SE23 wrote:@WorkinProgress
These statistics are coming from the British Crime survey, National Centre of Domestic violence, local authorities, university studies, these are not being created by men's rights groups. Study by the University of California, shown that women instigated violence and assualted their boyfriends on the grounds of not being listened to, being jealous etc etc. Even if they can't inflict as much damage as they would like to, out of principle its not accepted, but even though it would be hard to muster much compassion for males, the children are the second to be most effected.
I tried to look into some of your posted material yesterday, and ran out of time....a few hyperlinks to pertinent information would have helped. After looking up your references I am left wondering if you actually read them yourself or just copied them from a list somewhere! Here's why:
No links to British Crime Survey -- which has hundreds of sublinks to specific areas of interest, and National Centre of Domestic Violence leads me to the Canadian center, if that was you intention, but again I have to sift through and wade through pages on my own to find what they have to say about domestic violence issues.
The first thing that jumps out at me about the British Crime Survey is how unimportant they consider the subject of domestic violence! I wasted at least 15 minutes trying to find something relevant, and I found this in their "Overview" on Violent Crime and Sexual Offenses 2011/12:
intimate violence is a collective term used to refer to a number of different forms of physical and non-physical abuse consisting of partner abuse, family abuse, sexual assault and stalking. It is difficult to obtain reliable information on the extent of intimate violence as there is a degree of under-reporting of these incidents, affecting both the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and police recorded crime figures.In other words, you could drive a truck through a definition like that! My objection to surveys like these ones which show a close apparent superficial parity between men and women regarding domestic violence is that if they aren't going to acknowledge the clear advantage that the vast majority of men have over women because of greater physical size and strength, then there findings are garbage!
Regarding the Canadian Centre of Domestic Violence, the first complete study I found was by an Elaine Grandin on the perplexing difference between Canadian and American domestic violence studies -- the Canadian studies found a much higher degree of equality in the use of physical violence and injuries between men and women than is found in the American studies. It doesn't exactly bolster your theory, just show that there is a difference between data gathered in Canada and the U.S., with a few different, possible explanations listed at the bottom.
And the other references:
1.
Brinkerhoff, M., & Lupri, E. (1988). Interspousal violence. Canadian Journal of Sociology
This study on interspousal violence says this under the subheading - describing the abuse:
Within this document the word “abuse” has been selected so as to consistently capture both physical violence (what is legally categorized as “assault”) and other, non-physical forms of abuse.
So, I am back to the no.1 critique of this wimp mra claim that women are responsible or equally responsible for domestic violence -- there is no accounting for degree and severity of abuse when such a low bar is applied. So this one goes to the scrap heap!
2.
Brush, L. D. (1990). Violent Acts and injurious outcomes in married couples
This analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) confirmed earlier findings: Much of the violence between married partners occurred in couples in which both partners were reported as perpetrators, and women as well as men committed violent acts in married couples. However, the NSFH data indicated that the probabilities of injury for male and female respondents differed significantly, with wives more likely to be injured than husbands. The NSFH differentiated between violent acts and injurious outcomes and provided an empirical rebuttal of the “battered husband syndrome.” Not much to say, except that right from the abstract, it's obvious that you cherrypicked the wrong study here also!
3
Capaldi, D. M. & Owen, L. D. (2001). Physical aggression in a community sample of at-risk young couplesThis Pubmed published study that specifically addresses "young" couples...how young it doesn't say in the abstract, and that's all that's available without subscription. In the abstract is this claim:
Contrary to the hypothesis of the study, rates of injury and fear for the women were not significantly higher than for the men.
And without further details and at least a few definitions of terms, this link tells me nothing!
4
Claxton-Oldfield, S. & Arsenault, J. (1999). The initiation of physically aggressive behaviour by female university students toward their male partners:
This meta-analysis by a "Martin Fiebert" just links to a bibliography with no hyperlinks and this claim in the summary:
which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.Okay, now show me some proof to back up a claim that runs counter to every other study out there in the developed world.
Dozens and even hundreds of sociological studies into family lives from domestic violence centres, to universities, show that the common perception that the female is the victim is a falsehood. This further refutes the concept of patriarchy, which states that only the male can be the instigator and never a victim of discrimination on the basis of his gender.
Once again, I find it so ironic that the MRA wing of patriarchy and re-establishing male supremacy makes two contradictory claims....as you have done in your post from Tuesday..., often within the same articles: men are stronger and by nature, dominant over women...so it's impossible to stop it/ but women are just as aggressive and violent as men and men are equally likely to be victims of spousal abuse! So, which is it? Or is the anti-feminist game consisting of nothing more than throwing crap at the wall?
Also, I don't mind learning new things when I'm on the internet....that's why I bought a computer 12 years ago, but it takes too much time to waste for too little payoff to spend an hour or two hours looking up and reading through links and trying to find anything more than abstracts of references to published studies; so unless you come up with something better that actually has a hyperlink providing evidence for quoted material, don't bother!
I am not going to trust feminist historians for any day of the week, although you can argue previous academics and historians were male, i don't believe they would be actively siding with a bias. Unless of course you subscribe to the belief that men wish to conspire in oppressing women.
Bias is innate and does not have to be intentional. A few good examples are that whites, especially white men don't recognize white privilege; and conservatives especially will go through hoops to try to deny it, but it is still there and unconsciously betrayed by how out of the ordinary it seems to have women or racial minorities in roles where we don't expect them. Like women who have moved into formerly all-male trades like welding and machining. On the reverse side, we wouldn't refer to women in traditional female jobs such as teacher, nurse, chambermaid etc. as a female version, but would instead refer to the man in that role with the outlier term "male nurse." This may not be done to disparage or denigrate the individual, but we subconsciously pick up what is culturally accepted and what is not, so we should at least make ourselves consciously aware of our prejudices. The most prejudiced people are usually the ones who claim that they don't see prejudice anywhere.
Matrilocal societies weren't on the basis of being for female empowerment, it was on the basis of practicalities, women were able to form strong agricultural communities close to home, while the men were free to travel long distances to gather resources and trade. (Purdue university). There was no attempt to undermine masculinity, both female and male roles were respected.
The critics of matriarchy try to claim that matrilocality makes no difference, but think about it in real terms: go back before very recent times and the modern nuclear family to the era where getting married meant that either the woman was going to have to leave home and go live with her husband's family, or the reverse -- the matrilocal and matrilineal family arrangement where inheritance came through the mother and the man went to live with his wife's family.
The evidence that most primitive societies were matrilocal is so overwhelming and insurmountable that this is why the patriarchy fans do not try to deny it....they just try to diminish the implications of matrilocality. But, in the real world, patriarchal societies where a young bride is married off to live in the man's household gives him dictatorial power over her, and makes it unlikely that she will have any allies if she is victimized by her. On the contrary, her new mother-in-law and sisters-in-law, as well as sister-wives in polygamous societies are just as likely to abuse her as her husband...if not more so! On the other hand, in the matriarchal society, an abusive man is going to be the outsider in the household and have to work hard to win their trust and admiration. If he is abusive, he will be dealt with by his mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, father-in-law etc. The abusive husband in the matriarchal society has a whole army to deal with, and that's why his only option is usually to leave, rather than face a beating.
Marriage and traditional gender roles which suited the biological characteristics of both man and woman were essential in holding society together. When this began to disintegrate which traditional values normally do, due to lofty idealism that is spawned by a society gaining large amounts of wealth, which leads to moral narcissm being formed. The polygamous society creates distrust, a man is not going to work and toil for a wife which is unfaithful and children who might not be his.
The contract between man and woman in marriage, has always been a trade off, with the man selling the woman his hard physical labour and abilities to earn large units of energy, and the woman would trade off her reproductive capabilities; both would compliment each other in this exchange. The female sexuality was essentially owned by the male as was his labour, if he began to provide for another family and not his own or was idle, then he would be outcasted and looked upon as a freak; as this would be going against his societal function. If she failed her side of the contract and was to cheat on fail to meet her role as a child creator and raiser, or lived a polygamous lifestyle which directly conflicted with her role, then she would equally be disowned.
Once again, I'd like you to square this contradictory theme that men are stronger and naturally determined to be the dominant breadwinner with the claim that men are being abused and beaten by their wives! The type of family life you're describing here was what began after barbarian invasions of the first civilizations. It was not part of prehistoric hunter/gatherer society nor the first city states that were established. It was only natural for warlike, violent raiding cultures that came in and plundered the wealth that others had developed, and started this long running game of war and conquest for the last 4 or 5000 years. A game that we can no longer afford to play, or there will be nobody left on the planet! Seems that feminism is as important to men as it is to women, because without the civilizing effect of gender equalizing, the kind of cooperation that is going to be needed for future generations to survive the combined crises of resource depletion and climate change, will be impossible.
- By JohnRawls
- By ingliz
- By Potemkin