At the risk of being accussed of derailing, do you really believe that violence generally and violence against women specifically have totally discrete causes? Because if that was the case, there would clearly be an argument for taking violence against women as a separate issue from violence in general. If not, then focussing on one aspect of a wider problem is clearly not dealing with the root of the problem.

You act as if fighting violence against men makes it harder to fight violence against women, as if it’s a zero-sum game. I was one of the people who criticised the approach taken by EVAW, and my main concern was that their policy seemed to deliberately and unnecessarily ignore all male victims.

They want Gove to declare that combating violence against females should be a priority for schools – how would girls and women lose out if “females” in that sentence were replaced with “everyone”? They want to spend school time educating kids about domestic abuse against women – great, but while you’re at it, why not talk about male sufferers as well? Does “men and women” take so much longer to say than just “women” that mentioning male victims would notably detract from the class/assembly time available?

Your final paragraph is strange. By rather aggressively asking them if they “know how it feels”, you seem to be implying that people who want an egalitarian approach to this issue are somehow responsible for the violence committed against women. Again: do you think this is a zero-sum game between the genders? I could rephrase it thus:

“No one denies that women and girls are also victims of violence. But do you know how it feels to be a man, or a boy, who suffers casual violence on a daily basis, or the abuse of a partner, but is told that “real men deal with it”? If you don’t, talk to your boyfriend, male friends, father, brother. They’ll put you on track.”

This bizarre attempt to blame one anti-violence camp for another type of violence (and if that wasn’t your intention, I’d like to know what the point of that last paragraph was) typifies this idea that for some reason issues like this have to be battles of the sexes; that if we deal with the genders equally then we’re failing women somehow.

I wonder if there is any evidence of ‘institutional misogyny’ in the schools system?

Great piece Ray.

I find it hard to understand why people are so afraid of talking about and recognising the levels of vawg that exist. Caring about VAWG doesn’t exclude you from caring about other forms of violence. But it does require looking at and tackling in unique ways. 1 in 3 girls experience sexual bullying in schools, 1 in 3 teen girls experience intimate partner violence and 16-19 year old girls are now at the highest risk of experiencing IPV. These stats come from the home office, Bristol Uni and NSPCC.

When i wrote about VAWG here i was accused of writing a hysterical rant, was asked why i didn’t talk about violence against men, was told i was ignoring male rape, was told my stats (from the UN, WHO, Home Office, Fawcett, Forward and EVAW) were probably false (with no evidence or contradictory research being offered) and the discussion we could have had, about prevention, about education, about the whys and whats we can do about violence was never had.

*Stands back and waits for the derailing to begin*

@ 4 sianushka

“I find it hard to understand why people are so afraid of talking about and recognising the levels of vawg that exist. ”

The OP is about people who want anti-violence policy to address both genders. That’s a very different thing to people who want to downplay vagw.

Also – and I should have said this in reaction to the OP – I think claiming that anyone who disagrees with you is “derailing” is a pretty cheap trick. It seems to assume that only one opinion is valid and that anyone who feels differently is automatically a troll.

@4 Surely *Stands back and waits for the derailing to continue*

[4] “derailing” – sounds like a contrived phrase designed to shut down other points of view – after all echo chambers hardly encourage debate.?

I am on the fence on this issue at the moment, and for me it is important to hear a range of views – this is not the same thing as saying violence against women is not a major concern, but rather how this problem (in the context of violence in general) is best tackled within education.

Perhaps a good starting point would be to highlight evidence supporting one type of teaching strategy as opposed to another, assuming any such evidence exists. Lets try and be reasonably scientific because the end point is about reducing violent behaviour not making various interest groups feel good about themselves.

A literature review here;
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/08/04112614/13

And some papers from Bristol centre for gender and violence research here;
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/sps/research/centres/genderviolence/publications/#youngpeople

Great post, I get frustrated when threads become derailed it’s as if those who do so cannot understand that domestic violence is different from public violence. Domestic violence against women is driven by specific cultural norms which are also held by women, this is why it needs specific education targetted at both males and females. The Criminal Justice System tends to reflect those cultural norms that’s why the many reported incidents are registered as such rather than reported crimes.
All violence against the person is unacceptable but it doesn’t take place in a vacuum, if it isn’t culturally determined then we would be wasting our time attempting to re-educate people not to mention legislate against it.

“Consistent evidence demonstrates that it is disproportionately men who enact violence, and disproportionately women who are subject to it.”

But that’s not true, is it? I I think that men are more likely to be victims of violent crime. Who has the correct stats?

“Consistent evidence demonstrates that it is disproportionately men who enact violence, and disproportionately women who are subject to it. If you want to contest this, go away and do some research.”

Bollox.

“The risk of being a victim of violent crime in the 2008/09 BCS was 3.2 per cent. Men
(4.4%) were twice as likely as women (2.1%) to have experienced violence in the year prior to interview. The risk for men aged 16 to 24 was highest at 13.2 per cent.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/16_07_09_bcs.pdf, BCS p. 43

For alcohol – “Although alcohol consumption increased significantly among young women during the 1990s (Walker et al., 2001), it is of note that men have far higher rates of victimisation and are also almost invariably the perpetrators of alcohol-related assault.”

http://library.npia.police.uk/docs/hordsolr/rdsolr3503.pdf

In the workplace – “The 2009/10 BCS found that 1.4 per cent of women and 1.5 per cent of men were victims of violence at work once or more during the year prior to their interview. The highest risk age groups were 25-34 for men (2.2 per cent) and 16-24, and 45-54 for women (2.0 and 1.8 per cent respectively).”

http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/violence/british-crime-survey2009-10.pdf

(Young) men are disproportionately the enactors AND victims of violence. A key exception is domestic violence for which specific and perhaps even gender-based policies is appropriate. But the broader claim about violence is crap. As with dodgy rape conviction statistics, these sort of articles really diminish, rather than support, feminist goals.

This is from the ONS:

“The type of violent incident experienced by victims of violent crime also varies by sex. In 2007/08, the number of domestic violence incidents experienced by women was five times greater than for men; 85 per cent of victims of this type of violence were women compared with 15 per cent who were men. However, men were more likely than women to be a victim of violence from strangers (78 per cent of victims were men) and violence from acquaintances (58 per cent were men)”

It’s not clear which sex is overall more likely to be victim of violent crime from that, it will depend on incidence of the various types of violence. Anyone know?

Ah, Nick found the stats before I posted.

@ jojo

“Great post, I get frustrated when threads become derailed it’s as if those who do so cannot understand that domestic violence is different from public violence”

AFAIK, the original EFAW initiative (it’s synopsised on another LC thread) sought to address ALL violence against women, so I’m not sure what your point is here – domestic violence was never the only issue, so it’s not like the so-called derailers are moving the goalposts.

In any case, even within the realm of domestic violence there’s no reason to exclude male victims.

The claim is domestic violence (not all violence) is disproprtiantely (but not totally dominantly) against women.

This seems to be the area that is being discussed here, and I see no reason to doubt that – it’s in accord with everything I’ve read.

My problem here is that there are artificial divisions – the only difference between violence at home and in the street is, to me, location. They are both about lack of emotional intelligence and about perceptions of status and dominance. So any concentration on domestic violence which ignores the causes of all violence is flawed. Let’s imagine that we could suceed in eliminating domestic violence, but did not affect other sources of violence. Do you think those who find their status and dominance is (in their eyes) increased by violence outside the home would then continue not to use violence within the home?

If you want to tackle violence, deal with the causes. One of these is indeed a certain form of traditionally male culture with its emphasis on respect, its downplaying of anyone who is not playing the alpha male, and its concordant requirement to use violence to establish that you are an alpha male (albeit there is an interesting sexual equality being demonstrated by more females now acting in this sort of way, this is still basically a male problem – most females in this sort of culture seem to accept the second-class position for some insane reason). This culture seems to promote domestic violence by its requirement to keep women, children (and other dependents) in order (in the eyes of peers). But it also leads to violence to any perceived challenge – the same idiots who feel the social need to project their domestic authority through their fists need also to maintain their public status through violence.

Ignoring this sort of equation seems crazy to me – you are failing to address the key issues by focussing on aspects of the problem rather than the root, which risks failing everyone (indeed – by presenting women as a separate group to school children, I would say you risk reinforcing the narrative of the alpha male, rather than going any way to challenge it). I hope this is not derailing the debate, but if you want solutions then it is necessary to look at the core of problems – patriarchies of dominant men (to blatantly pastiche feminist philosophy) are indeed one of the core problems, but the way to deal with it is to challenge every aspect of their existence, not just the ones you are most unhappy about.

There’s a difference between derailing and disagreeing.

Derailing is when you say ‘well, that’s all very well but WHY aren’t you talking about what I WANT to TALK about’.

The examples that Ray gives in the OP are of derailing.

Disagreeing is you saying that you don’t think those examples are derailing (mind spin with repetitive words!)

@ 11 @13
The OP is saying that domestic violence (or intimate partner violence) is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women.

A lot of Welsh people are the victims of theft each year. This fact cannot be denied.

Obviously, we need special classes in why it’s specifically wrong to steal from Welsh people, right? Of course not, it’s a total non sequitar. Pointing out the flawed logic is not ‘derailing’, it’s directly addressing the demand being made.

Every year I was at school I was the victim of some kind of violence. I was stamped on, punched in the head, punched in the stomach, kicked in the testacles, pushed over, stabbed in the hand, sat on while my property was stolen, and had my flesh crushed with pliers. and that’s just the incidents I can individually remember. Most of the perpetrators were male, but not exclusively.

If I had then been told I had to attend a special class teaching why violence against women, specifically, is wrong, I can guarantee you I would have refused to attend on principle.

domestic violence (or intimate partner violence)

The second one is a new one on me – is that a category for violence by couples who do not cohabit or simply for violence between sexual partners?

11
See my post @9 – Most police attendance for domestic violence gets logged as an ‘incident’, which is not considered to be a ‘crime’, consequently the statistics for violent crime do not reflect the real number of victims of violence. If you want to look at another statistic – over one half of female homicides are the result of domestic violence by men.

“@ 11 @13
The OP is saying that domestic violence (or intimate partner violence) is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women.”

Not terribly clearly. But that interpretation is accurate, so long as it is also accepted that young men are at the highest overall risk of being victims of violence in general. That way we can get a better picture of what causes violence and how we can resolve it.

It’s a red herring though. Since when is it ok to ignore or marginalise a group simply because they are a minority?

“See my post @9 – Most police attendance for domestic violence gets logged as an ‘incident’, which is not considered to be a ‘crime’, consequently the statistics for violent crime do not reflect the real number of victims of violence. If you want to look at another statistic – over one half of female homicides are the result of domestic violence by men.”

The British Crime Survey does not use police recorded crime. A large random sample of individuals are surveyed each year in order to estimate underlying prevalence, independent of police activity and interaction. So how the police record incidences is irrelevant to my point.

Obviously, you can’t do a crime victim survey for murders. But men are more than twice as likely to suffer homicide than women:
http://www.cjp.org.uk/publications/government/homicides-firearm-offences-and-intimate-violence-2009-10-supplementary-volume-2-to-crime-in-england-and-wales-2009-10-20-01-2011/ (p.22)

Which is not to say that domestic violence doesn’t require its own specific interventions that reflect its different characteristics, only that there isn’t a compelling reason for concentrating on it rather than the prevalence of violence more generally.

14 Agreed, but I have used domestic violence as an example for why it should be treated differently to other violent crimes, I could quite easily have mentioned date-rape.
15
If you believe there is an artificial division between public and private violence then you would support the view that the Criminal Justice System should treat all violence against the person in the same way, which they do not. And all children need to be educated about violence against women because the culture which legitimates male violence against females (in the private sphere) is also internalized by women, who often feel that it is ‘normal’ to be a victim.
17
I’ve edited my reply to save the mods a job.

22
Point taken. but are you really arguing that because men are more likely to be the victims of all types of violence (which I agree) then we shouldn’t be looking at ways of preventing domestic violence to women?
How often do I have to say that ‘all violence against the person’ is unacceptable but, as you agree, there are different types of violence that occur in different settings and are governed by different social norms.

1. More men are more likely to be the victims of violence and crime in general, that’s just a fact. It’s also true that women are more likely to fear crime/violence, but I’m guessing that’s irrelevant because fear of crime is often unrelated to rates of crime?

2. By creating a culture where it’s specifically wrong to hit women, and men are stereotyped as either (a.) aggressive or (b.) strong enough to take it, you reduce the likelihood of male victims of violent crime coming forward- in fact, you increase the likelihood of women acting aggressively towards men.

3. Given the fact that domestic violence against men is increasing at a faster rate than domestic violence against women, doesn’t it make sense to tackle both issues simultaneously- particularly given the risk of a focus on the latter aggravating attempts to limit the former?

4. At what point did it become appropriate to criticise dissent as ‘derailing the discussion’?

I want to know where people are getting the idea that violence in general ISN’T tackled at school. Or that we would be forced to junk that in order to educate on a specific form that mainly affects women because of entrenched attitudes.

I would hesitate to call them “norms” exactly. A little less than 1 in 20 women women suffer from domestic violence each year and around 1 in 5 at some point in their life. That is substantial but it is not necessarily evidence of a societal problem that requires for example, a national education strategy to eliminate.

It might, for example be more effective to target the relative minority of men who feel they can commit this kind of violence (they might well commit other types of violence too), intervene and treat them where possible. When that is impossible, they should be convicted and imprisoned for a number of years for their violent crimes (that might have implications for prison numbers but we are talking about protecting people here). That will take them out of circulation and act as a deterrent to others who believe they can offend against women with impunity.

[26] “I want to know where people are getting the idea that violence in general ISN’T tackled at school” – I agree I think it is (with varying degrees of success).

Yet the OP goes much further suggesting we need a “feminist education” so as to “combat the virulent combination of institutional misogyny, equation of masculinity with violence, and culture of sex negativity which makes sex a commodity that boys ‘get’ from girls, not something that all parties enter into consensually”.

Well to make one rather obvious point I wonder if such an approach would be welcomed in certain faith schools – in fact isn’t there a danger that feminism and religion are almost certain to be incompatible bed fellows?

Many previous commenters have pointed out the cock ups in this article, however, might I confuse the issue even more?

Check out an organisation called Broken Rainbow (broken-rainbow.org.uk). They deal with violence in gay and lesbian relationships – an area in which there has been very little research. This means that they have to scour the world for figures – which they do very well. In the US for example, it was discovered that anywhere between 22% and 46% of lesbians had been in a “violent intimate partner relationship”. Other studies reckoned that between 15% and 20% of gay men and lesbians had been the recipients of domestic violence from their partners. Whatever the true figures, what Broken Rainbow read from them is that “they signal that domestic violence in same-sex relationships is a major issue.”

Now, might I suggest that we start getting serious, and treat ALL acts of violence, regardless of the gender or sexuality of the victim or perpetrator as bloody serious issues?

@28

Yet the OP goes much further suggesting we need a “feminist education” so as to “combat the virulent combination of institutional misogyny, equation of masculinity with violence, and culture of sex negativity which makes sex a commodity that boys ‘get’ from girls, not something that all parties enter into consensually”.

Perhaps we do, for example would it really hurt for society to be more aware of the concepts of Toxic Masculinity and Toxic Femininity? I’d say pointing out and discussing how both men and women can easily “normalise” interactions that are ultimately self destructive and can lead to antagonism and violence is a worthy endeavour.

25
I doubt that domestic violence against men is increasing more than women, what we are seeing is that it is now starting to be acknowledged . Even up to the 1970s, domestic violence against women was not discussed and the many women who suffered did so silently and with shame.
Organizations now exist to help male victims, this started to happen for women in the 1970s with Erin Pizzy and the creation of Women’s Aid. But culture and social norms take a long time to change and though there has been some improvement for women, there is still a lot that needs to change.
I personally welcome the fact that male victims of domestic violence are beginning to be acknowledged but this should not be at the cost of derailing the issue of male violence against women.

16. sianushka

“There’s a difference between derailing and disagreeing.

Derailing is when you say ‘well, that’s all very well but WHY aren’t you talking about what I WANT to TALK about’.

The examples that Ray gives in the OP are of derailing. ”

In other words, you’re saying derailing is whataboutery. That’s fair enough, I tend to agree with you there. But the examples in the OP are not whataboutery. For example: “Why focus on women? Shouldn’t we just be educating children about violence generally?”

That’s the line in the OP that basically sums up my attitude on this. And it’s not whataboutery, because it’s on-topic, it’s a reasonable criticism of the suggestion on the table. If you call that “derailing” then you’re just using a buzzword to try to claim that only your POV is valid.

Whataboutery would be more along the lines of “You’re so interested in violence against women, but how come you’re not saying anything about the bias against men in child custody cases?” THAT’S derailing.

@ 23 jojo

“Agreed, but I have used domestic violence as an example for why it should be treated differently to other violent crimes, I could quite easily have mentioned date-rape.”

But the EFAW initiative isn’t solely about date rape either. So it still doesn’t make sense to claim that people who want a gender-equal solution “cannot understand that domestic violence (or date rape) is different from public violence”. The topic isn’t date rape, or domestic abuse, it’s violence.

God, just looking at the number of people who will actually – vociferously – object to telling kids that beating up women is not OK is completely soul destroying.

If just writing about a proposal for considering talking about it is met with so much vitriol, where would we be if we actually tried to get people to stop doing it?

What are people afraid of, anyway? Will a few girls gone un-beaten by their boyfriends really undermine your world-view so threateningly? Will more boys or men be stabbed in schoolyard brawls if we reduce the teenage rape rates by a couple of percentage points? Or is it just that you can’t stand by and listen to anyone talk about making women and girl’s lives a little better?

@ 30 Cylux

“Perhaps we do, for example would it really hurt for society to be more aware of the concepts of Toxic Masculinity and Toxic Femininity?”

I think that’s a very commendable subject that we should try to engage society in, but I’m wary about covering it in schools. It just seems fairly politicised to me. I reckon I would disagree with some of the things covered under toxic masculinity/femininity as drawn up by another person, and other people would disagree with my definitions of the concepts.

For example (and this is JUST an example, I do NOT want to derail this thread with another argument about this topic), many people would probably say that men ogling photos of women in their underwear is a type of toxic masculinity. They might say that the women who pose in their underwear are guilty of toxic femininity. I happen to disagree on this point. And I would have resented being taught this concept as “fact” in school, or my hypothetical children being taught it as fact.

Again, that’s just one example – the point is that it might be too politicised for the National Curriculum.

@35 To be honest I recall my general studies lessons which were more discussions of various topics where some general information was given to students for them to discuss, with the odd bit of guidance and devils advocacy from the teacher along the way – and we were encouraged to reach our own conclusions. It was rare that the whole room went out agreeing on a subject. (For rare see never)
Perfect place for such material, given that it would not then be taught as ‘fact’.

@ 36 Cylux

Cool with me, although I wonder how much you’d get out of a class discussion. I remember us having a class conversation about the concept of gender, this would probably have been around year 10. One of the things said that made me giggle at the time was “boys are sexist!” The blokes were no better, they were all saying stuff like “girls are, like, crap at D&T”.

Cool with me, although I wonder how much you’d get out of a class discussion.

No doubt less than you’d like, but more than you’d think. Some of those discussions are still sat in my head 15 years later.

@ 38 Cylux

“No doubt less than you’d like, but more than you’d think. Some of those discussions are still sat in my head 15 years later.”

Yeah? Cool, that’s a good reason in itself to cover these topics in school. I hope I don’t sound like I’m against the idea. As a teenager I would have appreciated the chance to talk about that sort of thing. It does sound like a good way to keep kids in the loop and involve them instead of preaching at them.

Hi all,

I had to go out shortly after this went up yesterday, so didn’t get a chance to join the discussion.

I think focussing on a different example might help to clarify the debate. Earlier in the year there was a push to tackle homophobic bullying in schools, in response to these stats:

’65% of LGB young people experience homophobic bullying at school. 92% of them have experienced verbal abuse, 42% of them have experienced physical bullying and 17% of them have received death threats.’ (Stonewall)

I volunteered in a school as part of a project to address this, and *by tackling the underlying causes of this kind of bullying, homophobia and transphobia*, I think we helped to create an environment in which being LGBT was less stigmatised.

Now, even if more bullying happens to kids who are not LGBT (I wouldn’t be surprised if it were so) I think this was/is a worthwhile initiative that needed to be dealt with separately. General anti-bullying initiatives have been in place for years, but this has not much helped LGBT kids, who face a slightly different kind of discrimination. Its not much good teaching kids that bullying is wrong if they don’t see homophobia as bullying.

Coming back to the issue of VAWG, that fact that so many comments here have concentrated on arguing against seven words of my article, ‘disproportionately women who are subject to it,’ shouldn’t really surprise me (Admittedly, I challenged you to go away and research). In the vein of what I was saying overall, though, it would be nice to see some more holistic responses addressing the heart of what I said – which is that there is a reluctance to have constructive debate on VAWG. Responding with ‘but you are wrong, men are overall subject to more violence’ is kind of ironic.

But let’s address that particular claim I made. I think it may well be true that men, overall, are subject to more violent crime. But as someone pointed out, most occurrences of VAWG are not seen as crimes, just part of every day life. The kind of VAWG that goes on at school is very rarely acknowledged, and if it is it usually to the victim’s detriment. At least in my experience, bullying (boy on boy and girl on girl) was seen as a problem, if not properly stopped, but the boy on girl violence, unwanted touching, harrassment, bullying, which was all around us, went unspoken. Domestic violence in teenage relationships was ignored. I have not personally heard of an example of girl on boy violence amongst people I know, but I’m sure it happens.

Violent crimes like fistfights and gang violence need specific initiatives. Incidentally, there are specific initiatives in place already addressing these problems, and nobody suggests that this isn’t right. These problems are a huge part of the statistics that register violence against men and boys, but they are not the same problem as that that women and girls face and cannot be addressed in the same ways.

My claim, and I think the claim of EVAW, is that violence needs to be targeted in specialised ways to be targeted effectively. Constructions of masculinity, as I touched upon in the article, may well play a large role in creating male aggressors generally, but it is misogyny, pure, plain old fangled misogyny that needs addressing in schools. Tackling misogyny by teaching about it, talking about it – challenging it – will, I think, and I think EVAW thinks, be the key to reducing levels of VAWG, and to creating a better society for all. (That’s ALL, everyone, its better for everyone)

And as I was discussing with a friend yesterday, it is simply not the case that focussing on VAWG will have a bad effect on men and boys, or raise the numbers of male victims of violence. A ‘generally dealing with violence’ approach may clamp down on fist fights in playgrounds, but it will do very little for anyone else.

Does anyone who is against misogyny really think challenging misogyny is a bad thing? No? Now can we talk about EVAW’s proposals?

@ 40

Hi Ray,

Couple of things here:

1) You originally claimed that women are more often victims of violence than men. Some people made the opposite claim. That’s not “ironic”, that’s disagreeing with your claims. Along with your “derailers” attack, this seems like another attempt to act as if anyone who disagrees with you is a troll: if someone calls into question the factual accuracy of your statements, you accuse them of having “a reluctance to have constructive debate on VAWG” – “constructive” presumably meaning “making points that Ray agrees with”.

2) By pointing out the difference approaches needed for domestic abuse and fistfights, you are still trying to move the goalposts away from the original EVAW scheme. That scheme was about violence in general, not just domestic abuse. Violence isn’t the same thing as misogyny either. So, in a sense, by insisting on pretending that it was only about types of violence generally associated with female victims, it’s you that’s derailing the issue by misrepresenting it.

3) “It is simply not the case that focussing on VAWG will have a bad effect on men and boys, or raise the numbers of male victims of violence.”

Really? I agree that trying to fight VAWG is not going to have that effect in itself. But what if, like EFAW, you demand that officials take an approach that specifically and deliberately excludes male victims?

Take domestic abuse. One of the problems surrounding this issue is that society often doesn’t treat domestic abuse of men as a problem. People assume it’s rare, or that it’s not serious. FFS, comedy shows still play it for laughs (“She hit him with a saucepan! Boom boom!”) The attitude is that men should be able to “deal with it”, and the victims themselves often buy into this idea.

Now, what effect will it have if you encourage schools to discuss domestic abuse, but ONLY as a crime that is perpetrated against women? It seems to me that this approach will exacerbate the idea that domestic violence is something that doesn’t affect men, reinforcing a societal prejudice that leads people to ignore male victims.

How about special classes to educate females of the part they play in causing domestic violence? Domestic violence in a toxic relationship is an ongoing thing, there is a certain psychology in the male causing the expression of violence and there is a certain psychology in the female causing her to stay there and take it.

If we are ever to make progress action is needed at the root cause in both genders,there are many reasons for toxic relationships…the insecure male for instance will seek to break his partner down mentally, isolate her from the world and her relationships and make her dependent upon him applying pleasure and pain, punishment and reward in a complex cycle influencing her behaviour until she is where he feels most safe.

Some people are so insecure they stop there partners speaking to people on the internet whom they have spoken to for years and nothing beyond that has formed from there friendship…when one is insecure it does not matter what level of commitment and trust there partner displays they will still seek to control there behaviour are connections…when one is violent it does not matter how much commitment trust and kindness there partner expresses violence will still be part of the relationship.

I in no way defend the perpetrators of these actions how ever they are not conscious of the reasons that make them act that way, no healthy balanced person with a sustained positive self image and relationship with the world would do these things, they have issues…the violence and abuse is a symptom of there ongoing problem.

Which brings us back to domestic violence is an on going thing, different to a single first time domestic violence incident as its been proven by time that this is what one can expect from that relationship. The females who stay in these toxic relationships in which violence is expressed towards them time and again are to the point of there responsibility ( being there for it to occur ) responsible to.

If every person from either gender ended a relationship at the first or even second incidence of violence then domestic violence would be a thing of the past. If there are children present they should be removed, its clearly not an environment to grow up in in fact its just creating the next generation of unbalanced people, instead of the police dealing with 5,10,15 incidents per year at the same address arrest both partners for any incident after the second in there history.

Teaching women to end a relationship, not accept for a moment such behaviour and creating legal ramifications should they choose to stay in such a relationship and make it possible for the violence to continue is one sure way to put an end to it.

Education on why it happens,how to recognize it happening and the absolute correct way to deal with it is vital…you can focus on punishing violent partners after the fact and stick posters up all over town saying “please don”t hurt your partner” or you can change the attitudes of the victims to one that simply does not support such acts as on going behaviours in society and legal ramifications for them selves if they support it by there very presence.

42
I wondered if we would hear from the victim blamers, no prizes for being the first one.
How simple and straight forward your solutions are, what a shame that those women who stay in violent relationships have not happened upon you for your good common sensical advice.
Just as a point for you to consider;- the largest number of female homicides have occured when the victim has left the abuser or is attempting to leave.

31. jojo

Even up to the 1970s, domestic violence against women was not discussed and the many women who suffered did so silently and with shame.

I remember the 1970s. I remember the 1960s. It is simply not true that people did not discuss domestic violence. It was rather that society put a greater stress on resolving the problems while maintaining the family unit. Everyone knew. Everyone talked about it. But people had a different set of priorities.

I personally welcome the fact that male victims of domestic violence are beginning to be acknowledged but this should not be at the cost of derailing the issue of male violence against women.

There is no such thing as male violence against women. There is only domestic violence, which happens to be largely committed by men against women. There simply is not some vast conspiracy against women run by men.

43. jojo

I wondered if we would hear from the victim blamers, no prizes for being the first one.

And why not? Women in violent relationships are not merely passive victims. Even if they are undeniably victims. They contribute to their situation, mainly by choosing the men they are with and then staying with them. The rest of us don’t force them to be with violent men. It is simply undeniable that a significant number of women have an active interest in violent men. Look at the love letters those on death row get in America. Or the vile comments made on Facebook about Raoul Moat by a surprising number of women. Or the fact that Sean Connery has made his violence to his ex-wife public knowledge and yet he is still regularly voted one of the sexist men in the world.

If some people are incapable of taking responsibility for their decisions and their lives, what does this say about those people? I don’t want to go down the blame route. It is not going to help those women in such relationships. Although it may help those not yet about to get involved with such men. A little education here is no bad thing. But you can’t simply assert that the women who make up half the equation here have no input into their situation.

Just as a point for you to consider;- the largest number of female homicides have occured when the victim has left the abuser or is attempting to leave.

Fine. Let’s consider that. What does it suggest?

” my husband has a problem ”

” whats his problem ”

” hes an alcoholic, he slurs his words, hes forgetful, hes late for work,he is violent”

” Well thats what alcoholics do the problem seems to be that your accepting this behaviour whilst your expecting something else…”

“I wondered if we would hear from the victim blamers, no prizes for being the first one.”

Victim blamer? I advocate responsibility….presenting this issue as one in which women have power and responsibility,the moral responcibility to leave and not be subjected to on going abuse and even the legal responcibility to stop this in its tracks by using the powers they have.

“How simple and straight forward your solutions are, what a shame that those women who stay in violent relationships have not happened upon you for your good common sensical advice.”

What a shame those women who got into violent relationships stayed there week after week month after month year after year…for some reason its presented as a problem that rains down on females from society, an issue they suffer while being completely helpless and unable to respond and educating the opposite sex about there responcibility not to inflict this pain believed to be the cure…i don’t believe you to be that weak…

“Just as a point for you to consider;- the largest number of female homicides have occured when the victim has left the abuser or is attempting to leave.”

Right so the answer is for her to stay there and educate school children not to hit females? Expecting a women not to subject her self to an abuse relationship,instead expecting her to leave not only as a common response but the only response and assessing the situation/ensuring her safety once she has done so is victim blaming/women hating..i see.

I have seen many violent relationships and the violence did not end in a single one because the man decided to…….

44
Domestic violence against women has been going on for centuries, in the 19th century J.S. Mill wrote about the abuse of women by men, labelling the abusers ‘brutes’. The sufragettes also called for an end to male violence against women. However, it wasn’t until the 1970s that policy makers, driven by feminist groups, took the matter seriously, Erin Pizzy provided the first concrete assistance to battered women. I suspect that any reference to battered women previously was talked about because of the general belief that it was unusual or it only happened within the lower classes.
Imo, the comments women make about actors and other notorious men associated with violence, fall into the fantasy category, just as some couples play-out rape fantasies. However, most women who do this within a safe relationship and being in control, do not want to be raped in reality.
Victim blaming became big in the 1990s, when a couple of high-profile cases of women who killed their batterers pleaded ‘diminished responsibility’ based on ‘learned helplessness’, which then became the orthodox psychological explanation for staying in violent relationships. Of course, the law then did not allow for any other plea but murder unless it was manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Perhaps you do not listen to the news where women have been murdered by an ex who has stalked them and where it has been reported to the police who haven’t taken it seriously This happens quite regularly, no wonder women in violent relationships are scared to leave if they are threatened with that fate.
45
You need to look at the literature by victims who have stayed in violent relationships and then make those comments. Also look at the number of females murdered by a partner or ex-partner, it’s a depressingly repeated pattern of women trying to leave. Even the Moat debacle was about his ex who had left the violent relationship she had with him.

“Perhaps you do not listen to the news where women have been murdered by an ex who has stalked them and where it has been reported to the police who haven’t taken it seriously This happens quite regularly, no wonder women in violent relationships are scared to leave if they are threatened with that fate.”

So why is it you are not suggesting that the police be educated on such matters?
I do not need to read about women who have stayed in violent relationships i know enough of them. In my younger days a good friend of mine was in such a situation and she was scared to leave, her boyfriend was seriously put in his place and it took him a long time to recover so she….felt sorry for him and there relationship continued but you know its “different this time”. And it was for 18 months!

My own sister was in such a relationship and by that point in my life i knew she was the only one who could deal with it so left her to it until she realized this and left at which point we stepped in. He was stalking her, coming to her house at 4 AM shinning his headlights through her window and beeping his horn, threatening phone calls and messages etc..we did the right thing and recorded him doing it and the police were brilliant! He never came near her again after he was released from prison.

Another moved to my end of the country after she left a safe house the ex in question in still in pursuit how ever she admits her self “the signs were there” I could go on..you say “the women in these relationships” well a relationship has to be formed and in doing so you get to know a person..instability,extreme jealously, manipulative behaviour..the flawed personality is clearly visible and if one becomes intimate and exposes them selves to such an individual for long that leaving causes an issue then they made there mistake within the first weeks/months of knowing them.

Are you seriously suggesting that having an intimate relationship with a individual like “moat”, in fact even getting to know that person,a person with a long history of violence who had been arrested 12 times, including for conspiracy to murder, are you really suggesting that alarm bells would not go off clearly indicating the type of person he was?

47
Your entire post is subjective and anecdotal, there is plenty of literature based on academic research. Indeed the introduction of Domestic Violence Units in police stations were the result of police not dealing with the matter effectively, which included a massive programme of education. Even this has not changed the approach of many police forces, indeed, one woman was stabbed to death by her ex-partner while in such a unit and supposedly being monitored by said police.
I am pleased that you are aware of a couple of examples where the outcome has been positive, but don’t try and judge the thousands of women in violent relationships by that very narrow and personal criteria.
I would also add that it’s not all men who are violent within the public domain who are batterers, too often this abuse is wrongly associated with being a working-class problem. There is often no initial signs that a man is a potential batterer, many are outwardly mild-mannered, respectable professionals.

“Your entire post is subjective and anecdotal, there is plenty of literature based on academic research.”

So you quoting moat was anecdotal – there is plenty of literature based on academic research to support your case that women are at no fault, 100% trapped in these relationships with no way out and no way of seeing it coming and the police not changing there approach even after the introduction of Domestic Violence Units backs your case.

I am glad you are pleased at the examples i quoted in which the outcome has been positive,hopefully we will come to a time in which women can choose males of a good quality and cut the relationship at the moment violence and traits that indicate a violent nature appear – the police will have a deeper understanding of these issues and protect the female involved to the standard we all desire.

There is a solution…what are your solutions?

49
As the OP suggests, both males and females need educating about male on female violence, this could have been an interesting debate except we have the usual suspects derailing it with their whataboutary.
The criminal justice system needs to be consistent about all crimes of violence, many males would also benefit.
The police should deal with all complaints of stalking consistently and, in view of the body of evidence, where it involves an ex-partner, bail should not be given.
Family courts should also consider more extensively the evidence with regard to the high level of homicides committed when women with children are attempting to leave.
Civil Courts should make all injunctions against a violent partner subject to ‘arrest’ if it is contravened, then police should always arrest when one is attached. Even now, police have ignored the ‘arrest’ part of injunctions, sometimes with fatal consequences.
The offending partner (male or female) should be removed from the family home and issued with a ‘no-contact’ order for both the victim and the children.
Any victim of domestic violence who feels vulnerable about staying in the family home should be given every assistance to move to another area, things such as special housing needs and financial assistance.
Government agencies dealing with victims and their children should take more care about giving-out information of their whereabouts to the abuser. Giving out information which leads the abuser to the victim is not an uncommon situation.
All of the above needs to happen in unison, we need a change in culture together with robust actions from the criminal justice systems whereby abusers are treated the same way as any thug on the street plus the above mentioned.
What battered women don’t want is a culture which blames them for being a victim, we are already seeing local government cutting-back on things like womens’ refuges and financing domestic violence units. Instead, these women might be sent for councelling, but they will still have to run the gauntlet of the abuser who just won’t let go at any cost.

“What battered women don’t want is a culture which blames them for being a victim”

No one wants that and a culture in which a women is expected to take the measures to take her self out of harms way and a legal frame work that fully supports her in doing this is no such thing.

We can educate people about violence all we like sadly it makes no difference, education is needed on the psychology that causes violence which oddly enough has nothing to do with violence. The violent person is not conscious of the reasons that make them behave in that way they are simply responding to feelings and there actions provide to and satisfy a warped need within but to them “it just happens” “i did not mean to do it again” or even worse there so unaware they cant even see there actions as wrong.

A distorted self image, deep insecurity, complete lack of emotional intelligence, the list is long to focus on the end result of dysfunction is useless, to discover the process people must go through to develop into fully functional balanced human beings and even more importantly have the awareness to see when they are not is the way forward.

The definition of derailing, as defined by the OP and supporters, is to submit a debate contribution outside terms defined by the OP. For a conference debate where a motion and amendments are under discussion, that is fair practice; the chair tries to discourage irrelevant interventions; derailing in such circumstances is an undemocratic technique to undermine the debate and decision making process.

Those concerns do not apply for an LC debate. The chair (moderators) will delete comments that are completely irrelevant or abusive, may even encourage relevant contributions from people who have not spotted the argument. But there is no time limit to debate, and thus no way to derail a debate that is not required to come to a conclusion. If you’d like the debate to follow a particular direction, submit arguments that point that way. Don’t try to shut people out because they don’t agree with the fundamentals of the original post.

–
The specific measures that the EVAW report requests from UK government agencies are unremarkable. They are common sense activities that good schools (and support organisations) practice.

There is one request for change where I’d expect substantial agreement on LC: “make Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) and Personal Social Health and Economic education (PSHE) part of the statutory curriculum to ensure universal access for all students” (quote from the report summary).

But there is other stuff that is part of education management and is already being done: “[Ofsted should] ensure inspection judgements on behaviour and safety assess how well schools are tackling VAWG including sexual harassment and bullying, looking for evidence of all forms of violence against girls in schools”.

It is undeniable that many schools and the agencies that support them do not meet the standards defined in the EVAW report. But many have, and they have achieved results in different ways. Different schools in different places face different challenges.

My main problems with the EVAW report can be summarised:
1. Failure to acknowledge that good schools are doing it already.
2. Central directives and national curricula do not deliver results in failing schools; well intended directives about violence and relationships to failing schools are unlikely to make a difference.

–
Should violence against women be addressed separately from violence in general? I dunno. Is there anything to be learned from the LGBT campaigns for mutual respect? I find it remarkable to meet anyone under 30 years of age who has a problem with different sexualities or identity.

Sums up everything that is so corrupting and pervasive about the Left.

Violence against women is terrible.

Violence against men is terrible.

Yet you still feel inclined to venture off into these sectarian skirmishes debating which one is ‘more important’.

Idiot troll ….. “Violence against women is terrible. Violence against men is terrible”

Well, when right wing dipstick males stop trying to cover for rapists I might listen to people like you. But I don’t think I will need to bother for a few centries yet.

54

So your argument that you are not self-serving, self-obsessed and inclined to mindless sectarianism is to argue me saying “violence against women is terrible. Violence against men is terrible” means I provide cover to rapists. What does ‘providing cover to rapists’ mean anyway? Sounds like a gutless and cowardly way of saying I support rape.

The ‘dipshit male’ bit hurt my feelings, but I’m glad it only took 20 minutes for you to prove the absolute truth of my point. No other LC commentator can say I was off the mark with an insanely sectarian response like that. Do you secretly work for the Coalition Against Angry and Bitter Jackbooted Feministas?

@53. Comrade Tebbit: “Sums up everything that is so corrupting and pervasive about the Left.” (That comment predates Sally’s interjection.)

I’m comfortable with the idea of language changing. Alas, smart people that I like cannot understand the difference between disinterested and uninterested, and screw up discourse. Thus I grumpily change. But I can never be sure what they mean when they write “disinterested”.

Pervasive, though? Pervasiveness is about space, possibly availability. Invasive?

@ 53 Comrade Tebbit

“Sums up everything that is so corrupting and pervasive about the Left.

Violence against women is terrible.

Violence against men is terrible.

Yet you still feel inclined to venture off into these sectarian skirmishes debating which one is ‘more important’.”

I don’t see how having a range of opinions, or the desire to debate them, is a bad thing, let alone “corrupting”. I think that violence against either gender is equally bad and equally important in terms of policy, how does it “corrupt” me or anyone else if I argue with someone who thinks we should prioritise victims of one gender over the other?

There’s a tendency on this site for people to wander onto threads and say something to the effect of “the fact that you people are talking about this proves that you, and by extension every left-winger ever, are crap”. It’s not exactly insightful.

46. jojo

Domestic violence against women has been going on for centuries, in the 19th century J.S. Mill wrote about the abuse of women by men, labelling the abusers ‘brutes’.

So it wasn’t new to the 1970s. People knew about it. They just felt that keeping the family together was more important.

The sufragettes also called for an end to male violence against women.

And hence supported things like a ban on alcohol in the US. Prohibition being driven by the same sort of people.

I suspect that any reference to battered women previously was talked about because of the general belief that it was unusual or it only happened within the lower classes.

Two statements that are almost certainly true.

Imo, the comments women make about actors and other notorious men associated with violence, fall into the fantasy category, just as some couples play-out rape fantasies.

And yet no man who beats a woman ever sleeps alone. The papers were saying Rhianna is back in touch with Chris Brown. I admit this surprised me but on the other hand she has made her liking of being dominated clear. Can we agree that if she does go back to him, she is not a passive victim in anything that follows?

Victim blaming became big in the 1990s, when a couple of high-profile cases of women who killed their batterers pleaded ‘diminished responsibility’ based on ‘learned helplessness’, which then became the orthodox psychological explanation for staying in violent relationships.

Sure. The victim here being the dead man. They blamed him. They did not blame the women. The Courts were and are full of White Knights who looked frantically for a reason to excuse women who carefully planned to kill their husbands – often in their sleep. And they found one. But of course if we take this argument seriously, it would have serious complications.

Of course, the law then did not allow for any other plea but murder unless it was manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Nor should it. We live in a strange world where men who attack armed intruders in their homes are jailed, but women who decide to kill their husbands as they sleep are somehow not only not punished but praised as if they made the world a better place.

Perhaps you do not listen to the news where women have been murdered by an ex who has stalked them and where it has been reported to the police who haven’t taken it seriously This happens quite regularly, no wonder women in violent relationships are scared to leave if they are threatened with that fate.

I don’t disagree that it is common. Although quite what the police are to do about it I don’t know. They don’t have the manpower to protect every woman who has made a very bad romantic choice 24 hours a day. I wish they could. The point is that the woman concerned did make the choice. She was not forced to do so. No parent sold her off (except in some migrant communities I suppose). She freely chose someone she had every reason to suspect was going to be violent. That does not mean we should not protect her, but it does mean we should keep her part in this mess in mind.

Even the Moat debacle was about his ex who had left the violent relationship she had with him.

Although that did not stop other women posting drippy love letters on Facebook.

51
Pathologizing victims of violence may be good for drumming-up business for psychologists but addressing the solution requires extensive environmental changes as per @50
58
You are being deliberately obtuse, I have already explained that it was in the 1970s when concrete action was taken to address the problem.
I suspect you are male, because the law with regard to self-defence is based on male perceptions, that’s why abused women sometimes react when the abuser is sleeping or not guarded.
So you have quoted a few high profile women who appear to make a positive choice to go back to a partner who has abused them. Two things – many women believe that leaving the abuser will make them change their ways, so they return, but sadly very few do so. In fact leaving and returning tends to have the affect of escalating the violence. Secondly, most women do not have the finances of those few celebs that you mention, they are constrained by the benefits system, which does not respond very quickly.
As ever, there are so many men who jump to the defence of murderers and woman beaters, perhaps it’s this phenomenon that requires psychological investigation..

@59

You are being deliberately obtuse

He’s good at that. Damn good. On any subject you care to think of.

“As ever, there are so many men who jump to the defence of murderers and woman beaters, perhaps it’s this phenomenon that requires psychological investigation..”

You do not get it and you never will excuse my language but pissing about with academic research is never going to solve the problem. This issue can go on indefinitely for many many generations no influence, no authority , no amount of education no single force out side of the individual relationship is will or can change a thing.

If females can step up to the plate and leave an abuser out right regardless of consequences, if it becomes a cultural norm for females as a collective to view an abuser an a vile revolting individual who they would not spend an afternoon with never mind a relationship – for such a man to be cast out side the possibility of relationships to all..automatically..instantly..and permanently..this is the Only solution.

The suppressed are never truly liberated by the suppressor its the changes they make that cause change…you can list 100 reasons why that’s not possible and hey they may be true but if you want change focus on changing females – when there behaviour changes the men will follow suit.

61
My post @50 outlines my suggestions of how to deal with domestic violence, in response to your question @49 asking for solutions (no mention of academic research).
What do you mean by the term ‘females as a collective’, women who suffer domestic violence do so in isolation, and it has been imposed by an abuser.
Of course there are solutions – see my suggestions @50, btw have you read that post or was your question rhetorical.?
What planet do you live on? of course females want to leave their abusers but you are not listening to the reasons why the environment makes it very difficult.

“What planet do you live on? of course females want to leave their abusers but you are not listening to the reasons why the environment makes it very difficult”

I live on the planet in which the reality is women them selves have to over come those difficulty’s and change there attitudes about men and what’s acceptable.. “no women wants to be abused” you say…well clearly but if she does not do what it takes to leave then that is what she accepts.

I adore the women in my life – when one is experiencing such a relationship there is not a dam thing i can do, its painful, its her life and path to walk – out of every case i have known there was only one permanent solution, it wasn’t out side help in fact those who have been helped out of these situation soon seem to find them selves in another dysfunctional relationship..those who have developed the strength to over come all obstacles never settle for such low grade behaviour again.

“Subjective and anecdotal” you may say, there is plenty of literature based on academic research i can read to inform my self about such issues – we don’t ask for or deserve the negative situations we find our selves in whilst going through life
and if WE can not correct them then NO-ONE can..its a harsh truth of life it is what is.

I wish those who suffer all the strength in the world,for as long as they look at another for help they will suffer..I did not design life or make it this way im just a part of it and sick of denying it.

59. jojo

addressing the solution requires extensive environmental changes as per @50

We already do about the best in the world. We are unlikely to do better no matter what changes are made.

You are being deliberately obtuse, I have already explained that it was in the 1970s when concrete action was taken to address the problem.

I am not, I am just objecting to you changing the subject. You claimed no one talked about it before the 1970s. This is patently false and so you have changed the topic to doing something about it. It is not obtuse to hold you to what you said. Incorrectly.

because the law with regard to self-defence is based on male perceptions, that’s why abused women sometimes react when the abuser is sleeping or not guarded.

And yet men have no problems perceiving that a battered woman killing the man attacking her is acting in self defence. Never have. The problem is that so many women who kill their spouses do not do so in any situation that could be called self defence. They often do so while he is asleep for instance.

So you have quoted a few high profile women who appear to make a positive choice to go back to a partner who has abused them. Two things – many women believe that leaving the abuser will make them change their ways, so they return, but sadly very few do so.

A lot of women make such a choice. No that it is important. What is is the basic fact that women can and do choose violent men. No change to the law is going to prevent that. Nor is Sean Connery’s appeal a matter of a few women.

I am sure some of them rationalise going back as a matter of their husband changing. Whether they genuinely think so is another matter.

As ever, there are so many men who jump to the defence of murderers and woman beaters, perhaps it’s this phenomenon that requires psychological investigation..

Cool. A sure sign of you losing the argument when you resort to these sort of childish smears.