Following my italicised intro is an excerpt from Bill Ralston’s recent column in the Herald.
I’ve been searching in vain for years for anyone in the media, especially anybody as high profile as Bill, to say stuff like this.
At the same time I have been fuming at the stupidity and hypocrisy of the “blame men” approach which has characterised the “Stop family violence” campaign – and at the male journalists who have lent their notional testicles to forward it.
During the hysterical excesses and crass stupidities of the stop-child-sexual-abuse campaign in the eighties, it was for a long time simply not possible to even comment on its inequities and inaccuracies and its blatant stupidities without being accused of being a closet paedophile. It was far easier instead to be outraged at the plague of satanic ritual sex abuse raging unchecked through our childcare centres.
For some years now the same has applied to issues around family violence. The fictitious violent, predatory, paedophilic and woman-hating kiwi male of the sexual abuse soap opera has reappeared in the family violence sequel. To question this has amounted to a suggestion that one supports the bashing of women and children.
If family violence is to be addressed effectively we need to look at what is actually happening inside violent relationships, and get this stuff into a focussed education campaign — not filter information through a pseudo-feminist distorting lens.
It’s not even good feminism.
Even more important we need to be looking at what is happening inside non-violent relationships – especially those where we might expect stressors such as unemployment and so forth to operate. These are people who have consciously or otherwise developed successful coping strategies. They are people who are living in often hellishly stressful situations without physical or verbal violence. They are the citizens with treasure to offer us.
PS. I have one small reservation about the information Bill presents: it tends to imply that family violence is a function of “childhood adversity, mental health disorders and other life traumas.” This might suggest that we can rule out the comfortably-off middle class and the wealthy as environments for violence. I doubt this is the case.
DCW
Take it away, Bill:
………
If National is willing to change the mindset Labour adopted when dealing with business and the economy it might also want to look at changing how the last government approached social policy.
The thick streak of political correctness that underlay Labour’s approach to social issues is worth reappraising. It often produced illogical, inefficient, wasteful and downright silly outcomes.
For example, take one of my pet hates, the “It’s Not OK” campaign against domestic violence in which a collection of earnest men smugly entreat other men to not give their partners and kids the bash.
This campaign followed an earlier series of commercials depicting thuggish blokes battering their way through the household.
The last government’s strategy was to place the burden of responsibility for domestic violence always on men. To suggest otherwise was heresy, so the bureaucrats produced advertising campaigns solely targeted at stopping men being violent towards women.
Sadly, domestic violence continues unabated. This may well be because the government doctrine of “Blame the Bloke” ignores some very real scientific research that questions the conventional thinking on the issue.
For years, Professor David Fergusson from the University of Otago, Christchurch, has been responsible for a longitudinal study of 1265 children born in Canterbury in mid-1977. As part of that research, he studied the issue of violence, ranging from psychological abuse to serious physical attack between partners.
Professor Fergusson found that, among young adults, men and women are equally violent towards each other.
The research also showed the range of violence committed by men and women is similar and the consequences, in injury and psychological effects, are also much the same for both sexes. This is no oddball piece of academic research. It is backed by the findings of similar international studies.
Fergusson concludes the root cause of domestic violence is not solely bullying men.
He reckons violent partnerships are more likely to be associated with childhood adversity, mental health disorders and other life traumas.
In other words, violent partnerships are more likely to spring up where people have experienced serious difficulties and disadvantages in life.
In 2006 he advised government agencies that his study “suggests the need for a broadening of analysis of domestic violence away from focusing on male perpetrators and female victims to examining violent couples who use aggression in their relationship”. Fergusson was ignored.
Multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns stressing male aggressors and female victims continued and intensified even though the Fergusson study would suggest this approach was ineffective and a waste of money.
The only rational explanation is that Fergusson’s advice was politically unacceptable to Labour. They were cemented into a blindly feminist position of “women good, men bad”.
The truth is, both sexes can be bad and trying to attribute blame to just one sex is senseless and futile.
If the huge budget currently being spent on targeting violent males and trying to convince them to change their nasty ways was, instead, used to treat the real cause – social disadvantage, deprivation and mental illness – we might start seeing some results. The cost to taxpayers from domestic violence might reduce.
A change of government is a chance to reappraise not just the approach to combating domestic violence but an opportunity to challenge the accepted methods of doing things all across the board in social policy.
Ministers should learn to question every long-accepted philosophical approach in their departments.
Not only might it reduce costs, it could mean that the taxpayer starts seeing some real value for money for a pleasant change.
For more on these issues, check out http://wudhi.com/mwv/index.htm
NOTE: On account of its title, this item has been targetted by every internet pharmacy spam distributor (!!!) in the universe, and I have filtered comments. If you want me to see your comment include the words “This is not spam” in your comment. Cheers, Dave