"PEN" (People's Equality Network) has sent me two reports on domestic violence in Australia. they are:
Domestic Violence - Recent Statistics in Victoria
and:
Domestic Violence - 'Shameful statistics exposed'
People's Equality Network - January 1995
Domestic Violence - Recent Statistics in Victoria
Summary
Domestic violence is a disturbing cultural problem, and a highly emotive issue for everyone. In most public presentations of the subject, it is portrayed primarily in gender terms: that of male violence against women. One major report - the National Strategy on Violence Against Women - has gone so far as to depict domestic violence as 'a specific women-only problem', and to call for the term 'domestic violence' to be replaced exclusively with the term 'violence against women'. Such an attitude is likely to be counter-productive, because it fails to address - in effect explicitly refuses to address - the equally real problem of violence by women.
Violence by women is a problem which our society has consistently failed to address, usually on the grounds that it is and always has been statistically insignificant, especially by comparison with men's violence against women. A recent report on domestic violence published by VicHealth (Victorian Health Promotion Foundation) states that the relative injury ratios as a result of inter-partner physical assaults are approximately 5:1 female to male. Such a ratio would indicate that although physical violence by women would seem to be far less common than men's, it would have to be considered 'statistically significant', and realistic allowances made for it within the development of any meaningful strategy on domestic violence.
Even this 5:1 ratio, however, mispresents the problem, because the methodology used to derive it has significant flaws: it does not allow for known sociological and other factors, and detailed analysis was applied solely to female injury-cases. For comparable injuries, the female:male injury ratios reported in the study are less than 2 to 1, a figure consistent with certain US studies; and the report explicitly states that injuries to males "heavily outweigh" those to females under the definitions used for 'probable' and 'suggestive' cases of domestic violence. Other available evidence strongly suggests that women initiate physical assault far more often than men: violence by women is by no means 'statistically insignificant', and may be as significant a problem as violence by males. This fact may be unpalatable to many, and may even be described as 'anti-feminist', but it is a fact which must now be addressed.
Violence by men against women is recognised as a significant problem; violence by women is not. Present 'solutions' such as rigid criminalisation have demonstrably failed to solve the problems of male violence; they are likely to be even less effective, and even less acceptable, for tackling female domestic violence - especially female violence against children. A new approach is required which addresses domestic violence not as a gendered problem, but as a human problem with gendered overtones: a problem for which we are all, collectively, responsible.
Note that Australian homicide data give a 4:1 ratio.
People's Equality Network - May 1995
Domestic Violence - 'Shameful statistics exposed'
Summary
Violence against women continues to be a significant issue in Australia. Dr Carmen Lawrence, in a press-release on 'National Stop Violence Against Women Day' (26 April) issued by the Office of the Status of Women, claimed that there were 5000 women and children seeking refuge from domestic violence each night in Australia, that 14000 cases of domestic violence - implied as solely against women - were reported by Victoria Police in 1992, and that 70 percent of police time in New South Wales was taken up in dealing with domestic violence. The theme of this seventh national day on domestic violence was "We Are Breaking the Silence - Your Voice will Make a Difference"; as part of that 'breaking of the silence', Dr Lawrence said, "these statistics are shameful and demand exposure".
However, further analysis indicates that almost all statements in the press-release which purport to be fact are in reality either seriously misleading or seriously incorrect. Most of the figures stated in the press-release - such as those above - would seem, on detailed scrutiny of their sources, to be exaggerated by many orders of magnitude. Whilst the fact of violence against women is indeed 'shameful', the fact which urgently needs to be exposed is that violence against men is far more common than violence against women; and the statistic which is truly shameful, and which truly demands exposure, is that women's violence against other women, and particularly against men, is in reality little different from that of men's violence against women. This fact is shown by a more detailed analysis of a recent study on domestic violence by the Monash University Accident Research Centre.
The statements in the press-release, which were attributed personally to Dr Lawrence and were issued by her personal office, continue a persistent habit of exaggeration and misinformation on gender-issues by the Office of the Status of Women and other non-government organisations - such as the Women's Electoral Lobby, of which Dr Lawrence is a prominent member - whose sole purpose appears to be to provide funding and other support for an extreme form of gender-politics which has little or no basis in fact. Such a campaign, and the concomitant misuse of government funds, would appear to be tantamount to fraud on a major scale. Detailed investigation of the activities of the Office of the Status of Women and of the recipients of its funding would appear to be urgently required. It is also particularly disturbing that a politician such responsibility, reputation and general public respect as Dr Lawrence should lend her name to a campaign of such serious and apparently systematic misinformation: parliamentary investigation would appear to be recommended.
Stuart Birks
Last updated 26 February, 1996