Dean's World

Kelly at A Woman Against Feminism was wondering aloud what can be done to work for men’s rights, and since it is DVA month, it’s a good time to get started. Here are a few  things you can do offline:

All over the country there are events scheduled this month to support women’s shelters, and local media are recycling the same old myths and fabrications. Why not attend one or more of these and hand out some flyers with better information?  There are some ready for printing here and here. Even better if you can get a few other people to go with you. Don’t be shy about approaching any media people you may encounter, if you’re confident you’ve done your homework.

The DAHMW flyer is also suitable for placing anywhere there is a rack for distributing this kind of community information, such as hospitals, doctor’s offices and even some supermarkets and/or shopping malls. DAHMW is the only nationwide org that will help anyone, regardless of gender.

While you’re at it, pick up on some of the flyers provided by your local DV orgs and city or county Victims Services. Take a highlighter and use it to point out the information that is bogus or meaningless. Then write a letter explaining (respectfully, please ;>) why their factoids are incorrect, point by point. Send copies to the administration of the offending agency, their Board of Directors, and any major donors you can locate. In the case of city or county services, mail copies to each member of the City Council or County Supervisors. Don’t forget the editor of your local paper.

When your local media quotes any of the aforementioned myths and fabrications, phone, write, or e-mail and let them know where they went wrong.

Most Often Quoted Bogus info on DV:

“95% of victims are women” – this is a misinterpretation of an old DOJ study that looked at convictions for domestic violence in one year. In those cases, yes, 95% of those victims were women. But the study did not claim to apply to everyone, all the time.

“Every (X number) seconds, a woman is battered.” – The simple fact that the number varies widely from report to report should  be a clue as to the veracity of this factoid. Nobody really knows where it came from. The best guess is a 1977(!) study done by Murray Straus, which also mentioned an equal number of men. Certainly the FBI never said it.

The fact that almost no national agency uses these numbers anymore, since they have been so widely debunked doesn’t stop small, local agencies from using them anyway. My own county’s victim services dept has a flyer out right now that says: “The number one cause of emergency room visits for women is domestic violence.” Christina Hoff Summers debunked this in Who Stole Feminism? in 1994.

Every year has a prevailing factoid used by almost everybody in the biz. This year it’s “One in four women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime.”

There is no study anywhere that validates that claim.

The closest I’ve been able to come is this one, (from 2000) which says:

“Nearly 25 percent of surveyed women and 7.5 percent of surveyed men said they were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at some time in their lifetime…”

Were is not the same as will. Yet it makes for a good sound bite.

The same study goes on to say:

"According to these estimates, approximately 1.5 million women and 834,732 men are raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States. Because many victims are victimized more than once, the number of intimate partner victimizations exceeds the number of intimate partner victims annually. Thus, approximately 4.9 million intimate partner rapes and physical assaults are perpetrated against U.S. women annually, and approximately 2.9 million intimate partner physical assaults are committed against U.S. men annually."

There is plenty more information, some of questionable validity here.

I know this is going on long, but I do want to make two more important points.

A frequent factoid is one that claims a certain percentage equaling a majority of women murdered are killed by somebody they know. This is a pulsating, dripping red herring. The same applies to men and children, but they leave that part out. People who are going to kill somebody usually kill somebody they know – for all kinds of reasons.

Finally, behind all of this is the undeniable fact that there is no universally accepted definition of domestic violence. Every group that deals with this issue has its own definition, based on their own agenda. These range from outright physical assault to “feeling uncomfortable” to a woman’s prediction of her significant other’s future behavior.

…and that’s probably enough to get started!