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“FAMILY VIOLENCE - A NEW APPROACH TO NEW SOLUTIONS”

michaelsx@mac.com — 2010-04-17T11:31:02+10:00

By PAUL MISCHEFSKI
JOURNALIST / RESEARCHER EXECUTIVE MEMBER,
MEN’S WELLBEING INC, QUEENSLAND (www.menswellbeing.org)
EDITOR, MENTOR MAGAZINE MIXED-GENDER GROUP FACILITATOR

I would like to state at the outset, the views I represent here are my own presentation and not necessarily the views of Men’s Wellbeing Inc.There is a large volume of information on dealing with male violence and abuse. But how many of us, male or female, have any skill in handling the issue of abusive women, without running the risk of also being classified as a “perpetrator”.

As a former specialist crime and High Court reporter for many years in Auckland and other parts of New Zealand, also in America, Canada and Australia, I have seen at close hand many of the effects of violence in the community. And as a personal development, communication and lifeskills facilitator running mixed gender groups for over 30 years, I have seen men and women equally struggle to overcome relationship and life issues and addictive patterns.

In the field of journalism, which I have been involved in at a mainstream level for 35 years, there used to be a very strong code of ethics and training: Always present ALL of the facts and ALL sides of the story in a fair, balanced and accurate way, without personal bias or agenda, so people can be reliably informed.
However this notion of integrity seems to have gone out the window both with gender reporting in the media, and with a great deal of the research material being fed to both the media and government in this country.

In Australia there appears to be two distinct bodies of research methodology. Simply put:-

• Those that interview only women, and ask only if they have ever experienced any form of domestic abuse or violence. Often these selective studies, such as last year’s White Ribbon Day study, are heavily biased and laced with high emotional content directed against the male, rather than remaining a clear presentation of balanced and factual, peer-reviewed scientific research evidence.

• Independent academic studies that survey both men and women equally, and ask both genders the same questions: Have you ever experienced any form of domestic abuse – and, have you ever perpetrated any of the forms of domestic abuse? Invariably these studies reflect almost equal gender abuse levels.
It seems archaic that much of our law-making and Government policy appears to be based on the first category, which anyone with basic appraisal skills could determine is often heavily biased with the ideology that only men perpetrate domestic violence or abuse and that if a woman has perpetrated abuse, it must have been done in defence or as a response to extreme provocation. That may be true in some cases, but not in the majority, as is normally portrayed.
Many of these studies are carried out or interpreted by agencies with a strong gender-political agenda and funding interests. There is an entrenched bureaucratic hierarchy that relies on statistics of male violence to protect career paths and livelihoods. Any perceived reduction in abuse figures could also mean a reduction in funding and resources. Like any funded venture, these agencies are under pressure to perform or prove a sustainable case for ongoing funding. This aspect is rarely looked at.
Asking selective questions of a selective single group produces selective results and heavily distorted statistics.
I would pose this question today. How serious are we really, as a national community, about looking honestly and more deeply for new, effective ways of healing what inevitably harms our children and future generations?
Are we open to new approaches and new evidence-based empirical research being conducted here and in other countries that could help both the victims and perpetrators? Or are we desperately trying to protect an old, simplistic, ideological funding paradigm that claims the only real issue is male violence and male abuse of patriarchal power?

Yes, of course there are extreme cases of violent men who need to be removed decisively for the protection of families, I have seen that at first hand and have no hesitation in acknowledging it. But how much is this being portrayed and marketed as the norm? The vast majority of men do not hit women, just as the vast majority of women do not hit men. A number of studies show the incidence of domestic abuse to be highly overstated.
It is good that we continue to address male violence. But why are we not also supporting women to address and heal their issues of abuse and violence?
In the face of increasing new evidence on abuse perpetrated by both men and women, and a shocking surge in violence by girls in our schoolyards, why is it that we do not have the courage or the integrity to address ALL the facts on ALL forms of domestic abuse, not just that seen to be perpetrated by men?
Is cutting out only half of a cancer and pretending the other half doesn’t exist a genuine and realistic way to serve our people and strengthen our country Spiritually for challenging times ahead?

Why are we so uncomfortable at the notion of addressing female violence equally as well as male, when our schoolyards are awash with a mounting wave of girls being violent to each other, and there are almost daily news reports of female- instigated violence?
New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics figures show that over the past eight years, the number of women charged with domestic abuse has surged by 159 per cent. In 2007, 2336 women fronted court on domestic violence charges, compared to around 800 in 1999.
There is a mounting body of evidence of the level of psychological, emotional and physical abuse being perpetrated by women. Equally there are attempts to downplay it. Gender abuse definition also includes derogatory language and putdowns, yet this is a widespread trademark style used freely by many women columnists throughout the media.
In recent weeks we have seen Freedom of Information laws used to access statistics from the West Australian Department of Child Protection, which show mothers and women have been almost three times more responsible than fathers and men for overall confirmed cases of child abuse or neglect.
The one area where male perpetration was higher than female was in sexual abuse.

All other States refused to release their statistics on gender breakdown, but child protection experts were quoted as saying they believe the rates are the same Australia-wide. Where, then, is the integrity in Government departments knowing these statistics but keeping them hidden from public scrutiny?
It seems obvious statistics like this would question the basis of the Federal Government-funded campaign to “Stop Violence Against Women and Their Children”. It would probably also challenge the basis of what is used to justify many areas of continuing Government funding.

MALE VICTIMS OF FAMILY VIOLENCE

michaelsx@mac.com — 2010-04-17T11:14:07+10:00

BARRIERS TO DISCLOSING
Male victims of family violence and abuse - like women - often face many barriers to disclosing their abuse:

They are likely to be told that there must be something they did to provoke the perpetrator’s abuse
They can suffer shame, embarrassment and the social stigma of not being able to protect themselves
They can fear that if they disclose the abuse there will be nowhere for them and their children to escape to
They can fear that if they disclose the abuse or end the relationship, their partner might become more abusive and/or take the children
They can feel uncertain about where to seek help, or how to seek help
Services are less likely to ask whether a man is a victim of family violence, and when they do ask, they are less likely to believe him (indeed many health departments have mandatory domestic violence screening for young women, but no such screening for young men)
Male victims can be falsely arrested and removed from their homes because of the assumption that because they are male, they must be a perpetrator and not a victim. When this happens, children can be left unprotected from the perpetrator of the violence, leading many men to suffer the abuse in silence in an attempt to protect their children.

Because of these barriers, men are much less likely to report being a victim of family violence than are women (and women also frequently don’t report violence against them).
FORMS OF ABUSE
Abuse of men takes many of the same forms as it does against women - physical violence, intimidation and threats; sexual, emotional, psychological, verbal and financial abuse; property damage and social isolation. Many men experience multiple forms of abuse. Men, more so than women, can also experience legal and administrative abuse - the use of institutions to inflict further abuse on a victim, for example, taking out false restraining orders or not allowing the victim access to his children.

‘I was petrified to come home from work and would see her car in the drive and have to drive away and sit for an hour or so by myself to prepare for the likely barrage to come. I lived in terror walking on eggshells around her for nigh on 20 years. I attempted suicide a number of times.’

Dan

IMPACTS ON MALE VICTIMS
The impacts of family violence on male victims include:

Fear and loss of feelings of safety
Feelings of guilt and/or shame
Difficulties in trusting others
Anxiety and flashbacks
Unresolved anger
Loneliness and isolation
Depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm and attempted suicide
Use of alcohol or other drugs to cope with the abuse
Physical injuries
Loss of work
Loss of home
Physical illness
Loss of contact with children and/or step-children
Concern about children post separation.

To add insult to injury, male victims of family violence often find it distressing to see social marketing campaigns such as Violence Against Women Australia Says No (federal) and Don’t Cross the Line (SA), which suggest that men are the only perpetrators of family violence and women and children the only victims.
Gay men can be reluctant to report the abuse they are suffering because they are afraid of revealing their sexual orientation. They can also suffer threats of ‘outing’ of their sexual preference or HIV status by the perpetrator. The perpetrator might also tell them that no one will help because the police and the justice system are homophobic.
CHILDREN OF MALE VICTIMS
Children of male victims can suffer the same impacts as children of female victims, including

The abuse of witnessing family violence by their parents or step-parents
Direct violence and abuse themselves
Negative impacts on their behavioural, cognitive and emotional functioning and social development
Harm to their education and later employment prospects
Shaping their attitudes to violence in positive or negative directions
The possibility of being more likely to grow up to perpetrate violence in their own relationships (the majority however do not).

‘Poor dad. I had seen him walking naked in the back yard at night all upset and embarrassed; and I had seen him crawling under the bed to escape her vicious attacks, and I have seen him nursing his fresh wounds in the toilet, and he would say no word against her.’

Son talking about parents

Minister misleads Parliament on domestic violence

michaelsx@mac.com — 2010-04-17T09:35:36+10:00

A leading men’s health organisation today claimed that the Minister for the Status of Women, Hon Gail Gago MLC, misled Parliament by maintaining that false statistics on the Government’s Don’t Cross the Line anti-violence campaign website are accurate.
Men's Health Australia also lodged an official complaint with the Ombudsman last Thursday after five months of attempting to draw the Minister's attention to the major statistical errors on the website. The complaint alleges that the Office for Women acted unreasonably by publishing and not correcting this false and misleading information.
Men’s Health Australia spokesman Greg Andresen said, “The Facts and Stats page of the website is extremely misleading to the public. It clearly inflates statistics about domestic violence against women while understating statistics about domestic violence against men.”
Men’s Health Australia is supportive of all efforts to reduce interpersonal violence in the community but is concerned that the regular use of incorrect or misleading ‘statistics’ by Governments unfairly stigmatises men and boys as violent and abusive, while simultaneously denying services to male victims of violence.
They are also concerned that the Government’s approach is not in the interests of all children in families where there is abuse or violence, but selectively favours those children in families where violence is perpetrated by the father. The other one-third to half of children have to fend for themselves without support.
On 14th October Minister Gago defended the misleading statistics in Parliament, claiming that “the data on the Don't Cross the Line website is sound.”
Some of the campaign’s errors alleged by Men’s Health Australia include:

Overstating the annual number of women victims of domestic violence by almost 400%
Overstating the number of women killed in domestic violence situations by 86% while ignoring the one in three victims of domestic homicide that are male
Incorrectly claiming that 95% of domestic violence involves a male perpetrator and a female victim, when in actual fact at least one in three victims of family violence are male
Ignoring the fact that as many young people have witnessed physical domestic violence by their mother against their father, as have witnessed it by their father against their mother
Ignoring the research showing that equal numbers of young males and females have experienced domestic violence or have been forced to have sex by their boyfriend/girlfriend.
Incorrectly claiming that domestic violence is the main cause of death, disability and illness in young women (the main causes are actually anxiety and depression, migraine, type 2 diabetes, asthma and schizophrenia).

“All victims of violence deserve campaigns based upon up-to-date accurate data, and the tax-paying public doesn’t deserve to be misled. Flawed data such as this can only lead to flawed policies and actions, and many children continue to be exposed to violence because of these myths,” said Mr Andresen.
“Inflating statistics on domestic violence against women risks generating an unwarranted climate of fear in the community, especially amongst females. It also has terrible impacts upon the self-esteem of boys and the development of their healthy masculinity.
“Understating the prevalence of domestic violence against men makes it less likely that a man will be believed when he finally summons up the courage to disclose his partner’s abuse of him. It also allows Government to continue to get away with family violence policies and campaigns that ignore male victims.”

Time to Say No

michaelsx@mac.com — 2010-04-17T09:24:50+10:00

Up to One in Three victims of sexual assault and at least One in Three victims of family violence and abuse is male. While many services have quite rightly been established over the past three decades to support female victims of family violence, the needs of male victims remain largely unmet.

Historically government policies have been based on the assumption that all perpetrators are male and all victims are female, and the policies of current governments are still based on this erroneous position. Indeed, regretfully, theNational Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children did not include male victims in their otherwise laudable March 2009 recommendations. Their report, Time for Action: The National Council's Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, 2009-20212, states:

Why is the Plan of Action focused on women and their children? While both women and men can be perpetrators and/or victims of sexual assault and domestic and family violence, research shows that the overwhelming majority of violence and abuse is perpetrated by men against women... This Plan of Action... focuses primarily on the rights of the majority of victims of domestic and family violence and sexual assault, women and their children.

Why a large minority of victims - at least one third and possibly one half - doesn’t deserve support is never explained. The report focuses only on the needs of women, neglecting the government's legal and moral obligation to provide services and support for the substantial male population of victims of sexual assault and family violence:

Violence against women and their children is wrong. It is a fundamental breach of human rights... No woman should be a victim of sexual assault or domestic and family violence... Australian women and their children have a right to protection from violence... Services [are required to] meet the needs of women and their children.

Using this rationale, Governments would stop providing services to female victims of heart disease or to females who need occupational health & safety programs (as the minority of heart disease and workplace illness and deaths are female). Sensibly they don’t do this, so why ignore male victims of family violence and abuse just because they might be in the minority?

The Time For Action report is being enthusiastically supported by the Federal Government, which has so-far allocated 41.5 million dollars to meet the needs only of women. This funding for women is of course laudable, but men need funding for services and support too. This conscious neglect of males is in itself a form of social violence – Australian Governments have human rights obligations that require them to cater equitably for the needs of all, regardless of gender. One in three is enough to reject the politics of ideology. It is time to care for all those in need, whether male or female. Now is the time for action by politicians and community leaders to recognise that a comprehensive approach is required to combat the scourge of family violence.

‘I made two attempts to report her assaults to the police and they didn’t want to know. One officer said to me, ‘For your sake and for ours we might as well not drag this into court. The magistrate won’t believe that a woman is capable of something like that’.

Kevin