Gender and Abuse Reporting & Statistics & Media

CDfm

This is a bit of a bearbug of mine -anyone who reads my posts will know that when I see gender biased articles or statistics on abuse quoted I really do get annoyed.

It is not because I am anti women or misogynist its because I feel its very unfair on victims coming forward to use a male perpetrator/female victim model and for organisations to present this model and censor data this way. I dont see a difference in the abuse irrespective of gender or age or orientation. So I see it as a single issue.

When I see domestic violence statistics quoted and even some commentators saying female on male violence is a new thing - I have known about it since I was a young lad when we were visiting elderly relatives and walked in on an elderly woman attacking her husband with a brush.

Equally, I knew that women could be very violent to kids because there were some houses you wouldnt go to to play.My mother a remedial teacher in a boys primary school used to bring kids to the GP for injuries and had some shocking stories and the guards would sometimes be called.Sometimes it was the fathers and a lot of the times the mothers.

My sister told me of a "funny" (peculiar) nun where she went to school.

So life experience tells us it is not simply based on gender lines. I cannot ignore that and instinctively I know differently and those differences cannot be explained away.

To me its an ethical issue and I get offended that it affects service delivery to victims and does not stop perpetrators. Not admitting the unthinkable meant we had clerical abuse go unchecked for years even though it was well known. We even had a Late Late Show tribute to an Artane Boys Band Director who was an abuser.So powerful interest do have a lot of self interest here and we have seen it all before.

Does it offend you as it does me and what parts ? Can it be defended?Is it time to kick the political correctness into touch and why as a society and individuals are we afraid to do so?

Chuchoter

You're completely right, it is unfair that female on male violence is so underrepresented. However I guess there is only so much money and since there are more situations where the male is the aggressor, thats where the money goes for services. Its also a big problem for LGBT people, where domestic abuse is equally prevalent, but nobody knows how to deal with them without the prescribed gender roles to guide them

CDfm

crayolastereo wrote: »

However I guess there is only so much money and since there are more situations where the male is the aggressor, thats where the money goes for services. Its also a big problem for LGBT people, where domestic abuse is equally prevalent, but nobody knows how to deal with them without the prescribed gender roles to guide them

Absolutely, and to borrow a phrase oranges are not the only fruit. There has been a huge amount of work done by the lesbian community to highlight the censorship of domestic violence statistics, and not for their own ends only , but to highlight the plight of victims other than LGBT people too.

Lets forget the money for a minute because lots of the people who help are actually unpaid volunteers who would naturally help whoever was being abused.

Even when the services are resoursed with certain gender biased groups the exclude the female victims of female violence too.

So their profile will exclude

-young women who are abused by a female
-elderly women subject to abuse by a relative or carer
-same sex domestic violence
-female children abused by a female relative or carer or family friend.

So its not only male victims or lesbian victims you have a whole raft of people who are marginalised and who would benefit and report if the stereotyped image was not used.