2in2u.ie - government sponsered gender discrimination?

tricky D

You're playing right into the stereotypes there. So are they when they don't need to and that's the problem. Those stark stereotypes have been shown by studies to be unrepresentative of modern relationships. The problems are going to be harder to deal with if people keep looking at it from single points of view.

clouds

I'd agree with you to an extent Aswerty.
I definitely also think that gender divisions are not healthy for society. But they do unfortunately exist and they do have consequences. Question is chicken or egg? Does acknowledging this perpetuate them, or would it be better to minimise and hope it fades away? The facts remain that more women than men are victims of spousal abuse. Should we pretend different because most men a) don't want to be associated with abusers, or b) abused men don't want to be 'belittled' by association with a 'female problem'. Neither of those reasons do much to help women as a whole, or abused women in particular. And the benefits of face saving for men don't imo outweigh the benefits of speaking the truth for women. And here we are back again at gender division.

Kevin Duffy

Aswerty wrote: »

Broadening the scope of campaigns allows more people to be aware of the problem. This will lead to better management of the problem. Though this is probably more relevant to health issues but not exclusively.

In the subject at hand, I think everybody would benefit from an inclusive approach.
Abusive behaviour is often a learned behaviour. Growing up in an abusive family often leads to abusive behaviours, but the cycle can be broken with the right intervention - it may be the first time an abuser has heard that it's not acceptable, so a campaign to say that whatever your position the relationship, there may be behaviour you need to be aware of and address.

goose2005

clouds wrote: »

Because more women that men put up with domestic abuse.

Evidence?

And so what? Why not aim it at a certain subset of the population who are affected by a particular issue?

Perhaps anyone who is concerned for the men should set up their own charity aimed at helping them. i'd support it, like I support the women's one. I'd imagine most people would.

Amen already exists, but gets virtually no funding - state funding is €20,000,000 for abused women, €50,000 for abused men. There are 20 women's shelters in Ireland - Amen can manage one portakabin outside Navan.

clouds

The evidence for both your points, Goose, is Amen's own figures, posted above. I forget by who.

PandyAndy

Haven't read the entire thread but just for the hell of it, clicked 'C' to all the questions on that site in the OP and it came back with...

"If you answered B or C to any of the questions above, there's a chance that your boyfriend is too controlling and that your relationship is not healthy."

So... did it again, clicked 'A' for all of them except the text message question, clicked 'B' for that, and it also said...

"If you answered B or C to any of the questions above, there's a chance that your boyfriend is too controlling and that your relationship is not healthy."

Some diverse answers there.

Aswerty

clouds wrote: »

The evidence for both your points, Goose, is Amen's own figures, posted above. I forget by who.

Here is the source of some of the figures Amen provides on their websites:

http://www.esri.ie/news_events/press_releases_archive/2005/domestic_abuse_of_women_a/index.xml

The figures do claim 1 in 7 women and 1 in 16 men have suffered severe abuse. So there is just over twice as much severe abuse towards women. They reference a BBC report as well where males being abuse is more common than females being abuse but I couldn't find the source (although I found other papers referencing it). Domestic abuse is more commonly perpetrated against women in this country (but seemingly not in the UK) but I don't think this changes anything that I have argued. If I was in the UK I'd argue the same points.

HellFireClub

The campaign is promoting a "siege" mentality where every woman should remain in a permanent state of paranoia as to the intentions of their partner, and if the slightest little remark should be made as to the independence of a woman, then the probability is that he is 2in2u. Maybe we should all stop dating and meeting people, just in case like... :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Mrmoe

The issue here is not that people do not want awarenes of domestic violence towards women. They could do a much, much better job if it wasn't gender specific. They could cover both sides and save a truck load of money for more campaigns. It is lazy , ill thought out planning.

People can go on and on about statistcis but these are only reliable if they accurately reflect the situation at hand. I would say that there are an awful lot more men being subjected to physical and emotional abuse who do not even realise that the abuse exists.

Logical Fallacy

clouds wrote: »

The only division I can see is between abusive bastards and teh rest of us.

Like in general I see a division between murderous bastards (mostly men according to the stats) and the rest of us. I'm comfortable with those divisions. Who wouldn't be?

Look, i am gonna be flat out honest and say i ****ing despire when threads like these boil down to gender arguments about who is the biggest victim but as you asked for stats, here you go, these are taken from the Cosc site.

• 15% of women and 6% of men suffer severe domestic abuse
• 29% of women and 26% of men suffer domestic abuse when severe abuse and minor incidents are combined
• 13% of women and 13% of men suffer physical abuse or minor physical incidents and
• 29% of women (1 in 3) and only 5% of men (1 in 20) report to the Gardaí.

Here is the simple fact of the matter...generally speaking men are painted as the abuser, it's just how it is. In several Dublin based colleges last year campaigns were ran to raise awareness of domestic violence and the avenues that people could take to deal with it...in each and every college the abuser was male and the details given were aimed squarely at resources for females to seek help. These programs were not organised by any interest group or party, they were strictly college based initiatives.

I agree with everyone who is saying that Domestic abuse should be treated as a non gender issue...the victimisation of one gender reduces the suffering of female victims to a practical social norm, while the vilification of another reduces the number of males actually dealing with their abuse significantly.

deirdre_dub

There are a couple of different issues I see.

There is the issue that this web site is directed at women in spite of the fact that not all domestic violence is committed against women. It would have cost nothing to word this web site in gender-neutral language. As someone else pointed out, not only does this make the site sexist, it also makes it heteronormative, in that there are also plenty of lesbian victims of domestic violence. So this site not only commits the sin of only targetting only women, it also commits the sin of targetting only heterosexual women. That is inexcusable in this day and age, IMO.

It would have cost nothing to make the web site gender-neutral. The numbers of non-heterosexual women who are victims of domestic violence is irrelevant - if the ad ended up saving just one such victim, it would have been well worth the cost of phrasing it in gender-neutral language. As for the question of "what's wrong with targetting a subset of the victims of domestic violence? - the answer to that, in a word, is marginalisation.

As a member of the LGBT community, I am sick and tired of being marginalised, and this site, as well as marginalising men, also marginalises us.

Let's call a spade a spade - this web site is not about domestic violence. If it were about domestic violence, then it would address domestic violence. It doesn't. It addresses a subset (albeit the majority) of the problem. But it's not like the minority that it glosses over is a tiny percentage!

I don't know what this web site is actually about. I think it is fair to call it sexist. I think it's fair to call it heteronormative. I don't think it's fair, to be honest, of accusing it of having an agenda as such - I think it's fair to say that it came from a place of extreme ignorance and terrible insensitivity.

Another problem with this web site is its portrayal of men. All I can say to the men who have been affected by that is - I'm sorry. I'm sorry that someone has taken this swipe at men for no good reason. As a transgender woman I, too, have to suffer horrendous portrayals in the media, on film, in advertisments, and elsewhere. I know that's cold comfort, but just know that you are not alone. The most recent ad with a negative portrayal of trans women is a "no nonsense" ad which reduces our gender identity to an attempt to get cheaper car insurance - and that is in spite of the recent EU ruling with makes such cheaper insurance illegal!!! It is just sickening. But is it because of an anti-transgender agenda? To be honest, I don't think so - I think it is because of extreme ignorance and terrible insensitivity, just like the 2in2u web site.

All I can say to you is know that the web site isn't actually talking about you. Reach inside yourself, know yourself, see and appreciate your own inner beauty, your own truth, and from that place you should hopefully not be as affected by these lies and half-truths. Surround yourself with other wonderful men who mere presence in your life remind you that you, too, are wonderful. Remember that for all the crap that men do, overall, the contribution that men make to society is awesome.

Yes, the people who made this web site should know better. But, as I've found as a member of the marginalised part of the LGBT community, those who should know better often don't. I can't count how many times LGB people have marginalised me.

The final issue that I've seen raised is the issue of making women paranoid. To be honest, I don't buy this one. Most women aren't that stupid. And, any that are, have bigger problems than paranoia.

cantdecide

The best analogy that comes to mind is that it might be a gender specific website but it's like saying 'Here are some points on women's road safety since all men are dangerous drivers'.

Since the page would have been just as effective for women if it had referred to 'your partner' instead of a boyfriend, why alienate men. You'd not want to give a monkeys about equality if you wanted to make it gender specific when it doesn't have to be.

clouds

Some very interesting points.

But I don't get the outrage just because this is targeted at women and women alone. I don't see much outrage when any other particular demographic is targetted in any other situation.

I hadn't considered the LGBT angle either, but not because of marginalistion but because I am looking at it within the context of male/female hetero relationships. I explained above when I was speaking about different dynamics and the differences between romantic males and bunny boiler females.

Deirdre dub you mentioned how sorry you are for men that they are portrayed as abusers. I don't buy that, do you seriously? Men are portrayed as all sorts in media / pop culture.

Morag

Well lobby the governement to only fund groups and campgains which are gender netural.
Lets face it sucessive governments have left the messy issues alone and is happy to pass the responsiblity off to groups like Women's Aid, Amen, Barnardos, The Rape Crises Network, Cari and then pay them measely ammounts based on them having narrow remits and focus which do not over lap and then the government washes it hands of it.

How these servies are and and funded needs to be looked at, again lack of joined up thinking, surprise, surprise.

As for the Campagain, I found it cringeworthy, then again I am older then the age group it is aimed at. While it's an issue which should be tackled for both genders, why on earth is it not done in schools?

deirdre_dub

clouds wrote: »

But I don't get the outrage just because this is targeted at women and women alone. I don't see much outrage when any other particular demographic is targetted in any other situation.

First, speaking for myself, I wouldn't call it outrage, I'd call it disappointment.

It's not that a particular demographic was targetted, it is that other demographics could have usefully been targetted for no cost, and it is also the marginalisation that comes from not targetting demographics that are affected by the issue at hand. I honestly don't see the value of targetting just this demographic.

I hadn't considered the LGBT angle either, but not because of marginalistion but because I am looking at it within the context of male/female hetero relationships.

Isn't that marginalisation?

I explained above when I was speaking about different dynamics and the differences between romantic males and bunny boiler females.

TBH I don't see where that dynamic is coming out in the web site in question. I don't see how the web site isn't relevant to lesbian and gay dynamics, and to male-victim dynamics.

Deirdre dub you mentioned how sorry you are for men that they are portrayed as abusers. I don't buy that, do you seriously? Men are portrayed as all sorts in media / pop culture.

I was referring to the web site in question. Of course there are other portrayals of men in the media!!! But that doesn't "excuse" negative portrayals. Yes, the positive portrayals make the negative ones easier to take (the pervasive negative portrayals of trans people, for instance, mean that many trans people suffer terribly with gender identity problems rather than face up to those portrayals), but it still doesn't make them right.