[dlmetcalf]

He's not misrepresenting the DV policy when Turnbull makes comments like, quote: "domestic violence - which is just violence against women". 40% of DV homicide victims in Australia are male and 20% are children (52% of those kids killed by women). That's from Australian Institute of Criminology (2015) on 10 years of official National Homicide Monitoring Program data. Women aren't even the majority of DV homicide victims in Australia - and homicides are at the extreme end of gendered violence - let alone DV being exclusively against women. Yet DV funding & research in Australia is exclusively for women. ANROWS, WLS, White Ribbon, OurWatch, DV NSW & Vic (which are really Women's refuge, just renamed), etc etc. all have officially gender discriminatory chartered mandates and act accordingly. Funding isn't put towards "reducing DV" and assigned proportionately to injury or anything. It's assigned for "reducing DV against women", ONLY (or maybe 'women and their children', as if fathers simply don't exist). In NSW for instance, the DV portfolio isn't part of Health or Justice, but is officially owned by "Women NSW" (a genuine matriarchy). Now feminism is all well and good when in cases where it truly is about equal rights, fair opportunities, etc. But that's not what's going on here.

DV has become massively politicised, and if you can't recognise that, when a $30M media campaign is announced within 24 hours of a Federal election, then you're not paying attention. The DV agenda in Australia is far more about helping Turnbull look different to Abbott, because LNP was (rightfully) hemorrhaging in female voter polls. Every other party to the Left has just been trying to out-do him on that since.

If you're genuinely interested in reducing harm against women, then I recommend taking into account data like https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/.

Australia is not PNG. Our DV problem is not caused by gender pay inequality etc. Neither is that the cause in most advanced economies (look at Scandinavian countries with up to 50% of women reporting DV, which having the highest rates of gender equality in pay, opportunities, etc in the world).

I agree first-wave feminism had a lot to fight for. I agree there's still issues for gender equality in Australia. But we're also completely ignoring other gender inequalities, like that 20% more women are graduating from universities today than men, while the overwhelming number of gender-based scholarships here still exclusively support women.

Australia has a long way to go before it starts truly understanding what being anti gender discrimination actually means. "The standard you want past is the standard you accept", should also imply a single standard. When we talk about violence being cause by a lack of respect in relationships, we should be dealing with that by building mutual respect, not just building more gender divides. There's no discussion at all of the impact of psychological abuse in DV relationships against men, despite there being more male suicides every week than all the women killed in DV here each year. Nor is there of plenty of other issues related to DV.

I'm aware this is particularly sensitive topic in IT, because I know discrimination against women still exists in a lot of companies. I've witnessed it more in private companies than public ones, but can attest that it varies WIDELY between companies. There's times when I've even sought to hire women over men, for the sole reason that some environments were severely unbalanced, that it was harming performance. There's also cases though where it goes the other way, including that women are generally paid more than males upon graduation in this industry (maybe the ones who make it through are better, but who knows).

Anyway, I just think the whole discussion needs to be FAR more nuanced than what we've seen across media and government.

[vacri]

You are making the mistake of assuming that DV is only represented by homicide counts. It's a bit like those anti-abortion campaigners who only use third-trimester abortion as their talking point, when third-trimester abortion accounts for less than 0.1% of abortions. Using the extreme case in place of the general case doesn't do anyone any favours. Your link does point out that violence swings both ways and that women tend to be the more violent partner, but it also points out that women are more likely to be injured. Men aren't getting dangerously injured by DV to the point where there's enough to support several battered men's shelters in every major city.

And you know something? "So what"? So what if women get this one in their favour? Who really gives a fuck? Men get plenty of other things in their favour, let the women 'win' one for once. I never see this kind of impassioned reasoning and stats-counting from men arguing for things that benefit women. Women's sport funding is an absolute joke in comparison to men's funding in this country, but I don't see frothy stats about that. Similarly there are government awareness programs targeting men's depression that women don't get. And is 20% more women graduating uni really that much of an advantage, given that men heavily outgun women in trades apprenticeships (more lucrative than many uni degrees, certainly more lucrative than mine), and degrees mean less and less as time goes on?

You talk about building respect, but you're also arguing against any effort that's not totally even-handed if it benefits women. Targeted campaigns work, and there's no reason why we can't have one for men in the future, but seriously, by demanding perfect you are being the enemy of good.

Yes, there's sexism against men. I remember in my early twenties when a woman who liked me punched me on the arm so hard it left a sizable bruise. I didn't mention it, because as a man you're 'supposed to just take it', and of course if I did the opposite it'd make the entire pub fall silent. Likewise, a hippy acquaintance of mine says that he feels like he can't watch children play in the park because people act like he's a paedophile, when he's just enjoying kids having fun. That doesn't mean we should mope about government initiatives because they don't target us. Do you decry any assistance aborigines get that white folks don't? Think that Abstudy is unfair compared to Austudy? Do you decry language assistance to immigrants because aussies don't get assistance to learn foreign languages?

I fully support the anti-domestic-violence ads, because they get this distasteful topic out into the open and overtly say "this is not on". I don't care that it's targeted to violence against women. It's a good thing in and of itself (the ads, not the violence :) ), and whether or not it's politically motivated is beside the point of the good it can do. And if you want actual gender equality, that means giving up a lot of things that us men take for granted, like the aforementioned sports funding.

Perhaps a better way for me to put it is this: stop whiteanting things that women have built to better their lot, and do something to better men's lot (or everyone's lot). I see this in a lot of complaints that men have about gender bias against men - they only start talking when women succeed at getting a project off the ground. I have never seen a man talk about DV in a public forum without DV against women starting that conversation, and a decade ago I used to do the same thing: pointing out DV against men and supplying links, but only in response to discussion of DV against women. Thing is though, those projects to help people do take a lot of work, and they're better for society in general. So instead of decrying the ones that do exist, people should promote ones that aren't off the ground yet if they feel there's an imbalance. Do something constructive for the men (or for all), rather than destroying something for the women. Inevitably the "what about the men" is forgotten about until the next time a women's initiative takes off. So rather than say "God, that's sexist!", say "Fucking about time we got into a public discussion about DV and how to stop it!". Talking about DV doesn't mean we can't also talk about mental health, and it may even help strengthen the push to improve mental health.

I do agree that the topic is more nuanced, but the media, government, and general public aren't into talking that level of nuance (to whit: One Nation is going to get two senators and possibly a lower house seat, and Hanson makes Trump look educated).

[vacri]

I should probably clarify and TL;DR a bit - I don't think you personally are coming from a place of "what about the menz", but out of a sense of fairness. I felt the same a decade ago when I did the same thing - these discussions 'aren't fair'. But I also didn't do anything about it afterwards, despite my passionate words, and the net effect of stopping a program like this would be a disadvantage to both sides.

Ultimately, the anti-DV ads here in Australia can't be gamed for advantage. A cunning woman can't game being hit less to gain advantage over men. No man is going to lose his chance at employment or education because a woman was beaten less. It's not a zero-sum game. We can have the dialogue about DV against men separately to this one about women; even though there is some overlap, the general experience is different. The men's DV discussion also necessarily includes getting men to open up about emotions more; be more willing to ask for personal help and so forth.

But the final TL;DR is that this particular program is not much of a vehicle for one gender to gain significant advantage over the other.

[dlmetcalf]

> "And you know something? \"So what\"? So what if women get this one in their favour? Who really gives a fuck? "

Maybe the rest of the family of kids who women bludgeoned to death, burnt alive, cut into pieces, stuffed down drains etc (all recent cases here). Maybe also the guys who've been stabbed a few too many times, hit in the back of the head with frying pans, etc.

p.s. Hospital record audits show extremely similar injuries for both genders from DV in Australia, with the exception that men present with more lacerations (because women use weapons more) and women present with slightly more bruising (because men rarely present unless life threatening). The only likely exception to that is Aboriginal communities, with somewhat different traditional gender roles (women at significantly higher risk) than the wider population and more commonly impacted by poverty, drugs & alcohol etc.

[vacri]

> You are making the mistake of assuming that DV is only represented by homicide counts.

I'm just going to quote myself here. You're both arguing from outliers and arguing from emotion.

Hell, fuck it. You win. The anti-DV campaign should stop because it's not completely even-handed. Fuck those infants beaten to death because their dads can't hear the footy. We should close down all the battered women's shelters as well. Those beaten humans with broken bones in their face are clearly benefitting at the expense of us males. Never mind that we can use success with anti-DV for women as a springboard for anti-DV for men, getting it into the public dialogue.

After all, if we can't help everyone, then we shouldn't help anyone. Absolutely no step of the way shouldn't ever be even-handed. That would be unfair.

[dlmetcalf]

Was that you who flagged me for quoting your expletives? Or are you flagging me for quoting AIC 2015 data on 10 years on NHMP and case notes?

[dlmetcalf]

And NO you can't use it as a springboard by socially engineering misandry and prejudice. You only springboard MORE violence by (1) complerely ignoring that women are starting the vast majority of it (2) telling those women to keep going because it's only DV when a man retaliates and too late.

[dlmetcalf]

So White Ribbon Australia was a women's initiative now (before they entirely took it over and turned it against men)? Well that's some nice rewriting of history.

Maybe a few more women should be focusing on what THEY can do to reduce their contribution to violence too, rather than just expecting men to do that for them.

If you want to know what women actually did to get DV shelters off the ground, then I highly recommend you do some research on who Erin Pizzey is (who founded the whole movement) and what she thinks of the situation.

[vacri]

Ah, you are actually a "what about teh menz" commentor.

Do you even see the irony of "women should see what they can do rather than expect men to do it for them" immediately before telling me to go and research the woman who started the first refuge? I mean, you're clearly comfortable using single data points to make arguments, so why do you do a self-goal like that?

[dlmetcalf]

White Ribbon. Started by men.

Women's refuge movement (and the Refuge organisation), started by a woman who is appalled at what feminists have done with it, because most of the women sheltered turn out to be violent themselves (and often more so than the men).

[dlmetcalf]

I wouldn't call WR 'one data point' when it's by FAR the most recognised product brand name in DV.