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Post by Liberator on Jul 5, 2009 15:07:22 GMT
Trudy Schuett Domestic Violence Examiner June 23, 9:06 PM Most thinking adults recognize that domestic violence is a complex, difficult issue that nobody really wants to talk about. In today’s culture, we tend to rely on the advice of those who style themselves as “experts,” even in critical personal issues. When it’s someone else’s problem – and it generally is, since only about 1% of families are affected by domestic violence – it’s even easier to say, “let the experts handle it.” Unfortunately for everyone, there are very few bona fide experts in the field of intimate partner abuse. There are legions of those who assume the title, but what happens when these so-called “experts” are wrong? Most often, sooner or later the experts are called on their errors, and either correct the most glaring mistakes or slink back into the obscurity from whence they came. Yet this hasn’t happened with the issue here; we’re approaching 40 years of very little in the way of truth, proof, or supportable evidence, at least coming from the best-known “experts.” Not many people realize that today’s entire domestic violence industry is based on the opinions of a few angry, vengeful, and sometimes emotionally disturbed women. There’s a glimpse into the beginnings of what has come to be an international policy, affecting millions of people here. The grains of truth are few and far between, even in the short abstract I’ve found. In the eight years I’ve been part of the small group advocating for a reality-based, “new perspectives” approach to intimate partner abuse, I’ve encountered many a half-truth, faulty factoid, and a few outright lies. For the first time ever, RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse reporting ) has compiled a set of the 50 most common myths related to the subject. You can find it here. As a bonus they’ve included 12 of the main strategies the DV industry uses and has used to hide the truth. Since we’re in the middle of another round of hearings and etceteras related to the 3rd reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, this is a very important document to read, one which I can wholeheartedly recommend. www.examiner.com/x-12866-Domestic-Violence-Examiner~y2009m6d23-50-myths-of-domestic-violence-revealed
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Post by mouse on Jul 5, 2009 15:25:30 GMT
i divorced my husband for ""domestic violence""" the only experts are those who have been on the recieving end and the those doing the violence
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2009 16:28:18 GMT
Mouse, I'm sorry to hear that, but not all situations will be the same as your own.
The article was interesting and contained information I'd heard from other sources, plus a lot of new stuff.
The chosen "short abstract" however is hardly representative; they must have gone to some trouble to rake up that bit of rubbish.
Thw whole thing probably just confirms what everyone knows anyway; it is easy to find statistics to support or attack any viewpoint.
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Post by mouse on Jul 5, 2009 22:00:56 GMT
Mouse, I'm sorry to hear that, but not all situations will be the same as your own. i quite agree..the situations are as different as the people in them....but all unpleasant and better avoided
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Post by Liberator on Jul 6, 2009 2:42:38 GMT
And more on the feeble female industry: www.mediaradar.org/alert20090622.phpRADAR ALERT: Junk Science at the Dept. of Justice In his inaugural speech on January 20, President Obama declared, "We will restore science to its rightful place." And in a March 9 memo the president reminded the heads of federal agencies, "The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions." Apparently the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) didn't get that message. Because three months later the DoJ issued a report titled, "Practical Implications of Current Domestic Violence Research."1 Sadly, the report cherry-picks the research and badly misrepresents the truth. The report states on page 22: "Of course, the most powerful predictor of risk of domestic violence is gender." Apparently the DoJ never bothered to check out the nearly 250 scholarly studies that reveal gender is not a "powerful predictor" of violence because men and women are equally likely to abuse.2 Some statements in the report lack common sense, for example, "Batterers are no more likely to be mentally ill than the general population." (p. 18). But psychologist Don Dutton found the opposite: "Studies have found incidence rates of personality disorders to be 80-90 percent in both court-referred and self-referred wife assaulters."3 The report is no better when it recommends intervention strategies. For example, the DoJ advises on page 12: "Arrest should be the default position for law enforcement in all domestic violence incidents." But Harvard researcher Radha Iyengar found mandatory arrest increases the risk of subsequent homicide by 54%.4 This report is a prime example of advocacy research that carries the relentless message, "It's always the man's fault, so go ahead and lock him up." Please contact this person now: Kristina Rose, Acting Director National Institute of Justice, U.S. Dept. of Justice Email: Kristina.Rose@usdoj.gov Phone: 202-307-2942 Politely and firmly, tell her to remove the report and have it reviewed by an independent panel of qualified researchers. Explain this report ignores President Obama's directive to rely on evidence-based policies. Please do it now. We simply can't allow this slander to stand.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2009 7:53:13 GMT
It only takes a couple of pressure groups to latch onto a published "fact" and promote it enough, and before long it becomes a universally accepted truth.
I am sometimes disturbed by the quality of information contained in reports presented to our government, which often have so many holes they are transparent to anyone with just a little knowledge of the subject. Baroness Corson's Women in Prison report a few yers ago was one such, glaring in its omissions.
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Post by Liberator on Jul 6, 2009 8:08:32 GMT
No doubt tothe British as much as to the American government. When you extend that to other interest groups foreign spy territory the possibilities become frightening indeed.
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Post by june on Jul 6, 2009 21:30:27 GMT
I find the use of the word 'Fault' interesting. I am not sure it is relevant.
Surely the gender of the victim is most relevant - and in the UK at least, it is women who are the majority of DV victims.
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Post by Big Lin on Jul 6, 2009 22:25:29 GMT
Actually that's no longer true, June.
One of the biggest problems is that battered men are extremely reluctant to report their abusers.
It's also the case that even given that reluctance, and the consequent underreporting of the crime, the current estimates are that 42% of domestic violence in Britain is now female on male violence rather than the other way round.
Among the younger age groups apparently female on male violence is almost 50%
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2009 5:30:48 GMT
Some years ago some research was done into domestic violence which revealed that in about 40% of cases the physical violence is initiated by the female partner. The counselling charity "Relate" later came to speak to the advice organisation where I work. The speaker said she began introducing this statistic when talking to women's groups, and was just shouted down by angry disbelievers!
Of course, in a fight the strongest are likely to inflict the most damage so it is hardly surprising that women get hurt more.
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Post by Big Lin on Jul 7, 2009 16:51:26 GMT
Of course there's no excuse for it whoever's doing the abusing.
Mike and I are friendly with a battered wife whose ordeal only ended when her husband - after a dozen or more attempts - finally succeeded in killing himself.
We're also friendly with a battered husband who finally managed, encouraged by us among others, to divorce his wife. Most unusually, because their daughter testified AGAINST her mother, HE got custody of the kid.
People are people, good and bad; unfortunately we're all capable of bad behaviour whatever our gender, ethnic origin or whatever.
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Post by riotgrrl on Jul 7, 2009 19:03:25 GMT
I think . . and it is just my own theory based on wide theoretical and professional experience in the fields of crime and domestic violence, so feel free to shout me down . . there are really two kinds of domestic violence.
Firstly, there is violence carried out by violent people, whether males, females, gays or straights. People with poor impulse control, or personality disorders, or whatever, but just violent people who take out their violence on the people they live with. It goes without saying that victims and perps can be of any gender or sexuality.
But secondly, there is a particular sub-genre of violence which IS based on patriarchal attitudes towards women. This violence comes from a place that believes women should obey and be subordinate to men, and, just as one beats a dog or a child to train it and punish it, one beats their woman. It's the women as property kind of school of thought, and I bet I'm not the only person who's met a few men in their time who demonstrate these attitudes.
And that, in my mind, is the kind of violence the womens movement tackles. The mistake they have made is to assume that all intimate partner violence is gender based.
So, to say that female violence against men is far more common than statistics suggest, and to say that some male violence against women is based on misogyny and comes from patriarchy, is to make two true statements, not contradictory ones.
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Post by june on Jul 7, 2009 19:53:04 GMT
Actually that's no longer true, June. One of the biggest problems is that battered men are extremely reluctant to report their abusers. It's also the case that even given that reluctance, and the consequent underreporting of the crime, the current estimates are that 42% of domestic violence in Britain is now female on male violence rather than the other way round. Among the younger age groups apparently female on male violence is almost 50% 23% for 2006/07 based on British Crime Survey results with a trend that shows it is decreasing. I can't really comment on un reported crime - male or female but women's aid have some stats based on questionnaires. And it does not back up the female on male violence being anywhere near 50%. To quote from their website: Research conducted with male respondents to the Scottish Crime Survey 2000 found that men were less likely to have been repeat victims of domestic assault, less likely to be seriously injured and less likely to report feeling fearful in their own homes. The survey retraced men who were counted as victims in the Scottish Crime Survey and found that a majority of the men who said that they were victims of domestic violence, were also perpetrators of violence (13 of 22). A significant number of the men re-interviewed (13 out of 46) later said they had actually never experienced any form of domestic abuse (Scottish Executive Central Research Unit, 2002) Although a small survey in Scotland it would appear it is predominantly women suffering domestic abuse - in the UK at least.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2009 19:54:44 GMT
That's a brilliant analysis.
" It's the women as property kind of school of thought, and I bet I'm not the only person who's met a few men in their time who demonstrate these attitudes."
Perhaps oddly, I don't think I ever have, though I can't dismiss that idea. I've known a few occasionally violent men (none towards me), but suspect their anger has been fuelled by drink, frustration, coupled with just a plain old lack of control.
After all, violent men are also violent towards members of their own sex, aren't they?
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Post by Liberator on Jul 7, 2009 20:22:49 GMT
Yes. There's a third violence too I think, and one that is more likely to come from men that gets [deliberately?] confused with violence as control, and that is frustration. I've seen this happen months after a friend threw his girlfriend out for attacking him and she had been stalking him and his girlfriend. It is when a woman actually wants the man to hit her and will nag and try to get him angry until he can't take any more. An old girlfriend who'd forced her way into my flat tried that one on me and when she got hurt when I tried to throw her out accused me of losing my temper. It would not have mattered if it had been true because everybody has a breaking point and some women will deliberately try to force a man past it. For them, it is a kind of control in making him lose control of himself. It's very common in drunken arguments. Time after time, I've seen and heard girls screaming abuse at boys who are trying to ignore them and often, if he'll hold her wrists screaming that she is being attacked.
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