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Monday, March 10, 2008
International Women's Day #5
This is the final instalment in a series of blogs celebrating some "success stories" for women in honour of International Women's Day.
The Domestic Violence Industry:
On Friday, the federal Conservative government announced it will be spending $1.1 million to create a new women's shelter in Edmonton -- kind of an uber-shelter. It will coordinate with other agencies in Edmonton to make sure that "all victims receive assistance." There is even a program for abusive men to get assistance. News reports from other sources suggest that this initiative is part of a broader offensive against intimate partner violence (IPV) in Canada -- an offensive that draws on alpha-male politicians at every level. On March 20, for example, the Premier of Alberta and the Calgary police chief will be attending a fundraising breakfast for this cause, with another such event scheduled for September 8 in Edmonton.
Portraying IPV as solely about male absuers and female victims is perhaps the biggest success story for women in contemporary society. This script affects nearly every other aspect of gender relations. Being perceived as a victim is a powerful thing. A man can be verbally abused, threatened, slapped, punched, and sexually assaulted (e.g. kneed in the groin) with impunity. But if he retaliates, he will certainly be charged with a criminal offence, and removed from his home. In fact, if a man merely restrains his partner's flury of flying fists by grabbing her wrists, twisting her arm, or pinning her down to the floor, he is at risk of being charged with assaulting her. Given the power of the stereotype of male abuser and female victim, completely fabricated allegations of abuse are a powerful weapon in the battle of the sexes. You don't need superior physical strength to defeat someone, if you can enlist the power of the state on your side, in the form of police, prosecutors, judges, social workers, and other members of the domestic violence industry.
The promoters of the feminist ideology of IPV would have you believe that woman abuse is both widespread and serious. They employ a statistical sleight-of-hand in their propaganda campaigns. On the one hand, they point to surveys of the general population that show that IPV affects a huge
proportion of the population. (According to the latest General Social Survey by Statistics Canada, for example, over half a million women who have been involved in a relationship in the past 5 years have experienced IPV.) On the other hand, they point to surveys of police charging records, women's shelter residents, and hospital admitances to show that women are the overwhelming victims of serious assaults.
But surveys of the general population consistently show that women are just as likely to physically abuse men as vice versa, at nearly every level of violence. There are at least 200 such surveys published in the IPV academic literature, showing that in roughly 25% of cases men are the sole perpetrator, in another 25% of cases women are the sole perpetrator, and in roughly half of the cases the violence is mutual. The main difference is that men complain less about the abuse they suffer at the hands of women -- it is perceived as a sign of weakness. Consequently, "clinical samples" at the most serious end of the violence scale, derived from police arrest records, hospital visits, etc.
tend to show that women are the predominant victims. It is critical to note that only 2% to 4% of all incidents of IPV are what can be described as serious battering; and even within this small extreme, men comprise a significant minority of victims: roughly a quarter of all murder victims, and 35% of all injuries, in intimate conflicts occur to men.
People talk about "white man's guilt" as a motivator for western governments paying endless sums in compensation and restitution to former "slave races" and native peoples for the violence that was done to them by conquering Europeans. As long as women can appeal to "all men's guilt," there will be endless sums spent in compensation and restitution for violence against women. A huge amount of government money is to be made from the women-abuse industry. Just as aboriginal leaders spend millions of dollars every year conferencing to discuss how they need more money to solve the problems of first nations people, so too are untold millions spent every year by women's advocates conferencing to whip up government support for more funds to be spent on women's shelters, specialized domestic violence courts and prosecutors, etc., etc. This very powerful vested interest will not eagerly embrace fairness and equality in addressing the real problems of IPV. There is no political mileage to be gained by addressing violence against men.
The topic of IPV is huge and cannot be adequately covered by this short commentary. I will have occasion to revisit this important topic in future columns, including summarizing my own research findings on how the legal system responds to the problem. (Teaser: being female is almost always the best predictor of more lenient outcomes, regardless of the level of injury inflicted, the existence of a prior criminal record, the presence of children, intoxication, or any other aggravating factor.)
Posted by Western Standard on March 10, 2008 | Permalink
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