Gender based violence Eurobarometer poll

professore

The recent Eurobarometer poll "Gender based violence" which seems to suggest that 21% of people in Ireland condone sex without consent in certain circumstances. I was horrified by this, having two daughters, so I decided to have a read of it.

First of all, "Gender based violence" suggests there is a bias in operation, but let's let that one go.

I didn't look at the other questions, but the one on consent was very confusing. This is it:

Some people believe that having sexual intercourse without consent may be justified in certain situations. Do you think this applies to the following circumstances?

They then list a menu of options. Multiple answers were allowable. Interestingly, "Not at all" was one of the last options.

Hearing this over the phone with screaming children in the background could very easily make you think that you are being asked what you think some people believe - not what you believe yourself. For example 7% of Irish people believe it's OK to have sex with some one "Being out walking alone at night". I can't believe 71 people asked out of 1002 actually think this, or even if they think it, would ever admit to it on a survey. In Hungary 18% of people think this :eek:

Full report here: http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/SPECIAL/surveyKy/2115

Am I wrong? Do people really think this? I really hope I am right. In any event in this case at least, it was a poorly designed study.

Sleepy

professore wrote: »

In any event in this case at least, it was a poorly designed study.

Was it? It'll no doubt achieve exactly what it was intended to do: get more funding and airtime for the domestic abuse industry.

It pains me to have to state it, but I'm obviously not "pro" domestic abuse and I'm sure many involved in the various charities, not-for-profits and government agencies only want to help the victims of abuse but let's not kid ourselves, these organisations are many people's source of income and status. Designing studies to achieve "shocking" results is far from a new tactic in this area.

Pat Mustard

professore wrote: »

The recent Eurobarometer poll "Gender based violence" which seems to suggest that 21% of people in Ireland condone sex without consent in certain circumstances. I was horrified by this, having two daughters, so I decided to have a read of it.

Full report here: http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/SPECIAL/surveyKy/2115

Am I wrong? Do people really think this? I really hope I am right. In any event in this case at least, it was a poorly designed study.

From page 44 of the report, there were four apparently possible answers regarding people's views of forcing a partner to have sex. The results given for Ireland were:
1. It is wrong and it is already against the law. 61%
2. It is wrong and it should be against the law. 34%
3. It is wrong but it should not be against the law: 1%
4. It is not wrong and it should not be against the law: 2%

Also:
Refusal: 0%
Don't know: 2%

There were very different findings for other countries.

Also (p.7):

Overall, 27% say sexual intercourse without consent may be justified in at least one of the situations proposed. Respondents are most likely to say this about being drunk or on drugs (12%), voluntarily going home with someone (11%), wearing revealing, provocative or sexy clothing or not clearly saying no or physically fighting back (both 10%).

Respondents in Romania and Hungary are consistently amongst the most likely to say each situation may be a justification for sex without consent, while those in Sweden and Spain are consistently amongst the least likely to say so.

I have not read the entire report but I would be interested to see the methodology and data.

I would be interested to see if specific definitions of consent or justification were used for the purposes of the report.

If a fully grown adult who has had a couple of glasses of wine is deemed not to be capable of consent, then it would throw doubt on the overall findings.

Lux23

Domestic abuse industry? What a completely abhorrent and immoral viewpoint.

Go down to an A&E department right now and I am sure you will meet at least one women put there by her partner. I've been physically assaulted and raped and I sick to the teeth of denial from people when this subject is raised. Is it really so wrong to say that women are sometimes subject to cruel and violent treatment by men? If something never occurred to you to do does that mean no other person would do it?

Any piece of research will be flawed, but the margin of error is only 3% either way with a nationally representative sample (which is 400 in Ireland, not 1,000). But lets say this survey is way off and the result is really only 11%, surely 1 in 10 of the population holding views like this a problem.

Sleepy

Lux23 wrote: »

Domestic abuse industry? What a completely abhorrent and immoral viewpoint.

Sorry Lux23, there's this thing called the real world. You live in it whether you'd like to or not. Have you been living under a rock? Did the Console scandal pass you by completely? Carline? Enable Ireland's CEO earning €145k plus benefits?

The not-for-profit sector is extremely lucrative for the privileged few.

BTW, what exactly is immoral about pointing out that the authors of that report are incentivised to pursue a specific outcome from the "research"?

I never stated that domestic abuse doesn't occur. It certainly does, by both men and women.

The statistical margin for error is an irrelevant strawman when the questions are clearly designed to mislead the participants in the survey into giving the "shocking" results the surveyors desire.

midnight city

Lux23 wrote: »

Domestic abuse industry? What a completely abhorrent and immoral viewpoint.

Go down to an A&E department right now and I am sure you will meet at least one women put there by her partner. I've been physically assaulted and raped and I sick to the teeth of denial from people when this subject is raised. Is it really so wrong to say that women are sometimes subject to cruel and violent treatment by men? If something never occurred to you to do does that mean no other person would do it?

Any piece of research will be flawed, but the margin of error is only 3% either way with a nationally representative sample (which is 400 in Ireland, not 1,000). But lets say this survey is way off and the result is really only 11%, surely 1 in 10 of the population holding views like this a problem.

Barely a day goes by without hearing about domestic violence against women. Its well covered by the media. Almost never is domestic violence against men mentioned. Many of those men sitting listening to daily reports are themselves victims. Men are getting a bit sick of hearing how terrible they are.

Lux23

Sleepy wrote: »

Sorry Lux23, there's this thing called the real world. You live in it whether you'd like to or not. Have you been living under a rock? Did the Console scandal pass you by completely? Carline? Enable Ireland's CEO earning €145k plus benefits?

The not-for-profit sector is extremely lucrative for the privileged few.

BTW, what exactly is immoral about pointing out that the authors of that report are incentivised to pursue a specific outcome from the "research"?

I never stated that domestic abuse doesn't occur. It certainly does, by both men and women.

The statistical margin for error is an irrelevant strawman when the questions are clearly designed to mislead the participants in the survey into giving the "shocking" results the surveyors desire.

Number one, you said domestic abuse industry? Not the charity sector. Perhaps I would have understood your point if you hadn't used such an incendiary term.

Number two, this report was produced by the European Commission so in what way are they going to benefit from it?

Number three, did you actually read the questions or is this something you are surmising? Because that is another straw-man argument.

Lux23

midnight city wrote: »

Barely a day goes by without hearing about domestic violence against women. Its well covered by the media. Almost never is domestic violence against men mentioned. Many of those men sitting listening to daily reports are themselves victims. Men are getting a bit sick of hearing how terrible they are.

So we should not bring up domestic violence against women because there isn't enough media focus on female violence against men?

midnight city

Lux23 wrote: »

So we should not bring up domestic violence against women because there isn't enough media focus on female violence against men?

I don't remember saying that .

They need highlight the multitude off issues around domestic violence, including that it happens to men too and that women often initiate violence being violent themselves first. We all know there are violent men out there who attack women, there are also violent women out there who attack men. Also, how many men out there were never violent in their lives and ended up in a relationship with a violent women. After being assaulted by their wife they hit back thus crossing a rubicon. The tone is set then for a violent relationship. There is never any discussion on violent women and the role they play in violent relationships.

Boys are brought up to never hit women the same is never mentioned about girls hitting men. Much more emphasis should be for people to never hit other people regardless of gender.

Sleepy

Lux23 wrote: »

Number one, you said domestic abuse industry? Not the charity sector. Perhaps I would have understood your point if you hadn't used such an incendiary term.

Number two, this report was produced by the European Commission so in what way are they going to benefit from it?

Number three, did you actually read the questions or is this something you are surmising? Because that is another straw-man argument.

Sorry, boards.ie isn't a safe space, I'll use whatever terms I like to describe those who make a living off the suffering of others.

If you believe that those responsible for this report are unbiased I suppose you believe that the proposals released by the Expert Commission on Domestic Public Water released this morning was a purely apolitical exercise too? Politicians rely on civil servants, civil servants have vested interests, particularly ones working in areas where there is little to no commercial use for their skillset.

TBH, I didn't bother reading the report. I took the OP's argument that the questions appeared badly phrased and that it was a "poorly designed study" and asked a question. The entire sphere of the social sciences are notorious for poorly designed studies that seek to confirm their positions rather than ascertain truth: the "1 in 4" meme would be a rather classic example of this.

FWIW, I work in data analysis. Manipulation of questionnaires to derive desired outcomes isn't a trait unique to any political movement or sector of the economy. I'm sure if there was a governmental or NFP organisation charged with promoting equality for men their research methodologies would be equally flawed by the way - it's the nature of the beast: Liberal Arts or "university of life" graduates aren't known for their rigorous scientific approach.

mzungu

professore wrote: »

The recent Eurobarometer poll "Gender based violence" which seems to suggest that 21% of people in Ireland condone sex without consent in certain circumstances. I was horrified by this, having two daughters, so I decided to have a read of it.

First of all, "Gender based violence" suggests there is a bias in operation, but let's let that one go.

I didn't look at the other questions, but the one on consent was very confusing. This is it:



They then list a menu of options. Multiple answers were allowable. Interestingly, "Not at all" was one of the last options.

Hearing this over the phone with screaming children in the background could very easily make you think that you are being asked what you think some people believe - not what you believe yourself. For example 7% of Irish people believe it's OK to have sex with some one "Being out walking alone at night". I can't believe 71 people asked out of 1002 actually think this, or even if they think it, would ever admit to it on a survey. In Hungary 18% of people think this :eek:

Full report here: http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/SPECIAL/surveyKy/2115

Am I wrong? Do people really think this? I really hope I am right. In any event in this case at least, it was a poorly designed study.

The results don't seem to make much sense.

For example, the results state that 21% said sex without consent is acceptable in certain situations and 11% said being drunk or on drugs justifies sex without consent.

But at the same time....

97% said violence against women was not acceptable.
99% said that sending unwanted texts/pictures of a sexual nature was wrong.
97% said making lewd remarks in public was wrong.
99% thought that making unwanted physical contact with a colleague was wrong.

How exactly do these two sets of figures add up? Violence against women, lewd remarks, unwanted pictures and contact is shown to be unacceptable by 97% and higher, but then 21% believe sex without consent is fine?

Something is not right with the above.

Also, we don't know how they defined consent (or even if they did define it) for the study. I think clues to the results may lie in the wording of the wording of the questions.

Here is one example of a question from it:

QB10 Some people believe that having sexual intercourse without consent may be justified in certain situations. Do you think this applies to the following circumstances?

(SHOW SCREEN - READ OUT - MULTIPLE ANSWERS POSSIBLE)

Wearing revealing, provocative or sexy clothing
Being drunk or using drugs
Flirting beforehand
Not clearly saying no or physically fighting back
Being out walking alone at night,
Having several sexual partners
Voluntarily going home with someone, for example after a party or date
If the assailant does not realise what they were doing
If the assailant regrets his actions
None of these
Refusal (SPONTANEOUS)
Don't know

Take the wording of the question itself. It starts off with "Some people believe that having sexual intercourse without consent may be justified in certain situations." So, immediately it is guiding the respondent to think of other people rather than him or herself. Then asks "Do you think this applies to the following circumstances?"

That leaves a hell of a lot of room for misinterpretation.

professore

mzungu wrote: »

The results don't seem to make much sense.

For example, the results state that 21% said sex without consent is acceptable in certain situations and 11% said being drunk or on drugs justifies sex without consent.

But at the same time....

97% said violence against women was not acceptable.
99% said that sending unwanted texts/pictures of a sexual nature was wrong.
97% said making lewd remarks in public was wrong.
99% thought that making unwanted physical contact with a colleague was wrong.

How exactly do these two sets of figures add up? Violence against women, lewd remarks, unwanted pictures and contact is shown to be unacceptable by 97% and higher, but then 21% believe sex without consent is fine?

Something is not right with the above.

Also, we don't know how they defined consent (or even if they did define it) for the study. I think clues to the results may lie in the wording of the wording of the questions.

Here is one example of a question from it:


Take the wording of the question itself. It starts off with "Some people believe that having sexual intercourse without consent may be justified in certain situations." So, immediately it is guiding the respondent to think of other people rather than him or herself. Then asks "Do you think this applies to the following circumstances?"

That leaves a hell of a lot of room for misinterpretation.

My point exactly. It breaks every rule for asking an unbiased question. People with lower levels of education especially are virtually guaranteed to misinterpret this question.

Instead of

Some people believe that having sexual intercourse without consent may be justified in certain situations. Do you think this applies to the following circumstances?

How about

Do YOU think sexual intercourse without consent is acceptable in any of the following situations?

Much clearer. I bet you wouldn't get 7% thinking that other people think it's OK to rape someone walking at home at night in that circumstance.

These things are FAR TOO IMPORTANT to be sloppy with the study of them. It's not GOOD ENOUGH to state "Everybody knows all men are rapists" or some such rubbish. Equally we are doing a disservice to genuine abuse cases.

My personal feeling is that surveys like this are worthless, as who is going to say to some random stranger on the phone they think rape is a good idea and are out doing it every night, even if it is the truth?

professore

Lux23 wrote: »

Domestic abuse industry? What a completely abhorrent and immoral viewpoint.

Go down to an A&E department right now and I am sure you will meet at least one women put there by her partner. I've been physically assaulted and raped and I sick to the teeth of denial from people when this subject is raised. Is it really so wrong to say that women are sometimes subject to cruel and violent treatment by men? If something never occurred to you to do does that mean no other person would do it?

I am really sorry you were physically assaulted and raped. I am not arguing with you at all on this. Of course men commit domestic violence and rape against women. I'm just saying you are not going to get an accurate view of the true numbers with a survey like this. Any serious studies that have been done with abused people all show that women are nearly as abusive as men.

And legally women can't rape a man, only the lesser crime of sexual assault, so by definition all rape is committed by men. My feeling would have been before reading up on this that the vast majority of abuse (at a guess 90%) would have been committed by men, but being older now and knowing couples personally, the ratios are a lot more even than that. I know one guy in particular in a terribly abusive situation - to give one example, he was left alone in a house for two weeks after heart surgery, and was for several days unable to even get out of bed to make a phone call, and was lucky he didn't die, so I decided to read up on it a bit.

Lux23 wrote: »

Any piece of research will be flawed, but the margin of error is only 3% either way with a nationally representative sample (which is 400 in Ireland, not 1,000). But lets say this survey is way off and the result is really only 11%, surely 1 in 10 of the population holding views like this a problem.

You are talking about statistical error here. This is not the same as misleading questions. You have an error of 3% on answers to the wrong questions, therefore it's meaningless. It just means nationally as many people would be confused by this question as in the survey. And it was about 1000 sample size (I read somewhere else 1002 for Ireland but can't find it now):

Readers are reminded that survey results are estimations, the accuracy of which, everything being equal,
rests upon the sample size and upon the observed percentage. With samples of about 1,000 interviews,
the real percentages vary within the following confidence limits:

Lux23

You see, this is what I don't understand. If you agree that domestic violence is clearly a problem, why are you against there being help for the women and their children who need it?

I know some men who were in horrible relationships and I wholeheartedly agree that there should be more help for them. But should that be at the expense of female domestic victims? Should support for them be reduced.

I am just trying to understand.

midnight city

Lux23 wrote: »

You see, this is what I don't understand. If you agree that domestic violence is clearly a problem, why are you against there being help for the women and their children who need it?

I know some men who were in horrible relationships and I wholeheartedly agree that there should be more help for them. But should that be at the expense of female domestic victims? Should support for them be reduced.

I am just trying to understand.

Reduced from what, there is no end of support and focus on female victims of domestic violence. Nobody can argue that the issue is being ignored.

professore

The last few posts are completely off topic - the topic is the poor quality of this report. Nothing to do with whether we should have more or less shelters for men and/or women.

professore

Lux23 wrote: »

You see, this is what I don't understand. If you agree that domestic violence is clearly a problem, why are you against there being help for the women and their children who need it?

I know some men who were in horrible relationships and I wholeheartedly agree that there should be more help for them. But should that be at the expense of female domestic victims? Should support for them be reduced.

I am just trying to understand.

Who said anyone wanted to close shelters for women? Of course domestic abuse against women is a huge problem, and those centres are badly needed.

The problem is men have nothing similar. Where does a man experiencing domestic abuse go? And by the way this thread was talking about the consent question, not the domestic abuse one.

Imagine if it was cancer, saying cancer is a gender issue? And there were centres for womens cancer, but nothing for men? And these centres said things like 90% of breast cancer occurs in women, while ignoring men's cancers? Actually research into womens cancers recieves multiples of funding and media attention than male cancers but that's another story. Would that be OK?

Lux23

midnight city wrote: »

Reduced from what, there is no end of support and focus on female victims of domestic violence. Nobody can argue that the issue is being ignored.

There is no end of support, that simply isn't true. Funding for domestic abuse victims has been cut in recent years. Ignored? You're attempting to ignore it here?

Lux23

professore wrote: »

Imagine if it was cancer, saying cancer is a gender issue? And there were centres for womens cancer, but nothing for men? And these centres said things like 90% of breast cancer occurs in women, while ignoring men's cancers? Actually research into womens cancers recieves multiples of funding and media attention than male cancers but that's another story. Would that be OK?

Movember, Breast Pink October? It already happens.

eviltwin

There isn't even one shelter for men which is a disgrace. But then when you have Amen advising men not to leave the home under any circumstances even if she's violent and threatening what do you expect?

raze_them_all_

I was pointing out how silly this survey was and misleading, got told its good to remind people then upon further pointing out the open questions that are easy to manipulate got told the questions werent the important thing then got told i seem like a virgin who cant get laid, perfectly logical woman

py2006

In relation to domestic violence, certain posts in this thread alone demonstrates how difficult it is to bring up male victims. For some reason it is seen as somehow discrediting/ignoring/lessening female victims.

py2006

eviltwin wrote: »

There isn't even one shelter for men which is a disgrace. But then when you have Amen advising men not to leave the home under any circumstances even if she's violent and threatening what do you expect?

There was a shelter, it was closed as it wasn't utilised. Certain sectors of society have used that as their reasoning for the argument that men are not victims or certainly there isn't enough to warrant that level of support. Of course there are other reasons why a shelter wasn't used enough!

eviltwin

py2006 wrote: »

There was a shelter, it was closed as it wasn't utilised. Certain sectors of society have used that as their reasoning for the argument that men are not victims or certainly there isn't enough to warrant that level of support. Of course there are other reasons why a shelter wasn't used enough!

What reasons? If a shelter isn't being used its kinda hard to support opening more or wasting resources on one that isn't being utilised.

py2006

eviltwin wrote: »

What reasons? If a shelter isn't being used its kinda hard to support opening more or wasting resources on one that isn't being utilised.

The point I was making was that if a shelter isn't being used it is not because men are not victims of abusive partners.

I would go ahead and assume the following are some of the factors:

1) Men don't/won't/can't talk about these kind of things. Tendency to keep quiet.
2) Lack of support compared to women.
3) Campaigns about domestic violence a centred around women/children being the victims. Which completely disregards men (and men/women in same sex relationships)
4) Men often don't realise they are victims (more emotional than physical abuse)
5) High risk of loosing house and access to their children.


I've had some experience of trying to raise this topic in conversation and it is often not welcomed.

From my experience in life and from speaking to people and from reading on here too I would go so far as to say when it comes to being victims of domestic violence/abuse etc men and women are unfortunately very equal.

professore

eviltwin wrote: »

What reasons? If a shelter isn't being used its kinda hard to support opening more or wasting resources on one that isn't being utilised.

Maybe because it was in Navan? And there was zero publicity that it even existed? Kind of off the beaten track. I doubt even a womens shelter in Navan would get a lot of use either.

py2006

professore wrote: »

Maybe because it was in Navan? And there was zero publicity that it even existed? Kind of off the beaten track.

That could go into my list...

eviltwin

professore wrote: »

Maybe because it was in Navan? And there was zero publicity that it even existed? Kind of off the beaten track.

It's hardly the middle of nowhere. Navan is a big town. Not everything needs to be in Dublin. I'm sure Amen knew it existed, wouldn't they be recommending it for their callers.

The Black Oil

iirc, Julie Bindel, in a debate with Milo Whateveryourehavingyourself said that, in the UK, 9 (?) shelters for men closed owing to non-usage. Don't know enough about the issue personally, but it could be that men and women communicate differently around domestic violence crises and maybe shelters don't appeal to men as much as a way of getting out of dodge.

py2006

One interesting thing in relation to shelters for women, and this didn't even occur to me until I listened on the radio to this woman who set up shelters in Britain (or may be here) that some of the women are coming from violent relationships. I.e they are equally violent and are getting away from that unhealthy relationship.

Lux23

py2006 wrote: »

One interesting thing in relation to shelters for women, and this didn't even occur to me until I listened on the radio to this woman who set up shelters in Britain (or may be here) that some of the women are coming from violent relationships. I.e they are equally violent and are getting away from that unhealthy relationship.

Well in that case the man gets to keep the home, so seems like a positive in a pretty dire situation. Why would he need a shelter?


But you raise a good point, perhaps these campaigns could do more to raise awareness of the kind of help people can get if they have problems communicating in a relationship.

py2006

Lux23 wrote: »

Well in that case the man gets to keep the home, so seems like a positive in a pretty dire situation. Why would he need a shelter?

Not sure that is the case.

professore

I think there are very few cases where the man gets to keep the home, unless the wife is a strung out drug addict - and even then strong evidence will be needed - she will generally get the home and the kids.

Lux23

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/why-female-violence-against-men-is-societys-last-great-taboo/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw

Interesting piece.