Leaving aside killings by nonparents or by mothers and fathers acting together, mothers committed almost three-quarters of the parental murders of children. If one includes murders by mothers and fathers acting together, the ratio is 2 to 1 committed by mothers.

I would post the little graph (its figure 4-2 if you get the report) but I dont think it would post here. And if you look at figure 3-5 of the same report you would see that leaving aside abuse by nonparents or by mothers and fathers acting together, mothers committed almost three-quarters of child abuse.

To quote Dr. Christine Hatchard:

In our society, mothers are automatically given special status, and certain characteristics, such as “nurturing, caring, protective” are attributed to them. The truth is, at her core, a mother is a woman and a human being, and like any other human being, is capable of the same range of violence, hate and autonomous behavior. To view women or mothers any differently, is to not realize their full potential as human beings, for better or for worse.

So maybe in Aus thing are different than here, I don’t know. What I do know is that the 90% of DV is committed by men has been and continues to be debunked. In California they just recently had a case where the Appellate Court ruled that excluding men from DV shelters that receive state funding was unconstitutional. Numerous experts testified that Domestic Violence against men is a serious but hidden problem and they explained that although men report it less than women, empirical survey data consistently shows women are at least as violent as men in relationships, and that men suffer one-third of injuries. Guess some folks here have kept up on their readings

“the abuser threw objects “out of frustration” the proponet of that position is excusing the behavior. One NEVER accepts this argument when the abuser is male and the female has a contusion on her forehead..” You’ve not understood what I was writing about. With this I meant that women display their frustration more readily than men and will throw something to control a situation. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to throw and smash something in an effort to control a woman. I did not offer any form of ‘excusability’ of that action. But the point was to show the different motivation, and the different effects it has.

“It is hard to believe that woman kill for the same reasons as men., but they do. Men and women are far more alike than different. Men and women suffer the same mental illnesses and character disorders”

In regards to the reasons - but they don’t. And women and men, generally, don’t share the same personality disorders either. I thought I’d made that clear in my post, although you say you read it all.

And for you to continue along this line of women and men being more alike than we care to admit, tells me you’re not up to date with reading research reports on women’s use of violence and men’s. The motivations and effects are glaringly dissimiliar.

And as for anyone who dispels the 90% (BS? figure of women being victims of men’s domestic violence) then I suggest you take a look at the reports to the Canadian Coroners Office, by the Domestic Homicide Review Team, Province of Ontario 2006 Report. Then come back and refute the 90% figure, because you will, because in their statistics of domestic homicide over the 3 year period women are victims 95% of the time.

This guy Hamel sounds like a male supremacist. His idea of being equal is to cast blame onto women who are the victims 90% of the time.

I hear and read this BS 90% on a regular basis, but and this is a big but, whenever these types of people are asked to produce anything the slightly resembles the 90% number they back off and call people names;
this 90% is bogus and the people that support it are a threat to children.

Advocate

All humans experience frustration, fear, grief, disappointment, anger…however…we should be raising our children, both male and females, that feelings do not justify or excuse behavior. And there should be the SAME consequence to both offenders when they are young…not sympathy and understanding afforded girls and punishment given to boys.

Even if past abuse were the case, assaultive behavior in the here and now can’t be justified because of past incidents. This arguement is used in court to defend women who kill their spouses, but there are rare cases when it has actually been proven that the woman had suffered years of severe abuse (battered woman syndrome). What is intetreseting is that these women often are not convicted whether there had been historic abuse or not. The same is not true for men. Juries have a hard time believing that a woman would pull out a shot gun and shoot her sleeping husband unless there was a justifiable reason. It is hard to believe that woman kill for the same reasons as men., but they do. Men and women are far more alike than different. Men and women suffer the same mental illnesses and character disorders.

Any “yeah but…” or “thats because” arguments offered to explain female violence tells me there is significasnt denial going on by those who make these statements “explaining” female violence. And no amount of hard evidence will dissuade those individuals. They simply don’t want to believe it. It is that very denial that lead to the genocide of 6 million jews in WWII….the world didn’t WANT to believe it

Jan Brown is correct. The majority of shelters do not allow male victims, as I also so stated earlier. Both Jan and I work in this field. Citizens tax dollars pay for those shelters. This is about protecting turf and money. The argument is often that if we divide up the domestic violence treatment resources (money) to include men, then it will take away services for women. A similar argument was put forth in poor communities in the South over extending services to blacks….”well, after we take care of all the poor white folks then we’ll take care of the poor black folks.” If it hadn’t been for civil rights movement blacks would still be waiting.
Discrimination is discrimination no matter how it is presented.

AS to RO or FAPA orders, SAFE has proposed some changes to the system that would preserve the protection aspect while reducing the number of illegitimate restraining orders. (too lengthy to include here) These could also work in Australia’s courts.

Sheila
Stop Abuse For Everyone (SAFE)

Social studies just do not support the opinion that women use the courts to get at men, they don’t, it’s an incredibly long-winded and unsuccesful way to get a man if a woman is inclined to do so. And the studies from Canada also state emphatically that it’s the perceptions of the genders about IPV that end up with skewed results in the reports, the men partake in minimising and the women report a heightened sense of fear, PLUS it’s also proven that 98% of the cases that go through the courts are FUNDAMENTALLY valid. And as a by the way, that same figure, 98% goes for abuse reported by children, their reports are proven to be 98% FUNDAMENTALLY valid.

Society has a whole doesn’t grasp DV even towards women most of time. There are myths and stereotypes all over the place towards this issue. If they can’t grasp the real bottlenecks behind what they are presently doing in regards to what they feel is the ‘real’ victims - what happens to everyone else that can’t seem to acknowledge at all? Everyone loses.

Men and ladies are raised that it’s okay to grow up with this root of rage within them, and they have every right to gush it all over anyone that pushes their buttons. They get placed in these ‘anger management’ courses, and that doesn’t even touch the root of their issues! LOL and people wonder WHY isn’t not working! I mean DAHHHHH!

I don’t believe in this women always get a free ride, and men always go to jail opinion either. I have seen to many people of both genders basically get screwed by the court system, and the courts seem to think they don’t need education on this issue. I have seen to many churches tell spouses to either submit more to their husband, or love their wife more as if its some magic pixie dust to make it all better.

Domestic violence for the most part is this white elephant in the living room, and no one really wants to tackle it. You have some very dedicated people that will fight until their dying days, but unless you can get the world to listen nothing will change.

That phone call to the DV shelter by the police officer makes me sick! How often do the courts hand over children to those that are known to be violent, because they said THEY haven’t been voilent towards the children YET! This world is in denial, because its not gender that is the victim here. Its everyone.

I know shelters that will not allow families with boys over a certain age to come within its walls - due to their guidelines - but they find them other places. I also know they do the same for men that call. Thank goodness not all places are as ignorant as that DV place mentioned in the article!

Unless people live under a rock somewhere they should know that violence is a human issue - not a gender one! It seems denial will always rate higher than any stats that are placed before them. I don’t think the stats will do it personally. LOL I haven’t figure out a better way, but that presentation hasn’t done so well with this issue in the past!

People that abuse are broken, sad people! They are enabled because of fear, and people not wanting to get involved! You see cases all the time that are plain as the nose on your face what is going on, and yet people do and say the damnest things so they don’t have to deal with it.

Violence of this sort isn’t going away until the world wishes to deal with it. Whom violates more often, and under what circumstances isn’t going to change a thing. WHen people start asking, “Why do they do that?”, and are willing to really DIVE into that aspect maybe stats on different realms can help to combat this awful issue that they world ignores. Anyone can answer that question with BECAUSE THEY ARE SICK, but whom will go past that part?

Not to many sadly. They just watch as the cycle continues, and think complaining about it does the trick. Sighhhhh!

We need RO, but it needs reform for lots of reasons. Primarily because no evidence, other than testimony by the alleged victim is required. This of course is not the standard in ANY other criminal or civil proceeding.

Few DV shelters allow men or their children to enter, although publically they claim they do

BIP (batterer intervention programs) also need reform. The prevalanet theory by which BIP’s operate is based on the patriarcy theory which proposes that male violence occurs because of the male’s need for “power and control.” Few BIP include “treatment” for women batterers because those who designed and run the programs believe that if a woman assaulted a man it had to be 1) self defense or 2) that a woman finally snapped after years of abuse. In reality of violent, abusive behavior, the same human psychological dynamic exists regardless of gender.
Bottom line: BIP patriarcial theory of male violence resulting from ” power and control,” overlook the fact that most crime requires the perpetrator to exert “power and contol” inorder to successfully commit the crime.

As to the research on DV, there is a body of research indicating that mutual battering occurs 50% of the time. If you look at Department of human services records in ANY state (public records available on the Internet) mothers are most often the majority batterers and abusers of children. And how can patriarcy theory explain lesbian interpartner violence?

If you look at criminal assaults in general in the US, men perpetrate 75% of assaults, and 75% of victims of assault are male. So in that regard men are more often the perpetrator and more often the victim of violent crime. Looking at assaults of the last few years, however, the number of women perps is increasing while male assaults have dropped. (US crime Index)

Unfortunately, political agenda, money, the courts and the treatment programs have enabled women perpetrators: the message to violent women is….you may continue the behavior.

What we have to ask ourselves is this: What is the consequence for children, families, men and WOMEN if we continue down the same path of enabling one group of perpetrators? The good news is…the tide is slowly turning. Those protecting turf instead seeking justice for all, are losing “power and control” of the DV system.
Sheila
SAFE

In my home state of Queensland, for example, the rate of protection orders being sought and/or obtained for women against men as compared to those sought and/or obtained for men against women is about 9 to 1. There is either an explanation that men are 9 times less likely to report matters and take action (making the amounts about the same) or the rate of domestic violence by men to women at least in my patch is much much higher than the reverse.

What is most important is that rather than treating people by the numbers, each case when it comes before a court is properly heard and the parties are given a fair hearing, so that the truth can properly be found, without preconceptions of what ought to have happened (as opposed to what actually happened) and so the person who may need protection is able to get it.

No matter what the ratios — no matter which gender is more victimized than the other — each PARTICULAR person needs the benefit of public services like law enforcement against violent behavior — whoever the perpetrator is. When police arrive on the scene and one victim is standing there bloody or bruised while the other is not, in my opinion it doesn’t matter what the “context” was prior to the physical violence. If the physically violent person thinks they were entitled to do violence because they were “afraid,” then what they should have done is gotten the heck out of there. But do not expect the same out of the victim of the physical violence — the victim has no moral obligation to leave, and should have no safety imperative to leave either. Law enforcement should arrest and prosecute the physical abuser.