California Men’s Centers, San Diego

Media release - releasfor immediate e - Friday January 22nd 2010
Scotland: domestic violence against men is frequent and often unreportedThe results of a major piece of government research on partner abuse in Scotland slipped out relatively unreported before Christmas. The new Scottish findings mirror much Australian and international domestic violence research showing family violence against men is frequent and often goes unreported. 

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2008-09: Partner Abuse was published by Scotland’s Chief Statistician on December 15th 2009. The research was conducted with 16,000 interviewees and represents the most comprehensive investigation to date into the extent of partner abuse in Scotland.

Interviewees were asked about their experience of physical or psychological partner abuse both since the age of 16 and within the preceding 12 months. The findings included:

• 18% of adults who had had at least one partner since the age of 16 reported having experienced at least one form of partner abuse. The figure for women was 20.9% and for men 15.3%.

• However, in the most recent 12 months the figure for both men and women was 5%.

• The data for the last 12 months showed that young men aged 16-24 experienced physical and/or psychological abuse more often than young women and more often than any other demographic group.

• For persons experiencing partner abuse in the last 12 months, 48% of the perpetrators were male and 45% were female.

• Police came to know about 35% of incidents of partner abuse reported by women in the preceding 12 months but only 8% of incidents in which a man was on the receiving end. 40% of men told no-one compared to 21% of women.

One in Three Campaign spokesperson Greg Andresen said “Much Australian, US, UK, NZ and Canadian family violence data also shows that at least one in three, and perhaps as many as one in two victims are male. It reveals that men are much less likely to report family violence against them than are women.

“The Australian National Crime Prevention Survey found young people aged 12 to 20 were just as likely to report seeing mum hit dad, as they are to see dad hit mum. These young males and females were also equally likely to report experiencing domestic violence themselves. The Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Survey found that females were three times as likely as males to report being abused to the police.”
Scottish journalist John Forsyth said, “To date most Government pronouncements and campaigns have insisted that male experience of partner abuse is minimal and insignificant. This data completely contradicts these assertions. It is hoped that the Government will now review their meagre support for male victims of domestic abuse and their children.

“The research has to be commended for its rigour. When asked whether they had been subject to domestic abuse since the age of 16, only 3% of men and 14% of women said yes. However, when asked to report specific conduct by a partner that falls within the definition of partner abuse, the number for men rose 5 times to 15% and for women by half to 20.9%. This is hardly surprising given the tens of millions that has been spent by successive Scottish administrations on campaigns, support services and organisations targeted at women, encouraging them to recognise and report domestic abuse. In the same period precisely nothing has been spent on efforts to encourage men to recognise and report domestic abuse.”

The One in Three Campaign is calling on the Australian Government to take heed of the new Scottish data when it continues its review of domestic violence policy in 2010, urging that any new policies, services and campaigns support victims of both sexes in order to comply with Australia’s human rights obligations.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Greg Andresen, Senior Researcher, One in Three Campaign, 0403 813 925 or info@oneinthree.com.au
John Forsyth, Journalist, +44 77382 85954 (Scotland: call between 7pm and 9am EST) or carrochcomm@aol.com

Article here. Not that anyone would find a misandrist slant surprising at the NYT, but now they're claiming that the absence of men on university campuses is really a bigger problem for women. Why? Because the poor women can't find dates. Or because “girls feel pressured to do more than they’re comfortable with". Remember that this is the same newspaper that recently ran a whole slew of sympathetic articles claiming that women are only 16% of the military (also men's fault, of course). Where is the sympathetic article about the under-enrollment of men in higher education?

The author is careful to toast "female achievement" and boast about eliminating "affirmative action for boys" while happily dismissing an entire generation of men - particularly black and Hispanic men - who will experience less-than-equal opportunity.

Throughout the article, men are blamed for a shallow "hook-up" culture that somehow harms women. Ask yourself this: how can men be responsible for the "hook-up" culture when the majority of students are women? The rise of that same culture just happens to have coincided with the rise in female enrollment at universities, but you won't find that fact anywhere in the NYT.

A few choice quotes:

As for a man’s cheating, “that’s a thing that girls let slide, because you have to,” said Emily Kennard, a junior at North Carolina. “If you don’t let it slide, you don’t have a boyfriend.”

"the university feels obligated to admit the most qualified applicants, regardless of gender, Mr. Farmer said. “I wouldn’t want any young woman here to think that there’s somebody we’d rather have here than her,” he said."

Remember, it's not bigotry or hate speech when they do it and a woman's feelings still trump your rights every time.

I found it refreshing to find an article that approached the issue from multiple directions, not trying to lay the blame on any single issue. Excerpt:

'The reasons have physical, psychological, social and cultural roots. From birth, males are saddled with certain macho expectations which, combined with a misplaced sense of invincibility, ironically leaves them more vulnerable — they take big risks, are reluctant to ask for help, and won’t easily admit pain or weakness.

While these factors continue to exact a heavy toll on men, women’s health care has blossomed (admittedly from a low base), further widening the gender gap and sparking renewed efforts to correct a health system that is arguably under-serving half the population.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'It’s that time again… When Super Bowl Sunday dominates the U.S. headlines, and people plan their Sunday evenings around a get-together, party, or the game. It’s also a good time to look at two stories related to Super Bowl Sunday.

The first is the largely debunked myth that domestic violence calls spike around Super Bowl Sunday and other drinking holidays of the year (like New Year’s). Snopes originally tracked down the myth and showed it to be nothing more than another urban legend. Since their last update on the myth in 2005, however (and our article 4 years ago), there’s been further research examining the myth.

A 2007 study by Oths & Robertson examined 2,387 crisis call records covering a previous 3-year period. They supplemented the call records with both formal and informal interviews with abused women and staff. What did they find?

The widely held belief that more women seek shelter during “drinking holidays” such as New Year’s and the Super Bowl was unsubstantiated, while the contention that women with school-aged children time their leaving to coincide with breaks in the academic schedule was supported.'

Article here. Once again the media/govt male hate campaign rolls on. Shouldn't it be "violence against anybody"? Excerpt:

'US politicians have called for a $US175 million aid package to combat violence against women and girls in poorer countries such as Haiti and Afghanistan.

"Every day, too many women and girls across the globe endure horrific acts of violence," said Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who is backing a Bill that would make preventing violence against women central to US foreign policy.

"They are disfigured by acid, raped and beaten, or they are denied the opportunity to see a doctor."

Another supporter, Democratic Representative Bill Delahunt, said: "The nations with the worst track record in preventing violence against women are also the most unstable and are breeding grounds for terrorism."

The Bill, which enjoys cross-party support, calls for $US175 million ($A202 million) over five years to go towards developing programs to combat violence against women in as many as 20 low-income countries.'

Regarding the recent MANN post revealing Jon Stewart's latest salvo against his own sex: I forgot to include the comment submission link for it.

This piece of "comedy" is so insulting to men in general, MRAs, and men in mythopoetic circles, it's as if they decided to just take on everything pro-male all at once and make fun of and diminish it as much as possible within the short attention span of the typical viewer. I have a hard time thinking of any group that would be the target of such open tastelessness and crude meanness transmitted over cable TV in prime time to a wide viewing audience in this day and age.

I ask feminists this: If men as a class are as respected and damn-near worshiped as you insist we are, would a truly "patriarchal society" even be able to produce such a piece of "humor"? Can you imagine such "humor" being created about feminism or about women? Can you even suggest there is a "patriarchal society" in place that so favors men and so derides women given this sort of thing that you see?

Just what kind of energy and double-think do feminists need to use to keep up their self-delusions and to maintain the lies they tell themselves? Truly, it is mind-boggling.

Score another one for The Innocence Project! Story here. Excerpt:

'ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A mentally ill New York man who spent nearly six years behind bars for a 1976 rape he insisted he didn't commit was exonerated Thursday after DNA testing showed he was innocent.

The conviction of Freddie Peacock of Rochester, now 60, was based on a false confession police attributed to him just hours after the early morning rape of a 24-year-old woman who lived in the same apartment building.

State Judge David Egan vacated the conviction after lawyers for Peacock and Monroe County prosecutors agreed DNA evidence obtained from the victim's underwear and from Peacock in 2008 proved he wasn't the rapist.
...
Peter Neufeld, the Innocence Project's co-director, said that with Peacock's exoneration, "New York becomes the nation's capital of false confessions."

Since 2002, 10 people in New York have been exonerated through DNA testing after false confessions or admissions led to wrongful convictions. That accounts for one-third of all DNA exonerations nationwide since 2002, the group said.
...
"Freddie didn't just happen to get wrongly convicted," Neufeld said. "It doesn't work that way. There were two police officers that questioned him and attributed a statement to him, 'I did it' — a bare bones confession at best."

The statement wasn't written down, videotaped, audiotaped or "recorded in any way and he didn't sign anything," Neufeld said in calling for mandatory recording of all serious crime interrogations in New York.'

Take a look at the local story, which shows the man's picture. Is it me or are a lot of these exonerated men also black? Seems the fastest way to get found guilty of rape on the flimsiest of evidence, aside from being male, is being black. But there is one thing everyone summarily thrown into jail and presumed guilty of any given purported crime against a female have in common: they are all men.

When was the last time you heard of a Miss A tossed into jail because a Miss B accused her of, say, stealing something from her, or indeed, of a sexual assault? Never. Not once.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Two Alberta boys found dead this week in their home were victims of homicide, police said.

RCMP confirmed Wednesday that Connor and Jayden McConnell, aged 2½ and 10 months, died in their home in Millet, Alta., about 40 kilometres south of Edmonton.

The bodies of the two boys were found by their father Monday afternoon.

Investigators are not releasing the cause of death. No charges have yet been laid in connection with the deaths.
...
Court documents show that Curtis and Allyson McConnell, who got married in Australia in January 2007, separated in November 2009 and began divorce proceedings in December.

According to the documents, Allyson McConnell, 31, wanted to take the children back to her native Australia, where her family lives and where she would be entitled to government support and have better prospects of generating more income than in Canada.

In her statement of defence and counterclaim, McConnell said the father would "continue to have reasonable and generous access" to the children.

Curtis McConnell did not want his children to leave Canada.

"I am completely opposed to this, and I am fearful that she will attempt to do this without my consent or knowledge," he stated in an affidavit filed in Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench on Dec. 11.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In an irate letter to the editor February 2, Penni Stewart, president of the Canadian Association of University Students, and Katherine Giroux-Bougard, national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students denounce the Post's Jan. 26 editorial expressing satisfaction with the demise of Womens's Studies programs. They are "shocked" at such an attitude, and set out to explain why Women's Studies are needed more than ever. But the letter actually vindicates the editorial, because almost every sentence in it confirms that Women's Studies are nothing more than political activism with a blackboard, not objective scholarship.

They begin with the curious statement that Women's Studies "are informed by the belief that men and women are equal," a straw statement of remarkable disingenuousness. Nobody at the Post or anywhere else considers this "a radical belief," and I, who have often publicly agreed with the Post's editorial stance, take exception to the implication that it is only Women's Studies that holds that value. All university programs, indeed our entire society believes in gender equality. Actually, our public, tax-funded institutions, our courts, our social service agencies and our charities believe in more than equality, they believe in special entitlements for women.'

Yes, indeed. Because of the name "iPad", the implication is that it is unappealing to women because the name sounds too much like "MaxiPad" or some other kind of similar type of pad. (I recall MAD TV running with the "iPad" idea back in 2006, noting as they did that a legal pad should not be confused with the other kind of pad. The video is here but I will say it is for adult viewing only; there are reasons MAD TV airs late at night on week-ends only. Also some of you will find it offensive regardless of your age, so don't say I didn't warn you.)

Believe it or not, one Susan Estrich has actually put the lackluster debut of the Apple iPad together with this very idea to implicate Apple's failure to come up with a product that appeals to the typical female consumer (or it seems to the typical male one too, according to reports). The solution she says is to get rid of some of those men on the Apple Board (she also notes they all seem to be white), and to replace them with people other than those fitting that genderal-ethnic description. THAT will guarantee the success of a company such as Apple, which as many of us know has been in business over 30 years and has been a leader in the bringing of computers to the home and workplace.

One bad product-marketing approach (and it wouldn't be the first time - both large personal computer/operating system vendors, Apple and Microsoft, have had real flops in their histories) and it means that a shakeup of the Board is necessary to make sure that success for Apple can be guaranteed - and the way this will happen is to relieve one or more members of the Board of their positions due to their ethnicity and sex and replace them with a person or people of another ethnicity and/or sex. (And you know, what, I am not even sure the iPad is a flop. If anything if it fails to sell it will be because the iPod is competing too well with it. Either way, Apple is making money.)

Yeah, that'll fix whatever problems they may have.

Some others have comments on Ms. Estrich's column as well, critical: here and supportive: here.