Wednesday, August 23, 2006

 

Men, Women and Violence: News From Down Under

Wendy McElroy's column at FoxNews.com, "Take Back the Night' for Men as Well" sheds lights on victims and perpetrators of violence.
On Aug. 10, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the results of its first national Personal Safety Survey (PSS, 2005). It is the only national survey by a 'Western' country that analyzes a wide range of violence on the basis of a respondent's sex.

Thus, the PSS offers the best snapshot available of the comparative violence experienced by men and women in a society with laws and a culture similar to North America.

The results are remarkable. If valid, they have far-reaching implications for how issues of gender and violence should be addressed.

The current approach basically views women as victims and men as aggressors. The survey's bottom line: Australian men are twice as likely as women to become victims of physical violence or of threats thereof (11 percent of men; 5.8 percent of women). For the population between eighteen and twenty-four years of age, men were almost three times as likely (31 percent of men; 12 percent of women). But men were also three times more likely than women to be the perpetrators of violence.
That men are more frequently victims of violent crimes shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. From the Bureaus of Justice Statistics:
Males experienced higher victimization rates than females for all types of violent crime except rape/sexual assault.

According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, most murder victims were male, 78% in 2004.
In 2004 more than three men were murdered in the U.S. for every woman murdered. Is this why we have the Violence Against Women Act?

McElroy also pointed out a study in New Zealand on domestic violence. Some of its findings don't fit into conventional wisdom either.
The researchers found that among people in violent relationships, 13.8 per cent of women said they were the sole perpetrators of violence, and only 2.4 per cent of men said they were the only violent one in the relationship.
The study also shows attitudes regarding female violence towards men that would be totally unacceptable if reversed.
People tended to find female violence amusing.

"When asked, 'does a man deserve to be hit', women often laugh. They said they did often deserve it as they did things that wound you up."
How often do you see a bit in the movies or on TV where a man being hit by a women is intended for humor? A piece I saw on the old "What Do You Say To A Naked Lady?" (Don't know why I ever watched that show.) showed an elderly couple being photographed in a studio by an attractive naked lady. The elderly woman must have slapped her husband 50 times during a 3-4 minute span for looking at the naked woman. But it was sooo funny. BTW - do a little research and you'll find that in older couples with abuse the woman is more frequently the perpetrator.

Comments:
i posted this ages ago.. and isnt it wonderful seeing nothing will change..

http://www.thecfcouple.proboards37.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=OT&thread=1148322751&page=1

Women: You're more than 20 times as likely to get the death penalty for the same crime as I am, isn't that interesting?
Men:

Women: I'm 66% more likely to get probation for the same crime. And you'll get 47% more jail time, on average, if we are sent to jail.
Men:

Women: Did you know that in a lot of states, you'll get a much longer prison term if you attack me and we're married than if you're a stranger?
Men:

Women: Hm, it's really amazing how the male prison population has soared--do you think males no longer fit into society?
Men:

Women: Why is it that when a man commits a crime, he goes to jail, but when a woman does, the media tries to figure out what man made her do it, and she goes to counseling?
Men:


Women: Wasn't it Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor, who said, "I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act."?
Men:

Women: And why is it that women can hit men in the movies, even knock them unconscious, but men can't hit back? Funny how there's so much attention on kicking men in the groin in movies and TV now. Sure is a big joke.
Men:
 
I really wonder how many of these statistics are based on male-on-male and female-on-female crime. I've seen a helluva lot more guys engaging in fights that women. I've seen a lot of male 'victims' of violence when they had messed with the wrong male 'perpetrator' of violence, is what I'm sayin'.

(Were statistics like that in the link somewhere and I missed it? If I did, sorry.)

Here's my take: feminisim, women's aparthied & liberalism is not at fault for things like this. At least they aren't in my neck of the woods. Here are the culprits, In My Humble Opinion:

1. Machismo: no man wants to say he got beat up by a girl. Despite any studies, we men all know, deep down, that we are bigger and stronger on average. We should be able to take being hit, and it shouldn't hurt us.

2. Machismo: no man likes to see his sisters, cousins, daughters, nieces, friends, wives, mothers etc come to harm, especially at the hands of another man. Something deep down inside me goes a little crazy when I hear of women who are the victims of violence, that does not usually exist when I hear of a man as the victim of violence. That's because I'm only projecting (imagining) my female family and friends as victims of that violence. With that association in mind, I'm glad someone's throwing the book at the dude, becaue otherwise, I would have to kill him dead.

(I actually wonder how many of the male-on-male violence I mentioned earlier is directly related to male-on-female violence?)

3. Southern Damn Culture: a gentleman don't hit women. He accepts minor indignities (slap on the face, punches to torso), with the understanding that, should the perpetuator of said minor indignities go too far, other women will restrain her. In the absence of that, the gentleman may restrain her until she calms down. The only acceptable time a gentleman may strike a lady comes if she is in uncontrollable hysterics, and then, an apology is offered.

That's, at least in my case, a breakdown of cultural zietgiest regarding violence and women that has already been ingrained in my head. Not by any liberals or feminists, but by my birth in the South and the behavior of other men.

I also am aware that I have been knocked unconscious three times by women (two were in the course of nomal high school roughhousing, one of malicious intent), but the fight I remember hating the most was when another guy came up to me and, out of the blue, kicked me in the groin for no reason.
 
Patrick, you've been knocked out three more times than I have. Yeah, that Southern culture is interesting. I grew up in it too.

One of my hypothesis regarding female violence is that it usually does less physical harm and it is usually more acceptable, which the one study pointed out. Quite a double standard.

One point of interest I once read in a news magazine (I believe "TIME" and don't feel like doing a search right now), was that of the three types of "couples", male-female, male-male and female-female, the female-female experience the highest rate of violence. Kinda shoots a hole in testerone theories.
 
I've actually knocked myself into unconciousness more times than that... :)

I heard once that, in the symbolic Japanese language, there was a character for "house" and a character for "woman." Then I was told that the Japanese character for "unhappiness," or "discord" was the character for "house" with two "women" in it.

I don't actually know if that's true...but I do understand that it could be.
 
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