As those of you who have been readin the comments will know, I’ve been having a debate with Emma of Gendergeek over one of the previous posts on here. As I have no idea how to introduce a comments section to the sidebar, I’m making this into a separate post, albeit with some edits to make more sense.
The conversation starts with Emma responding to my assertion that men were the likeliest victims of violence domestically and worldwide.
Emma
Oh really?
“The victims in today’s armed conflicts are far more likely to be civilians than soldiers. Some 70 per cent of the casualties in recent conflicts were non-combatants — most of them women and children. Women’s bodies have become a battleground for those who use terror as a tactic of war — they are raped, abducted, humiliated and made to undergo forced pregnancy, sexual abuse and slavery. In Rwanda, approximately half a million women were raped during the 1994 genocide. In Bosnia, 20,000–50,000 women were raped during five months of conflict in 1992″ [UNIFEM]
“The Council of Europe has stated that domestic violence is the major cause of death and disability for women aged 16 to 44″ [Amnesty]
“The 2001/02 British Crime Survey (BCS) found that there were an estimated 635,000 incidents of domestic violence in England and Wales. 81% of the victims were women and 19% were men. Domestic violence incidents also made up nearly 22% of all violent incidents reported by participants in the BCS. (Home Office, July 2002)” [Amnesty]
Bertie
On violence in war–UNIFEM is hardly unbiased on the subject. It depends what they’re meaning by ‘recent’ as well. White’s Historical Atlas of the 20th Century has 42 million military deaths and 19 million civilian deaths in war during the century–a huge disparity towards male victims (even with the women of the Soviet Army). Even gendercide accepts that substantially more men died in Rwanda than did women (75-80%). The same in Bosnia. FWIW, I worked as a journalist in both and this holds true anecdotally. In all wars whilst atrocities against women are hugely decried, reprisals involving male civilians are seen as more acceptable–something I, as a man, have never understood.
Amnesty may say that the COuncil of Europe said that, but they didn’t, What they said (using a UNIFEM source) was it was A major cause of death and injury. This is the very point I was making about DVR and the changing of statistics/sense over time and between reports (I hope that link works BTW). Actually, as I can’t find the original online, it might be either ‘the’ or ‘a’.
But, how may of these are injuries (combining the two is a way of generating a more impactful statistic)–and what are we talking about with injuries? How are injuries assessed or calculated? How does this compare to violence against men of the same age group? What’s the major cause of death and injury for men of that agegroup? Oh, that’s right, no one’s interested, because no one’s doing the research.
There were 750-ish murders in the UK in 2002 (BCS from memory), the number of men murdered made up 70% of that figure (and rising).
On domestic violence, amnesty again seems not to be reading the small print. The actual report on the 2001 BCS says
“In the event, the CASI method [the survey method asking both genders rather than just women–BW] found relatively high levels of male victimisation to the extent that men appear to be at equal risk to women of domestic assault” (though in fairness I will add that women are more likely to be injured and repeatedly assaulted) (found here (p.28))
This agrees with the huge amount of work that’s found a pretty equal level of F->M and M->F violence (see Archer, ‘Sex Differences in Aggression Between Heterosexual Partners’ for more on this, and lots more studies dating back to the seventies, though DObash and Dobash amongst many others disagree).
Even if domestic violence incidents are dominated by women victims (and I’d argue only the ones that go to court are, another problem with our biased legal system) other forms of violence certainly are not. I don;t have the UK figures to hand, but men make up the majority victims of assaults, mugging and all other forms of violence than sexual. The US DoJ figures, which I do have on a PDF on the desktop have a 65/35 split male to female victim. IIRC the UK is worse.
Maybe for clarity rather than ‘men are the likeliest victims of violence’ I should have stuck to ‘men are the likeliest victims of deadly violence’? Would that make you happier?
I’m assuming you still have no sympathy for male victims of violence then?
Emma
accepts that substantially more men died in Rwanda than did women (75-80%).
I suppose the final accounting will only be possible once all the women infected with HIV have died slow and miserable deaths.
I can’t find the source for the first Amnesty figure, and am appalled by their shoddy use of stats. The quote seems to come from Le Monde Diplomatique:
For European women aged 16-44, violence in the home is the primary cause of injury and death, more lethal than road accidents and cancer.
Between 25% and 50% of women are victims of this violence.
In Portugal 52.8% of women say that they have been violently treated by their husbands or partners.
In Germany almost 300 women a year - or three women every four days - are killed by men with whom they used to live.
In Britain one woman dies in similar circumstances every three days.
In Spain it is one every four days.
In France six women die this way every month: 33% of them are knifed, 33% shot, 20% strangled and 10% beaten.
This quote, is from The World Bank Development Report:
In 1993, the World Development Report of the World Bank estimated that “women ages 15 to 44 lose more Discounted Health Years of Life (DHYLs) to rape and domestic violence than to breast cancer, cervical cancer, obstructed labour, heart disease, AIDS, respiratory infections, motor vehicle accidents or war.
I’m assuming you still have no sympathy for male victims of violence then?
What an utterly ludicrous and offensive assumption. Your insistence (and the insistence of many others like you, both male and female) of reading any gendered analysis as explicitly or implicitly anti-male leads me to believe that you don’t actually understand what current gender equalities thinking is.
Bertie
It seems that in meeting the original post not even with an acknowledgment that, yes, men suffer extremes of violence too, but rather with a barrage of statistics trying to prove that women suffer worse, you were missing the point I was trying to make. If you say that’s not the case, then that’s fine.
I thought I was being pretty polite! I would point out that I’ve been more than happy to acknowledge differences but also much agreement with what you say–I might argue with much of the DVRI use of statistics, but I’d point to the problem being violence (whether in relationships or out of them) rather than M->F violence. The crack about ‘not understanding…current gender equalities thinking’ is a nice line, but better suited to a flame war than what had previously been a robust exchange of views. I certainly haven’t made this personal, no reason why you should.
The WDR report quote has been massively analysed by talkpolitics amongst many others. It’s also a dubious manipulation of statistics, especially in the comparators–deaths of the 16-44 age group from heart disease, breast and cervical cancers are not high. Again, though, I’d ask where the similar research on men is? How many years are lost off their lives by bullying and violence?
Glad we’re in broad agreement over the manipulation of stats (by both ’sides’ I’d have to say).
Emma
The crack about ‘not understanding…current gender equalities thinking’ is a nice line, but better suited to a flame war than what had previously been a robust exchange of views.
It wasn’t a crack, and it wasn’t said for spite. I think that this is a genuine problem, and I’m not sure how it can best be addressed. Non-feminists (and this is a bit of a clunky descriptor, but I’m not sure what to call you/them) seem to see [gender] equalities as a zero-sum game, and gender mainstreaming within policy as something that is designed to fuck men over.
To me it’s completely irrelevant whether men or women experience more violence overall. It’s irrelevant because the issue of domestic violence, to me, is not about saying “poor women, aren’t men evil”. It’s about developing organisational and policy approaches that address the impacts of violence on women (and men) in order to achieve equality of outcome.
I’m afraid that I don’t buy the stats on DV that men’s rights activists put forward to suggest that the problem is “equal”. I don’t buy them not because I’ve never met any health, criminal justice, or voluntary sector practitioners who have even registered a significant demand for services (even taking into account the lack of awareness of female violence against men). I don’t buy them because MRAs seem to have zero interest in supporting men who have experienced this violence, and every interest in grabbing resources from the woefully underfunded third sector orgs who currently provide the majority of emotional and practical support to women who have experienced gender based violence. It seems to be more about diminishing women’s experiences, than validating and supporting men’s experiences.
Bertie
Ah, and at this point, unfortunately, we arrive at agreement. Yes, the zero-sum game is a real problem. I tend to see it (probably because of my Y gene) as the same from the other side. Many feminists working on DV will ignore evidence of F->M violence, as much I guess because of the reasons you state (there already isn’t enough money to go round) as because of the ‘all men are evil’ line, and I view that as questionable to say the least. As I’ve said, I regard violence as THE problem, and the search for solutions to that is the underlying issue.
Personally I think the men’s movement is a waste of time. And I can see your point on grabbing resources, but the growth in ‘gender studies’ rather than ‘women’s studies’ seems to me to be a good thing.
Incidentally, you suggest you’ve never met workers in the sector who see a major demand for men’s support. I’m not sure they would (men use GPs far less than women as well, doesn’t mean their health is less fragile (actually it’s more fragile I think)). I’d argue that violence against men (and, using the broad terms of DV to include psychological and other forms) is still treated as not important.
I did a quick questionnaire of friends once, asking if they’d ever used violence against their partners using the fairly standard DV definition. All of both said they had (if you include ’shouting’ and so on), but the men were ashamed of it, the women, on the whole, laughed it off (and the men agreed with them, seeing M->F as far more important). Very, very broad generalisation, but moderately interesting (if not the most fun way to spend a Saturday night in the pub). I’ve just always felt that which of the partners introduces non-consensual violence to a r/ship doesn’t matter–once it’s there you’ve stepped over a line.