Anger over female violence claims
New Zealand domestic violence experts are dismissing claims men are more likely to be the victims of violence among young couples as irresponsible and damaging.
The University of New Hampshire study shows women carry out more unreciprocated physical attacks on men while dating, than than men do on women.
But domestic violence experts in New Zealand are rubbishing the study.
The research is based on more than 13,000 university students in 32 countries, including New Zealand.
It found a third of students physically attacked a partner during the 12 month study, with assaults ranging from throwing things and shoving to kicking and punching.
While most of the violence involved both partners assaulting each other, the second-largest group was of women alone carrying out the attacks.
The study’s author says the findings call into question the belief that partner violence is predominantly a male crime.
But Women’s Refuge in New Zealand says that sends the wrong message. National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuge head Heather Henare says statistics show men in New Zealand are the main perpetrators of serious violence.
The National Network of Stopping Violence Services also describes the study as an anomaly. Manager Brian Gardner says there is no getting away from the fact that women suffer more harm at the hands of men, than the other way around.
He says such research allows violent men to justify their behaviour when they should be facing up to it.
Waikato University psychologist Neville Robertson, who specialises in domestic violence, says it would be more telling if fear had been measured in the study.
Auckland University associate professor of psychology Nicola Gavey says it is simply wrong to claim men are the victims of violence between couples.
She says the research draws attention away from the most important issue in the debate, which is the impact of family violence on women and children.
Alison Towns, a clinical psychologist specialising in domestic violence, says that three quarters of violence carried out by women against men is in self-defence.
As usual femmies are threatened by research that could derail thier gravy train, and they trot out the same tired old bullshit.
What’s new?
Comment by Stephen — Sun 11th June 2006 @ 5:23 am
Would the Women’s refuge spokesperson be so bold as to suggest what proportion of those seeking ‘refuge’ have made false claims (like in my case, but still adds them to thier “violent men” stats and cries out for more funding), and what proportion of those seeking refuge struct the first blow, as the new statistics suggest would be a probability in many cases. The refuge has a vested interest in continuing it’s denial of the facts; it’s funding is at stake!
And would the psychologists who appear to be self-appointed experts on domestic violence while choosing to ignore up to date statistics on domestic violence, be so bold as to explain why they show themselves to be haters of men and supporters of an archaic stereotypical view of men? Were they abused children from days gone by who are now using thier positons to exact revenge on sensitive new age guys?
It appears to me that these learned people are dismissing the stattistics simply becuase the stats don’t support thier predetermined theories. They should know better!
Comment by Wayne — Sun 11th June 2006 @ 6:26 pm
When men talk feeling they talk stats, when we talk stats they talk feeling. We are chasing our tails unless we work as one, and stop playing their games.
Comment by Intrepid — Sun 11th June 2006 @ 10:13 pm
violence in almost every case is initially introduced by the female which is often not reported because males tend to give in to tears etc.
its only when men retaliate with violence after all the continual cyclic provocations causing mental harm to men that gets reported and “hollywoodised” that then brings out the bad image. Even steel breaks under continual stress so…we are only human.
i say for every violent touch or suggestion, or look that makes us “uncomfortabel” and feel “fear” from a female should be reported.. use their tactics that they use against us. give them a piece of their medicine. we as men are too forgiving for our own good. about time we changed – only then will things change for the better.
Comment by starr — Mon 12th June 2006 @ 12:13 pm
*sigh*
It continually astounds me as to how people like Neville Robertson, Nicola Gavey and Alison Towns make it into the positions they hold, where they are supposed esteemed “scientists” yet at thier level they blatantly discredit a valid study in order to uphold and justify thier personal beliefs.
Is psychology morphing into ‘femology’ ?
Just another example of the blatant bias of some of our so-called ‘learned’ citizens, and thier festering morals.
Comment by Moose — Tue 13th June 2006 @ 12:30 am
I am not a feminist. It is very easy to try and turn this into an intellectual debate. I think there is no place for ANY VIOLENCE and anyone who is physically or emotionally violent has a problem. we supported a ‘victim’ of domestic violence who lost custody of children, house, and had a protection order put on him. Very believable man. he lost everything because he did eventually hit her hard enough to cause a decent injury ‘just the once’. one and a half years into his next relationship, despite that proclaimed regret, the same man injures his next partner. uncanningly similar psychological abuse had occured towards the woman and her children as the previous ex had detailed in family court. he called both a liar continually. his hatred of women, the system, everything increased. the man has few long term friends as he has to keep finding new communities to tell the lies to. I had no idea the people portraying as victims often are in fact the abusers. i repeat – NO VIOLENCE IS ACCEPTABLE! it is the only way to create a different community. No more of the blame game.
Comment by Marama — Tue 13th June 2006 @ 6:30 pm
Again we see a strange kind of game as Marama says, “No more of the blame game.” This as Marama clearly blames someone for bad conduct in the same comment. You must mean you are against anyone blaming but yourself and those who you agree with. It is like those who say don’t generalize as they are generalizing about generalizers. You people must get your brains in order. So if the military take over government we should not resort to violence? If a man beats a women the police should not use violence to stop him, 2 wrongs don’t make a right? Gandhi said,
You people even distort those you like to worship. I had to learn this from my Indian born philosophy teacher in Univ.(who showed me the quote for I was shocked) , and he said that for some reason this aspect of Ghandi’s teachings is left out of the English versions. If you do nothing and allow injustice to continue you don’t get into Gandhi or Hindu heaven, you do not pass go and you do not collect 200 dollars. If Gandhi is right, it places a lot of people who are proud of doing nothing (violent or non-violent nothing) as the worst. You should be getting angry at those who do nothing( the vast majority) if your believe the man who invented the modern ideas of non-violence. Yet I think you wish to have everyone admire you(with false warm fuzzy slogans like that) so you are bound to not get angry at the majority for doing nothing and take no non-violent action to wrestle them out of there worst position. It’s time to get off the cloud and down to work.
Comment by Intrepid — Tue 13th June 2006 @ 7:31 pm
Marama,
I wonder how long you’d condone extreme pacifism if you were under threat? Wouldn’t you want someone to use violence to protect you?
Or would you cherry pick what constitutes violence too and label such protection non violent action?
Also you expect to enter a thread with your provocative comments and NOT get into an intellectual debate! Unrealistic, passive aggresive nonesense.
Oh please don’t argue back with me, let me have a total one way dialogue!
There’s a name for that in my lexicon –
Totalitarianism.
Now do you want to debate or simply whine.
Comment by Stephen — Wed 14th June 2006 @ 1:50 pm
I agree with you Intrepid that non-ACTION is also a poor effort and contributes to the ongoing and historic problem. However I have as yet to see any positive result come from when anger is acted on, regardless of how “right” or “justified” the person feels they are. I think unless it’s resolved, and turned into something that can create a WIN:WIN result before being acted on,we end up with the eternal hit them, they hit back scenario that human history is full of – WE ARE NOT LEARNING OUR LESSON! For intelligent people, consider this – everyone has a valid point, with evidence backing them, even for opposing views – could these not be complementary, instead of contradictory? but for all the intellectualisation and people still can’t manage their emotions. And that is not a blaming YOU statement. Its a pretty simple fact that all of us have participated in adding “evidence” to at least once! and no – the person who physically hit – the offers of physical violence in retaliation were politely declined. Nothing else civil at that point had worked. Violence wouldn’t help the person. But action was taken.
Comment by Marama — Wed 14th June 2006 @ 6:15 pm
Dear Marama,
Thank you for having a thick skin, for although we stand on somewhat different sides of this issue you continued to keep it to the point.
Let me list some men who have expressed their feeling of anger and rightiousness at an enemy.
Abraham Lincoln on many occations expressed rightiousness and anger toward his enemy as did Nelson Mandela (He gave the go ahead to blowing up the oil refineries in South Africa, which put him in jail for his longest stay). These facts, like that of Gandhi, aren’t brought up because the establishment doesn’t want us to believe their, and some of our, heroes took part in violence! Even Christ expressed and acted out angry plus when he found venders selling trinkets in the temple(one of the major reason he started on his route to being killed). Are all of these not success in your cloud-like book? I’m an agnostic by the way.
Or in the case of the Suffergetttes, it was when they smashed windows, jumped in front of the kings horse and said, “Will we have to do violence like that of the miners(who were smashed at the same time, but recieved reforms for their efforts)to get justice.” Are you saying none did these acts with anger or rightiousness? Or they aren’t successes?
Now I agree with you that emotions or desires are the most tyrannical, yet are not those who cut off the world from their clouds or deconstruct everyone else’s actions not desiring to cut off action, like bilimics cut off food. This has gone on since the Greeks (called sophistry), which later the Romans complained when these ideas became all the rage in their state by the young. It has always led to the fall of states.
Cloud-like thinking is a hyper-rationalism that allows inaction to be called superior when it is art, not thought. Did not the English speaking world almost fall to 2 kinds of totalitarianism for not having enough angry young men on their side? Or would we have been better served by living under one of these evil governments. If the Cambridge 7 and the Fabianists had successfully allowed their state to fall through non-violent action of the fox kind, is that advancement? We must be careful not to wait too long before answering direct or indirect force of any kind and not remain on the sidelines convincing ourselves that those rugby players are all thick headed lions, and that if they started being foxes that all our problems would go away. The Chinese eunuch bureaucrats rationalized themselves into non-violence so well that they continued to be over run for at least 2000 years. Generation after generation of men who prided themselves as being cultured non-violent thinkers. It is always those non-violent thinkers are not the same as me, or my generation. Well in 50 years Europe will be half Moslem. This generation of non-violent thinkers will have done it again. This time I hope we don’t blame the Moslems(our barbarians), for we should see it clearly as our own crop of hyper-rationalists who rationalize their desires into being superiour(at least in their own minds).
These types always like to blame the outside threat or the mob, but it is never their cloud-like and artistic ways. This is too close to home, it would seem, for those who glorify those who do nothing.
You wish to use non-violent action first, so do all of us(why else has this gone on so long and become so bad). It’s been over 10 years for some men in the movement. Deconstructionism is for that 3rd generation and comes from sons finding ways to take a shot at dad’s tough love. This is then transfered to the state, philosophy and anything that’s in their way. This is not new, its the same old record(or now CD).
I look forward to your contructive input.
Comment by Intrepid — Wed 14th June 2006 @ 10:53 pm
Marama,
incredible that you seem to know so little about human history. Intrepid is mentioning but a few examples of what history is litterd with – people who constructively used the emotion of anger to make changes.
You could also add –
Schindler,
Churchill,
Patton,
Just for starters…………..
Those who don’t know thier history are doomed to repeat it.
Comment by Stephen — Thu 15th June 2006 @ 5:45 am
I think the recent incident of the christchurch woman making false accusation shows what horrific actions can result.
I bet Alison is probably ducking for cover at this moment- not making any more comments now is she?
Comment by starr — Fri 16th June 2006 @ 2:23 pm
I agree with the comment from moose about acclaimed ‘scientists’ projecting their own biases in order to uphold their personal, and often misguided beleifs. To make a blanket statement such as “it is simply wrong to claim men are the victims of violence between couples” takes feminism to new heights of ridiculism. Where is the evidence to back this claim? I wonder how someone working in an academic environment can maintain credibility when they are so ignorant of fundamental issues such as violence against men. To become so caught up in academic wankery must lead to a very limited and skewed world view!!! How nice it must be to live in fairyland.
Comment by Sandra — Mon 31st July 2006 @ 1:32 pm