The "End Violence Against Women" Debate (and sexism in the 21st century)

[Slayer_2]

I love how sexism/racism is justified if it is against the "majority". So legit.

You are part of a majority. You don't get to defend yourself nor have opinions on anything because that's discriminatory of the minorities!

As if numbers in one group justify the lack of rights for another group.

Yep, pretty much. And majority doesn't even mean bigger numbers, despite the misnomer. Women are often considered the "minority", although they have slightly higher numbers than us, I believe. Either way, we're about 50/50, maybe 49/51.

To be honest, I don't care that much, I just hate hypocrites who preach equality, but with some people being more equal than others. How are those people any better than the original problem, again?

 

[Terminal Blue]

At the end, a couple of the people who saw the abuse happening were interviewed. Every single one of them took a very serious stance against female abuse but essentially brushed off all concerns when the female was the perpetrator.

I saw the video. I can't be bothered to dig it out, but the two incidents depicted were completely different, and neither was particularly representative of "domestic abuse".

The male attacker was visibly larger and stronger than his partner and attacked her by grabbing her throat and shoulders while speaking authoritatively. She also reacted strongly to this and seemed visibly distressed.

The female attacker, visibly smaller and weaker than her partner, attacked him by slapping him, making some token kicks at his legs and grabbing his hair while he was seated silently at a bench with his head down. She was also visibly angry and shouting.

It's an extremely misleading video, because what it actually shows is not sexism in action, but the potential people have to fit situations to narrative, and the narrative of each situation was remarkably clear. The former case suggested a controlling person publicly humiliating or coercing their partner, a clear danger sign of more long term abuse. The latter suggested suggested an isolated incident of inarticulate anger caused by clear wrongdoing for which the other party felt visibly guilty. You can't compare reactions to these things, each gives a totally different impression.

Is the gender of participants an important part of the narrative. Absolutely. If you repeated this test with greater control would you get some interesting results? Probably. Does it translate into "oh no, society is discriminating against men!" Well, it's probably not that simple.. Research into the so-called "bystander effect" shows that sex is only one of many variables which will influence how people "read" and therefore react to an incident in which you're involved. It's significant, but it's not the sole determinant, and it certainly doesn't represent some kind of institutional misandry.

I'm not saying the video said nothing. Depending on the brief given to the actors involved, it potentially says a huge amount that they chose to portray it in that way. However, it says very little directly about some kind of direct attitudinal bias, and absolutely nothing about domestic violence which is, by definition, a domestic occurance. If people were only using violence against their partners in public parks, it would be a lot easier to spot and to tackle than it actually is.

Generally, the only people who witness domestic violence are those involved and possibly the odd family member or neighbour. How likely people are to call the police when they see it is considerably less important than, for example, how likely people are to report violence they themselves have suffered.

 

[Schadrach]

This is why I'm confused when people who are ostensibly against anti-male sexism get up in arms about feminism, because negative social dynamics are everyone's problem.

That depends entirely on what variety of feminism we're talking about. Sex-pozzie moderate third wavers are an entirely different beast from the likes of Dworkin, Solanas, Daly, etc from that era, and the ones that actually have political influence currently are somewhere in between, though they're closer to the nastier part of second wavers than anything third wave.

One problem at a time. Small steps. One campaign to decrease violence against women now. One campaign to decrease violence against homosexuals later. Eventually a campaign to decrease violence against men. And in good time we'll cure cancer and AIDS.

Because we don't have unlimited resources. Because statistically women face many more violent situations in which they can't defend themselves. Is that fair? Not really. But it should be pretty obvious by now that we're not living in a fair world.

Now, the obvious question: Why are we sorting the problem to tackle by the victim, and specifically doing so in a manner that explicitly doesn't help victims of similar violence that aren't in the right demographic? Wouldn't it make more sense to takcle by the variety of problem, rather than the victim?

Sure im not put off from its ideals because of it but the idea that invisible lines are being drawn in the sand, to the points where we have two groups, named oppositely, striving for the same thing which i think is silly. Why not combine them and call it equalitist? I just see so reason why not. Humankind is also a perfectly good substitute that i tend to use :3

Feminism is "not a monlith", a phrase often used so that individual feminists can claim tenants they disagree with aren't theirs or aren't *really* part of feminism. As far as I can tell, the only thing that is an actual ideal of feminism as a whole is a desire to advance the position of women in society. Everything else seems to be up in the air. For example, I'd bet that evilthecat doesn't ascribe to the idea of employing "biological solutions to patriarchy" (you know, things like selectively aborting most male fetuses, forced castration of the majority of males, etc -- often things that *do* sound vaguely like the Nazis) -- yet there are feminist groups out there that *do* endorse those things.

But these issues are so firmly intertwined in society because of gender roles and assumptions made on gender that to not combine the two seems silly...

Sure, a lot of problems are tied to gender roels and assumptions made on gender, they aren't universally about misogyny though, despite some people (including one on this very thread) trying to make that claim.

Currently it is science where the manliest man works.
Because it is basically punching the reality (and proving that you are right)- the biggest and strongest enemy anyone can have.

I disagree with more or less everything you just said, but the imagery of science being trying (and often succeeding) to punch reality in the face is very amusing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/health/newsid_7878000/7878698.stm
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/domviol/men.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-domestic-violence

This is obviously not just a women's rights issue. Anti-domestic abuse programs should focus on aleviating all forms of domestic violence, focusing on just women only serves to ostracize men who have been victims of abuse.

I agree completely, but some of the posters in this thread (notably evilthecat, who appears to believe that vioence is innately worse when perpetrated by a man or against a woman) take issue with the idea that intimate partner violence is intimate partner violence.


http://www.saveservices.org/pvra/ is a recommendation from Stop Abusive and Violent Environments on how to modify VAWA to be more egalitarian. I'm actually interested in hearing people's opinions in favor of or against it.

 

[Hagi]

One problem at a time. Small steps. One campaign to decrease violence against women now. One campaign to decrease violence against homosexuals later. Eventually a campaign to decrease violence against men. And in good time we'll cure cancer and AIDS.

Because we don't have unlimited resources. Because statistically women face many more violent situations in which they can't defend themselves. Is that fair? Not really. But it should be pretty obvious by now that we're not living in a fair world.

Now, the obvious question: Why are we sorting the problem to tackle by the victim, and specifically doing so in a manner that explicitly doesn't help victims of similar violence that aren't in the right demographic? Wouldn't it make more sense to takcle by the variety of problem, rather than the victim?

Because it's much more effective to campaign that way.

The more abstract you make the victim the harder it is to empathize, the harder it is to feel connected and involved. With a concrete victim you can put up fancy posters that make people emotional and involved. With a limited demographic it's much easier to make people care.

You can't identify with problems. You can identify with victims.

I'm not saying it's fair. I'm not even saying it's completely logical and rational. But humans aren't fair nor are they completely logical and rational.

It's simply much more effective to pick a concrete victim people can empathize with. Problems are unfortunately too abstract to empathize with for most people.

 

[blackrave]

Currently it is science where the manliest man works.
Because it is basically punching the reality (and proving that you are right)- the biggest and strongest enemy anyone can have.

I disagree with more or less everything you just said, but the imagery of science being trying (and often succeeding) to punch reality in the face is very amusing.

Why exactly do you think that ambitions and violence don't share same source (especially for men)?
To clarify I'm not saying that women lacks big ambitions
Yet men tends to react more radical to failed big ambitions, than women
Compare how much men commits suicide when their company bankrupts or when they loose high status job to the numbers of suicides amongst women under same circumstances (especially the first time).
Women more likely will cry for some time on the shoulders of their friends and after calming down will cope with situation (once again I don't have much experience in being a women, but my current observation of females proves me right)
On the other hand most men after first failure will react in a lot of unhealthy ways, such as: hiding the failure from friends and family, enclosing in themselves, suffering from apathy, starting to look for vantage spots around workplace, etc.
Why? Because for huge majority of men failure means that you are looser, unworthy to hold head high. Even smarter ones who understands that it isn't always true, deep inside feels the same way. For men it is simple- you are either on top, or the one on the ground bleeding to death.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

Your main error occurred when you tried to post something sensible and thought provoking to facebook.

 

[Risingblade]

Nobody gives a shit about men getting hurt.

 

[drisky]

I have no problem with talking about violence against women, in that they are talking about rape and domestic abuse. It just seems disproportionally talked about to other crimes. For the vast majority of crimes its male perpetrator/male victim, it just seems odd that such things are never brought up. Still a big problem with rape and domestic abuse as opposed to other crimes is their low conviction and report rates, it makes them special in that regard.

 

[Schadrach]

Also, To quote a post on another site I read with some frequency:

One Bureau of Justice Statistics? report(*) on prison rape I read a while ago calls it ?staff sexual misconduct? when there is sexual contact between prisoners and prison employees. The same report found out that a largest part of sexual abuse/violence/misconduct against male prisoners were from prison staff ? and the majority of those again were perpetrated by female staff.

Human Right?s Watch have criticised BJS of their use of the term ?staff sexual misconduct? (**).

By contrast the report found the opposite result for female prisoners ? the majority of sexual abuse/violence came from fellow inmates ? most of them other women (as only a very few of the surveyed facilities were co-ed and those who were did not have a higher rate of sexual abuse and violence than those who were not.

So it seems like what happens in prisons when it comes to sexual abuse/violence is markedly different than what the common perception is. Something one also has seen when it comes to DV and sexual abuse/violence outside aa prison context as well.

* http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/svpjri0809.pdf
** http://www.hrw.org/news/2007/12/15/us-federal-statistics-show-widespread-prison-rape

 

[DrgoFx]

I'm an equalist. I hate most feminist movements, I hate black history month, and other "minority" specific events. Why? Because they are focused on a single minority. I'm for everyone being equal, not one over the other. At the same time, since I believe everyone is equal, I believe everyone is equal to be made fun of...So I find minority jokes hilarious...It's a bad representation of myself, I know.

But I am for equality of everyone, not just a specific group and it's why I hate things that specify certain groups.

 

[DrgoFx]

Hey, I think there's a Privilege Denying Dude about this exact hang-up some people have.

If women can deal with it when I call them "dude," I can deal with it when the "hey, everyone, let's stop letting society tell us to be short-sighted dumbasses" movement is called "feminism."

Must...correct...improper...usage...of...word...

Mankind is not a sexist statement towards the word Man or Male. Mankind is a direct transfer from the word Human. Man derives from Human and Woman has the Wo because it is a Man with a Womb.

So from your standard of saying "MANKIND IS SEXIST." Then Human is sexist and we should call our species Sapiens, since Homo-Sapiens is linked to Homosexual.

Mankind is just a word. It just SO HAPPENS a word that describes a "Majority" has originates from it.

 

[DevilWithaHalo]

At the end, a couple of the people who saw the abuse happening were interviewed. Every single one of them took a very serious stance against female abuse but essentially brushed off all concerns when the female was the perpetrator.

Snip.

I?m quite amused by this; I?m not sure if you realize it represents the very ideas the video was attempting to address. Take a gander at it again? <youtube=cua11Rb_GG8>

First off, you?re attempting to classify the two instances differently due to the physical characteristics of the participants. Second, the notion that the reactions the victims were portrayed didn?t somehow relate to the gender stereotypes that already exist (a woman is distressed and a man can take it) and was more an issue with their acting abilities. And lastly, that the nature of it being public makes it less a matter of domestic abuse and more along the line of good old fashion general violence.

The minds behind the video didn?t draft any particular narrative other than basic instructions given to the actors. The intention was a ?broad? example of violence perpetrated against either sex at the hands of the opposite. Any narrative derived from it is an indication of how we as a society (and individuals) perceive the violence. In your case (and in the case of the other viewers interviewed after the fact), it was justified differently based on the criteria you already brought up.

Whether you want to admit it or not, it is clear that the female aggressor perpetuated more violence than the male did. Considering the verbal assaults were about equal (both talking down to their respective partners in an angry manner), the level of physical assaults were dramatically different. But hey, he guy was obviously guilty of something and was bigger than the woman.

 

[Squidbulb]

Violence is equally bad no matter what the gender. I guess it's mostly considered wrong because women are generally seen as the weaker sex, and therefore less able to protect themselves. The thing is, the fact that they can protect themselves doesn't make hitting them any better.