DV by New South Wales Women Rises

It's articles like this one that will eventually result in change (ABC, 6/22/09).  Despite the author's shaky math, it reports that charges of DV against women have shot up over a recent eight-year period in New South Wales.  Reported incidents increased from 800 in 1999 to 2,336 in 2007, which the article calls an increase of 159%.  In fact it's an increase of 192%.

But apart from that, there are some excellent quotations from Sue Price, co-director of Men's Rights Agency.  She lays out facts that are well-known to MRAs, but haven't gotten traction with the press generally.  For example, men make up about 30% of people in New South Wales seeking protective orders, but there are no services and no shelters for them and their children.  That's because politicians, police and DV advocates are in thrall to the narrative that requires all DV perpetrators to be men and all victims to be women.

And since that is the narrative, as surely as there are no shelters for men, there are no services for women who want to stop committing DV.

Price blames that narrative for the fact that there is no money for men's shelters or services for male victims.  She said,

"Women's groups are in total denial that women can be violent and they maintain that stand because they want to garner all the funding that's available under the domestic violence legislation," she said.

"They won't take it that a man can be a victim of domestic violence, they always portray the mantra that it's always women who are victims and men who are perpetrators. That's clearly not true. We've known it for years but there's been an absolute refusal to acknowledge it."

Whatever the precise figures, it's the same in the United States - refusal to acknowledge DV by women, refusal to acknowledge DV done to men, little-to-no funding for male shelters or other victim services and little-to-no services for female batterers.  We say "there's no excuse for domestic violence," but don't mean it.  If we did, the narrative would change and along with it public policy.

Interestingly too, Price said that applications for protective orders are kept secret in NSW and maybe all of Australia.  The truth is a dangerous thing to people whose worldview is based on falsehoods.

Are You Facing a Parental Abduction? Parental Alienation? If you're faced with a Parental Abduction, Parental Alienation, or interstate child custody or child support problems, custody consultant Judianne Cochran can help. Cochran is a specialist with 30 years experience helping reunite parents and children. To learn more, click here, or email her at jbcochran44@msn.com.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 9:15 pm and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. | 447 views | Trackback | Print this page |

| More from Robert Franklin, Esq.