men involved with domestic violence

[generals3]

No, I am not saying we need to be genetically altered silly. It should be considered that women are more likely to go for a weapon because they lack strength. If men think of the woman attacking as one with a weapon, they suddenly do not see her as weak at all.

But what if she doesn't have any, as in the video you shown? And what if people expect her to have one, will they just dare to jump in or call the cops? in which case you'd still have the issue where cops have been so pressured as to help the female victims from tha bad oppressing men they'll still be suspecting him.

They should recognize that abuse and violence is bad no matter who is doing it and take the woman more seriously as a threat.

In a physical conflict which doesn't involve weapons that will be extremely hard. And this still doesn't address the issue people are being drilled to believe men are the ones being evil oppressors towards women (because "patriarchy") and thus assumed to be the bad guys.

If it takes mentally picturing the woman with a weapon to accomplish this in your mind in order to perceive her as a threat, maybe they should do so rather than overlook the violence.

And how can you get people to force themselves to do that? I think that will require some hefty nasty propaganda which i'd rather not see.

What exactly are you suggesting, that men should defend themselves with violence?

If necessary yes. Self defence using proportionate violence is considered ok in any other scenario so why make an exception here?

That is going backwards rather than forwards.

Not really i don't think allowing someone to stand up against their aggressors is regression, that's progress.

We need to end the violence from both men and women, not add more to it.

Ideally yes. But the world isn't ideal. Ideally we would just magically get rid of crimes without having to take away people's freedoms, having cops shooting at certain types of people in certain scenarios, etc. But that's idealistic talk. You can (or should) always strive towards that ideal but you shouldn't dismiss certain solutions just because they're not fitting this idealistic utopia.

Instead of promoting violence, we should promote legal action against perpetrators of violence and offer more resources and protection to the victims of violence to help them get away from their attackers. This applies to both male and females.

I also suggested that. I suggested both because both are lacking. Both the ability of defending yourself and being able to rely on the Law to help you are necessary. The former is also necessary because the law isn't always there for you.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

A man has only 10-20% natural advantage in upper body strength.

*40-50% difference in upper body strength, 20-30% in lower body strength, 60-65% in hand grip strength (hand grip plays a huge role in physical domestic violence).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_human_physiology#Strength.2C_power_and_muscle_mass
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17186303
"The results of female national elite athletes even indicate that the strength level attainable by extremely high training will rarely surpass the 50th percentile of untrained or not specifically trained men."

Before someone says that males are more encouraged to do strength-training exercises, well that's the reality of things. I would argue that more women than ever before are getting into gyms or engage in at least some form of exercise (pilates, yoga, etc). Hell just walk into any modern gym today and you're bound to see tons of women. Go back a few decades and you wouldn't see that. If anything, strength training only further highlights the gap between male vs female body strength.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Domestic violence can happen to anyone.

To raise awareness for a particular kind of violence seems silly to me. Like raising money to cure breast cancer. Just raise money to cure cancer.

Cancer is a term covering various different diseases some of which need to be treated differently, so trying to cure "cancer" is like trying to cure "illness", its not specific enough.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Now I agree we may be armed to the teeth with confirmation bias, even so I was expecting to find a 24 hour men's hotline in the UK and was disappointed to see that I could not find one easily. I may have bias due to my experience with rape and abuse at the hands of men, but even I can see there should be a 24 hour hotline for men in need of help. There really is no excuse for that. I wish to actively help solve these problems but it is often hard to do when men keep screaming " womenz don't care about us!" when that simply is not true.

Sorry to hear about your trauma but... It took google 0.4 seconds to find like, a dozen male specific hotlines in the UK.

I did google search earlier in this thread ( see post #134 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.850952-men-involved-with-domestic-violence?page=4 ) and this link was the second link to appear:
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/domestic_abuse/where_to_get_help

The first link was for Women's shelters, so I nabbed the second one. It depends on your search terms and I used common terms used for someone looking for a shelter. Not sure the order or the exact words I used but it included "national domestic abuse shelter UK men".
Someone in danger and in a hurry clicks the link that said "where to get help for domestic violence- Shelter England" and sees they have to wait until " business hours" to receive help may do something rash or not seek help again. Why 24 hour hotlines would be listed for women on that site but not for men is a problem for men seeking help. They should list many hotlines if many exist, otherwise they are showing men in desperate situations they have no options. If there are many 24 hour domestic abuse shelter hotlines for men in the UK, that is great, however, they really need to work on how they make that known to men who may not put in the right search terms so that men can find them in seconds when they need them.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Stuff

I cannot agree that adding more violence helps anything in this situation, and only serves to escalate rather than solves the problems.

Instead we should pressure our officials to address this with the law and properly train police to respond accordingly to violence inflicted on men and expand understanding through education. We have to educate people that violence is bad no matter who is doing it, and make this socially unacceptable to " ignore it". These things can be done, and just as it is now often seen as unacceptable to abuse women, we can also make it unacceptable for women to abuse men. This can be resolved through education rather than through adding more violence.

 

[Asita]

Because it bears repeating, let's bring up the ABC video Lil devils X linked on the last page again.

Spoiler

Interesting watch...and kinda scary that one of the people recorded attested that she saw the actress's actions as something admirable and the other was a cop who happily admitted to thinking nothing of it as it stood but that had the tables been turned it would have been an open and shut case he'd readily intervene in. On the upside, the segment does also show a group of women who felt the situation warranted some intervention and a 911 call when it continued.

The trend of victim blaming in the middle does bear some special mention, however, as it may represent a more difficult aspect of this issue than the concept of 'credible threat'; which is to say the apparent de-facto presumption of male guilt in one form or another - with cheating being a notably frequent hypothesis - which is then used as a justification for the violence. We're very quick to condemn victim blaming when it's applied to women, with the popular retort being that "it's never the victim's fault", but we often fail to apply that to male victims, instead often viewing it as a kind of karmic justice even if we're unaware of any wrongdoing on his part. And if we do know of any wrongdoing on his part...well...


Honestly, if this isn't a primary cause for the double standard I'd venture to guess it's at least secondary and a perception that we have to fix if we want to fully fix the problem.

Captcha: "Only way to be sure"

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Fun thing: Apparently ABC News had a similar segment on this a few years ago.

Spoiler

Interesting watch...and kinda scary that one of the people recorded attested that she saw the actress's actions as something admirable and the other was a cop who happily admitted to thinking nothing of it as it stood but that had the tables been turned it would have been an open and shut case he'd readily intervene in. On the upside, the segment does also show a group of women who felt the situation warranted some intervention and a 911 call when it continued.


Captcha: "Only way to be sure"
...I like you today, captcha.

I posted that video on post#199 (Pg6 for me) on this thread and commented on it there. The most upsetting thing to me was the police officers reaction. Even calling 911 is unlikely for them to do anything.

 

[Asita]

I posted that video on post#199 on this thread and commented on it there. The most upsetting thing to me was the police officers reaction.

So you did...and I've got a post immediately below it too...and they were both just posted this afternoon...whelp, my brain was obviously on vacation there. *goes back to edit the post to something more constructive*

 

[UberPubert]

I don't know what to say to this. You are taking the apathy of violence against men and calling it misogyny. I guess anything can be twisted to become misogyny.

This... Is actually a pretty apt statement. Basically anything that's perceived as sexist is - I'm told - a result of patriarchy (and hence, misogyny).

And it's actually gotten me thinking: In the pursuit to bring aid and raise awareness of female victims of abuse in ways disproportionate to men, is feminism/are feminists actually reinforcing gender stereotypes?

While I've heard others refer to domestic and sexual abuse towards women as an "epidemic" among men as aggressive and violent, I'd imagine it'd actually be quite difficult for someone to be told the statistics and then shown the amount of money going into women's aid and shelters and not also come to conclusion that vulnerability and neediness are common traits among women.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I don't know what to say to this. You are taking the apathy of violence against men and calling it misogyny. I guess anything can be twisted to become misogyny.

This... Is actually a pretty apt statement. Basically anything that's perceived as sexist is - I'm told - a result of patriarchy (and hence, misogyny).

And it's actually gotten me thinking: In the pursuit to bring aid and raise awareness of female victims of abuse in ways disproportionate to men, is feminism/are feminists actually reinforcing gender stereotypes?

While I've heard others refer to domestic and sexual abuse towards women as an "epidemic" among men as aggressive and violent, I'd imagine it'd actually be quite difficult for someone to be told the statistics and then shown the amount of money going into women's aid and shelters and not also come to conclusion that vulnerability and neediness are common traits among women.

The thing is though that more men are attacking other men as well than are attacking women. Men are attacking BOTH other males and females far more than women attack anyone. Men are more likely to be murdered by other MEN. Men are committing 90% of all homicides. Females were most likely to be victims of domestic homicides (63.7%) and sex-related homicides (81.7%)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime

The idea that " vulnerability and neediness are common traits among women" is an incorrect conclusion to draw, rather than men need to learn to be less violent against other males and females. Women often refrain from fighting back. The reason more funding is allocated to women's resources is because more women volunteer and create charities for women to provide those resources. More women being victims of sexual attacks and serious injury or death in domestic violence also requires more resources to be allocated to women's resources for domestic and sexual abuse, however overall more men kill other men than they kill women.

"Males were more likely to be murder victims (76.8%)" By your logic then would that mean that "vulnerability and extreme violence are common traits among men"?

 

[UberPubert]

men need to learn to be less violent against other males and females

I'm consistently amused by how this proposition is worded, I had the same thought when "teach men not to rape" made it's rounds on the web. The act is illegal, is (demonstrably) stigmatized by society, every time it is discovered masculinity as a whole is frowned upon - and this has been true for centuries. What else would you propose society do?

The reason more funding is allocated to women's resources is because more women volunteer and create charities for women to provide those resources.

Because, coincidentally, women's abuse gets far more attention and is treated more seriously than men's...most notably, by these same women and organizations who are trying to rally support for women and children alone. By doing so, they contribute to the idea that women are more vulnerable and needy than men.

By your logic then would that mean that "vulnerability and extreme violence are common traits among men"?

But this isn't really "my" logic, is it? Do you really think the people on the street watching the woman beat up on the man refrained from helping because men are more violent, or because they thought women were more vulnerable? More helpless?

And what better way to reinforce the notion than to trumpet from the rooftops that women are being beaten all the time?

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

men need to learn to be less violent against other males and females

I'm consistently amused by how this proposition is worded, I had the same thought when "teach men not to rape" made it's rounds on the web. The act is illegal, is (demonstrably) stigmatized by society, every time it is discovered masculinity as a whole is frowned upon - and this has been true for centuries. What else would you propose society do?

Men being violent IS seen as acceptable by other men, that is part of the problem. Men often actually like being violent and find it exciting. My brothers for example, very much enjoyed beating the crap out of each other for fun. They did this for fun. "Brawling" is often viewed as good fun, and men elevate other men for being a "good fighter". Men often brag about how how they "beat a guy". The amount of importance males put on physical prowess is part of the problem when it is combined with anger. The combination of promoting " being a good fighter" and lack of teaching anger management is a recipe for disaster. Most men are not taught anger management nor understand the importance of learning it.

"Rape" is a joke among many men, and not stigmatized. That is why we still have major issues with things like 20 males raping an 11 year old girl:
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/21st-assailant-sentenced-in-Cleveland-gang-rape-4889262.php
or this:
"Police: As many as 20 present at gang rape outside school dance"
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/27/california.gang.rape.investigation/
or this:
"Family Gets Driven Out of Missouri Town After Daughter Gets Raped"
http://gawker.com/family-gets-driven-out-of-missouri-town-after-daughter-1444590830
When males are getting together in groups to rape women, there does not seem to be much peer pressure to stop it. In some circles, this is still seen as a "cool, fun and exciting" thing to do. Much more education needs to happen and more popular male role models have to educate the youth. We need peer pressure from the youth and role models to change this. We need more male volunteers, more men stepping up and speaking out and less males and females turning a blind eye.

I also think that instead of trying to portray women as "more weak" to draw in more predators, you should show the reality that this happens to both men and women and needs to stop.

 

[UberPubert]

Men being violent IS seen as acceptable by other men,

Maybe I should have clarified. You seem to be equating rough-housing between relatives as play to injuring other people out of malice. There is nothing wrong with wrestling with one another, physical competition between men is healthy physically, socially, and mentally.

"Rape" is a joke among many men, and not stigmatized. That is why we still have major issues with things like 20 males raping an 11 year old girl

Really? Jokes lead to pedophilia and gang rapes? Do I really have to point out how joking about something is not the same as endorsing it? And is absolutely not a prelude to acting upon it?

When males are getting together in groups to rape women, there does not seem to be much peer pressure to stop it.

In between fellow rapists? No, I don't suppose there would be, but the vast majority of people are not rapists and happen to frown upon that thing, by definition it is stigmatized.

Much more education needs to happen and more popular male role models have to educate the youth. We need peer pressure from the youth and role models to change this. We need more male volunteers, more men stepping up and speaking out and less males and females turning a blind eye.

So, in addition to rape and violence being illegal, frowned upon by society, and derided as masculine behavior, we need to teach more men that it is still illegal, have masculine figures deride it, and then have more people frown upon it?

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Men being violent IS seen as acceptable by other men,

Maybe I should have clarified. You seem to be equating rough-housing between relatives as play to injuring other people out of malice. There is nothing wrong with wrestling with one another, physical competition between men is healthy physically, socially, and mentally.

"Rape" is a joke among many men, and not stigmatized. That is why we still have major issues with things like 20 males raping an 11 year old girl

Really? Jokes lead to pedophilia and gang rapes? Do I really have to point out how joking about something is not the same as endorsing it? And is absolutely not a prelude to acting upon it?

When males are getting together in groups to rape women, there does not seem to be much peer pressure to stop it.

In between fellow rapists? No, I don't suppose there would be, but the vast majority of people are not rapists and happen to frown upon that thing, by definition it is stigmatized.

Much more education needs to happen and more popular male role models have to educate the youth. We need peer pressure from the youth and role models to change this. We need more male volunteers, more men stepping up and speaking out and less males and females turning a blind eye.

So, in addition to rape and violence being illegal, frowned upon by society, and derided as masculine behavior, we need to teach more men that it is still illegal, have masculine figures deride it, and then have more people frown upon it?

My brothers "rough housing" included broken bones, dislodged teeth, blood, bruises, and sometimes included weapons. Yes they did THIS for fun. Oddly, they were not alone, The things I saw guys do in college at parties "for fun" to each other could have gotten someone killed. My brothers beat the crap out of each other, guys at parties cut each other with razor blades flinging blood everywhere, the rough housing often includes anger not just " horsing around".

No, we do not need to just teach men it is "illegal", in fact, teaching someone that something is illegal is the least of the concerns, most KNOW it is illegal, many things are illegal and people still do them because often being illegal means it is "rebellious" and "cool". People should not do things simply because they are " illegal" but because they view it as wrong. It being illegal adds an additional level of excitement rather than helps deter. It has to be shown as "uncool" by the toughest, roughest guys rather than just by the "goody two shoes". Guys do drugs, run stoplights, speed, to not be goody two shoes, to be rebellious, to go against the grain, but tough men would have to pressure other men to think they are " lame" or " stupid" to rape. There is a difference. Until society does that it will still be a big problem. It has to have it's power removed by showing it to be " lame."

Although "wider adult society" shows rape to be a bad thing, the youth are still not seeing rape as "lame." "Rape that *****" is still seen as cool and funny. That is what has to change.

"I had to rape his b*tch cause the hoe was stacked
I f*cked her from the back, with my gun to her back
I left up out his crib, with dolla and purple hat" - DJ Paul"
http://smokingsection.uproxx.com/TSS/2013/04/50-absurd-rape-lyrics#page/1
This is still being promoted as " cool"

 

[UberPubert]

the rough housing often includes anger not just " horsing around".

And if that's your personal experience that's unfortunate, but I've never heard of or experienced it before. Worst thing I've ever encountered is mosh pits and bruising was the absolute worst of it. What you're relaying is by no means a societal standard, and how could it be? The majority of men would have to be crippled and scarred by the time they reached adulthood, if they were even that lucky.

No, we do not need to just teach men it is "illegal"

What's up with the air quotes? There's no mincing words here, it's just as illegal as any other crime with serious consequences.

"rebellious" and "cool"

You sound like you're reading off a pamphlet for an anti-drug officer's presentation at my middle school. And with drugs, I have never heard anyone say they want to do these things because they wanted to be rebellious or cool, most people I hear it from say their friends were already doing it and they wanted to fit in or, quite simply, "It felt good" and they were exposed to it at an age where they either didn't understand or didn't care about the long-term consequences.

Serious violent and sexual assault perpetrators are naturally rarer and so I can't speak from personal experience on them, but from friends the sentiment is about the same: Violence is a last resort, rape is only ever acceptable in joke form, and not intended for polite conversation.

 

[chikusho]

For you, an attack of a man by a woman and nobody stepping in to help the man is less about people not caring about violence against men and more about the status of women. Does a man have to die before he becomes a priority?

It IS about the status of a woman because if you had a man beating the crap out of another man, people would be worried. Women are seen so low that people think it is comical, like if a baby were to be attacking him. Until societies views of women as equals becomes more widespread this will continue to be the case. when you look at who finally comes to the mans aid in this video, it is strong women who see the woman as an equal, not the men coming to help him because they do not perceive her as a threat.

Not even the male officer wanted to help him, but the women finally did.

I don't know what to say to this. You are taking the apathy of violence against men and calling it misogyny. I guess anything can be twisted to become misogyny.

Do a quick word search here buddy. You're the only one who's mentioning misogyny in this exchange. And quite frankly, that smells like a victim complex to me.
To put it simply, if women were respected in society the same way that men are, mens abuse by women would be taken more seriously by everyone. If you can't consider that as a valid viewpoint, it seems to me you are just looking at this as an "us vs them" situation, and that's really not helping anyone.

 

[generals3]

My brothers "rough housing" included broken bones, dislodged teeth, blood, bruises, and sometimes included weapons. Yes they did THIS for fun. Oddly, they were not alone, The things I saw guys do in college at parties "for fun" to each other could have gotten someone killed. My brothers beat the crap out of each other, guys at parties cut each other with razor blades flinging blood everywhere, the rough housing often includes anger not just " horsing around".

Well i just want to say not all men, at all, are like that. I personally never encountered that attitude. Neither at home, among friends, in highschool nor college. Maybe it's a cultural thing and in the US this is still more "in" or something like that but i'd be careful as to conclude things about general male attitude based on that.

People should not do things simply because they are " illegal" but because they view it as wrong. It being illegal adds an additional level of excitement rather than helps deter.

Technically what is illegal is supposed to be wrong. And usually the teaching of what is wrong starts there, with the law stating it. Now whether that is enough is another thing.

Although "wider adult society" shows rape to be a bad thing, the youth are still not seeing rape as "lame." "Rape that *****" is still seen as cool and funny. That is what has to change.

I'd say that again depend heavily on who. I never had the feeling anyone around me considered "rape" to be cool. But maybe that's because my environment always consisted of upper social classes citizens?

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

the rough housing often includes anger not just " horsing around".

And if that's your personal experience that's unfortunate, but I've never heard of or experienced it before. Worst thing I've ever encountered is mosh pits and bruising was the absolute worst of it. What you're relaying is by no means a societal standard, and how could it be? The majority of men would have to be crippled and scarred by the time they reached adulthood, if they were even that lucky.

No, we do not need to just teach men it is "illegal"

What's up with the air quotes? There's no mincing words here, it's just as illegal as any other crime with serious consequences.

"rebellious" and "cool"

You sound like you're reading off a pamphlet for an anti-drug officer's presentation at my middle school. And with drugs, I have never heard anyone say they want to do these things because they wanted to be rebellious or cool, most people I hear it from say their friends were already doing it and they wanted to fit in or, quite simply, "It felt good" and they were exposed to it at an age where they either didn't understand or didn't care about the long-term consequences.

Serious violent and sexual assault perpetrators are naturally rarer and so I can't speak from personal experience on them, but from friends the sentiment is about the same: Violence is a last resort, rape is only ever acceptable in joke form, and not intended for polite conversation.

Maybe it is a regional " rough house" thing? The guys I knew growing up were more like Marshall and his brothers from how I met your mother:

"illegal" is it is technically illegal, but some seem to still think it is fun or exciting. No, people do not say those words LOL.Why someone does something may not always be the words they use. They say they do it for fun, a release, the rush or they didn't want to look stupid in front of their friends. Just think how many of those 20 kids who raped that 11 year old girl did it only because the other guys did it? If the other guys hadn't done it, chances are most of them wouldn't have been pressured into it, all it takes is one guy they perceive as cool to change their perception. Violence is far from the last resort here in the DFW metroplex in Texas. We have cartels, gangs and fight clubs all over the place. In the schools here you cannot even wear two different colored shoe laces or bracelets because people show gang colors that way. Rape jokes are not okay when they are part of the condoning and acceptance of rape. How do you take away it's power when guys think it is funny to rape someone as a form of punishment?

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

My brothers "rough housing" included broken bones, dislodged teeth, blood, bruises, and sometimes included weapons. Yes they did THIS for fun. Oddly, they were not alone, The things I saw guys do in college at parties "for fun" to each other could have gotten someone killed. My brothers beat the crap out of each other, guys at parties cut each other with razor blades flinging blood everywhere, the rough housing often includes anger not just " horsing around".

Well i just want to say not all men, at all, are like that. I personally never encountered that attitude. Neither at home, among friends, in highschool nor college. Maybe it's a cultural thing and in the US this is still more "in" or something like that but i'd be careful as to conclude things about general male attitude based on that.

People should not do things simply because they are " illegal" but because they view it as wrong. It being illegal adds an additional level of excitement rather than helps deter.

Technically what is illegal is supposed to be wrong. And usually the teaching of what is wrong starts there, with the law stating it. Now whether that is enough is another thing.

Although "wider adult society" shows rape to be a bad thing, the youth are still not seeing rape as "lame." "Rape that *****" is still seen as cool and funny. That is what has to change.

I'd say that again depend heavily on who. I never had the feeling anyone around me considered "rape" to be cool. But maybe that's because my environment always consisted of upper social classes citizens?

Gangsta Rap is a big problem in the US with it's popularity and it's promotion of rape. Many youth, even from wealthy families here think gangsta culture is cool, hopefully soon it will be on it's way out because it has been detrimental to trying to combat rape culture among youth. The kids look up to these guys seeing them as tough and cool and that makes it that much harder to trying to show that rape is cowardly and lame. It is an uphill battle when popular artists kids idolize promote these things.

EDIT: I do not think you start by teaching something is illegal, I see teaching that it is illegal was a consequence of it being wrong and people made it illegal as a result of people not tolerating it. You start by teaching them why something is harmful and why people made it illegal rather than saying, "it is wrong because it is illegal". There are plenty of things that are wrong that are perfectly legal, you still teach they are wrong regardless of legality. Being illegal is just one of the possible effects of something being wrong.

 

[chikusho]

I'd say that again depend heavily on who. I never had the feeling anyone around me considered "rape" to be cool. But maybe that's because my environment always consisted of upper social classes citizens?

Gangsta Rap is a big problem in the US with it's popularity and it's promotion of rape. Many youth, even from wealthy families here think gangsta culture is cool, hopefully soon it will be on it's way out because it has been detrimental to trying to combat rape culture among youth. The kids look up to these guys seeing them as tough and cool and that makes it that much harder to trying to show that rape is cowardly and lame. It is an uphill battle when popular artists kids idolize promote these things.[/quote]

I think you're waaay off if you think gangsta rap is at the heart of the issue.
No one would look up to gangsta rap and it's supposed rape culture and take it at face value if they came from a stable environment in the first place.
Gangsta rap as a phenomenon is only a result of the real life mentalities that already exist within society. The lust for power, domination and ownership of other people is not a product of rap lyrics. And if gangsta rap didn't exist you'd probably be calling for another symptom to be addressed rather than the actual disease.