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by mcc99 on 09:14 PM June 18th, 2006 EST (#1)
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Searched on Strauss' name and found this. This is significant in that the radio show in question as well as the web site is frequented by Caribbean people (ie, expatriates) all over the world. A truism re life in the Caribbean has for years been that Caribbean women suffer especially due to male violence; an acknowledgement from a public news/information source for the Caribbean of the general mutuality of DV is a big step.
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by RandomMan on 12:54 AM June 19th, 2006 EST (#2)
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the number of women who admit to assaulting men is interesting as it's well known that men are more violent than woman
This is what we call "cognitive dissonance". Orwell referred to it as "doublethink", i.e. the ability to hold in one's mind two clearly incompatible facts and to firmly believe the "version" which is unsupported by evidence but accepted by society.
Fortunately, the tide is turning. The very fact that this piece is being published at all instead of simply being swept under the intellectual carpet with all the other inconvenient facts and statistics that challenge the feminist version of "reality", as would have been the case not 10 years ago, is evidence that a corner is being turned. Unlike feminists, most MRAs, fathers and men in general do not wish to see themselves as perpetual victims, so a balancing of the laws and attitudes of society to recognize men as equally valuable human beings will qualify as "victory" in our struggles.
There are misogynists out there who will never accept women having the same opportunities as a man (women presently have a great deal more opportunity than men in Western civilization), but they are a minority, and are unlikely to find much of a voice in policy-making. Men with that attitude are commonly flagged as trolls hereabouts and ignored, so I conclude that most of us feel the same way about misogyny as we feel about misandry. To me, both are rooted in hate, and have no place in a struggle for a fair society.
It's my best estimation that the meme that is likely to evolve from the conflicts we're involved in may read something like this: in an advanced, post-industrial society where there is no functional or practical requirement for men or women to fill predetermined "gender roles" beyond those imposed by biology and reproduction by choice, there is no morally or ethically valid reason why members of either sex or any race should be denied equal opportunities in life. Unfortunately, thanks to feminists, men now find themselves steadily shortchanged on those opportunities at every turn, which is, after all, what we're fighting about.
The appearance of this material in the press is an important first step, and one we're seeing more and more often. Simply put, man bashing (literal and figurative) will ever so slowly become as unacceptable as derogatory racial jokes as popular awareness of the disadvantages men face in life continues to increase, and most people are very gradually becoming aware of the fact that man is now a "four letter word". In some instances, the media is even starting to report some of the very real disadvantages faced by men in the world today. It's rare, but it's happening from time to time, and that, gentlemen, is the catalyst I've been waiting nearly a half century to see.
There's a long way to go yet, but the fact that information which contradicts feminist-inspired, misandric conventional wisdom is being published along with male-positive opinion in the mainstream media is a very positive sign. The academic press is another matter: academia and the bureaucrats it produces have a strong inclination to resist any findings or information which might challenge their "accepted" world view, and they have a great deal of trouble admitting they are wrong. These people do, after all, base their entire existence on selling themselves and their ideas. It will take time, but the fact that the blatant sexism against men and the steady pattern of marginalization and objectification we're subject to is finally being mentioned (howsoever minutely) in the lay press is a very, very big deal. Academia will necessarily follow in time.
Count on an all-out onslaught of vitriolic misandry and other feminist backlash, coming to a news outlet near you. That's inevitable from a hate movement that sees its members as perpetual victims of something or other, and it's a normal consequence when unfair privilege accruing to a group begins to erode. However, when the smoke clears, and the misandrists are done using one-sided statistics (e.g. claiming that most rapes are committed against women, which is obvious, since rape is defined in US law as a crime only a man can commit and which only a woman can suffer), blatant hatred and sexist preconceptions to condemn all men as victimizers and claim that all women are victims, all they will have left is their own hate, which will be obvious enough for all to see, and we'll be one large step closer to a society where members of both sexes are legally equal.
Having lived through the entire lifespan of radical feminism both inside and outside of academia, I say this: be patient, it will take time to erase the damage that has been done to so many human beings in the name of hatred. But I can also say that progress is finally being made. I know that is cold comfort to those of you who just endured another Father's Day alienated from the children you support, but your day is coming.
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Hey RandomMan, much as I might sympathise with much of what you say, I think we probably have to admit that overall men are more violent than women, so David Smith's comment that you quote at the beginning is quite true. The issue is one of context, Smith does not define one and it is tempting to conclude that he means the domestic environment in which case what he said would not be true. But he did not say that.
Also, it's not cognitive dissonance, that's the state of mind that occurs when one's preconceptions do not jibe with what one sees, resulting in denial, psychosis and irrational reactions. There's plenty of that around in this game, but again, I don't think that's what Smith's experiencing.
Anyway, that's enough smartass...
What I find most disturbing about these articles (it's in the Sunday Times too) is the more subtle bias of the writing. For example, the BBC say that about a quarter of the women respondents think there are occasions when it is reasonable for a man to hit his wife. What it does not say is that 60% think it's OK for a woman to hit her male partner. The Times, however, notes this, but only as an after-comment to emphasizing "surprise" that there are as many as 25% that think male on female DV is OK. That is, the facts of male-on-female violence are worth taking notice of, but of female-on-male, who cares...?
As for a backlash, Straus has been taking it for years. Check out his web page.
--
Silence is the voice of complicity
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by RandomMan on 04:28 PM June 19th, 2006 EST (#7)
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I never said for a moment that men aren't violent. However, if you read the current research, you find that women are generally more violent than men in intimate relationships including dating and marraige, even if women are more likely to report an injury requiring medical attention. Therefore, his statement is clearly false in this context.
If you can provide some research conducted in a scientifically valid, gender-neutral fashion to indicate that men are fundamentally more violent than women in all situations, I may reconsider my views. Being "too controlling with the family finances" is not violence: I'm talking about actual violent assault rates. I don't accept for a moment that men are always more violent than women, although I'll certainly review any reasonable research that says otherwise.
As for Smith, he's reacting to clear evidence that women are violent with an unsupported statement to validate his preconceptions, i.e. that men are more violent. This is no different than Gloria Steinham attempting to justify the hiring of physically weaker female firefighters by claiming that a woman dragging a victim out of a fire instead of carrying them would be "better", because there is more air at floor level.
According to the definition you have provided and the recent research (i.e. from the past 10 years), demonstrating that women are statistically more violent than men in intimate relationships, Smith's comment is most certainly cognitive dissonance. If there were evidence presented to support his statement, I might feel otherwise.
As for his "evidence", if it were to be presented, studies conducted on abuse victims in women's shelters or rape statistics are not valid as indicators of the prevalence of male violence. They are only valid as studies of the impact of violence on a deliberately limited subset of victims. Such studies are typically interpreted using feminist dogma, so their conclusions about victimization are largely worthless. In any event, they are designed to ensure that men are always depicted as violent and victimizers, as I'm sure you're aware. Hence the popular and academic preconception that "everyone knows men are more violent". That's an easy conclusion to make when you only study male violence and female victimization.
People like Smith specialize in designing their "studies" to spit out a desirable conclusion: that men are more violent. By ensuring that only male violence and female victimization is studied, it is easy to paint that picture. It is only recently that people have started including men in studies of domestic violence, other than as perpetrators. For that reason, much of the earlier "science" in this area that people like Smith hold so dear is biased and useless, as is the biased preconception that "men are more violent".
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by RandomMan on 06:44 PM June 19th, 2006 EST (#8)
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By the way, John Doe, I didn't mean my last reply to sound insulting or condescending in any way. If one takes the conventional wisdom that men are more violent at face value, then you are certainly correct, and Smith's statement would not be cognitive dissonance. I have no doubt he honestly believes the "convential wisdom" and therefore doesn't see his statement as self-contradictory.
It's just that we've seen so much misandry and anti-male bias in the "statistics" that I have alot of trouble accepting anything the establishment has said about men in the past! I'm sure you're the same.
You analysis of the bias in the writing of the piece by the Times and BBC is right on, BTW.
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David Smith, honorary professor of criminology at Edinburgh university and editor of the European Journal of Criminology, said he found the results "surprising".
"The number of women who admit to assaulting men is interesting as it's well known that men are more violent than woman."
Some people are born with brain damage, that's OK, they can't help it and we should always treat them nice and with compassion. But we should not allow those goddamn fruitcakes to become professors.
Bert
--------------------
From now on, men's rights first.
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by Boy Genteel on 10:08 AM June 19th, 2006 EST (#4)
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Cut and paste the actual text into an e-mail to yourself. Keep it on file whenever someone questions the existence/number of battered men. Point to this. See, as I've said, it isn't that people aren't aware that women physically hurt their male partners. It's that too many (like the dunces in that 60%) simply don't see it as abuse or violence when it happens. People can see ten minutes of photos of men bruised, beaten, and bloodied by their wives or their girlfriends, and they'll still say at the end, "Battered men don't exist." Because to them, it's just DIFFERENT when women do it. Some won't even make it that far...won't even see the connection or the point you're trying to make.
In the US, the poll on the subject has repeatedly shown that about 20% believe it's acceptable sometimes for a woman to slap her husband's face. This is still far too high, of course, but at least we can take solace in the fact that 80% must agree that it ISN'T okay. But this Scotland study means we have our work cut out for us across the pond.
boygenteel
Men are from EARTH. Women are from EARTH. Deal with it.
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by Thundercloud on 12:15 PM June 19th, 2006 EST (#5)
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It's probably the same here, in the States, too.
In fact the number of women that believe they have a right to be violent towards men is probably higher in America, because a large number of U.S. women have the 'entitlement mentality' more than any other women on the planet. Not to mention that we live in a culture that not only tolerates female-on-male violence, it encourages it and even finds it "sexy" or entertaining. The American media is largely responsible for this as they show female-on-male violence all the time, and depict it as "empowerment of women", as sexual, and even as "funny".
Not since the annihilation and removal of my people (American Indians) has this culture so encouraged miss-treatment of a particular group of people. Like my people, when men are violated, humiliated and dehumanized it is called "justice" or even "entertainment".
There are those who say America has changed in the last 100 years. All I can, simply say is, No, it hasn't.
Congratulations men of America, you're the new Indians...
Thundercloud.
"Hoka hey!"
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by oregon dad on 06:09 PM June 20th, 2006 EST (#9)
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But he likely just throws away anything in conflict with VAWA legislation - his cash cow.
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Anonymous User writes "The BBC reports