Still left reeling from the fact yesterday the Observer (The Guardian's Sunday newspaper - see the comments section as well on the piece) had written a piece about why male victims of domestic abuse were not being given equal treatment, the BBC then ran an interview on their Breakfast show. I nearly choked on my corn flakes, has the world turned turtle? (one reader thought he was hallucinating when he read the story in the Observer of all places!)
There was also coverage in the Daily Mail (see comments on the article as well) on a damning report at the MInistry of Justice (more to be written this week) and Amen, the Irish male support service published their Annual Report which received coveragein that country about the 80% increase in calls they were receiving.
The key issues coming form the coverage are that there still seems to be some surprise at the level of domestic violence against men yet the figure quoted by Parity and then expounded upon by the ManKind Initiative have been the same for years. That 33-40% of domestic abuse victims are male and these are Home Office British Crime Survey figures. Why the sudden surprise?
The second point is that a lot of the coverage was based on the lack of refuges/safe houses and the overall lack of support for male victims. But this is almost like the Groundhog Day film, where the same story is played out time and again. This is because we hear this story in the news every six months or so, but what changes?
There continues to be a view that domestic abuse is a gendered issue, when it isn't. The radical anti-male feminist view still holds sway and do the policy makers in Government, on councils, in the CPS and in police forces change their minds or do they close their ears?
It seems the ears option is still holding sway but at least with this coverage, the issue is still having the spotlight shone on it and eventually equality for male victims may win it. It just may take too damned long when it should be taken as read while in the meantime thousand of men going on suffering.
Posted by Skimmington
Other articles - Daily Mail and Northern Echo
That report in the Daily Mail disappeared pretty damn quick. Given some of the comments, I thought it may have hung around a little longer than it did.
Posted by: Trevor | Wednesday, 08 September 2010 at 11:48
Over time I have noticed that such reports are often penned by reporters who are not usually in this area. So their surprise is understandable also the usual internal response will be pressure for the reporter not to stray into other's specialism. Of course the specialists want to hide the truth. So this is a plea to write to support named reporters who lift this rock and find the truth under gender feminist dogma, they will be getting an ear full from within their papers.
Posted by: Groan | Thursday, 09 September 2010 at 14:10
Very surprised to see the Observer covering this.
Perhaps the Guardian's Sunday variant is slightly less hateful than the regular paper? (I'm no expert on this, although Sunday papers do tend to be semi-independent to the regular editions).
Alternatively perhaps this is their token piece on male vicitms for the next decade and they'll go back to ignoring them until 2020.
Posted by: John Kimble | Thursday, 09 September 2010 at 17:46
Hoping this issue will resolve...justice should have fair law in male domestic abuse...Praying for this...
From the Philippines
Imee
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Posted by: Imee Baronda | Wednesday, 29 September 2010 at 14:46