Have you seen Eve Ensler’s TED talk in November re Embracing Your Inner Girl, and how the crushing of the girl inside all of us–including men–leads to violence against women? It’s worth the 20 minutes of your life.

http://www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler_embrace_your_inner_girl.html
lynn @ human, being´s last blog ..Days of Grace: 303/365

The stats are important for their shock value, for giving people a rough estimate of the problem. They are never accurate because so many people are unwilling to acknowledge their victimization.
What I believe we need now is greater collaboration with men to fight violence against women.. there are many good, well meaning men who want to work against these crimes as well. The ‘movement” needs their voices.
It is such a complicated issue and brings so many voices, often critical and unhelpful. It saddens me to see that interpersonal violence continues at the rate it does, and seems in some ways to be tacitly condoned.
Thanks for daring to talk about it!!

At any rate, thanks for sharing this, Julie. I will take these words to heart and pass them along.
Amanda´s last blog ..Monkey Bars

Yes. Using questionable statistics throws doubt on every other statistic you cite. Good data is available and the reality of abuse is heinous; don’t damage your cause by being less than diligent about the facts. It only makes them easier to dismiss.

However, as Mark Twain said – “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics”.

The fact that we’re reporting statistics on a horrible problem does not justify unquestioned promotion of sensational, obviously flawed statistics. I’ve alluded to several specific examples,just tip-of-iceberg.
Sensational false stats lead to stereotyping of innocents, in this case a big way – and those deeply involved in this cause may not think about unintended consequences.

For example, the statistic that more men commit DV against women does *not* infer that the majority of men are violent brutes. However, on a daily basis the majority (gentle men) are indeed impacted by the stereotyping of a minority.

Consider a similar situation – profiling Muslims as terrorists. There are many ‘patriots’ out there willing to judge someone by their turban.

The question raised, if I understood was – “why worry about correctness of statistics, when there’s an urgent cause at stake?” I’m trying to offer an answer.
mark´s last blog ..NOW Plays ‘Violence Against Women’ Card Against Heisman Trophy Winner Tim Tebow

And – when I posted that I did not say anything about men being the abusers.

And – the agency where my mom and I both worked engaged frequently and standardly with men’s advocacy groups as well as GLBT groups. No one has said anywhere that this has anything to do with race, class or gender – it supersedes them all.

YET, statistically – it is men doing the beating.

Your suggestion that by talking about domestic violence the GOOD men are being hurt is INSANE. The good men can only be ‘gooder’ by speaking out against the abuse.

You probably sparked the anger by touching a sore spot: the statistics around domestic violence are shamelessly biased and misleading. Well-meaning and well-financed groups like Jane Doe fund studies which are designed to come up with shocking numbers, which are then used to justify sexist legislation like the VAWA (Violence Against Women Act).

Don’t mistake me – there are many batterers out there, who should be punished as harshly as possible.

However, they are a minority – not 50% of husbands, as Jane Doe or NOW would like everyone to think.

Think for a moment about the other side of this coin.
Females are responsible for a significant share of domestic violence too, and more of that against children, and with much higher lethality. If you omit the subjective “I felt threatened” category of psych abuse, the numbers are much closer to even by gender.

Now consider this: what if there were an act like VAWA, but instead of calling it “Violence (by men) Against Women”, it was “Violence (by blacks) Against Whites”?
Why not, give the statistics on crime?

I hope you see my point. People of all colors would be rightly outraged. And that’s why people of both genders ought to be outraged by how these DV zealots are destroying the prospects of good men to be good dads.

For more details and plenty of examples of the anti-male propaganda machine at work, check out
http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/

thanks.
mark´s last blog ..NOW Plays ‘Violence Against Women’ Card Against Heisman Trophy Winner Tim Tebow