Manipulating The Stats
By: Sarah J. Baker
Tags: Feminism, Women, Domestic Violence, Society And Culture, Mens Rights Activists

Sadly the fact that, in Australia, a woman dies as a result of male violence once a week is irrefutable. We are 22 weeks into 2020 and as of yesterday, 23 women have died as a result of male violence, predominantly intimate partner violence (IPV).

In this same period, three men have been killed by women.

But this is not just anecdotal, a random or convenient snapshot that supports the reality of male perpetrated violence against women. It is a consistent number that is supported through multiple sources of reputable and official data collection, research, and reports.

In 2019 the number stood at 62 women and 10 men.

In 2018 it was 72 women, 10 men.

The ratios are the same year in, year out. The reality of male violence against women is real and far exceeds the rate of men dying at the hands of women.

And this brings me to what is singularly the biggest, most harmful, and most rage-inducing misrepresentation of facts…

“Violence has no gender.”

It is the catchphrase of one particular MRA pages that veil its misogyny under the guise of seeking to support ALL victims of violence. But it is in fact the most desperate, dangerous, and disingenuous attempt of all to erase and silence female victims of violence.

Domestic Violence Awareness Australia (DVAA) … sounds legit right? It isn’t. Though its schmick little Wixx website attempts to further that deception and give it the appearance of legitimacy as “Australia’s most accurate and reliable domestic violence count” where the “data is collected and verified by [none other but itself].”

DVAA , or more aptly referred to as Disingenuous Violence Awareness Australia, is an MRA page that was set up to challenge the Counting Dead Women project; a project that seeks to track and remember the names of every woman whose life is cut short by the violence of men. Their numbers are updated in real-time and displayed on the cover image of their Facebook page, Destroy the Joint.

The aim of DVAA is to provide the counter-argument that “violence has no gender” by also keeping a tally with the intention of showing that gendered violence is nothing more than a feminist construct. To do this they tally not just the women who have died, but also the children, and of course the men.

Now, if you were to engage in the laborious task of scrolling through their page you would find that their “violence has no gender” message is delivered by an extremely unbalanced presentation of violence by gender, but the gender they are drawing attention to is female.

I managed to get through 153 posts on their Facebook page before my brain and laptop battery shut down. What I discovered in this claimed gender-neutral and balanced page though is worth sharing.

Out of a total of 153 posts, 84 were negatively focused on women. They included news articles from around the world displaying female violence such as women fighting over toilet paper, yelling racist abuse, or leaving children in cars. Where possible there was even a news report of a woman killing a man. As expected there were memes criticizing the Duluth Model, and even more memes criticizing feminism.

You might think that being a page that promotes the concept that “violence has no gender” that the other 69 posts would be negatively focused on men right? Wrong. The other 69 posts were random uplifting quotes on things like believing in oneself, and tips on how to have a successful relationship. There were a few memes promoting men in their roles as fathers and images listing men’s support services. Lots of posts praised public figures who support their non-gendered view of violence and claim that women lie about rape and domestic violence. And, on the rare occasion, there was a link to a news article about a man killing a woman, though not as many as you would expect given the rate at which this inconvenient reality actually does pop up in the news.

But, page content aside, what about this real-time tally that they keep in their cover image?

At the time of writing, it stood at a domestic violence death toll of 18 women, 6 children, and 11 men. Let’s break that down shall we, so we can get a picture of the gender neutrality in these numbers.

The 18 women were killed by men.

The 6 children were killed by men.

And of the 11 men killed, 8 were killed by men.

While Destroy the Joint seeks to track the incidents of female death by male IPV and complete strangers (usually associated with rape), DVAA tracks “domestic violence” murders. This tracking approach provides a much broader scope for the circumstances surrounding the crime so it’s important to understand the difference.

Murder by an “intimate partner” is fairly self-explanatory. It relates to being killed by someone with whom the victim shared an intimate (romantic/sexual) relationship.

Murder by “domestic violence” allows for broader familial relationships and includes current and former partners, parents, children, siblings, and other family members.

DVAA takes its definition of murder by domestic violence further still to include someone who is merely known to the victim such as a friend or housemate.

So now that we know how DVAA count their victims, and we know that most of the victims died as a result of male violence, let’s look at the male victims:

Of the 11 men killed this year as a result of DVAA’s definition of domestic violence, one happened as a result of two brothers getting into a punch-up. One happened as a result of two male housemates getting in a fight over household chores. Three of the men killed were killed by their sons, another by his father-in-law, and another by his former male partner.

Violence has a gender and it is overwhelmingly male.

So here’s the thing, and I hate to break it to you boys (and girls), but violence actually DOES have a gender, and it’s overwhelmingly male. To say otherwise is to deflect any and all attention away from the root of the problem, the male culture of violence.

How convenient to remove gender from the equation when your gender is front and center of this issue. NOT as the victims, but overwhelmingly as the perpetrators.

And this brings me to yet another statistic that MRA’s fail to mention in their efforts to present their experiences of violence as equal to that of women; the circumstances surrounding the death of a man at the hands of his female partner.

The latest Australian DV death report tells us that in 60.7% of female to male homicides the woman was already on police record as the “primary domestic violence victim” of the abuser before she killed him. If that number were applied to the deaths resulting from female violence on DVAA’s current tally it would make the grand total of men who have died as victims of female abusers one. One. ONE! Are they sure they can support their own mantra that violence has no gender?

The much researched and reported fact that women are overwhelmingly the victims of intimate partner violence, and that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of said violence, is not feminist ideology; it is a global human fact.

Which brings me to the heart of the problem — men don’t want to deal with male culture, their own toxicity. Paradoxically, by shutting down the much-needed conversations about male violence, they are actually maintaining the culture that threatens their safety too.

Screenshot from author’s Facebook

At the risk of stating the painfully obvious, not all victims of violence are women. When men troll women’s discussions with claims of being “more at risk of experiencing violence than any other group” it is perhaps the one time they are telling the pure and unadulterated truth.

Men get coward punched, robbed, beaten, assaulted, and murdered by — you guessed it — other men.

In Australia, the Bureau of Statistics tells us that 88% of all homicides are perpetrated by men. This number is reflected around the globe.

The ABS also shows that 93% of sex offenders are men, the vast majority of victims being women and girls.

So I’m saying it again, men… just STOP!

Stop erasing women and their experiences.

Start calling out other men, those who are perpetuating the myth of gender symmetry in violence. Such symmetry in the experience of violence simply does not exist.

Recognize the gendered nature of violence, because it goes both ways. How men experience domestic violence is also gendered and is worthy of its own male-driven discussion and gendered solutions. Find them.

We will not do it for you, and could not if we tried.

Women are not here to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work for men. It is not the role of women to advocate on your behalf. Women do not exist to serve the needs of men or discuss the experiences of women in a way that makes men feel more comfortable.

The false victimhood of men’s rights activists manifests in many ways and for every manipulated statistic provided (in the knowledge that few are willing, much less able, to embark on statistical analysis to verify it) I could provide the actual properly referenced statistics that paint the real picture.

But to be honest I’m tired. Tired of having to constantly wade through the gut-wrenching statistics. Tired of battling the MRAs who swarm every comment thread in an endless effort to disrupt any attempt to focus on the experiences and needs of women. Tired of counting the women killed by men only to have their names and experiences further erased by more men. And, tired of a culture which in 2020 is still asking women to be silent because to speak would hurt the feelings of increasingly fragile men.

Violence has a gender, and that gender is male. Deal with it.