All of those women's deaths and now this http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-29/anthony-paperless-arrests-could-lead-to-more-deaths/6505768 it does makes me wonder......
I don't know, it's a clever little snippet that.. Are the numbers up on previous years, decades? How many of the 1,052 were in positions of authority or power or status? It's not a small conversation, this one. I think there is probably a wrestle going on but women were never killers, not compared to men.
Ok I just lost a great big comment to the ether so I'll try again ...
I posted it the other day after a week of the PM bunging on his "I'll do anything to keep Australians safe" thing, while trying to slip some pretty dodge legislation through because terrorists. Suddenly the pollsters reckon that one of Australians' biggest contemporary fears is ISIS. It's bullshit.
As for the numbers, I know the ones on warfare and terrorism are spot on. For the last few years one woman a week has died from domestic violence in Australia but it has doubled so far this year. The tricky bit is working out whether Kon's numbers are from all male violence against women or what is called 'intimate partner' violence. And then the wild card scenario is that you can't call it either way until the killers are tried and convicted.
Pro Tip 1 To avoid heartbreak, write your comments in a text editor and then copy them into the reply box.
Pro Tip 2 Whenever you hear a politician talk about terrorism or child pornography these days, you can pretty safely assume that dodgy legislation is afoot.
Pro Tip 3 Be on the lookout, because this shit's going to get worse before it gets better. If it gets better.
That concludes this installment of: "Tips From An Old Pro".
… Hmmm, maybe I should've given that name more thought.
Forgive me, my alter ego Max wrote the following out of some inner desire to drive an argument to the wall. Taking the macro view, women don't kill people like men do/have done and yes there is a reason why men are probably likely to kill more women today than before, it being women having more power. I don't think the figures/number thing is relevent. I think men have a more rudimentary compulsion to tear apart the things they can't control or that frustrate their ambitions and that women openly or secretly, recently or historically, aspire to and practise control in ways that deliberately subvert male superiority. In the war you speak of, one is equal to the other, its just women are spiders and men wolves, women secrete poison where as men just bare their teeth.
I'm afraid I have many questions and few answers on this topic.
Is this a problem that's getting worse? I know you said it's been up in the last six months, but what's the longer trend? How far do the figures go back? I wonder, because the world I grew up in didn't seem to want for violence, and I don't get the sense that things have gotten dramatically worse in that regard. Maybe there are more fatal consequences these days? If so, why? Is there a correlation with amphetamine use? And how many of these were murder/suicides?
I have to guess that the discrepancy between levels of male and female violence comes from some combination of biology, culture, and opportunity; but to what degree does each play a role? Testosterone seems like an obvious suspect, but I can't imagine it being the only factor at work. Men are more likely to kill themselves, too, aren't they? Does that suggest a greater cultural influence? I've read numerous times that woman-on-woman violence is both underreported and understudied, which, given my history, doesn't particularly surprise me. And just about everyone I know from my parents' generation has a story about how vicious nuns can be.
I wonder what the stats are like in relationships where women are bigger and stronger than their male partner? Or like where the man has a physical disability or something? A difficult thing to study I imagine … but maybe part of it comes down to the simple fact that no matter how violent or drug-fueled we get, the chances are slim that most of us are going to be physically capable of beating our boyfriend's brains out in a fit of anger?
Firstly 'Max', your argument isn't driven to the wall at all. The nail is bent and the hammer has a slightly skewed swing to it. Your argument diverts from my original impetus for this post - that the focus on terrorism and keeping Australia safe is bullshit because more women have been killed by men in their own homes in Australia since 1976 than any soldier or victim of terrorism. To try and counter my argument with 'nature or nurture' or 'spiders and wolves' stuff is a conflation of unrelated facts and a complete denial of cold hard statistics. I'll leave your idea that women are always passive aggressively inclined for control entirely alone.
"I don't think the figures/number thing is relevant." Well I think it is.
And Alex, the nuns may have been bigger and stronger than the kids, or some random woman may be bigger and stronger than her bloke ... but those women are not the structural make-up of our society. If anything they are an anomaly.
Recently, the sudden spike in DV deaths in Australia was attributed to women's voices against DV becoming more vocal. A rather deadly move against ideological change, so to speak.
And another thing ... I am reminded of Windshuttle's argument/number crunching in The Fabrication of Aboriginal History here. How much of it is statistical and how much of it is ideological?
In short, I guess what I'm wondering is this: If DV is the manifestation of an underlying problem, is it a defect in men's programming specifically (biological and/or cultural), or is it a defect in all of us that we see as a male problem because men are (usually) in a position to do the most damage?
I imagine that this is something you would have to look at if you wanted to turn things around. Simply saying to men, "Hey, stop doing that", doesn't appear to be working.
Or maybe you don't try to fix the flaw and instead find some means to work around it? To make women (more) safe despite the persistence of these violent inclinations?
So I guess what I'm really wondering is: If the problem has always been with us and isn't going away — what's the root cause and how do you fix it?
… Hmmm, that was probably a fairly useless train of thought, in retrospect.
Recently a woman in my area was tortured by her husband, hung by her neck over a tree via his tow bar, towed by his car around a paddock and finally, in a really public gesture, after she'd left him and sought refuge, had her car rolled by him in another car, purposefully in front of a local school.
It's not being seen as terrorism. It's a minor DV incidence. This story hasn't even really hit the local papers proper.
I don't think the figures numbers thing is relevent to the problem of violence against women. It can be used in argument sure and to prove that the rate is increasing, but in my view it will come down to the issue of power erosion and the male response. Idealogical change is a great idea but most people who resort to heavy violence aren't likely to understand too much why they're angry enough to kill, they'll just get pissed enough one day and let it happen. That's enough from me and Max...
I'm a teeth barer, not a poisoner. Gender stereotyping like this makes me want to commit murder - of men. Reductive - absolutely. From a psychologocal perspective - men kill women because they can't control them - they fear their own feminine selves, the female part of their own psyches. This binary has been going on since the dawn of time, it causes wars and it causes MANkind to destroy MOTHER earth. I'm sick of the fucking excuses. The psychological imperative to FUCK everything, to PENETRATE and INSEMINATE is down to the masculine biology (mining is symbolic raping of Mother earth). Civilisation requires all of us to act beyond our primal drives and yes, women are implicit because they go along with it. MANkind needs to take responsibility. And WOMANkind needs to start baring its teeth.
Michelle, your argument is reductive too! For Christ's sake, what I am trying to put across here is a fight for the recognition of gender equality, in the face of right wingers with flags lined up against terrorism (has anyone here in the room been affected by terrorism? No? Me neither ...except on a domestic front) I don't want to kill all men. I think most of them are quite nice people actually. What I think is that the current govt are preying on our fears of the outsider. "They are coming for us," is what the PM said today. Whilst ignoring that a woman was burned to death in Hobart, yesterday.
Oh, and they don't need to understand Ciaran. My mother brandished a knife at my father one evening and said: 'you might have the upper hand now, but you have to sleep sometime and I'm going to cut your balls off.
Outrage is a powerful thing. My father never hit my mother again. Bullies are cowards too.
Sorry Michelle, I really should stop commenting on this thread because it just ratchets up my angries every time. I think that our cultural values are pretty skewed when we apply more weight and offense to a few beheadings posted on the internet than to what is going on in our own backyard.
And women shouldn't have to brandish knives or bite back. It's buying straight into masculine notions of warfare.
Michelle, that story reminds me of my Great Auntie Mags, who set her husband on fire after he gave her a hiding. She's kind of a legend in our family.
I don't want to sound like a broken record on this, but your mention of miners raping the earth reminds me of the Gina Rineharts of the world — and that old saying about power and corruption. Do men act like cunts because they're men, or because of the power they have? When women have that power (rare, I grant you), does it not just tend to make them more like men?
Note: This is not an argument against women having power. It's not really an arguments at all. It's a question.
Of course I get what the post is about Sarah, but I think you are being reductive too. I am fed up with political correctness and the bullshit and the expectation that we, the 'educated class', should be 'nice' and 'reasonable'. It is showing somewhat of a superiority complex to say it's 'buying back into masculine notions of warfare'. Women are warriors too and sometimes you just have to fucking fight. It's all very well being namby pamby about this when we live thousands of miles away from most of the action. I'll bet if these cunts walked in your door and threatened your kids you'd be the first to brandish the knife - oh no, it would probably be a gun because of your experience shooting cans. I'd like you on my side for that alone.
I am not advocating violence, not at all, but in the real world you sometimes have to fight for your life, or for those you love. I am not a saint or Christian and I wouldn't turn the other cheek. It's the same damn issue whether it's gender based violence or terrorists - the will to power.
The issue of gender itself is completely reductive because people divide the world into 'women' and 'men' - and a few combinations in between of course - but mainly the former. It is more accurate to use 'masculine and feminine' and all humans have both of these in their psyches. So yes Alex, women can be the biggest misusers of power and we attribute that to the masculine part of the psyche which needs to dominate and fuck everything over. And I am just as critical of those who share my own biology.
It's not about men or women, or terrorists and domestic violence - these are all about the same thing. It's about consciousness. But the majority don't want to know about that. It takes self awareness, self responsibility and it's just too bloody hard. And that's why I get pissed off with ALL of this in my parallel universe - most people don't really want to solve the problems because they have to start with themselves.
What war on women?
ReplyDeleteAll of those women's deaths
ReplyDeleteand now this
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-29/anthony-paperless-arrests-could-lead-to-more-deaths/6505768
it does makes me wonder......
I think paperless arrests have been informally in place for a long time. But yes, anyway ... shocking stats.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, it's a clever little snippet that..
ReplyDeleteAre the numbers up on previous years, decades?
How many of the 1,052 were in positions of authority or power or status?
It's not a small conversation, this one.
I think there is probably a wrestle going on but women were never killers, not compared to men.
Ok I just lost a great big comment to the ether so I'll try again ...
DeleteI posted it the other day after a week of the PM bunging on his "I'll do anything to keep Australians safe" thing, while trying to slip some pretty dodge legislation through because terrorists. Suddenly the pollsters reckon that one of Australians' biggest contemporary fears is ISIS. It's bullshit.
As for the numbers, I know the ones on warfare and terrorism are spot on. For the last few years one woman a week has died from domestic violence in Australia but it has doubled so far this year. The tricky bit is working out whether Kon's numbers are from all male violence against women or what is called 'intimate partner' violence. And then the wild card scenario is that you can't call it either way until the killers are tried and convicted.
Pro Tip 1
DeleteTo avoid heartbreak, write your comments in a text editor and then copy them into the reply box.
Pro Tip 2
Whenever you hear a politician talk about terrorism or child pornography these days, you can pretty safely assume that dodgy legislation is afoot.
Pro Tip 3
Be on the lookout, because this shit's going to get worse before it gets better. If it gets better.
That concludes this installment of: "Tips From An Old Pro".
… Hmmm, maybe I should've given that name more thought.
Ha ha, thanks for the tips Ms Pro
ReplyDeleteForgive me, my alter ego Max wrote the following out of some inner desire to drive an argument to the wall. Taking the macro view, women don't kill people like men do/have done and yes there is a reason why men are probably likely to kill more women today than before, it being women having more power. I don't think the figures/number thing is relevent. I think men have a more rudimentary compulsion to tear apart the things they can't control or that frustrate their ambitions and that women openly or secretly, recently or historically, aspire to and practise control in ways that deliberately subvert male superiority. In the war you speak of, one is equal to the other, its just women are spiders and men wolves, women secrete poison where as men just bare their teeth.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I have many questions and few answers on this topic.
ReplyDeleteIs this a problem that's getting worse? I know you said it's been up in the last six months, but what's the longer trend? How far do the figures go back? I wonder, because the world I grew up in didn't seem to want for violence, and I don't get the sense that things have gotten dramatically worse in that regard. Maybe there are more fatal consequences these days? If so, why? Is there a correlation with amphetamine use? And how many of these were murder/suicides?
I have to guess that the discrepancy between levels of male and female violence comes from some combination of biology, culture, and opportunity; but to what degree does each play a role? Testosterone seems like an obvious suspect, but I can't imagine it being the only factor at work. Men are more likely to kill themselves, too, aren't they? Does that suggest a greater cultural influence? I've read numerous times that woman-on-woman violence is both underreported and understudied, which, given my history, doesn't particularly surprise me. And just about everyone I know from my parents' generation has a story about how vicious nuns can be.
I wonder what the stats are like in relationships where women are bigger and stronger than their male partner? Or like where the man has a physical disability or something? A difficult thing to study I imagine … but maybe part of it comes down to the simple fact that no matter how violent or drug-fueled we get, the chances are slim that most of us are going to be physically capable of beating our boyfriend's brains out in a fit of anger?
That's a depressing thought, isn't it?
Okay (sigh). I'll have a crack ...
ReplyDeleteFirstly 'Max', your argument isn't driven to the wall at all. The nail is bent and the hammer has a slightly skewed swing to it. Your argument diverts from my original impetus for this post - that the focus on terrorism and keeping Australia safe is bullshit because more women have been killed by men in their own homes in Australia since 1976 than any soldier or victim of terrorism. To try and counter my argument with 'nature or nurture' or 'spiders and wolves' stuff is a conflation of unrelated facts and a complete denial of cold hard statistics. I'll leave your idea that women are always passive aggressively inclined for control entirely alone.
"I don't think the figures/number thing is relevant."
Well I think it is.
And Alex, the nuns may have been bigger and stronger than the kids, or some random woman may be bigger and stronger than her bloke ... but those women are not the structural make-up of our society. If anything they are an anomaly.
DeleteRecently, the sudden spike in DV deaths in Australia was attributed to women's voices against DV becoming more vocal. A rather deadly move against ideological change, so to speak.
And another thing ... I am reminded of Windshuttle's argument/number crunching in The Fabrication of Aboriginal History here. How much of it is statistical and how much of it is ideological?
ReplyDeleteIn short, I guess what I'm wondering is this: If DV is the manifestation of an underlying problem, is it a defect in men's programming specifically (biological and/or cultural), or is it a defect in all of us that we see as a male problem because men are (usually) in a position to do the most damage?
ReplyDeleteI imagine that this is something you would have to look at if you wanted to turn things around. Simply saying to men, "Hey, stop doing that", doesn't appear to be working.
Or maybe you don't try to fix the flaw and instead find some means to work around it? To make women (more) safe despite the persistence of these violent inclinations?
So I guess what I'm really wondering is: If the problem has always been with us and isn't going away — what's the root cause and how do you fix it?
… Hmmm, that was probably a fairly useless train of thought, in retrospect.
Recently a woman in my area was tortured by her husband, hung by her neck over a tree via his tow bar, towed by his car around a paddock and finally, in a really public gesture, after she'd left him and sought refuge, had her car rolled by him in another car, purposefully in front of a local school.
DeleteIt's not being seen as terrorism. It's a minor DV incidence. This story hasn't even really hit the local papers proper.
I get your queries Alex but, fuck. I don't know.
DeleteWhich brings us back to the beginning.
DeleteThe first step to addressing the problem is addressing the actual fucking problem. Not getting in a tizzy over some projected bogeyman.
It may not even begin to fix things, but at least it'd be a start.
That's quite a horrific story, too, by the way. Even more horrific that it barely raises a blip on the radar.
There are no bogeymen, Alex. Lets get back to the structure of our society.
DeleteI don't think the figures numbers thing is relevent to the problem of violence against women. It can be used in argument sure and to prove that the rate is increasing, but in my view it will come down to the issue of power erosion and the male response. Idealogical change is a great idea but most people who resort to heavy violence aren't likely to understand too much why they're angry enough to kill, they'll just get pissed enough one day and let it happen. That's enough from me and Max...
ReplyDeleteThat is still a reductive argument, Ciaran. (Max)
ReplyDeleteI'm a teeth barer, not a poisoner. Gender stereotyping like this makes me want to commit murder - of men. Reductive - absolutely. From a psychologocal perspective - men kill women because they can't control them - they fear their own feminine selves, the female part of their own psyches. This binary has been going on since the dawn of time, it causes wars and it causes MANkind to destroy MOTHER earth. I'm sick of the fucking excuses. The psychological imperative to FUCK everything, to PENETRATE and INSEMINATE is down to the masculine biology (mining is symbolic raping of Mother earth). Civilisation requires all of us to act beyond our primal drives and yes, women are implicit because they go along with it. MANkind needs to take responsibility. And WOMANkind needs to start baring its teeth.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, your argument is reductive too!
DeleteFor Christ's sake, what I am trying to put across here is a fight for the recognition of gender equality, in the face of right wingers with flags lined up against terrorism (has anyone here in the room been affected by terrorism? No? Me neither ...except on a domestic front)
I don't want to kill all men. I think most of them are quite nice people actually.
What I think is that the current govt are preying on our fears of the outsider. "They are coming for us," is what the PM said today. Whilst ignoring that a woman was burned to death in Hobart, yesterday.
Oh, and they don't need to understand Ciaran. My mother brandished a knife at my father one evening and said: 'you might have the upper hand now, but you have to sleep sometime and I'm going to cut your balls off.
ReplyDeleteOutrage is a powerful thing. My father never hit my mother again. Bullies are cowards too.
Sorry Michelle, I really should stop commenting on this thread because it just ratchets up my angries every time. I think that our cultural values are pretty skewed when we apply more weight and offense to a few beheadings posted on the internet than to what is going on in our own backyard.
DeleteAnd women shouldn't have to brandish knives or bite back. It's buying straight into masculine notions of warfare.
Michelle, that story reminds me of my Great Auntie Mags, who set her husband on fire after he gave her a hiding. She's kind of a legend in our family.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to sound like a broken record on this, but your mention of miners raping the earth reminds me of the Gina Rineharts of the world — and that old saying about power and corruption. Do men act like cunts because they're men, or because of the power they have? When women have that power (rare, I grant you), does it not just tend to make them more like men?
Note: This is not an argument against women having power. It's not really an arguments at all. It's a question.
Of course I get what the post is about Sarah, but I think you are being reductive too. I am fed up with political correctness and the bullshit and the expectation that we, the 'educated class', should be 'nice' and 'reasonable'. It is showing somewhat of a superiority complex to say it's 'buying back into masculine notions of warfare'. Women are warriors too and sometimes you just have to fucking fight. It's all very well being namby pamby about this when we live thousands of miles away from most of the action. I'll bet if these cunts walked in your door and threatened your kids you'd be the first to brandish the knife - oh no, it would probably be a gun because of your experience shooting cans. I'd like you on my side for that alone.
ReplyDeleteI am not advocating violence, not at all, but in the real world you sometimes have to fight for your life, or for those you love. I am not a saint or Christian and I wouldn't turn the other cheek. It's the same damn issue whether it's gender based violence or terrorists - the will to power.
The issue of gender itself is completely reductive because people divide the world into 'women' and 'men' - and a few combinations in between of course - but mainly the former. It is more accurate to use 'masculine and feminine' and all humans have both of these in their psyches. So yes Alex, women can be the biggest misusers of power and we attribute that to the masculine part of the psyche which needs to dominate and fuck everything over. And I am just as critical of those who share my own biology.
It's not about men or women, or terrorists and domestic violence - these are all about the same thing. It's about consciousness. But the majority don't want to know about that. It takes self awareness, self responsibility and it's just too bloody hard. And that's why I get pissed off with ALL of this in my parallel universe - most people don't really want to solve the problems because they have to start with themselves.