by Catherine Delahunty
Another year and we still have to do street collections for Women’s Refuge. The epidemic of male violence continues in this so-called modern world. However big ups to Trina and the others in the Greens’ Parliamentary office who organised our team to collect on Lambton Quay all day in the freezing cold on Friday! I spent an hour out there first thing.
Last Thursday I asked Simon Power if he would look at the issue that victims of domestic violence have to pay for protection orders. I also asked him to investigate why statistics on perpetrators of domestic violence who have had protection orders served on them more than once are not available from the Ministry of Justice. The Minister didn’t have any answers but was positive about at least discussing these matters.
These strategies need to work but the big call is culture change! The Greens support the “It’s Still Not Ok” Campaign, Women’s Refuge, Rape Crisis and everyone else who does this important mahi. Peaceful communities where all forms of violence are unacceptable benefit everyone!
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Health & Wellbeing | Justice & Democracy by Catherine Delahunty on Tue, July 27th, 2010
Tags: domestic violence, protection orders, Simon Power, Women's Refuge
More posts by Catherine Delahunty | more about Catherine Delahunty
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
“Another year and we still have to do street collections for Women’s Refuge. The epidemic of male violence continues in this so-called modern world.”
Given that this is the modern world I find it sexist that you would single out male violence. It would be the equivalent of saying the epidemic of Maori violence continues. Or the epidemic of heterosexual violence continues.
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also “84% of those arrested for family violence are men; 16% are women.”
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rimu says “Judas: there is no Men’s Refuge. Why is that, do you think?”
Because there is an appalling sexist attitude that if you are a victim of domestic violence, and you are male, you don’t count.
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One minute short of three hours, Judas.
I have been a victim of female on male violence, but as LucyJH says above, domestic violence is an issue primarily for men to address – 84% of those arrested for family violence are men; 16% are women.
As for your bringing an ethnic aspect to it:
That is also predominantly men’s violence agaisnt women. Maori men need to deal with it, just as do Pakeha and other non-Maori men do.
Judas, you need to get past your knuckle-dragging approach of denying the statistics. The statistics show men are overwhelmingly to blame for domestic violence. Do something about it, instead of obfuscating and dredging up the odd onstance of female on male violence as an excuse for doing nothing.
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It’s not an excuse to do nothing Toad. Some of your statements reek of hypocrisy, troubled men have to “deal with it” while every other offender gets the restorative justice approach.
If some one said “violence against children is primarily a Maori and Pacific islander problem so they should just deal with it” you would be up in arms even though there is evidence to support this claim.
I only know one male who is violent towards his partner, I know at least four women who are violent towards their spouse.
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I admit that I am throwing the cat amongst the pigeons here, and I must emphasise that I don’t in any way wish to blame women for abuse, but this needs to be said:
Maybe it is time for women to consider their part in the “abuse cycle” – after all, they made the decision to be with the man that is currently abusing them. Certainly there has been enough research to indicate that potentially abusive men have some signs about them that single them out – however, in spite of that, women still flock to be with them? Why is that?
Then of course, we need to remember the old adage “Nice Guys Finish Last” – we have women who are falling head over heels for the jerk/bad boy (read – the guy that is more likely to be an abusive partner), while leaving the nice guys (read – the guy that is more likely to respect them and not be abusive) out in the cold and dateless. Maybe it is time for women to stop entering into relationships with these jerks/bad boys/abusers and start looking at relationships with nice guys.
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Toad says:
“Maori men need to deal with it”
…
usually it’s the result of colonisation, Rogernomics or inequality (i.e our problem)
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The whole “he’s troubled, but I can save him” attitude is a problem for many women. However that in no way justifies these ar$eholes beating on them. The whole “girls can do anything” kind of hits a brick wall when you are dealing with a large male with anger problems.
I think some women’s liberation attitudes have only caused more problems to be honest.
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There are different sorts of violence in relationships, and as some comments identify sometimes women do use violence in relationships as well, but the abusive relationship has a particular dynamic which goes beyond the physical violence, the type of violence women usually commit in relationships (where it is not self defense) is generally low end and not tied to fear or them having the ultimate power and control in the relationships (I don’t make any excuses for this violence, any violence in a relationship is totally unacceptable but I want to spell out it is a very different dynamic to male perpetrated abuse), rarely is a male living in fear of his female partner, rarely do men end up at A & E due to the injuries they have sustained at the hands of their female patner and it is very very rare for men to experience the intense power and control tactics that just about all our clients live with.
We regularly see not just women living with the physical effects of violence but women who have been kept confined, who have been routinely sexually abused, who are told what they may and may not wear, eat, say or may go. It is quite common for women to have had their self esteem shattered by all the ways you can imagine, but it is kept low by sleep deprivation, constant threats, the display of weapons and mind games that are more akin to what we hear coming out of Guantanamo Bay that what most people understand DV to be.
Although we have 86% male arrests for DV in NZ, much research puts the figure of male perpetrators at 97% for the type of power and control violence im describing (Johnson et al (2006)), and this is the violence Refuge, police and hospitals deal in.
Why is there no men’s refuge? Quite simply because the type of violence men experience in relationships does not require them to go into hiding (a huge number of family violence deaths occur when a women tries to leave and the abuser feels that power slipping away, hence why many women feel it is not worth the risk of trying). No man should ever have to live with violence, but for lethal and severe violence it is primarily female victims, which is why we have refuges. Should men require a refuge that is up to the male population to meet this need, just as women started refuge to meet the need they saw for other women in their community (go the sisterhood!)
Please don’t ever think women stay because they enjoy the drama of abuse, they stay because they have been threatened and suffered enough violence to know the threats are not empty, they fear what will happen to their children if they are not there to protect them (remember kids will continue to see their Dad unsupervised after seperation) and their abusers have usually taken practical steps to bind the woman to them, common ones are having all the bills in her name but allowing no access to money so she is hideously in debt, harrassing her at work so she is unable to keep a job, isolating her from family and friends by moving somewhere remote or refusing to allow contact, reporting her to CYFS…the list goes on and on, but it doesn’t include enjoyment of violence or being stuck in her own cycle.
Sorry that’s so long but hopefully it made sense to some of you, Domestic violence is complex, often debilitating and confusing experience but it’s one we have to try and understand and keep responding to.
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No, it is not. They may be contributing factors, but nothing excuses male on female violence – at the end of the day it is a man’s personal decision to give a woman the bash.
jh, you pose excuses and justifications that men, of whatever ethnicity and of whatever class, need to confront – both collectively and personally.
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Funny this one; I once shamefully confessed to a half dozen of my friends about the violence a particular women visited upon me; Surprise surprise – once the subject was broached, each of the other five men present had similar stories.
Trouble is – the Coppers just laughed at the worst of it.
Crimes of omission are far more common.
Then there was no Womens Shelter in this here City (for a long time) and I wound up using my house as such – it cost thousands and was very stressfull.
So I goes to Mayor Mike and say I wants a Rates rebate for running a service that is the Council’s (Government’s) business.
Patronising, fake ignorance, and no deal.
So why do we have such huge Rates Bills, why so many forms of Taxation, if the individual is inveigled into shoveling out to save lives.
And I don’t even want to start on that Death Factory they call ‘The Hospital’ here.
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I don’t want to defame him, but let’s just say he doesn’t have a very good track record on this issue.
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Toad; Yes and yes; – the local women’s centre seemed to think the problem lay rhight there.
Defamation – well guess who’se got the prize for that
Yes again, good old Poo to a Goose!
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The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (also known as the Dunedin Study), which has been going for nearly 40 years has come up with some interesting data about the comparative levels of violence from men and women. The research has revealed that women resort to physical violence equally as much as men, the key difference between the sexes is not the frequency of violent acts but the severity, men are more likely to cause damage.
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sprout – violence between spouses was still mainly men – I think roughly 60% men only, 25% both, and 15% women only.
However I think you’re right about violence towards children. From memeory it was much more even, with something like 40% from women only.
Here’s the summary of results from the violence between parents questions
http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/119-1228/1817/
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Tend to agree sprout ; as a retired longtime social worker…statistics and humans are almost mutually exclusive domains – what is the expression about statistics and damned lies?
Frustration in locating a moveable truth methinks.
One Poster here (a Policeman I gather) used the expression ‘Zero Sum Total’……but then ‘zero’ is a human concept – there is no such occurrence as zero – had me forked for a while – but large mistakes are oft traced back to inaugural inauthenticity.
As a victim of some damned lies – I would reckon that statistics and mathematics do not apply readily to the human system of synaptic interchange.
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“sprout – violence between spouses was still mainly men – I think roughly 60% men only, 25% both, and 15% women only.”
Photonz1-The statstics you refer to is reported violence only, the Dunedin Study reflects the day to day realities of how men and women generally behave. The fact that it is the more extreme end of violent acts that will be reported men would be more likely to dominate statistics.
I don’t think it should be only men who should shoulder the responsibilty for voilence in families and a single mother’s use of violence to manage her children could just as easily prepetuate on going violence as a father. This is a whole of society issue and I think the problem is best revealed in this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHi2dxSf9hw&feature=related
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…and lets not forget that bullying, verballing, standover tactics are also violence!
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Sprout, I’ve also read a Dunedin Study report. Mine said that the boys who were violent at age 3 and stayed violent got to have kids, but the ones who were violent at age 3 and not at age 15 didn’t. So there are payoffs from early intervention, but the payoffs from late intervention are negative for the person in the wrong. That’s a major disincentive for seeking help. It’s a pity we’re busy dis-investing in childhood services
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JC2 says “It’s a pity we’re busy dis-investing in childhood services”
Not completely. The current govt funded plunket line when the previous one refuse to.
There is also a lot more money being put into early childhood checks to the point where Public Health Nurses are visitng families and even going out, picking them up, and taking them to the apointments they’re supposed to go to.
We do need much more though. And more parental responsibility.
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Because there is an appalling sexist attitude that if you are a victim of domestic violence, and you are male, you don’t count.”
Actually somebody did start a men’s refuge some years ago but found little demand. Men do suffer violence in relationships, but seldom end up having to abandon their homes and make a run for it.
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A Sydney friend is always banging on about ‘Violence Against Women’ Whilst I am wholly sympathetic to her Cause, I’ve felt the need to point out that Violence Against Men is one of the Organizing Principles of our Society.
As such, I’ve seen more horrific violence than she could contemplate.
and as an afterthought I’ve been meaning to say for a while that NZ is a far more violent and dangerous place than Australia or the US.
The Muggers in NYC were pitifull compared to the local variety.
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Is that truly the case though, or could that be because of the social stigma attached to a man going to a “Men’s Refuge”? It would be like a man laying a rape charge or a man laying a sexual harassment charge – both of them happen, but there is a social stigma attached to men laying those sort of charges.
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Shunda, please explain why you think that “some of these womans liberation attitude” are the cause of a lot of these problems.
I know from personal experience that in the patriarchial Anglo Saxon or WASP culture, men are encouraged to have women to be financially dependent upon them. The proud bread winner syndrome!
Do men use physical violence to achieve that objective? Eleanor’s contribution seems to suggest that they do.
I see that to have women financially independent would go a long way to ease financial burdens of male spouses, thereby easing stress that would definately be a contributing factor in a violent relationship.
Woman of financial independence would find it a lot easier to leave a violent relaitionship, but then again it is most likely to be an educated women.
The cases that we are hearing in the news, the above blog and Eleanors’ contribution suggests that the majority in both sexes of violent relationships are not very well educated and this seems to be an ongoing problem. How to break this vicious cycle?
Well I may not be very popular for this view but I think that the state is right for seperating the children from violent relaitionships, especially their violent fathers. This needs to be done in order to break that cycle, the state can’t be soft on this issue.
I am saying this because I get quite sick when I hear of babies being bashed by their violent fathers.
What kind of society are we to tolerate such violence?
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Drakula says “I am saying this because I get quite sick when I hear of babies being bashed by their violent fathers.”
Why restrict your anger to only fathers when just under half of child murders are carried out by the mother?
“Another study found that 81 per cent of children killed between 1991 and 2000 were killed by a family member. Of those killed by a parent, 54 per cent were killed by their father or stepfather, 40 per cent by their mother and 6 per cent by both parents.”
See
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10393376
I just think that sometimes there’s a tendency to use this issue to demonise one sex or the other, which deminishes the debate on the actual issue.
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