My point is that it is not balck and white/cut and dried:)

The survey covers all sorts of violence, i used a case i knew as i am familar with it, the woman instigated the violence in a lot of cases and the man was arrested. thier case as a statistic would show that he assulted her, nto what was behind it or really involved...

Right, I'm going to leave it there because it doesn't matter what I say next.

Jesus Clare.... I do not mean to burst your bubble but not every woman you see on a street is an angel

I understand that, but I don't see many hostels and refuges being set up for men who are being physically abused. But then, I mean, I must have got it all wrong, we've got you and that woman Paul knows.... The statistics must be swayed in the women's favour for some reason we haven't quite fathomed yet! ;)

Come on guys, I have worked with 2 young women this week who are abused by partners. Are you seriously telling me that domestic violence where men are victims EQUALS or is GREATER THAN the threat to women?

Have to agree there. I don't claim to have the statistics, but to be honest it doesn't matter. Violence against anyone, you are supposed to love, is just as serious regardless of gender. Maybe the issue is greater in terms of men attacking women (or men don't report it), but the issue of domestic violence should be addressed as a whole, and not just focus on one side of it.

On this subject just to show how it can all end up. Yesterday my wife called me to tell me my cousin 43yrs old - Joan - mother of four and grandmother to two had just yesterday morning been stabbed and her throat cut by her husband.

It happend approx 05.00 she was in bed at the time. He left the house and handed himself in an hour later. Police and paramedics rushed to the house woke her 80yr old father who lives in a granny flat attatched and found her barely alive.
She was ruhed to hospital but died shortly after.

They live in Dublin and has been on the TV and radio news - RTE. Most Irish papers had the story in today sorry I don't know how to do links.

Just got off the phone with her brother who had to officially identify the body. He then had to go to the house to clean up. Not nice..

So it is serious and can end terribly.

So sorry to hear that daddyscoob. Thoughts are with you and your family :(

Aye, sorry to hear that daddyscoob, terrible situation ... :(

I'll tell you that the NUMBER OF REPORTED CASES where women are victims are greater than that of men. It is very unlikely that a man will go to the police to report being a victim of domestic violence.

Statisitics suggest that it takes 45 occurences before a woman will report the abuse, whereas for a male it is much, much higher.

It's also a similar story when it comes to harrasment - a tiny amount of men report it.

Why? Because it doesn't look very macho for a man to go to a police station, which many still view as a male domain, to admit that he's been abused by a woman.

If a man was raped, it's more likely he'd want to see a female officer, just like a female would want to see a female officer - again, this goes down to not wanting to lose face with other males.

Let's not forget that domestic abuse isn't just violence - it also includes emotional abuse, blackmail and controlling of another, deprivation, harrasment, sexual assault and anything else that puts one person in controlling position of another.

It is also fair to say that a number of reported cases of domestic violence and/or harrasment are false accusations from a spurned partner seeking revenge, which surely means that they are now causing emotional suffering on the other partner so just as bad, if not more guilty.

thank you for your kind thoughts:cry:

If a woman attacked me I would restrain her. Is that violence?

Some of the posts in this thread seem to suggest the poster wouldn't do a thing if attacked by a woman, but there's no way I'd let anyone hit me.

Would you report the fact that she attacked you? Maybe she would report your restraint as an assault and then you're getting hauled in for questioning.

You can always say you restrained her as self-defence, but you'd need to show signs of assault/battery, ABH or GBH etc, but as I pointed out earlier, how many men would admit to being a victim of violence by a woman?

I wouldn't report anything like that because, it might sound daft but that doesn't strike me as being that serious. Unless obviously she had attacked me with a weapon of some sort and I couldn't restrain her, and had been hurt. The fact she might report me for that hadn't even crossed my mind.

I can't imagine myself in a relationship where I'm being abused by my girlfriend to be honest, just from the kind of women I like to spend time with, but I suppose it's easy saying that when it isn't happening to me, like so many other things in life...

I can totally see where the lack of support for men in that situation comes from though. As I said, it's not even something I would see as being serious in my life - if my girlfriend turned on me tonight for some reason I'd just stop her and then have nothing more to do with her.

The legal definition we appply at Nottinghamshire Police is:

Any incident of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse
- Psychological
- Physical
- Sexual
- Financial
- Emotional

between persons aged over 16 and over, who are or have been intimate partners

OR

Between adults, aged 18 and over who are family members, regardless of gender and sexuality.

This includes cab include abuse from/to a: Mother, Father, Son, Daughter, Brother, Sister or Grandparents, whether directly related, in-laws or step family.

Domestic Abuse is basically about obtaining and keeping power and control over another, through any means possible. The Duluth Model (written as female as a victim) shows many of the ways that this is achieved.

The main factors are through:
- using coercion or threat --> making and/or carrying out threats to do something to the victim, threatening to leave the victim, to commit suicide to report her for welfare, make them drop charges, make them do illegal things.

- using intimidation --> making the victim afraid by using looks, actions or gestures, smashing things, detroying the victims property, abusing pets, displaying weapons.

- using emotional abuse --> putting them down, making them feel bead about themselves, calling them names, making the victim think she/he is crazy, playing mind games, humiliating her/him, making them feel guilty.

- using isolation --> Controlling what she/he does, who they see and talk to, where he/she goes, limiting outside involvelment, using jealousy to justify actions.

- minimizing, denying and blaming --> making light of abuse and not taking victims concerns seriously, saying abuse didn't happen, shifting responsibility for behaviour, saying victim caused it.

- using children --> making victim feel guilty about the children, using children to relay messages, using visitation to harrass, threatening to take child away.

- using male privalege --> treating him/her as a servant, making all the big decisions, acting as "king of the castle", being the one who defines the male and females roles.

- using economic abuse --> preventimg him/her getting/keeping a job, making him/her ask for money, giving her/him an allowance, taking her/his money, not letting her/him know about or have access to family income.

It is thought that 1 in 4 women will be a victim of domestic abuse in their lives, while 1 in 6 men will be. This can be from hetero or homo sexual relationships.

It is thought by experts that the real rate of domestic abuse against males is actually 140% higher than what is reported.

1 incident of domestic abuse is reported to the police every minute, while on average 2 women will die each week as a result of domestic abuse, but no figures are available for males who die as a result of domestic violence.

If you could move on from that partner, then brilliant, do it. But some people find themselves reliant on the person who is abusing them. Most of the time ot is a financial reason such as they cannot afford to leave.

Some theories suggest that domestic violence is learned through positive reinforcement, the offender will commit the abuse, say they are sorry and they won't do it again, then it happens again, so the victim tries to do everything to correct what was wrong which made the offender kick off, and the cycle happens again. This also results in the victim learning to become a victim.

Sutherland argued that domestic violence is an external product used to normalise behaviour. The offender has learned that it is acceptable in those circumstances e.g. saw parents committing DA as a child so thinks it's ok to do.

That theory can also be argued with the fact that not all children who witnessed or suffered DA as a child go on to become offenders as an adult.

Other theories such as those used by feminists, say it's men wanting to be in control of women and society is a patriachal society.

It could have been argued in the past (e.g. up to WWII) that women would always be the victims of domestic abuse in a patriachal society, but these days, where women are acepted as equals, both men and women go out to work - especially due to the current economic crisis and the cost of living and paying a mortgage.

Many people will recall that Witney Houston was a victim to Bobby Brown, more recently Rihanna suffered at the hands of Chris Brown, but also David Gest has suffered at the hands of Liza Minelli.

Women are equally perpetrators as men and men are equally deserving of receiving victim support as females.

Most support agencies offer support for female (victim)/ male (offender) situations, but it is incredibly rare to find support for males (I know of only 4 hostels for male victims in the UK). These hostels generally ban the opposite sex from entering the premises in order to stop offenders gaining access. This fails to take in to account same LGBT relationships where the offender could walk in as he/she is the same sex as the victim.

Other key factors in domestic abuse include mental health and disorders which cost the NHS £176,000,000 in treatment (Walby 2004) and the NHS spends £1,220,247,000 (3%) of it's budget the phyiscal treatments.

Keira Knightley has featured in a campaign to highlight Domestic Abuse, which is available to viiw here

Good words

Cool, i do not think anyone has said anything to contradict that violence against women is deplorable and unacceptable, unless under extreme circumstances, not for a jolly or because you can!

What has be opened up is the wider issues around it, nothing more.

I understand that you have dealt with two domestic abuse cases recently and i am sure that is was most distressing, i would not want to have to do this and i am sure i would find it harrowing, obviously not as harrowing as the victims.

The website mentions most forms of violence including what has been discussed here so not too sure what you issue is, not looking for a fight, the exact opposite in fact:)