Interesting stuff, thanks. Do we know if it still holds here and now? I ask because one of the reasons given is that other organisations wanted to disassociate from “women’s issues”, which doesn’t seem to be the case in current British politics. In other words, are the pressure groups the vital first-movers, who later get superceded by political parties, the media and so on once the importance of women’s rights has been normalised?

Incidentally, past experience leads me to predict that the 45% claim in the last paragraph will turn out to be a zombie stat, though I don’t know for sure and the source isn’t given.

@Chaise Guevara The link at the bottom of the article will take you to the study where they have sources for their findings.

Yay for feminist groups! Nice to hear we do get somewhere… eventually… even if it takes a really long time.

Thanks Sarah for writing about this!

@ Sarah

“The link at the bottom of the article will take you to the study where they have sources for their findings.”

Thanks, I didn’t realise that stat was from the study. I took a look and it’s still unclear – two of the three citations for the claim go to dead web pages, and the third seems to be specific to Sweden – but I’m guessing my gut reaction was wrong, as it does appear to have been researched. Zombie-stat concerns withdrawn!

It is difficult to take seriously a report that contains these comparisons:

“In Europe, violence against women is far more dangerous to the female population than terrorism or cancer”

The 45% figure is derived from a report produced by Martinez and Schröttle in 2006 for the Council of Europe.

The report covers all kinds of violence and also claims that 25-30% of men are subjected to non-consensual sex by women which in context is considered violence.

Based on what it admits are very few studies it estimates that 40-46% of women had experienced sexual and/or physical violence in their adult lives.

However it states:

“The prevalence rates for physical violence alone range from 14-37%, and for sexual violence from 4-35%, depending on either narrow or broader definitions.”

I suspect that the definitions of militant feminists and radical left wingers are likely to be at the broader end of this range.

I wonder if militant male rights groups could help bring down that appalling figure of 30% being subjected to non-consensual sex by women?

You’d have to differentiate between first and third worlds surely. In Mexico, local police are complicit in the trafficing and exploitation of women from Central America – who are living in brothels while their families at home have no idea where they are.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ramita-navai/honduras-the-lost-girls_b_1580067.html

You can’t just call the police about it because they are part of the problem, so women’s groups working to highlight such things would be ideal.

In western countries, the police actively work against such criminality.
When you are as ”PC” as we are in the UK, how much further can you go? Just joining the library you have to answer questions on your ethnic background and sexuality.

Strong feminist movements are a good thing (as long as they don’t get corrupted by Tory crap like anti-porn campaigns), but I think everyone will benefit more if they aren’t entirely autonomous. Feminist movements can achieve more in concert with socialist parties and in turn they can influence those parties in a positive way.

Being a feminist, then, is a good thing, but it’s not enough. There has to be a class dimension.

I wonder if militant male rights groups could help bring down that appalling figure of 30% being subjected to non-consensual sex by women?

Given the take home message of the OP, if they don’t no one else is going to bother. Assuming they can stop fighting over who’s an Alpha, Beta or omega male anyway.

According to WHO cancer kills 1.7 million people a year in Europe. Based on male /female incidence I would say that approximately 650,000 of them are women.

I know that much violence goes on behind closed doors but there would have to be a massive hidden body count before most rational people would consider it more “dangerous” to women than cancer.

I know this is an important subject but the authors of what is really a big literature review do seem to have gone out of their way to up the rhetoric and the stats to the point at which it risks being counterproductive.

I was unaware that feminism needed a class dimension or that being a socialist was some kind of prerequisite.

I know that much violence goes on behind closed doors but there would have to be a massive hidden body count before most rational people would consider it more “dangerous” to women than cancer.

The reports says ‘violence against women’ not ‘domestic violence against women’, so somewhat more broad in scope, and possibly misleading, does two girls fighting outside a club at 4am count as 2 incidences of violence against women or 1?

Violence by men against women is appalling. But, wearing my sceptic hat, I’d like to know what the comparable figures were for male on male violence, female on female violence and female on male violence.

Chris @ 7:

“as long as they don’t get corrupted by Tory crap like anti-porn campaigns”

Being anti-porn is not Tory but it may well be crap. It depends on the porn. What bugs me is violence. The two-backed beast does not offend me. But violent rape does.

in Europe it is a bigger danger to women than cancer, with 45 per cent of European women experiencing some form of physical or sexual violence.”

This is one of those total loss of perspective statements that make me question the sanity of these people. It may be true that 45% of European women will experience some form of physical or sexual violence. Especially if you define a wolf whistle as sexual violence. But few women would choose breast or lung cancer over a playful slap on the arse. So the idea that violence is a bigger danger is just laughable.

I know he’s a bit of a persona non grata on LC, but the irrepressible Brendan O’Neill had this to say the other day about Nick Clegg’s anouncements on the Government’s redefinition of domestic violence.

Just who is meant to benefit from the Government’s redefinition of domestic violence, as unveiled by Nick Clegg this morning? More and more acts, including “non-violent control”, “coercive control”, “financial abuse” and “emotional abuse”, will now be added to the Government’s definition of what constitutes domestic violence. Also, teenage lovers, whose relationships apparently involve lots of what Clegg calls “coercive control”, will for the first time be defined as potential sufferers of domestic violence, despite the fact that often, almost always, such couples do not live in the same domestic setting. In essence, the two central components of domestic violence – namely, that one is in a domestic setting and has suffered an act of violence — are being removed, so that now even non-violent acts in a non-domestic setting can be called “domestic violence.”

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100181821/no-one-will-benefit-from-nick-cleggs-orwellian-redefinition-of-domestic-violence-least-of-all-women/

Which is where I would question women’s groups in the UK. Are they supportive of these changes, and are they in fact the movement that has been pushing for them?
Because if so, it does raise some questions about the outcome of constant campaigning for more state intervention in people’s lives.

The largest global study into Violence Against Women has revealed that strong feminist movements were more important for instigating change than the wealth of nations, left wing political parties or the number of women politicians.

And so there goes the case for Women’s lists or other forms of quotas. It ain’t women in Parliament that counts. It is women organising outside.

I wonder how Women are planning a response to the destruction of Legal Aid in April which will inevitably result in ‘snatched’ children remaininng estranged, an increase in unchallenged domestic violence and the poor unable to divorce.

The study, published in the latest issue of the American Political Science Review, was conducted over four decades in seventy different countries. It found that feminist movements, autonomous from political parties and the state, were able to organise around top priorities for women without having to answer to wider organisational concerns or men’s needs. Such movements were able to effectively urge governments to debate and approve global and regional agreements on violence.

Wow, so the State isn’t the solution to every problem – civil society has a bigger role. Who’da thunk it?

But a powerful women’s movement requires economically independent women, and a secular society to function.

” I would question women’s groups in the UK. Are they supportive of these changes”

The changes apply to England. They have already been in force in Wales for a number of years now, and are universally supported by all the political parties, ‘womens groups’ as you call them, the police and pretty much everyone who knows anything about the subject.

So it’s not suprising Spiked disagree with them…..perhaps it’s because we are all afraid of the big bad powerful welsh assembly?

”They have already been in force in Wales for a number of years now, and are universally supported by all the political parties, ‘womens groups’ as you call them, the police and pretty much everyone who knows anything about the subject”.

Really? So it’s even domestic abuse when it’s teenagers who don’t live together and is just pretty normal teenage behavior?

According to Clegg, the Government is rethinking domestic violence to mean “suffering at the hands of people who are meant to care for you”. But that is not domestic violence. It is something else. I can’t see any good coming from this Orwellian overhaul of the meaning of the words “domestic” and “violence” and of the phrase “domestic violence”. It won’t be of any help to those who suffer actual violence in the home, whose experiences will now be reduced to being pretty much the same as the teenage girl whose boyfriend is emotionally full-on, or the teenage boy whose girlfriend tries to control his behaviour, perhaps by checking his text messages or forbidding him from using Facebook. The seriousness of domestic violence – that is, violent acts committed in a domestic setting – will be watered down through being put on a par with what are effectively the everyday emotional ups and downs of heated relationships.

Has there ever been new laws and legislation that the police, some feminists and political parties won’t support? It’s a bottomless pit. You can ALWAYS go furter in rolling out more control. To the point where you put CCTV cameras in more and more places and need all kinds of background checks to get any job.

I would fully support women’s rights groups in many countries around the world, where civil society is badly lacking, but in the most advanced western countries it can start to become overkill.
Or start becoming draconian, like in Sweden where feminists wanted to make it a criminal offence for two adult people agreeing to have sex for money.

@ 17 Planeshift

“They have already been in force in Wales for a number of years now, and are universally supported by all the political parties, ‘womens groups’ as you call them, the police and pretty much everyone who knows anything about the subject.”

Do you know why this is? It’s rare I agree with anyone Sp!ked-related, but reclassifying non-violent activity as “violent” just seems dishonest and stupid. I mean, GBH is a problem, but you don’t make it better by declaring that GBH will henceforth be known as “murder”. All you do there is discredit your own data by basing them on lies.

Chaise – Here’s a link to the wales domestic violence strategy (these files are pdfs, so Damon isn’t going to be able to read them)
http://wales.gov.uk/topics/housingandcommunity/safety/publications/strategy/?lang=en

Domestic Abuse is best described as the use of physical and/or emotional abuse or violence, including undermining of self confidence, sexual violence or
the threat of violence, by a person who is or has been in a close relationship.

The wide adverse effects of living with domestic abuse for children must be recognised as a child protection issue. The effects can be linked to poor educational achievement,
social exclusion and to juvenile crime, substance abuse, mental health problems and homelessness from running away.
Domestic abuse is not a “one-off” occurrence; it is frequent and persistent.

Basically this was adopted after several cases that ended up in murder, but started off with low level non violent forms of abuse, where the police and authorities felt powerless precisely because there was no physical violence. It was thought that adopting a wider approach would enable more support to be given, including to get people to see the relationship as abusive, and recognising that such abuse will eventually escalate.

Here’s the committee’s review of it 3 years later http://www.assemblywales.org/cc3_domestic_abuse_inquiry_report_-_e_-_final.pdf

Note that although some groups disagreed with the definition used, they did so either because the defninition didn’t explicitly mention women as victims, or didn’t reflect the needs of specic groups such as older people. The broad approach of seeing some non-violent acts as part of a pattern of abuse remains unquestioned.

@ 20 Planeshift

That’s domestic abuse, not domestic violence. “Abuse” is a perfectly good term for the things being described. In fact, that’s one of the reasons that using “violence” is so stupid: an apposite word already exists, so why abandon it in favour of something dishonest?

On the last point, I’d say the Assembly made the right decision. It’s actually quite nauseating that some groups are outraged that adult male victims are given help too.

…(these files are pdfs, so Damon isn’t going to be able to read them)

pdfs you say? Oh that’s blow me out of the water.
If it’s in a pdf and has been put together by experts, then it must be right.

If the answer to all these kinds of problems is yet another level of bureaucracy then that would be well and good. But the more of that and you can also lose sight of common sense to. I had some experience in a hostel for homeless (mostly young) people last year, and their levels of bureaucracy meant that the staff of six were almost hidebound by form filling and typing everything into their computers, while common sense and a bit of ordinary dealing with the young people’s issues was all filtered ”through gobbledygook” (IMO).

For example, the staff couldn’t ”lay down the law” when house rules were broken and just tell people to clean up after themselves or whatever. Everything had to be written down and then discussed first and then something was said to the young person in a formal setting. It all had to be on record and able to be viewed by the senior social worker. They couldn’t be ”dragged away” from sitting around watching Jeremy Kyle in the TV room in the morning and brought out to do something constructive, because it was ”there right” to watch Jeremy Kyle.
And anyway, there was a health and safety issue with taking them away in the centre’s minibus out to the local hills or sea shore or something. Whenever I sugested it, I was told it was too problematic to organise.

So I left there and wouldn’t want to go back to such a working environment. The young people’s issues weren’t REALLY challenged IMO. Because of the bureaucracy, the health and safety issue, and ”human rights”.
It was the young people’s ‘right’ to mess about and get drunk and take drugs and use the hostel as a bit of a doss house I thought.

What I’d like to know is whether the “violence against/abuse of women” is intended to include all the groping in the BBC during the 1960s through early 1980s as instanced today on the Andrew Marr programme by Sandi Toksvig: ‘I too was groped while broadcasting in the 1980s’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19861146

Interesting that both authors of this ‘report’ are Feminists and academics in the field of Gender Studies.

@24 As opposed to mechanics with masters degrees in quantum physics?

@25. Cylux: “As opposed to mechanics with masters degrees in quantum physics?”

Wrong, Cylux. The opposite of what tory writes is not necessarily right.

tory presents a simplistic argument, a childish one. Possible responses are to ignore its inanity, or to remind tory that “Feminists and academics in the field of Gender Studies” comment on human behaviour just as tory does. I am confident that tory hates the idea, but his/her comments contribute to students of Gender Studies.

This categorically rebuts widely ciculated reports about a Police drugs on Keith Richards’ place in 1967 concerning a Mars Bar, Marianne Faithfull and Mick Jagger:
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/marsbar.asp

Thanks Sarah for a very interesting article. It’s a positive message, but sadly judging by some of the comments here, the work of feminism is far from done.

One day there’ll be an article published about VAW where commenters don’t automatically assume the stats are wrong, minimise women’s experience (‘playful slap’ etc), complain that VAW/DV legislation has gone too far already, and/or accuse feminists of not caring about men.

One day.

@ 28 Violet

“One day there’ll be an article published about VAW where commenters don’t automatically assume the stats are wrong, minimise women’s experience (‘playful slap’ etc), complain that VAW/DV legislation has gone too far already, and/or accuse feminists of not caring about men.”

Well, hopefully, but that needs input from the writers of those articles (though not this one), and the self-identifying feminists who support them. For example, as long as someone pops up to write “WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ!!!” every time another person raises concerns about male victims, then obviously some feminists will be accused of not caring about men, and quite justifiably.

To be honest, the vibe I’m getting off your paragraph above is “If you disagree with a feminist article, you must be in the wrong”. This evidently isn’t true considering that feminists frequently disagree with articles by other feminists (“Miniskirts – empowering or degrading?”).

To take your other examples: I don’t see anyone on this thread doing any of the things you’re complaining about. I and another poster checked/criticised the source of figures, which isn’t the same as automatically assuming they’re wrong. Nobody seems to be saying that legislation in this area has gone too far already. SMFS talked about a “playful slap”, but in a hypothetical situation. It’s not like he said that women who are beaten up are just whinging about a playful slap. So TBH it seems like you’ve gone into Attack Mode because people have responded to a feminist article with anything short of rapturous agreement.

Well said Chaise Guevara.

Feminism is a very broad category and some of the views feminists take clash strongly others.
Catharine MacKinnon and Camille Paglia are both feminists, but who is better? It’s quite a choice you have as to your prefered style.

I certainly wouldn’t knock feminism per say, as most of the women I respect as feminists. But some aren’t so much to my liking.
Like anything really.
Feminism is one of those words like ‘socialism’.
It all depends on who’s saying what.

@ 30 damon

“Feminism is one of those words like ‘socialism’.
It all depends on who’s saying what.”

Agreed. It’s a very broad church, which is why it doesn’t make sense for one individual to speak for “feminists”, or to criticise how someone else reacts to “feminism”. Pretty much the only principle I can think of that’s common to all forms of feminism is that they think female emancipation was a good thing.

By the by, Sarah Ditum is my current favourite for sensible feminist commentary.

28. Violet

One day there’ll be an article published about VAW where commenters don’t automatically assume the stats are wrong, minimise women’s experience (‘playful slap’ etc), complain that VAW/DV legislation has gone too far already, and/or accuse feminists of not caring about men.

One day.

One day VAW will publish a piece of work that is not complete crap.

One day.

I don’t think anyone told Mr Subtlety that violence against women isn’t an institution or lobby group…

@ 33 Cylux

“I don’t think anyone told Mr Subtlety that violence against women isn’t an institution or lobby group…”

If it was, it would win the award for Creepiest NGO Name Ever. It would also make a good band name if you wanted to exploit the whole instant-fame-through-controversy thing.

Interesting.