Can We Degenderize Domestic Violence?

Submitted by anthony on Tue, 2011-03-15 10:00

Article here. Excerpt:

'This gap is being interpreted as sex discrimination by men’s rights activists. It does, in fact, have legal consequences: in 2008, a California court of appeal ruled 3-0 that domestic violence programs that offer services to only women and their children, but not to men, violate the state constitution. “These men … are similarly situated to women as to the need for domestic violence services,” wrote Justice Fred K. Morrison. The court acknowledged that women are affected by domestic violence more than men, so programs do not need to provide equal kinds of services, but must help anyone who comes to their doorstep.

This is legal precedent has national implications and is sparking an emotionally-charged debate over whether domestic violence programs should be gender neutral. Advocates who work with women’s organizations argue that the gender disparity is still significant, and that social change to protect women, who represent the majority of domestic violence homicide cases, will lead to better care for male victims. While those who argue for gender neutrality say that it’s time to rethink the traditional rhetoric about domestic violence, which pits males versus females, and focus on supporting all victims.'

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Comments

"The court acknowledged that women are affected by domestic violence more than men"

Not true, its essentially the same. Women initiate DV as often as men do. Most domestic violence does not cause serious injury and the domestic violence that does cause serious injury is not well known as to which gender is more affected.

"so programs do not need to provide equal kinds of services, but must help anyone who comes to their doorstep...

who represent the majority of domestic violence homicide cases,"

What deceptive crap. A very tiny percentage DV victims are killed and is not what defines nearly all of DV and its victims. The difference in the likelyhoods of dying due to dv is minuscule because the likelyhood dying as a DV victim is very small.

Also if you want to look at just the DV victims who are killed men make up about 35% which is nowhere near insignificant. If all dv service's are not provided to men and one man dies as a result of DV or falls victim to not being helped by any DV service then he is not getting equal protection of the law.

Its insane to not provide the exact same services to a group of people in facing nearly the exact same threats. It is even more insane than ignoring all fathers who kill or abuse their children because women are more likely to do them. It could more easily be argued ignore all female homicides because they make up a small percentage of all homicide victims by the logic of the above quote.

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Submitted by fondueguy on Wed, 2011-03-16 02:49