One of the key things about the debate going in the domestic abuse sector is how the dinosaurs continue to cling onto the gendered view which treats this hideous crime as a crime against a gender (women), thereby relegating men (heterosexual or gay) to second class victims.
Partly this is ideological, driven by the anti-male feminist hatred of men, and partly it is down to funding because the emergence of organisations that either only help men, or want to help victims of both genders puts the fear of God into organisations (Refuge, Women's Aid and Respect) who are spoon-fed millions of pounds to support female victims.
With the current cuts and the closure of services for women, which is something this site would not want, it means it is vital to them to cling onto the gendered analysis. They don't want money transferred from them to organisations that support men or both genders - they want to protect their empires.
The public sector equality duty cannot have helped their cause because it means statutory agencies need to prove they look after both male and female victims. Though many many do not and only pay lip service at best to male victims, there continues to be more recognition, as this storyon BBC Wales shows. Safer Wales and the Dyn Project mention men but the Welsh Minister (Carl Sargeant) clings on to the dinosaur view. The story encapsulates it in one go.
In addition to this, as shown recently, statutory agencies are seeing with their own eyes, the rise in the number of violent women who commit domestic abuse crimes.
The reason for setting this out is below is a key example of where the dinosaurs cannot let go of their sexist notion of domestic abuse.
Scotland's Women's Aid responded in the Herald to Professor Dempseys' plea for the Scottish Government to change its definition of domestic abuse to include men and those in same-sex relationships. Instead of coherence in return, Women's Aid cling on with all sorts of spurious facts and issues - the worse being the claim the CPS have a gendered definition when they do not - it is illegal and in breach of the public sector equality duty.
Read it below for yourself and make up your own mind on whether Women's Aid in Scotland believes in equality for all victims of domestic abuse.
Posted by Skimmington
Letter in The Herald (12 September 2011)
(c) The Herald
It is essential to take a gendered approach to domestic abuse
Brian Dempsey, in his article for the Edinburgh Law Review reported in The Herald, claims that the Scottish Government’s gendered definition of domestic abuse is firstly unique, and secondly detrimental to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community (“Gay people’s violence risk”, Herald Society, September 6) .
A gendered approach is not a Scottish “peculiarity” – as well as the recognition of the importance of a gendered approach by the UN and the World Health Organisation, the Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales identifies in its definition of domestic abuse that the majority of domestic abuse incidents are perpetrated by men against women, while acknowledging that domestic abuse can and does happen to men and in same-sex relationships.
More than 80% of domestic abuse involves a male perpetrator and a female victim, an overwhelming majority by anyone’s standards, however, the argument for a gendered analysis of domestic abuse goes far deeper than the statistics.
A gender-based analysis of domestic abuse is not just about defining “who does what to whom” and it does not assume that abusers are always men and victims always women, nor does it assume that domestic abuse exists only in the context of a heterosexual relationship. It seeks to understand the context, meaning and impact of the abuse and how the abuse of individual men and women impacts differently on women, as a group, and men, as a group. We know that domestic abuse happens to far greater numbers of women. We also know that women experience domestic abuse differently on the whole and are more likely to live in extreme fear and be seriously physically assaulted. Women are more vulnerable to poverty and homelessness as a result of being abused.
Numerous research reports demonstrate that domestic abuse is a cause and effect of women’s inequality; therefore a different approach is needed – one which is based on an accurate analysis of the issue and which addresses both prevention and response. Our understanding of and response to domestic abuse has a great bearing on how we should target scarce resources.
A non-gendered service would fail on several levels, not least because it would deter vulnerable women from seeking the help that they need. It is important that anyone experiencing domestic abuse gets the support and help they need – when they need it – however last year nearly two thirds of our members (61%) reported a reduction in funding from their local authority and a quarter have had to reduce the level of service they provide.
Tanya Rhodes, Scotland Women's Aid
Spot on. Pressure Groups are free to put their case. However institutions are duty bound to base action on good evidence. Even if the data were a direct reflection of what is happening then a fifth of victim
S are men. Other research notes men under report much more Than women and frequently large scale research finds just about a third of victims are men. So this is at the very least more substantial than a tiny minority. As has been reported elsewhere on this site some councils have come under fire for wanting existing services to take referrals of men. In some areas the service has done this, including women's aid branches. A wise move as eventually all areas will want to fund services that meet overall need. I expect strong lobbying as this works through.
S
Posted by: Groan | Thursday, 15 September 2011 at 14:36