINN is the USA’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. In that submission they wrote:
“… an inclination to focus on particular segments of the student population (e.g.,athletes), particular aspects of campus culture (e.g., the Greek system), or traits that are common in many millions of law-abiding Americans (e.g., “masculinity”), rather than on the subpopulation at fault: those who choose to commit rape. This trend has the paradoxical effect of making it harder to stop sexual violence, since it removes the focus from the individual at fault, and seemingly mitigates personal responsibility for his or her own actions.”[8]
Now if we change ‘sexual violence’ to ‘domestic violence’ you might see where I am heading with this. As stated earlier, many within the DV sector are loudly asserting that ‘domestic violence is men’s violence towards women’, and devoting their resources to educating/shaming men as a collective group. But by doing so they are inadvertently sending a message to violent women that ‘whatever you are doing must be something other than domestic violence’, and ‘given the violent nature of men your actions might well be justified’.
It also follows that violent women would be less concerned about being prosecuted in the knowledge that they will probably be believed more readily than their male partner should the authorities become involved.
The claim that women are rarely responsible for domestic violence becomes all the more implausible when one considers recent trends showing substantial increases in violent crime by women and girls.[9] Such increases also exceed the trend in similar crimes by males.
What other problems are created by failing to acknowledge violent women and male victims of DV?
The ‘DV=Mens violence towards women’ focus is reflected in language and in statements that paint a picture of all men as abusers or potential abusers. Web site content, even to promote help-lines, is written in such a way as to pre-judge visitors based on their gender. I will provide a link to one such site in a footnote, but the agency in question is by no means unusual in this regard.[10] The material posted online in most Australian federal, state, and NGO web sites dealing with DV is assiduously judgmental and anti-male in its nature.
Take for example the document the ‘National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’ which sets the scene for addressing domestic violence at both federal and state level. That document, as do many others like it, waves away the welfare of battered men within the first few paragraphs. The Plan states “While a small proportion of men are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, the majority of people who experience this kind of violence are women in a home, at the hands of men they know. Men are more likely to be the victims of violence from strangers and in public, so different strategies are required to address these different types of violence.”
As a consequence of both the message being communicated by DV agencies, and broader social forces at work (i.e. anti-male bias and sex-role stereotyping), many male victims are discouraged from coming forward to report crimes and/or seek assistance. By the same token it is also entirely likely that the overt profiling undertaken by DV agencies results in fewer women coming forward to seek help for their own aggressive tendencies.
Under-reporting by male victims then has a flow-on effect of reinforcing the misconception that there are few female aggressors, that facilities for male victims are unnecessary, that survey question on male victims/female aggressors are redundant, etc.
There are many reports of male victims who do come forward being treated with suspicion, if not downright hostility. They claim to not have been believed, and that they were considered as abusers who were denial. Even when they are treated sympathetically, the next problem they encounter is that there are either nil or minimal services (e.g. beds in shelters) or assistance available to men, and particularly men accompanied by children.
When this mantra of ‘DV=men’s violence towards women’ is disseminated through the community via the media it encourages the view that men are inherently violent, and that should you see a man involved in a violent incident with a woman then the man is immediately assumed to be the instigator and perpetrator of violence.
This is clearly demonstrated in the videos available at http://www.fighting4fair.com/promulgating-inequality/differing-public-response-to-partner-violence-depending-on-gender-of-victim/
Be assured that men suffer deeply from the affects of domestic violence. Another largely unreported outcome of the current situation is a very high rate of male suicide linked to involvement in domestic violence – which is often exacerbated by subsequent isolation from children.[11]
A man’s separation from children can and does occur regardless of whether the father is the perpetrator, the alleged perpetrator, and/or the victim of domestic violence (as for e.g. in the case where no emergency accommodation is available for fathers with children).
Queenslanders deserve good governance, transparency and accountability with regards to public funds directed towards the fight against domestic violence
It is a sad fact that when society places a particular group of people on a pedestal then the result is often a scandal, as normal common-sense oversight is relaxed, criticism quashed, people abused or taken advantage of, and public funds misspent or otherwise wasted. Unfortunately I believe that we are now beginning to see this happening within organizations driven by feminist ideology, and particularly in the field of domestic violence.
Millions of dollars of taxpayer funds and donations are already being poured into the fight against domestic violence, and this is rapidly increasing. A large proportion of this money is subsequently finding its way to feminist advocacy groups like ‘Our Watch’ and ‘White Ribbon Australia’.
We want to think that throwing money at a problem will make it go away, and that high-profile and politically-savvy advocacy groups should be well-positioned to use funds to good effect. There is a time to make decisions with the head and not the heart (or with an eye on short-term PR value), and the fight against domestic violence is such an example. The Government should consider whether more might be achieved by greater funding of government agencies providing direct assistance to those in need, rather than for example directing funds to a non-government organization who may direct funds towards salaries, rent, conferences and securing the services of marketing/PR firms.[12]
This topic was recently addressed by well-known Canadian activist Karen Straughan:
“Violence against women in any form has been a HUGE cash cow for feminism. The more they inflate their claims regarding its pervasiveness in society, the more money pours in, and the more power they have to tinker with legislation and policy. Because it is such an emotionally charged subject, any rational scepticism of these claims (as to whether they are true in the first place, or whether feminists are accurate in their estimates of pervasiveness), is easily deflected by attacking the sceptic.”
“You can demonstrate until the cows come home just how much certain feminists are profiting from generating an inflated fear of violence against women among the public (the average [almost always feminist] director of a battered women’s shelter here in Alberta rakes in over $100k/year, and in the US, that number can be significantly higher), and people won’t care, because ending violence against women is THAT important. They won’t see the people who claim to be working to end it as the exploitative con-artists or ideologically driven religious inquisitors that they are.
If you point out that a very lucrative industry has formed around these issues, and that like any organic entity, this industry will work to sustain and grow itself rather than the other way around, you get called a conspiracy theorist. Even though none of these claims require a conspiracy to be valid–all they require is human nature.” [13]
An appropriate focus for education and for remedial action
I believe that there is a role for educational messages but that these should be gender-neutral. The community should be truthfully informed that there are both male and female perpetrators, that there are male and female victims, and that in many cases both partners engage in violence and abuse. The community should be told that any/all violence or abuse in the home is inappropriate and harmful for everyone involved, and particularly for those children who witness that abuse.
I believe that there is no legitimate objective basis for addressing in isolation, let alone focusing resources on, any one particular group of victims or abusers. In particular I object to the current gender-based approaches to addressing domestic violence. I say deal with the whole problem. Fix the whole problem.
I believe that agencies or organizations active in the DV field should provide services, counseling and support to both male and female perpetrators and male and female victims. I believe that government funds should be allocated where they will be most effective, and that this may mean that most funds are directed towards government agencies who provide practical assistance, rather than to advocacy groups paying PR/marketing firms to develop and implement costly ‘shame and blame’ campaigns of dubious value.
My recommendations to the Task Force
- First and foremost, I would implore members of the Task Force to consider this submission, and the linked references it provides, with an open mind and in an objective manner.
Please be open to the possibility that the limited success achieved to date in addressing DV may be due in part to shortcomings in both the philosophical approach that is driving current efforts, and the fixed attitudes and preconceived notions of many of those tasked with addressing the issue.
Indeed I am very much aware of the ‘elephant in the room’ that is feminist doctrine, and of the combative ‘us and them’ approach often adopted by adherents to that movement. But as is usually the case, we can and must find a middle path that will lead us to a fair and workable solution to the scourge of domestic violence.
2. Please evaluate and modify all documents and web content produced by relevant agencies in order to identify and remove any bias that might be present in relation to gender or sexual orientation. None of this material should pre-judge who is or might be the perpetrator or the victim in the relationship, or their motivation for coming forward to seek help.
3. Ensure that possible bias in relation to gender or sexual orientation is removed from survey instruments and that research methodology is carefully vetted in order to ensure accurate, unbiased and truly representative findings.
4. Evaluate and adjust the composition of relevant sections within agencies, committees, and panels dealing with DV issues so that, as far as practicable, they are representative of the broader community, particularly in relation to gender and sexual orientation.
At the moment it is my impression that many such groups are currently overwhelmingly comprised of people in a very narrow demographic , typically tertiary-educated women aged 25-45 who identify as feminists. It is highly probable that this is introducing a degree of bias which could limit the scope of approaches being considered or undertaken to address the problem of DV.
5. Do everything possible to ensure good governance and the cost-effective use of public monies. Grants should stipulate the need for key performance indicators, gender neutrality and natural justice, together with requirements for performance reviews and auditing. It is also important that any budget committee, steering committees or similar should contain representatives who are completely independent, in a financial sense, from any of the matters being considered. It would be naïve to assume, given the huge amounts of money directed towards domestic violence at the state and federal level, that there was no potential for financial considerations or self-interest to influence decisions regarding expenditure priorities.
6. Evaluate and adjust the allocation of funding and resources so that it is in accordance with the reality of the domestic violence problem in its entirety. In the first instance this would almost certainly necessitate additional resources being directed towards male victims of domestic violence and counseling for female perpetrators of violence.
7. Although it may be beyond the scope of the Committee’s consideration the manner in which the welfare of men has been largely ignored in the case of DV is indicative of the lack of any real advocacy for the interests of men and boys within the spheres of both federal and state government.
This contrasts strongly with the situation for women where there are generously-funded agencies, or at least sections within agencies, to address and advance the interests of women and girls. This may not be the time or place to consider this issue, but if we as a community sincerely aspire to gender equality, then this it is a disparity which should not continue to go unquestioned.
[1] http://www.saveservices.org/dvlp/policy-briefings/partner-abuse-worldwide/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–Pk25vBeHg (Donald Dutton video)
[3] http://www.fighting4fair.com/misrepresenting-reality/this-is-what-a-lie-looks-like-domestic-violence/
[4] http://www.fighting4fair.com/misrepresenting-reality/domestic-violence-one-sided-media-coverage-and-bogus-statistics/
[5] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.5042/jacpr.2010.0141
[6] http://www.fighting4fair.com/misrepresenting-reality/fudging-the-figures-to-support-the-feminist-narrative-domestic-violence/
[7] See for example http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/Dutton_GenderParadigmInDV-Pt1.pdf, See p687
[8] https://rainn.org/images/03-2014/WH-Task-Force-RAINN-Recommendations.pdf
[9] http://www.fighting4fair.com/women-behaving-badly/on-the-recent-increase-in-violent-crime-carried-out-by-women-and-girls/
[10] http://www.fighting4fair.com/misrepresenting-reality/addressing-anti-male-bias-by-an-australian-state-government-department/
[11] http://mediaradar.org/docs/Davis-DomesticViolenceRelatedDeaths.pdf See Conclusion
[12] White Ribbon Australia is simply provided here as an example of a NGO active in the DV field, and for which financial records are publicly available http://www.whiteribbon.org.au/publications/previous-annual-reports and http://www.acnc.gov.au/RN52B75Q?ID=D19DFBA4-B116-4C8A-B1CF-9509317B0877&noleft=1
[13] http://owningyourshit.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/false-allegations-are-rare.html
Postscript:
The report of the Taskforce was released on 28 February 2015, and I have prepared a response to it that can be read here.
Initial media coverage included:
QLD domestic violence report unveiled (28 February 2015)
Call for specialist courts to deal with ‘scourge’ of domestic violence (28 February 2015)
Domestic violence rising in Queensland according to new report (1 March 2015)
In August 2015 the Queensland Government announced that it would implement all 140 recommendations of the Bryce report
In September 2015 the Queensland Government announced that Quentin Bryce would head a Task Force in relation to domestic violence
Domestic and Family Violence Implementation Council
