BY VIRGINIA BROWN
PERTH — "Today, men are the only standing target. It is no longer permissible to take potshots at women. A few decades of lobbying by women activists has taken care of that. But men are still fair game for television advertising showing them as bumbling and incompetent and scathing attacks in newspaper and magazine articles." — This quote is from an article written by Bettina Arndt and published on April 11 in both Melbourne's Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
It would be just ludicrous if it didn't express the ideas of increasingly vocal "men's rights" groups campaigning against the advances won by feminism.
The Men's Confraternity WA Inc, like the Lone Fathers Association, the non-Custodial Parents Association, DADS, the Family Law Reform Association, the Blackshirts and the Men's Rights Agency, claims that Family Court decisions are determined by "radical feminists", that women share equal responsibility with men for domestic violence, and that divorce, restraining orders and apprehended violence orders should be made more difficult for women to obtain.
Every year, 20,000 women seek shelter, usually fleeing domestic violence, in refuges. Recently, the Men's Confraternity was responsible for the award-winning WA "Freedom from Fear" domestic violence campaign being briefly withdrawn. The organisation complained that it "unfairly depicts white, heterosexual males as the sole perpetrators of domestic violence".
Robin Shine, co-convenor of the Domestic Violence Council of WA, explained that "like most advertising, the Freedom from Fear campaign is aimed at the main target group [the male perpetrators]. If it's stopped, the many women and children who are suffering will be the losers".
Men as victims
On its web site, the Men's Confraternity claims: "Recent studies, both in Australia and elsewhere have revealed to the public what Men's Confraternity has suspected for a good many years. That DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, in all its forms, is a social problem which effects men as much as women."
However, statistics compiled by the American Bar Association, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Victorian Police disagree.
In WA, women are 10 times more likely to be victims of domestic violence than men. Nationally, between 86% and 98% of reported domestic violence incidents involve male offenders.
An Australia-wide study of killings between adults in "intimate relationships" from 1989-91, conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology's Patricia Easteal, found that 121 of 150 such murder victims were female, and 80% of the perpetrators were male. When women do injure or kill their partners, it is usually in self defence or follows a period of being abused.
Survivors of domestic violence often live with injuries and gynaecological problems. On average, they have twice as many miscarriages as other women and higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression and psychiatric illness. They are more likely to attempt suicide and to abuse drugs, including tranquillisers and alcohol. They are more likely to live in social isolation.
The number of women affected is staggering. The 1996 Women's Safety Survey, conducted by the ABS, found that 23% of women who had ever been in a relationship had been abused by their spouses at some stage. It also found that "2.6 million women (or 38% of the adult female population) had experienced one or more incidents of physical or sexual violence since the age of 15, 1.2 million had experienced sexual violence and 2.2 million experienced physical violence. For the majority of [these] women (2.5 million) the violence was perpetrated by a man".
Ignoring the facts
The Men's Confraternity web site makes no mention of these statistics. Instead, it draws an unusual analogy between the situation of men comparative to women, and that of Aborigines comparative to non- Aboriginal people. The organisation argues that because boys are more likely than girls to die during birth and men have higher unemployment, homelessness and alcohol addiction than women (and a lower life expectancy), like Aborigines, "males are disadvantaged in our society and discriminated against".
But while high Indigenous infant mortality rates are caused by social discrimination, higher male infant mortality rates are biologically caused. While Aborigines are discriminated against in the workplace, a higher proportion of men than women can get full-time work. (Female unemployment registers as lower because women who cannot get full-time jobs frequently do not classify themselves as looking for work.)
The Men's Confraternity's web site also claims that women are responsible for men killing themselves and their children, and hosts a section on "why not dump your man" — a diatribe against services available to women who leave abusive relationships.
However, while it might be easy to laugh at some of the more pathetic arguments mounted by "men's groups", such sexist attitudes do survive.
A 1996 survey of men aged 15-40 revealed that, while most men opposed domestic violence and believed it was a serious issue, few understood that social isolation and economic deprivation could be abusive. The report also found "there was very little understanding of sexual abuse or sexual humiliation as forms of domestic violence".
Other worrying findings included "few men could understand the use of sexual humiliation as a part of domestic violence, and viewed methods of persuasion and coercion in terms of sexual fulfilment rather than the use of power".
It would be incorrect, however, to think that no progress has been made. A 1995 survey, documented by the Office of the Status of Women, found a greater community understanding of domestic violence, compared to a similar survey in 1987. In the 1995 survey more people understood that domestic violence is a criminal offence (93% agreed, compared to 79% in 1987).
Misogyny on the rise
Also, younger respondents tended to be much less likely to blame the female victims for their situation. In a survey of young people's attitudes in 1999, 92% of respondents considered domestic violence "either a very serious or quite serious form of violence". However, one in 20 respondents aged 12 to 20 years believed raping a partner, throwing items at them and frequent hitting them was part of "normal" conflict.
There is evidence of growing confidence by misogynist groups. A "male class action" against a Canadian domestic violence program was recently mounted, using similar arguments to the Men's Confraternity, and was successful. The fascist-like Blackshirts have been harassing Victorian women for such "crimes" as initiating divorces or pursuing extra-marital relationships. The Blackshirts have worn their black clothes and balaclavas in court and spat on their victims' legal representatives, and stalked the women outside their homes. [See article on page 6.]
Maybe it's time women and their supporters fought back.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, August 21, 2002.
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