The Family Place To MRAs: "Instead of bashing women’s organizations, stand up and help somebody yourself."

[This is the third post in a series, criticizing the recent campaign by anti-feminist Glenn Sacks against The Family Place. I’d like to remind readers that “Alas, a Blog” will match any contributions you make to The Family Place this week (up to $800 total), so please donate, and then let me know in comments or by using the form!]

(Links to the posts in this series: One Two Three.)

This post continues the interview with Paige Flink, the executive director of The Family Place. The Family Place, a Dallas-based group providing shelter and services to victims of domestic violence, was the subject of a recent campaign by men’s rights activists, led by Glenn Sacks.

Once again, thanks to Ms. Flink for being nice enough to talk with me.

Did Glenn Sacks, or any other men’s rights activist, contact you about these ads prior to beginning their campaign?

No. They started blasting before I ever heard from him.

Did Glenn Sacks directly call or write you once his campaign had begun?

He did call me later, kinda the way I remember it happening, our bus ads had been up for about three weeks, the Dallas news ran an article about it. He [talked about the ads] on a Sunday radio show, and then on Monday DART was deluged with emails. Then I got a call from him the following week. He called saying, and I’m paraphrasing, “I have a way for you to get yourself out of this mess you’ve gotten yourself into.” I did not return his phone call.1

Why didn’t you return his call?

Well, I didn’t return his call.. at that point, we were being attacked. It wasn’t a conversation I had started, and I didn’t feel like my point of view would make any difference.

Does The Family Place provide services to male victims of domestic violence?

Yes we do. We do. Of course, there’s a huge difference in the number. On an average year we’ll shelter between 700 and 900 women and children, and we’ll council 8-20 men who are victims.

We do not shelter men in the facility, but we do provide hotel vouchers. We have a suite we can use. Most of the men who have come to us have been men in same-sex relationships, so we work with the Dallas Resource Center, which provides services for gays and lesbians. And when they come with kids we help them too; we have sheltered men with children.

Would you consider bus ads designed to reach out to male victims of violence?

We would certainly consider it. This was our 30th anniversary and we had been saving money for a campaign, and we targeted women specifically because our experience has been that when women think about what their children are witnessing, they are more likely to take action. We are ultimately trying to prevent murders, and women are the most likely victims of murder in these situations.

It was a small campaign, but we wanted it to be memorable.

Would you have been open to, for example, the idea of Glenn and his audience raising funds to help pay for an ad campaign reaching out to abused men?

Sure. My experience has not been that with these father’s rights groups, but if a father’s rights group had contacted us and said we want to help raise money to provide counseling services and to provide shelter, that would have been incredible. But that’s never happened.

How would you respond to a men’s rights activist who said “men aren’t using the services because there hasn’t been enough outreach to men”?

I would talk about the reality of the person who seems harmed the most, and with limited funds, we have to serve the people who are in the most danger. The lethality in family violence of a women who’s being harmed by a man is greater. We don’t have unlimited funds, and the most vulnerable are the women who have children. The women in our shelter usually come because their children have become a target. That is the very specific response we were targeting in our campaign.

We weren’t trying to make a big point about “sexism” and all of those other things — that wasn’t the point. We had a very specific point we were trying to make: There is a cycle of violence. We want to reach the people who most need our help. We want to reach them before they get murdered.

What advice would you give a men’s rights activist who is sincerely concerned about male victims of domestic violence?

I would say, get together another group of men and raise the money to provide the services for the people you say are needing them. And go out there and say “we are the new men’s shelter, and we are here to serve men who have been victims of family violence and sexual violence in their homes.” Do it just the way the women’s shelters stared 30 years ago.

Then show when you open the doors — when The Family Place opened the doors in 1978, it was full, because so many people needed help. Then show the numbers, go back to your donors, and say “I had to turn away 100 men because I lacked the funding.” Everything that happened with shelters for women, happened because of the demand.

Don’t put me down because I’m trying to help somebody. Go out there and help somebody.

Instead of bashing women’s organizations, stand up and help somebody yourself. That’s what I’d say.

(Links to the posts in this series: One Two Three.)

  1. Glenn, on his own blog and in “Alas” comments, recalls his voicemail message differently: “in my voice mail I did commend her for the good work that her organization does on behalf of abused women.” []
This entry posted in Anti-feminists and their pals, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues. Bookmark the permalink. 

84 Responses to The Family Place To MRAs: "Instead of bashing women’s organizations, stand up and help somebody yourself."

  1. 1
    Separate but equal says:

    I would talk about the reality of the person who seems harmed the most, and with limited funds, we have to serve the people who are in the most danger.

    This is what business owners said to the disabled before the ADA. We’d go out of business if we had to make access for the disabled.

    This is what white school districts said to black’s before the civil rights movement. Sure the schools are separate. Separate but equal.

    And it’s been ruled an unconstitutional argument.

    It’s also a dubious argument and goes against the statistics and the research. It’s a shame you didn’t ask Ms. Flink about DV research that shows that women initiate domestic violence about as often as men….

    I also just don’t understand your logic, or hers. If she is against domestic violence, if she runs a domestic violence program for men and women as she claims, why would she require Glenn to pony up the funds for a ad discussing women’s violence towards men?

    Her three ads ran on dozens if not hundreds of buses, why didn’t she make a fourth ad and split it?

  2. 2
    Tapetum says:

    Separate but equal, last I checked the equal access laws didn’t apply to advertisements. If they did, there wouldn’t be an advertiser left in business in this country.

    The Family Place does provide help to male victims of domestic violence, or did you miss that part?

    Oh, and you (and your statistics) don’t seem to be differentiating between the initiator of the violence and who gets hurt. The studies I’ve seen saying the two are equal are essentially saying that if I slap my 6’5″ husband and he responds by backhanding me into a wall, then we are equal offenders, even though I hurt him not at all and he broke my jaw. In fact, in some of those studies, I would be the offender – even though it’s physically obvious that I can’t hurt him with a slap.

  3. 3
    Mandolin says:

    1. You know? I’ve thought about this, and I agree — women’s only shelters that exist in areas without adequate support for abused men and trans people _are_ problematic. Men who are abused need help. Trans people who are bused need help. I don’t care what kind of minority they’re in. They need, and deserve, help. It is unacceptable to prevent them from getting it on the basis of their sex organs — just straight up not okay.

    I’m not buying the argument that abusers can get into shelters too easily if they are mixed sex. Foro ne thing, this assumes that lesbian and gay abusers will not pursue their partners with vindictive vigor, and I am unconvinced this is true, unless strong evidence is provided for me to the contrary.

    Secondly, there must be workarounds for this. Maybe they would drain time and effectiveness. But if the cost of not engaging in workarounds is letting trans people and men sufgfer in abusive relationships, that is never going to be okay.

    This is a problem that overwhelmingly affects women, and from a sociological standpoint, it’s important to acknowledge that. However, it is not an acceptable reason for refusing to provide help to people based on their biological sex.

    I hope to write a post about this at some point when it won’t detract from paying writing.

    2. Men and women don’t initiate domestic violence at the same rate. Ampersand has debunked the “studies” that claim it does. Too bad you didn’t look through the writing on this site before making spurious arguments.

    But here, I’ll be nice and do some work for you. From today’s Pandagon:

    The official reason to oppose funding to keep battered women’s shelters running is that they’re not equitable because most take in only women, i.e. they respond to the existing demand not the imaginary demand. MRAs resort to highly questionable statistics to defend their belief that there is a demand for shelters for male victims of abuse, instead of more reliable statistics that show that female victims outnumber male ones 5 to 1. To further massage the truth, MRAs tend to equate a woman slapping her husband once with the systematic abuse and threats that battered women’s shelters specialize in.

  4. 4
    Daisy Bond says:

    Separate but equal, this isn’t analogous to ADA because this isn’t about providing service to men. TFP does provide service to men. This is about whether TFP should be castigated for targeting their biggest demographic of clients in advertising.

    Last time I checked, ADA doesn’t require that businesses create ads specifically targeting people with disabilities. It would be appropriate to call out TFP for turning male victims away, but that is not at all what’s going on here.

  5. 5
    Daisy Bond says:

    Tapetum, I cross-posted with you — spooky synchronicity with our wording!

    : )

  6. 6
    Mandolin says:

    Well, yes, and also what Tapetum and Daisy bond said.

    3. Your point is valid when taken as a criticism of certain women’s-only shelters, a category which explicitly excludes the organization you’re criticizing.

  7. In a time when all the “helping” organizations are losing ground and struggling for funding, the fact that someone like Glen Sacks launches an attack that sucks time and energy from The Family Place is truly shameful.

  8. 8
    Schala says:

    This sentence “Do it just the way the women’s shelters stared 30 years ago. ”

    near the end of the last quote in the original post, is missing a t in “started”

    Force of habit, my job is reporting bugs. Typos are “bugs” (in games anyways).

    Edit: Removed the correction about Mandolin’s post, as it was edited during mine.

  9. 9
    Separate but equal says:

    The business folks insisted that their business DID provide access to the disabled. Sure, not EVERY aisle was wide, and not EVERY restroom was accessible and not ALL doors had ramps, but some did, and it was in proportion to the few disabled people they saw.

    “A gorilla walks into a bar and orders a cold one. The bartender gives it to him and says “that’ll be $25.”
    A minute later making conversation the bartender says “We don’t get many gorillas round these parts.”
    The gorilla replies “At these prices, you won’t get many more, either!”

    When Paige Flink admits that she doesn’t provide the same service to men, but then says, we don’t see many men, she is acting exactly like the bartender here, and the business people with the ADA.

    We don’t actually consider men to be victims of domestic violence (just see our ads), we don’t cater to men, and gee whiz, guess what, we don’t see men utilize our services.

    Nice rationalizations guys. I am glad we have wiser judges.

  10. 10
    Mandolin says:

    “When Paige Flink admits that she doesn’t provide the same service to men, but then says, we don’t see many men, she is acting exactly like the bartender here, and the business people with the ADA.”

    Prove it. Provide a substantive analysis which shows real deficits that pragmatically affect male victims. If you can not do so for The Family Place specifically, it will do to provide rigorous, objective sources that prove men are poorly served in most domestic violence shelters which include helping men as part of their services.

    If you cannot do this, then you are simply acting on your emotional instincts about the place, and cherry picking pieces of Paige Flink’s quotes, not responding to any actual evidence.

  11. 11
    Ariel says:

    Mandolin as to your first post: One positive to your stated wish, before this campaign the Family Place website and info therein was neither gender neutral or sexuality inclusive. There was no indication on the web site that it also offered services to gay or straight men; however, after the campaign began, the Family Shelter did change their website to reflect that they are accessible for male victims as well.

  12. 12
    Mandolin says:

    Ah, I thought you might be Jerry. Goodbye.

  13. 13
    Rev. Richard says:

    Mandolin: “Men and women don’t initiate domestic violence at the same rate.” This is a misconception. Many numbers displayed use statistics which are inaccurate view of the actual number of victims. They only calculate who reported violence to which agency. Research reports are a more accurate accounting. They utilize “the law of large numbers”, which is the method insurance companies use to set premiums. They know, out of “x” number of people in a certain age group, “x” number will pass away during a calendar year.

    I am a certified behavior analyst. I research behaviors and seek out the initial creation of abnormal behavior patterns. Working with trauma 6-8 hours a day, my initial view of domestic violence has drastically changed. Many perceptions I’ve read regarding dv hold partial truths, so it would be wrong to claim they are false assumptions. A big reason our system doesn’t prove to be successful is due to those who base policy and change off the partial, and not seeking out the whole. I’ve seen vicious arguments where two people hold separate partials arguing who’s right and who’s wrong, when neither one is wrong, just different pieces of the whole.

    As long as our wonderful system continues focusing on the act and not what causes it, creating an effective solution will be out of reach. I’m currently working with Australia’s domestic violence prevention. I accepted their invite because they desire a system that works and have the open mind to create change. Here our VAW believes they “know all”. Their minds are closed to the possibility that they do not. Closed minds limit our ability for growth.

  14. 14
    Sailorman says:

    Mandolin Writes:
    December 4th, 2008 at 9:46 pm

    “When Paige Flink admits that she doesn’t provide the same service to men, but then says, we don’t see many men, she is acting exactly like the bartender here, and the business people with the ADA.”

    Prove it. Provide a substantive analysis which shows real deficits that pragmatically affect male victims. If you can not do so for The Family Place specifically, it will do to provide rigorous, objective sources that prove men are poorly served in most domestic violence shelters which include helping men as part of their services

    Well,
    1) from your own quote, let’s assume male victims represent twenty percent of victims.

    2) I think we all agree that the services provided by the family place are extremely different if you are female rather than male.

    3) the family place is, using the average of their own numbers, serving 15 men and 800 women. That’s a bit under two percent. (15/815=~1.8%)

    4) that’s a ten fold reduction in the amount of men that you would expect even based on the statistics of people who are far, far, from the MRA field.

    I don’t have time for more substance, but let’s start there: We have a significant disparity between what we would expect and what we see happening. We should probably develop a hypothesis for that disparity.

    At what point does it become reasonable to presume, lacking further proof, that the difference in services provided and the difference in focus on genders is responsible for (or a significant factor in) the extremely low number of male callers, and not the other way around?

  15. 15
    PG says:

    Sailorman,

    1) If female victims outnumber male 5 to 1, my understanding of statistics means that of every 6 victims, 5 will be female, 1 will be male. The fraction 1/6 equals 16.67%, not 20%.

    2) If the Family Place is underserving men, I would think the reasonable response for someone who actually cares about men would be to lobby for the Family Place to expand its services to better serve men — even lobbying donors to condition their donations on TFP’s doing so. That’s not what happened here. What happened was that Sacks did his best to get money taken away from TFP. So far as I know, he did not even say, “Instead of donating to a gender-inequitable institution like TFP, please redirect your giving to this organization that does provide services for men in the Dallas area.” He just wanted to hurt TFP. This is what in a certain parlance is called “being a hater.”

  16. Pingback: GlennSacks.com » Blog Archive » A Response to Family Place Executive Director Paige Flink over DART Campaign (Part II)

  17. 16
    Glenn Sacks says:

    I previously responded to the last segment of Barry’s interview with Paige Flink. Below is my response to this segment. It is also posted on my blog.

    Deutsch: Did Glenn Sacks, or any other men’s rights activist, contact you about these ads prior to beginning their campaign?

    Flink: No. They started blasting before I ever heard from him.

    Sacks: In several interviews Flink conducted before our campaign was launched it was clear that Flink knew the ad would offend and that in her view the ends justified the means. She even specifically said, “I hope you are offended” in one TV interview.

    I wouldn’t have minded talking to her before the campaign–I’ve made that type of call before launching previous campaigns in the past, such as with our successful Campaign Against PBS’s Father-Bashing Breaking the Silence. However, I can’t imagine that it would have ended in anything but either of these two scenarios:

    1) Flink denies the ads are offensive

    2) Flink acknowledges the ads are offensive and is glad people are offended, as she had already stated publicly.

    Even now Flink is still publicly sticking to the discredited notion that women are practically the only victims of domestic violence.

    Deutsch: Did Glenn Sacks directly call or write you once his campaign had begun?

    Flink: He did call me later, kinda the way I remember it happening, our bus ads had been up for about three weeks, the Dallas news ran an article about it. He [talked about the ads] on a Sunday radio show, and then on Monday DART was deluged with emails. Then I got a call from him the following week. He called saying, and I’m paraphrasing, “I have a way for you to get yourself out of this mess you’ve gotten yourself into.” I did not return his phone call.

    Sacks: Flink misremembers or misinterprets this phone call–that is absolutely not what happened. I asked her to talk and “see if we can resolve this” and then complimented her on “the important work you do.” I tried to be as nice as possible.

    Deutsch: Why didn’t you return his call?

    Flink: Well, I didn’t return his call…at that point, we were being attacked. It wasn’t a conversation I had started, and I didn’t feel like my point of view would make any difference.

    Sacks: Flink put up the ads knowing they would offend, stated publicly that she hoped they would offend, and now says, “We were being attacked. It wasn’t a conversation I had started.”

    Deutsch: Does The Family Place provide services to male victims of domestic violence?

    Flink: Yes we do. We do. Of course, there’s a huge difference in the number. On an average year we’ll shelter between 700 and 900 women and children, and we’ll council 8-20 men who are victims.

    Sacks: Yes, but there are many reasons for this gender imbalance–reasons proven by research–that Flink leaves unstated. Dr. Donald Dutton, author of Rethinking Domestic Violence, explains that this is because men underreport DV far more than women. Men don’t call 911 because they fear they will be arrested instead—with good reason.

    Many men feel ashamed. Many others have children and don’t want to do anything to provoke a divorce, because they know they’ll probably lose their kids. Many men know that if they report their wives’ abuse, the wife will claim that the husband is abusive, and it is the wife, not the husband, who authorities will side with.

    Dutton says “When larger surveys with representative samples are examined, perpetration of domestic violence perpetration is slightly more common for females…” The severity is somewhat less, but research shows that a third of all domestic violence injuries are suffered by heterosexual men. Women use the element of surprise and weapons to (somewhat) balance the scales.

    Flink: We do not shelter men in the facility, but we do provide hotel vouchers. We have a suite we can use. Most of the men who have come to us have been men in same-sex relationships, so we work with the Dallas Resource Center, which provides services for gays and lesbians. And when they come with kids we help them too; we have sheltered men with children.

    Sacks: Another discredited feminist notion is that the only male victims of domestic violence are ones who suffered at the hands of their gay partners. However, I do commend Flink for the services she does provide these men–it’s more than most shelters have done.

    Deutsch: Would you consider bus ads designed to reach out to male victims of violence?

    Flink: We would certainly consider it. This was our 30th anniversary and we had been saving money for a campaign, and we targeted women specifically because our experience has been that when women think about what their children are witnessing, they are more likely to take action. We are ultimately trying to prevent murders, and women are the most likely victims of murder in these situations.

    Sacks: As I’ve previously written, that’s questionable.

    Flink: It was a small campaign, but we wanted it to be memorable.

    Sacks: Well, she achieved that.

    Deutsch: How would you respond to a men’s rights activist who said “men aren’t using the services because there hasn’t been enough outreach to men”?

    Flink: I would talk about the reality of the person who seems harmed the most, and with limited funds, we have to serve the people who are in the most danger…The women in our shelter usually come because their children have become a target. That is the very specific response we were targeting in our campaign.

    Sacks: That’s odd, since most child abuse is perpetrated by mothers not fathers. That was another of our stated reasons for opposing her ad campaign. In fact, when I made this point on CNN during a debate, feminist host Jane Velez-Mitchell acknowledged that I had a “very good” point.

    Flink: We weren’t trying to make a big point about “sexism” and all of those other things — that wasn’t the point. We had a very specific point we were trying to make: There is a cycle of violence. We want to reach the people who most need our help. We want to reach them before they get murdered.

    Sacks: That could have been done in a gender-inclusive fashion. In the past, when domestic violence service providers have approached matters in a gender-inclusive fashion, I’ve been the first to applaud them for it.

    Deutsch: What advice would you give a men’s rights activist who is sincerely concerned about male victims of domestic violence?

    Flink: I would say, get together another group of men and raise the money to provide the services for the people you say are needing them. And go out there and say “we are the new men’s shelter, and we are here to serve men who have been victims of family violence and sexual violence in their homes.” Do it just the way the women’s shelters stared 30 years ago…Don’t put me down because I’m trying to help somebody. Go out there and help somebody. Instead of bashing women’s organizations, stand up and help somebody yourself. That’s what I’d say.

    Sacks: We didn’t “put [Flink] down because [she’s] trying to help somebody,” We criticized her inaccurate and misleading ads, and the overwhelming majority of the public agreed with us. I praised her work on behalf of abused women.

    Flink’s stand here–that if men are unhappy over the exclusion and/or lack of services for abused men they should go out and create shelters themselves–is a common one in the feminist movement. It was expressed to me directly by feminist California Senator Sheila Kuehl in an interview five years ago.

    At the time I rejected this notion but with time I’ve come to the conclusion that on this point Flink and Kuehl and the feminists are half-right. I’ll detail that in a subsequent post.

  18. 17
    Cass says:

    Thank you for this, Barry. Regardless of whatever controversies are swirling around, those of us in the domestic violence field are always in need of more support.

  19. 18
    m Andrea says:

    While the moderators probably agree with what I have to say on this subject, I should bear in mind that I’ve been banned for transphobia and refrain from posting on Alas.

  20. 19
    Ampersand says:

    Glenn, she didn’t say “the only male victims of domestic violence are ones who suffered at the hands of their gay partners. ”

    She did say that most — not all — of the male victims who have come to her agency are men in relationships with other men. And there’s no reason not to take her at her word. I think she probably knows more about the ground-level facts of who comes to The Family Place for help than you do.

  21. 20
    Glenn Sacks says:

    I think she probably knows more about the ground-level facts of who comes to The Family Place for help than you do.

    Yes, but the reasons she doesn’t see many men are due to problems within the DV system, problems which she has, perhaps inadvertently, contributed to.

    Glenn, she didn’t say “the only male victims of domestic violence are ones who suffered at the hands of their gay partners. ” She did say that most…

    That’s what I meant and I should have said so–fair point, I’ll change it on my blog.

  22. 21
    PG says:

    Flink: “Most of the men who have come to us have been men in same-sex relationships, so we work with the Dallas Resource Center, which provides services for gays and lesbians.”

    Sacks: Another discredited feminist notion is that the only male victims of domestic violence are ones who suffered at the hands of their gay partners.

    PG: It’s a bit odd to imply that Flink believes “that the only male victims of domestic violence are ones who suffered at the hands of their gay partners,” when Sacks just before had been going on about all the reasons men who are victims of female DV perpetrators fail to report domestic violence and fail to seek help for their situation, which means that Flink wouldn’t encounter those victims. For all the reasons Sacks himself claims are reasons men don’t report female perpetrators — fear they will be arrested instead; have children and fear loss of custody in divorce; authorities predisposed to side with woman who claims abuse — gay men are more likely than hetero men to report the abuse they do suffer.

    Flink: We are ultimately trying to prevent murders, and women are the most likely victims of murder in these situations.

    Sacks: As I’ve previously written, that’s questionable.

    PG: Please link to your analysis of why the statistics showing a difference in the number of women murdered by their male partners, versus number of men murdered by female partners, are “questionable.” In 2007, according to the FBI homicide statistics, 138 women killed their husbands; 573 husbands killed their wives. 150 women killed their boyfriends; 471 men killed their girlfriends. (Because of DOMA, the federal government cannot recognize even in statistics the state-recognized marriages of same-sex couples, so all husbands are killed by female wives and all wives killed by male husbands. Rather unnecessarily, the FBI also categorizes homosexual relationships as “acquaintances,” so the boyfriend-girlfriend statistics are all heterosexual.)

  23. 22
    Bjartmarr says:

    Separate but equal:

    When Paige Flink admits that she doesn’t provide the same service to men,

    *blink*

    Where does she say that? I mean, yeah, she says that they use a hotel suite instead of the shelter; is that what you mean by “doesn’t provide the same service”? Because both the shelter and the hotel are places to stay; I think the argument that they should maintain dedicated (non-hotel) facilities for 8-20 men per year, is unreasonable when they can provide essentially the same service in a rented room.

    Sailor:

    …male victims represent twenty percent of victims.
    [snip]
    …15 men and 800 women. That’s a bit under two percent.

    What you’re missing is that TFP doesn’t focus on providing service to all victims of domestic violence. They “are ultimately trying to prevent murders.” It seems reasonable to assume that female victims will be at disproportionate risk of being murdered compared to male victims, and therefore would make disproportionately more use of the shelter.

    Also, a man is somewhat more likely to have the disposable funds available to pay for a hotel room on his own.

    And finally, a man is much more likely to feel societal pressure to not seek help.

    So there are three good alternate explanations for the paucity of men at the shelter. Given those, I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that a lack of advertising directed at men is the cause.

  24. 23
    Panda Dog says:

    I made a 25$ donation. I iz a Pandagonian. Ican haz bellyrub now.

  25. 24
    thebigmanfred says:

    PG:

    If the Family Place is underserving men, I would think the reasonable response for someone who actually cares about men would be to lobby for the Family Place to expand its services to better serve men — even lobbying donors to condition their donations on TFP’s doing so.

    I would say that’s reasonable, if they expect the family place isn’t biased. Glenn may have thought this (I don’t know, I’m guessing).

    So far as I know, he did not even say, “Instead of donating to a gender-inequitable institution like TFP, please redirect your giving to this organization that does provide services for men in the Dallas area.”

    It is possible that he could have said “instead of donating to TFP, you can donate here instead.” To my knowledge he hasn’t said specifically what he told the donors to do or not to do. Anything is possible.

  26. 25
    PG says:

    thebigmanfred,

    Yes, anything is possible, but it strikes me as very unlikely that if Glenn actually had been productive about this campaign, that he would be neglecting to mention it given the automatic criticism made by everyone: “What have you done to help men obtain the services that TFP does provide them, even if it does a poor job advertising that fact?”

    It would be like positing that maybe Obama went to Rev. Wright’s church for the purpose of convincing Rev. Wright to change his way of thinking about race, and Obama just didn’t want to tell us about the fact that every single Sunday, he would go up after the service and talk to Wright about this in hopes of converting him on this topic.

    In other words, it would be very odd for someone who has an excellent riposte to a challenge NOT to make that answer.

  27. 26
    thebigmanfred says:

    PG:

    Yes, anything is possible, but it strikes me as very unlikely that if Glenn actually had been productive about this campaign, that he would be neglecting to mention it given the automatic criticism made by everyone: “What have you done to help men obtain the services that TFP does provide them, even if it does a poor job advertising that fact?”

    When I said anything was possible I just meant I haven’t heard anything one way or the other. Glenn, the financial donors, the family place, etc. hasn’t mentioned anything on the subject (not to my knowledge). If one of the parties has stated that “informing donors of ways to improve DV services for men” was not discussed, then point conceded. I just don’t consider the not saying something to be an omission of guilt. Furthermore, I think Glenn’s response would be that by using different, and from his perspective, better advertising they are helping to increase the services that TFP does provide to men. Or put another way, changing the advertising is helping men. If there are already services being offered, then (this is what I assume his position to be) changing the advertisements would help men.

  28. 27
    PG says:

    thebigmanfred,

    Sure, and I haven’t heard anything one way or the other about the private conversations Obama had with Rev. Wright every Sunday. MAYBE they were all devoted to converting Wright to a more amiable attitude toward whites. If so, it’s very odd that Obama never mentioned that in defense of his attendance of Wright’s church.

    “different, and from [Glenn Sacks’s] perspective, better advertising” wasn’t the goal of this campaign. Sacks just wanted the existing ads taken down, or at least TFP intimidated/ defunded out of running a similar campaign in the future. He believes that he succeeded in getting people to reduce or remove their donations to TFP. So how did that get the advertising changed in a way to help men? So far as I can tell, he’s done squat for Dallas men who were DV and incest victims, while TFP at least has helped some of them even if it did a poor job advertising that fact.

  29. 28
    thebigmanfred says:

    So how did that get the advertising changed in a way to help men?

    We won’t know yet until future advertising is shown, as the campaign did not change any of the current ads. Also Glenn did say that as a result of the campaign the family place changed it’s website to more gender neutral language. I think that can be seen as a form of advertising and change resulting from the campaign. What impact that will have on male victims in the area is unknown.

    “different, and from [Glenn Sacks’s] perspective, better advertising” wasn’t the goal of this campaign. Sacks just wanted the existing ads taken down, or at least TFP intimidated/ defunded out of running a similar campaign in the future.

    How do you know that? Would Glenn have complained regardless of what ads were used? I think Glenn’s point has been this: if the ads were different, from his perspective more gender neutral, he wouldn’t have complained. Sacks I assume wanted the ads taken down and more inclusive ones instead. So you’re not wrong in saying that he wanted the ads taken down or TFP intimidated/defunded out running a similar future campaign, but I would also add that he wanted more inclusive ads in place (another assumption). Now if gender neutral advertising isn’t helpful, then I guess the ads are not better.

  30. 29
    Renee says:

    @Barry thank you for exposing the lies of the Mens Rights Movement and the harm that they inflict. I very much wanted to continue with this story after I posted it on my blog but was aggressively swarmed that I was unable to follow through with giving this issue the attention that it deserves.
    While the MRA are intent on maintain unearned privilege they certainly gave not thought to the fact that women that use this shelter are battered women and the last thing that they need is yet another assault from a man. It is insensitive and it is cruel. I personally believe that there is not level of low that they are unwilling to sink to. Again thank you for continuing where I could not.

  31. 30
    PG says:

    thebigmanfred,

    I only know what Sacks chooses to tell us. If he doesn’t say that he was lobbying for TFP to have additional, male-victim-inclusive ads, and does say he was lobbying for the existing ads to be taken down and TFP to be intimidated and defunded out of making similar ones in the future, then the reasonable assumption is that he lobbied only for the things he told us he lobbied for. (Though as I’ve noted ad nauseum, in the absence of research that shows witnessing DV makes boys more likely to become DV *victims* in the future, it’s not clear what similar ad could have been run that wouldn’t have been rampantly dishonest.) I do not like to put words into people’s mouths, intents into their minds nor actions into their behavior.

    I think Glenn’s point has been this: if the ads were different, from his perspective more gender neutral, he wouldn’t have complained.

    What would be “gender neutral” ads if the research on which TFP relies indicates that witnessing DV makes boys more likely to become abusers, and girls more likely to become abused? Sacks simply opposes putting this information into the public sphere, full stop.

  32. 31
    sassmaster says:

    Irving police officer, wife found dead

    05:12 PM CST on Sunday, December 7, 2008

    By DAVID SCHECHTER / WFAA-TV

    The bodies were found at a home in the 5300 block of Mineral Creek Drive in Fort Worth.

    FORT WORTH — Investigators say an Irving police officer murdered his wife while their two children were present in their Fort Worth home.

    Then, police say, the officer killed himself.

    The officer, who was identified as 36-year-old Pablo Colonvega, was an Army reservist currently on active duty at Fort Hood.

    Police were called to the 5300 block of Mineral Creek Drive shortly after 8 a.m. Sunday. A woman called police after finding the bodies of her sister and brother-in-law, police said.

    Police said the wife, identified as Makasha Colonvega, 34, had been shot multiple times; her husband was shot once.

    * This is the THIRD family violence related homicide reported in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in less than 4 weeks….all perpetrated by men. Does that mean that ALL incidents of family violence are perpetrated by men? NO…but statistics be damned…. REALITY says that men kill their partners more than women do. This has NOTHING to do with child abuse, women who have post-partum psychosis or anything else. It has everything to do with control, anger and MURDER. And it has to stop. All family violence is unacceptable. All of it. And now, there are two children whose lives have been devastated….because they watched their FATHER kill their MOTHER. There it is. Irrefutable.

  33. 32
    thebigmanfred says:

    PG:

    I only know what Sacks chooses to tell us. If he doesn’t say that he was lobbying for TFP to have additional, male-victim-inclusive ads, and does say he was lobbying for the existing ads to be taken down and TFP to be intimidated and defunded out of making similar ones in the future, then the reasonable assumption is that he lobbied only for the things he told us he lobbied for.

    But taken down and replaced with what ad? Presumably, if the ads were replaced with, from Glenn’s perspective biased ads, he would have still protested. Here is what I gather the point of his campaign was.

    1. Remove ads that he thought were biased
    2. Replace those ads with something that isn’t as biased or not biased at all.

    We seem to be in agreement on point 1, are we not on point 2?

    What would be “gender neutral” ads if the research on which TFP relies indicates that witnessing DV makes boys more likely to become abusers, and girls more likely to become abused?

    Maybe gender neutral is the wrong term to use. I probably should have used a different term. What I mean to say is, what’s wrong with making a more general advertising campaign? Is anyone adversely affected by it? What’s wrong with just having an ad that basically says “domestic violence is wrong and anyone who is a victim of it should call ___ or do ____ ?” To me a general ad campaign doesn’t deny who commits more of an act, just that the victims of it can receive help.

    P.S. Thanks for the replies PG, as I try to understand both sides of this.

  34. 33
    Schala says:

    “This is the THIRD family violence related homicide reported in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in less than 4 weeks….all perpetrated by men. Does that mean that ALL incidents of family violence are perpetrated by men? NO…but statistics be damned…. REALITY says that men kill their partners more than women do.”

    I’d try to understand what can push a man to suicide and kill his family along.

    It’s possible it is an altruistic motive (if I die, my family won’t be able to survive materially, they’re better off dead than starving) for bringing the rest with him, though who knows, it might be equally selfish.

    What it means to me is that men are desperate, not that men are hungry for power (Power in the afterlife? What’s the point of killing yourself if you’re after power?). It might be a feeling of powerlessness (losing the only job they had while they were poor and already mentally unstable due to stress and maybe other unrelated things, all coming together).

    The fact is, we don’t typically research the reasons and then try to prevent it from happening. Is there better unemployment benefits for people who may be suicidal or depressed? Is there some probono or federally-funded counseling available?

    I’m not trying to excuse his actions, but if we want to put a stop to it (and not have it happen to other families), we need to go at the root cause, and I can say confidently that it’s not their penis, or their socialization alone. It’s something we can help with.

  35. 34
    FurryCatHerder says:

    I’m not trying to excuse his actions, but if we want to put a stop to it (and not have it happen to other families), we need to go at the root cause, and I can say confidently that it’s not their penis, or their socialization alone. It’s something we can help with.

    The best predictor of “kills spouse and kids when upset” is having a penis, so I’m not sure that “I can say confidently that it’s not their penis” is all that grounded in reality. It might be the socialization that comes with having a penis, but the penis has apparently got a lot to do with killing people.

  36. 35
    Ampersand says:

    Since very close to 100% of people with penises never “kills spouse and kids,” I’d say that’s useless as a predictor on its own.

    My guess is that a history of controlling behavior and violence is the best predictor, with the side benefit that — unlike having a penis — controlling behavior and violence is worth campaigning against even where it doesn’t lead to murder.

    That said, I don’t agree with Schala that looking at socialization is useless. If family murderers are the extreme tail end of a distribution of usually masculine behavior, then trying to move the entire distribution of masculine behaviors could have the result of making the tail less extreme.

  37. 36
    RonF says:

    O.K. – I’m a little late to the party on this one, but I’ll be brief. I have little patience for people who say “You’re solving a problem you think is important but you’re not solving a problem that I see as important and related to it, so I’ll harass you until you take up my problem.” These guys think providing men sanctuary and other services related to female-on-male abuse is a problem and needs to be solved? Fine. Go solve it. Leave these folks to do what they do and go actually do something yourself.

    I think they’re more interested in changing places like this to fit their own agenda than they are to actually apply resources to what they perceive as a problem (and I take no position as to how significant that problem is).

  38. 37
    Schala says:

    “That said, I don’t agree with Schala that looking at socialization is useless. If family murderers are the extreme tail end of a distribution of usually masculine behavior, then trying to move the entire distribution of masculine behaviors could have the result of making the tail less extreme.”

    I didn’t mean it was useless to look about changing socialization. I’m saying we have to fix things in the here-and-now, and socialization would take decades, perhaps centuries to alter. We still adhere unquestionably society-wise (not individually necessarily) to Victorian notions, that are older than anyone alive today. Not all of them thankfully, but the portrait we, as a society, draw, is one where we can definitely point to the resemblance between the “now” and the “then”.

    We need to look at immediate or more short-term realistic fixes. Men are incredibly likely to succeed in suiciding while women attempt it more. Frankly, if I really wanted to die, bar using firearms, I’d still want to “not miss”, lest I become a vegetable ward of the state by my own doing.

    I think people who take their life radically, with little to no chance of missing (such as using firearms in their heads), have already calculated that they have nothing to lose by dying, that they’re already at the worst they can take, and that staying any longer would be futile. People who take less radical means may be after help and may not have abandoned all hope. Of course, I can’t prove that, it just makes sense to me.

    Personally, I’m more afraid of an aborted suicide attempt than a successful one. The consequences of an aborted one are ones I have to live with, possibly with diminished capacities, and in the immediate future. Those of a successful one, if the afterlife exists (and I believe it does), can be dealt with later.

    So we need society, or at least public services, to become aware and prevent these issues. Changing socialization may be part of the solution there: telling men that it’s okay to be hurt, to need help, to ask people for counsel. Offering services cheap or for free is also a step in the right direction. The jobless probably doesn’t have a good insurance, and I doubt can afford to see a shrink. Of course, women should also benefit from these probono/funded services, though they less likely need the outreach to tell them it’s okay to seek help, they already seek help a couple times more than men, if only for family doctors.

  39. 38
    Jean says:

    Sachs, when I made my donation to the Family Place I made it in your honor. And if not for you I would never have heard of them, or their brave and innovative manner of breaking the cycle of violence that hurts all children in abusive relationships.

    Hospital emergency records do not lie. Body counts do not lie. You, Sachs, lie.

  40. 39
    Duncan Macleod says:

    Just a thought here…….The main comment on this article was that MRA should ” go help these people themselves and let others do what they do”

    The thing no one has asked. why when through the VAWA etc these places get substantial gvmt assists from taxes raised ( and no matter what way you look at it some of these taxes were from men ) then why should a single gender have to help the other fund there support mechanisim for the abused and pay again for supporting those of their own gender who have sufferd at the hands of abusive partners.

    The bottom line is if men are to go it alone then logically woman should be expected to do the same which im pretty sure 99% of shelters wouldnt be happy about.

    Glenn stepped in for the simple fact that these adverts were slanted in such a fashion that showed women only as victims, which is wrong i agree 100% that DV against women needs to be heard to equipt future victims to understand there is help, however can anyone say that even with the approx 70-30 ( and id be saying this even if it was only 1% of victims who were male) that the crime commited against them was wrong and they can seek help?

    Based round Glenns work , heck even ampersand has to give him due for highlighting a case where a woman has become victim of laws that are unfair that Glenn is looking for a greater gender balance, the man has in his life worked for feminists, was part of helping one part of society gain help and a louder voice and like erin prizzy before has looked towards helping others whos voices arent heard.

    The family place should be making certain everyone who needs help knows they will help, they didnt with this advert and thats the crux of this.

    And tapetum , your words threw me a little and worried me , stats in the last few years, even back in my country of birth Scotland has shown an increase in female on male violence and your comments about hitting a man wouldnt hurt ( am paraphrasing however am being very specific on intent) regardless of the severity of the blow it would still be from a moral and an ethical standpoint as bad as a man hitting a woman, worse perhaps as you are using this as an example of how DV effects people and how its wrong.

  41. 40
    PG says:

    The family place should be making certain everyone who needs help knows they will help, they didnt with this advert and thats the crux of this.

    Look at the advertisement again. Where does it say that no men are victims of DV? Where does it say that the only clients of The Family Place are women?

    I suspect these ads are serving as something of a Rorschach test. Those of us who believe The Family Place is doing good work for both men and women see the ads as stating what appears to be statistically true: witnessing DV makes boys more likely to grow up to be abusive men, and makes girls more likely to grow up to be abused women, and makes children of both sexes more likely to commit suicide. Those who believe that The Family Place discriminates against men in its provision of services see the ads as stating absolutes about who abuses and who gets abused, rather than stating conditional probabilities.

  42. 41
    Duncan Macleod says:

    PG but thats the whole point not everyone sees this, heck when you look at the site before the wording was changed to make it gender enclusive coupled with the ads which made no mention of anything other than male on famale violence then you could think that this was the case, and this is before the comments made by Ms Flink regarding men going alone that can easily be taken as meaning tfp is a female victim only organisation, I am impressed at the changes they have made on the site so far ( i viewed today for the first time in a few weeks and i am glad glenn did what he did he has made one group make a change so far and this is the start to making an even playing field where all victims of abuse are seen as victims and not by there gender.

  43. 42
    Schala says:

    “Those who believe that The Family Place discriminates against men in its provision of services see the ads as stating absolutes about who abuses and who gets abused, rather than stating conditional probabilities.”

    I’d add another forgotten group:

    Those who don’t think DV against men exists (and there’s a lot of them, including men themselves of course) would see this as totally normal, and not think that males can be victims of DV anymore than they did before. It would simply reinforce their paradigm that boys grow up to be abusive while girls grow up to be victims, because that’s all they know anyways.

  44. 43
    PG says:

    Duncan Macleod,

    I agree that The Family Place should have been more informative about the availability of its services to male victims — services it was providing and that the organization with which Sacks associates apparently doesn’t. However, that’s not what Sacks was pressuring TFP to do. That it has done so is at best a desirable side-effect of his actual campaign, which was to get money taken away from The Family Place because it ran ads he didn’t like. (He hasn’t, so far as I know, mounted a substantive challenge to the statistical probabilities claimed in the ads.)

    It doesn’t appear that Sacks wrote to TFP and said, “I think you need to be more *informative* in your web presence about the services you offer to men.” Not at all. He started his campaign to get donors to remove funding from TFP, then left a voice-mail at TFP that, again, wasn’t about having them increase information, but was just about “Take down these ads.”

    I am going by the information presented at Alas about this — including Sacks’s comments here — so if I have my facts wrong, please let me know.

  45. 44
    thebigmanfred says:

    PG:

    He started his campaign to get donors to remove funding from TFP, then left a voice-mail at TFP that, again, wasn’t about having them increase information, but was just about “Take down these ads.”

    He started his campaign to inform donors of what their money was being used for. Glenn has never stated that he told donors to “not donate to the family place” he left that decision up to the individual donors. Also, it wasn’t just about “take down these ads”, since any ad that would have replaced it would need to have been better from his perspective.

    A general question though. What’s wrong with an ad that is more inclusive? Why not just have an ad that essentially says “domestic violence is wrong, if you’re a victim of it, then do _____?”

  46. 45
    Jake Squid says:

    … why should a single gender have to help the other fund there support mechanisim for the abused and pay again for supporting those of their own gender who have sufferd at the hands of abusive partners.

    Simple human decency. Also, the organizations that would receive those precious male tax dollars do help men already. You’re doing three things here. First being the very definition of sexist (why should men help women?). Second, showing incredible self-centeredness & selfishness (why should I help someone who isn’t me or isn’t part of my self-defined group?). And third, you’re perpetuating the myth that DV shelters don’t help men. You are the perfect example of the reason that I’ll have nothing to do with the MRA movement.

    He started his campaign to inform donors of what their money was being used for. Glenn has never stated that he told donors to “not donate to the family place” he left that decision up to the individual donors.

    So you think Glenn is a stupid man. I don’t think Glenn is stupid, therefore I believe that Glenn understood that the purpose of targeting donors is to reduce donations. To state otherwise is to either believe that Glenn is an idiot or to be a liar, at best, yourself. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t insult the intelligence of Alas readers, nevermind that of Glenn.

  47. 46
    Duncan Macleod says:

    wow jake you are good at twisting words……….. read the next line and the prior line you are taking those words out of context i wrote and shall reiterate again that men do pay in taxes towards helping dv shelters and my point was thus ……. the comment about men paying twice is simply showing how unfair the statement was …. I belive that there should be services for men and woman with equal access when needed simply because men dont use them as much doesnt mean that they should be any less avalible.

    I said nothing at all that was sexist in any way i have in all the posts made said that its nothing to do with genders its to do with VICTIMS and will always remain in that way i have been a victim and have in my time helped females i know who have been victims of DV its a double edged sword.

    If the fact that shelters not helping men is a myth a simple google search shows the fact californian judges have declared unconstitutional the fact that men have had help denied based round gender.

    The Third District California Appeal Court ruled in a 3-0 decision, October 14, 2008, that to deny support services to men who are victims of domestic violence is unconstitutional.

    Regardless of the overall impact, Justice Fred Morrison said in Tuesday’s 3-0 ruling, the state acknowledges that “domestic violence is a serious problem for both women and men.” He noted that the California Constitution forbids sex discrimination, under a 1971 state Supreme Court ruling, and said men and women are entitled to equal treatment, even if one sex is affected more than the other. (San Francisco Chronicle)

    With that decision comes the beginning of the end of the corner stone of feminist agitprop: “Women good. Men Bad.”

    I could go on but what i will say that you “branding” me sexist with no founding is a cheap tactic that spoils your own argument , the bottom line is i am arguing for equality for all men and women who are being abused, I want anyone in danger to have the help and i would fight for any man or woman who needs it , you seem adamant that me doing this is wrong ………. why ?

  48. 47
    Duncan Macleod says:

    pg , thanks for the reply and i will post up the links in the morning ( am dying with the cold just now so am heading to bed) Sacks said he wanted the family place to acknowledge in its advertising that there was another side to things that not all dads were bad and that men were not pre programmed child abusers and violent.

    My issue with the adverts were simple and its maybe not as deep as sacks and co ….. in my eyes the advert with the boy alone is quite powerfull and sacks was right in what he said this sort of message is massively powerfull and it can when viewed from the eyes of a child give the impression that being born male makes you violent , its nothing to do with the data its simply the fact that its kids involved and this was the wrong way to do it.

    The simplest way to have fixed this all ……. have the boy and girl in both adverts and replace wife and husband with the word partner…… it would have been that easy.

    Again pg thanks for the reply and imput I will admit i was worried posting here in case i was villified ( which has only happened once) its great to chat about something so close to my heart.

  49. 48
    thebigmanfred says:

    Jake Squid:

    So you think Glenn is a stupid man. I don’t think Glenn is stupid, therefore I believe that Glenn understood that the purpose of targeting donors is to reduce donations. To state otherwise is to either believe that Glenn is an idiot or to be a liar, at best, yourself.

    I don’t think Glenn is stupid. I do think the donors he contacted are capable. Honestly, I don’t think Glenn would have to tell those who he contacted to not donate to tfp, assuming Glenn is persuasive enough about the ads. I assume donors, those that agreed with Glenn, would take the steps necessary to fix the problem without Glenn’s help. That’s why I think the point is moot, whether Glenn told them to stop donating or not because the result likely would have been the same for those donors that sided with Glenn. As far as whether Glenn understood the purpose, I’d say Glenn knew the outcomes. There are two possible outcomes of targeting donors in this situation. One result would be the donors force the family place to change the ads into something more preferable (from Glenn’s perspective). The other option is that the family place doesn’t change and the donations stop. So yeah, Glenn knew what the results could be. Did he get the result he wanted. No. He’s said as much.

  50. 49
    Jake Squid says:

    Well, the previous sentence does nothing to mitigate the sexism of the words I quoted and the following sentence isn’t really true. Men are helped every single day by DV shelters. Women, as well as men, are turned away from DV shelters every single day due to a lack of resources.

    I stand by my interpretation of your comment.

  51. 50
    Duncan Macleod says:

    jake your entitled to however it does show a weakness in the argument , you took part of a paragraph and used it as a tool to beat over the head , with the rest of it in place and ill post the full one here and another paragraph from the same post.

    Glenn stepped in for the simple fact that these adverts were slanted in such a fashion that showed women only as victims, which is wrong i agree 100% that DV against women needs to be heard to equipt future victims to understand there is help, however can anyone say that even with the approx 70-30 ( and id be saying this even if it was only 1% of victims who were male) that the crime commited against them was wrong and they can seek help? ( one paragraph of the post )

    And the one you refer to . The thing no one has asked. why when through the VAWA etc these places get substantial gvmt assists from taxes raised ( and no matter what way you look at it some of these taxes were from men ) then why should a single gender have to help the other fund there support mechanisim for the abused and pay again for supporting those of their own gender who have sufferd at the hands of abusive partners. ( now firstly i deliberatly made this AS gender neutral as possible to allow opinions to be formed not saying male or female as it could be applied euther way however the point was simple, there is systems in place to help victims of DV the way things are however do not help all victims, i could sit and pull up stat after stat , i did pull out references by a judge regarding it and i have greater faith in them than in the common man, im kinda dumb that way ) if you took it the other way for whatever reason you choose then i am sorry however i stand by my belief that the dv system is flawed as it stands and needs a mammoth overhaul to protect all who needs it.

  52. 51
    PG says:

    A general question though. What’s wrong with an ad that is more inclusive? Why not just have an ad that essentially says “domestic violence is wrong, if you’re a victim of it, then do _____?”

    Nothing, except it completely misses the point of what TFP was doing in this particular appeal Victims of DV aren’t stupid, they know it’s wrong. They know they’re getting bruises. However, quite often there is something they are getting out of the relationships — financial help, a place to live, immigration status, a parental figure for their child — that the victim figures balances out the harm s/he suffers. The victim will cope with the DV so long as the good balances out the bad, which is a perfectly rational way to behave.

    What the victim often doesn’t understand is that even if the abuser never commits violence against the children, the children still are hurt by living in a household with DV. The point of the ads, therefore, is to inform victims that by staying in a violent situation today, they are setting their kids up to live in violent situations in the future.

    The father who thinks, “Well, my little girl really needs a mommy, I’m a big guy and can put up with getting punched occasionally,” will rethink that if he’s being told that this makes his daughter more likely to get killed by her husband. The mother who thinks, “It’s so bad out there for fatherless boys, I can put up with the occasional black eye,” will rethink that if she’s being told that this makes her son more likely to replay the relationship he saw.

    For TFP to do the gender-reversed version, they would need statistics that witnessing DV also makes girls more likely to be violent toward their husbands, and boys more likely to be the victims of their wives’ violence. Do you have those statistics? In the absence of data to back up the “more likely” claim, TFP cannot honestly run such an ad.

    Those who are demanding some kind of gender parity want TFP either to be dishonest in their ads, or not to make this specific appeal that keeping your kids in a DV situation can increase their likelihood of repeating it as adults. Lying or being silenced from an appeal that you believe will work on your target audience — not a very amiable set of options.

    Sacks said he wanted the family place to acknowledge in its advertising that there was another side to things that not all dads were bad and that men were not pre programmed child abusers and violent.

    Except The Family Place never said “all dads were bad and that men were pre programmed child abusers and violent.” Look, if Nike ran ads that had a prominent black basketball celebrity running circles around a klutzy white guy, would you say, “Hey Nike, I get the feeling from your ads that white kids can’t play basketball, even though you never actually say that, and white people at one point with the only ones even allowed into the NBA, and even though it’s quite reasonable given the predominance of black men in the NBA that your NBA celebrities will be black men, so I’m going to demand that your advertising say that not all white men are klutzy even though you never said all white men are klutzy?’

    I don’t think The Family Place has any obligation to knuckle down to someone’s demands that they write their advertising to suit people who don’t understand the difference between probabilities and categorical statements. Then again, I’ve already stated my preference for a public sphere that treats people like literate adults. If a 7 year old is riding the Dallas public buses alone, he probably has more immediate problems than a single ad. And if he is riding them with an adult, the adult has the obligation to explain what’s in the environment to the kid if the kid is troubled by it, just as the adult would with a kid confused by CK’s salad-tossing ad.

    There is a difference between saying All Men Are Abusers (what you claim is being said by the ad) and saying Living Under Condition X Will Make a Man More Likely To Be An Abuser (what the ad actually says). Do you also get offended by ads that say “People Who Don’t Use Condoms Are More Likely To Get STDs” — I’m married, I don’t use condoms, those ads really don’t bother me — because you read those ads as actually saying “All People Who Don’t Use Condoms Have AIDS”? I admit the latter point would be absolutely wrong and offensive, which may be why no one actually makes stupid categorical statements like that. You are imagining that TFP does.

  53. 52
    thebigmanfred says:

    PG:

    Nothing, except it completely misses the point of what TFP was doing in this particular appeal

    If they’re only targeting a certain block of domestic violence victims, then yes I concur, it does miss the point. I question whether their money would be better served targeting more victims. Maybe it won’t, maybe advertising has little affect on how many will use TFP (you seem to indicate this as being the case)?

  54. 53
    PG says:

    thebigmanfred,

    On what basis do you assert your claim that advertising that targets the block of victims who are staying in their abusive situation for the sake of their children’s emotional, financial or other stability is not a good use of money?

    Maybe it won’t, maybe advertising has little affect on how many will use TFP (you seem to indicate this as being the case)?

    Where did I say that? I said that advertising that justs tells DV victims that DV is wrong will have little effect, because being a victim of DV does not make someone stupid or morally impervious. Advertising that tells people something they already know very well isn’t effective.

    Being a victim of DV does, however, require some cost-benefit analysis: am I getting enough benefits out of this relationship to balance out the cost of getting hit? What the ads do is point out a cost that many DV victims otherwise would not know to calculate into their equation: that the cost is not only to the victim, but also to the children who live in that situation. The Family Place hopes that once that added cost is known, more victims will realize that the equation doesn’t balance and that they are better off leaving.

  55. 54
    FurryCatHerder says:

    PG,

    I personally think the problem isn’t “the block of victims” so much as the fact that it wasn’t “all victims”.

    It might have been lost on some of the readers here that when I’ve mentioned “Plano”, in 1986 when I went looking for a shelter, Dallas would have been the nearest major city, and there was no place in Dallas for a male to turn in 1986. Given that TFP has been around for 30 years, that would have included TFP.

    I’m not suggesting men start “testing” local shelters, because that would be an incredible waste of their limited resources, and I know that anecdotes aren’t evidence, but something still smells funny about TFP’s responses.

    — Julie.

  56. 55
    Jake Squid says:

    … i stand by my belief that the dv system is flawed as it stands and needs a mammoth overhaul to protect all who needs it.

    You say that because you know little of the DV “system” (of which there is none – there are myriad small organizations that do not comprise a system). You say that because you have no idea what percentage of men are turned away vs what percentage of women are turned away. You say that because you have no idea how many men seek shelter vs how many women need shelter. If you believe otherwise, please produce your data and links to that data.

    You say that because that’s easier than actually working to create services for men who are victims of DV. Decades ago, people (mostly women) saw that there was a need to help the large number of women who are victims of DV and worked to create services and networks to serve that need. Today you, and others like you, are working to reduce or destroy those services under the banner of helping men who are victims of DV. I find that reprehensible. What you are doing is of no help to male victims of DV. Your efforts are destructive rather than constructive.

    You know what DV shelters need? More resources. I haven’t found a single study or report showing that fewer than 58% of victims are turned away by DV shelters due to lack of resources.

    If you want to do something constructive, try raising directed donations for the purpose of creating men’s services and programs at a local DV shelter of your choice. You will not be turned away. You merely have to raise enough money.

  57. 56
    Schala says:

    “You will not be turned away. You merely have to raise enough money.”

    Why not raise tax money? Allocate less to an illusory war in Iraq that’s all to save their system and bring democracy and not at all for their oil…and allocate more to things that need it, and if DV shelters is amongst those things, then it should get more, definitely. And that increase should take into account the needs of male victims, and allocate more funding consequently (so women’s shelters have enough funds, and men’s shelters can at least exist).

  58. 57
    thebigmanfred says:

    PG:

    On what basis do you assert your claim that advertising that targets the block of victims who are staying in their abusive situation for the sake of their children’s emotional, financial or other stability is not a good use of money?

    It wasn’t a claim but a question. It was a question of how worthwhile it is to target a subsection of victims vs. all victims. I didn’t assert anything because I don’t know the answer.

    Where did I say that? I said that advertising that justs tells DV victims that DV is wrong will have little effect, because being a victim of DV does not make someone stupid or morally impervious. Advertising that tells people something they already know very well isn’t effective.

    Well, the point I was trying to make earlier wasn’t necessarily to have an ad to say “DV is wrong”, it was to make all domestic violence victims aware of services. I agree that ad with DV is wrong wouldn’t be useful.

  59. 58
    Jake Squid says:

    Why not raise tax money?

    To raise tax money, you need some sort of organization in place to receive that money and to put it to the use for which it is allocated. The MRA’s are not asking to raise tax money for men’s DV services. The MRA’s are not creating organizations to help male victims of DV. The MRA’s are calling for a decrease in money to DV shelters and hurting DV services for women (and men) without helping DV services for men.

    Why don’t prominent MRA’s like Glenn work to create a DV shelter targeted primarily to men? He certainly has the resources and contacts to get started. I have heard of no such efforts. I strongly suspect it’s because DV against men is just a convenient excuse to use to attack women.

    Do something constructive and I’ll begin to believe you. Hell, do something constructive and I will donate money to the cause.

  60. 59
    Duncan Macleod says:

    Jake , Ill happily post the data when i get in tonight ( i work with drug and alchol abusers my hours are a little whacked )

    I want to make a few comments first.

    I was home last month and when i was i read an interesting article regarding a dv unit in scotland refused membership of the rape crisis network of the UK because they help men that in itself was shocking to me before reading a story about a female who left working for a dv crisis centre because she was told to tell men who contacted that they werent able to help based on gender.

    Your right and your comment is telling , men havent done enough yet , whilst there are reports of shelters actually housing homeless to inflate figures when they have empty beds ( again not at home to pull up data , im anal i save links to stories ) your comments do bring up a point

    If you want to do something constructive, try raising directed donations for the purpose of creating men’s services and programs at a local DV shelter of your choice. You will not be turned away. You merely have to raise enough money.

    That along with the rest , and there is so much there all point to the fact that the services there are for women , if people are so adamant that the services are all inclusive why should there be male and female only shelters, why should men get refused access ( have already touched on judges comments in previous posts). If people want these things to be gender specific not catering for the other then ( and before you label me sexist for stating the obvious i will again state all victims should be protected 100% irrespective of gender ) the dv shelters must state that they are a gender specific organisation only and as such be awarded monies based on that fact and that includes many more 3rd party studies to assess accurately the numbers of victims both men and women free from any feminist or mra influence.

    The day that equality of services is no longer a factor there will be need for a second dv structure for men only.

  61. 60
    PG says:

    FurryCatHerder,

    1) When you say there was nowhere for a male DV victim to get services in the Dallas area 30 years ago, do you mean that you did not know of any such place, or that you have confirmed that no men in the Dallas area received any assistance 30 years ago?

    2) What is it about TFP that smells funny? Do you think they are lying about having provided services to men who are DV victims? Or about the majority of those men being gay victims of male-on-male violence?

    thebigmanfred,

    It was a question of how worthwhile it is to target a subsection of victims vs. all victims. I didn’t assert anything because I don’t know the answer.

    What advertising would you propose that is going to be effective in encouraging more DV victims to seek help regardless of whether they have children? As in, what would your statement be that would grab the attention of someone who evidently has decided that the cost-benefit analysis works out in favor of staying in an abusive home? I don’t do marketing in this area so I honestly can’t think of any such message that isn’t already out there ad nauseum: this is bad (duh); you’re putting yourself at risk (duh); etc. Victims know the super-obvious stuff already. What many of them apparently don’t know much about is the psychological toll on children of witnessing DV. That’s why this ad campaign focused on that cost: to make victims more aware of it and shift their cost-benefit analysis.

    Unless you have information to counter The Family Place’s experience in working with DV victims and knowing what factors will cause them to finally seek help, I’m not clear on why you seem to think that you know better than TFP how to propel victims into getting help.

    I think it’s entirely possible that TFP doesn’t know what they’re doing, that they have analyzed the problem wrong and their statistics on the effects on children are totally off — but I haven’t seen a single criticism of the ads that actually alleges that. People don’t say, “This is inaccurate” or “This won’t accomplish what TFP says they want to do.” Instead, the critics say, “I don’t like this, this makes me feel bad, if I read this as superficially as possible I get the impression that there are no male victims and no female perpetrators of DV.” Those aren’t criticisms I can take seriously and I don’t think they’re criticism that TFP is obligated to take seriously.

  62. 61
    Jake Squid says:

    Duncan,

    I look forward to reading your links. Thanks.

    why should there be male and female only shelters

    This should be clear. For safety purposes. By segregating men and women, it eliminates the possibility of an abuser (heterosexual, anyway) from infiltrating and reaching their victim. I don’t see DV shelter space becoming coed anytime in the foreseeable future. I also don’t believe we’ll see equality of resources until we see equality of demand. Everything that I can find indicates that women comprise over 90% of those seeking help to escape DV. Accordingly, it makes sense that most DV shelters are primarily aimed at helping women.

    Your two stories in your comment are horrifying. That has not been my experience, nor have I read such stories, about DV organizations in the US. While the vast majority of shelters are not equipped to shelter men on the premises, many of them offer to shelter men in hotels and every one that I’ve ever heard of will provide counseling and other services to men or direct men to places that they can get help.

    … dv shelters must state that they are a gender specific organisation only and as such be awarded monies based on that fact and that includes many more 3rd party studies to assess accurately the numbers of victims both men and women…

    And what do we do while we wait years for these studies? Do we continue to support existing DV shelters? Do we continue to lobby to remove funding from DV shelters? What? I propose that those to whom this is a major issue do something constructive rather than destructive. I propose that those in positions of relative power, such as Glenn Sacks, use their resources to do something constructive towards their stated goal rather than to continue to attack existing DV shelters and organisations.

  63. 62
    Schala says:

    What Duncan has said, about organizations desafiliating or government grants not being given to organizations who cater to men even if they also cater to women is seemingly more widespread than you may think.

    Daran himself had to contend with this when he helped an organization who catered to both, they were passed for a grant, and the organization who did get the grant said it was deplorable that they were passed and ignored.

    The law that passed in California now prevents government from withholding grants on those grounds. So that someone starting a shelter for men only can receive funding and not be flatly refused and told to go 100% private. The way the law was formulated before meant a shelter for men would not get money – because the law said DV was a women’s issue only.

  64. 63
    thebigmanfred says:

    PG:

    As in, what would your statement be that would grab the attention of someone who evidently has decided that the cost-benefit analysis works out in favor of staying in an abusive home? I don’t do marketing in this area so I honestly can’t think of any such message that isn’t already out there ad nauseum: this is bad (duh); you’re putting yourself at risk (duh); etc. Victims know the super-obvious stuff already.

    I agree that victims already know that what’s happening to them is wrong. There are two groups that need to be targeted. One are victims that don’t need their cost-benefit analysis changed; they just need to know about services that can help. The other group of victims need their cost-benefit analysis changed and to know about services offered that will help. Is it possible to cover both of these groups at once? Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe an ad like this may cover both groups:

    Domestic Violence can have a devastating affect on you, your family, and friends. ____ organization provides assistance for victims. Please call ___.

    The heart of this message is to incorporate cost-benefit analysis and to indicate where to get help. Is this message effective? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.

    Unless you have information to counter The Family Place’s experience in working with DV victims and knowing what factors will cause them to finally seek help, I’m not clear on why you seem to think that you know better than TFP how to propel victims into getting help.

    I don’t have information to counter their experience. I don’t think I know better, quite the opposite. I’m not making claims, I’m asking questions to ascertain the most effective method(s) of reaching all victims.

  65. 64
    Duncan Macleod says:

    orry for the delay its been a busy day .

    Jake a few links there are a LOT more but these do cover my points and to a degree a few of yours.

    http://www.wvrecord.com/news/213189-suit-alleges-discriminatory-treatment-in-domestic-violence-shelter-program-licensure

    http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=%22national+coalition+of+free+men+suffers+final+defeat%22&fr=yfp-t-104&u=www.wcmontco.org/pdf/newsletter/June2005.pdf&w=%22national+coalition+of+free+men+suffers+final+defeat%22&d=BjHVdfReRUjP&icp=1&.intl=us ( this one i have on because it offers up comments as to why shelters are gender specific and why these services are not avalible to men, some i can agree with some i cant )

    http://kimberlychapman.com/abuse/us_abuse.html ( very good page linking information and one i love because it shows help for both genders and is totally gender neutral as the family place site should always have been )

    http://www.dewar4research.org/DOCS/PlightOfMaleVictimsSummaryMay08.pdf ( uk based study however does give a damning insight into how second wave feminist policy has caused issues for males in regards to domestic violence victimhood )

    http://www.mankind.org.uk/PDFs/Domestic%20Abuse%20-%20The%20Challenge%20Male%20Victims%20Face_Jul%202008.pdf ( similar type study offering data that correlates, i do always like to try for two or three sources to justify anything )

    http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/10/opinion/edyoung.php ( great article covering the renewal of the VAWA )

    http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-VAWA-Discriminates-Against-Males.pdf ( more of the same regarding discrimination against males in the access to services )

    http://www.pcadv.org/Resources/Housing.pdf ( list of help for females needing shelter, i cant for the life of me find a male equivilent )

    http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2003/0422rolph.html ( there is more to come on this from ifeminists)

    http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2453807.0.rape_support_group_ignoring_male_victims.php one of the stories i mentioned before .

    Its funny i come from a country where the law defines domestic violence as a crime of man against woman, this is written into law in the same way rape involves penetration by penis only, this is in itself why I am so vehomently opposed to some of the things that happen.

    I left the uk two years ago after my ex cheated on me and moved out one day while i was at work ( I worked for a church at that point ) I came home to find the place emptied of everything including the food from the fridge and it was funny , the hell she put me through had put me in a psych ward the year before and left me with 3 broken ribs and hatred because i wouldnt fight back the police when i called them first asked me “so what did you do to make her do this”. That is what is happening in the world now and i have seen it since i came to the states, hell i lived next door to a couple and he was laying into her daily till i politely knocked on his door and beat the crap out of him ( not good but i belive no man should hit a woman and no woman hit a man ) .

    You misunderstood my comment on the dv shelter . I didnt mean the shelter persay I meant the service as a whole, read tfp directors comment and read some of the stuff above and even looking at the idea that 10-25% of dv victims are male can you seriously say that the group is being equal by giving out vouchers or using the suite they have avalible, this is the issue not helping women.

    As for sacks actions ….. IF he intended to stop funding, and that is an if, i am still not convinced many heres view on that is not due to there own feelings on the man then he was wrong, bringing the attention was a great thing but i feel he should have been directing them to donate to gender neutral dv help in the area.

    I dont class myself as an mra more as a humanist i see to much bias in society and feel everyone should be responsible and accountable for there own actions.

  66. 65
    Spicy says:

    I was home last month and when i was i read an interesting article regarding a dv unit in scotland refused membership of the rape crisis network of the UK because they help men

    This is a somewhat misleading statement as it implies that rape and sexual assault agencies are denied access to a support network if they provide services to both genders.

    The reality is that there are two national networks. The Rape Crisis Network is only open to rape and sexual assault services which only provide services to women and girls. The much larger network is the Survivor’s Trust which is open to rape and sexual assault services which assist both men and women.

    Neither network is open to domestic violence services.

    Research in the UK has shown that for some women, a women-only service is critical in enabling them to seek help.

  67. 66
    Duncan Macleod says:

    Spicy , Scotland is one of the few countries where there is no crime of rape against men only women, same as in scotland domestic violence is a male on female crime only.

    I tried posting a lot of links last night but for some reason my post wasnt allowed but will happily offer to any esp jake who i was discussing with and i can be reached on angelusuk1a@yahoo.com.

    The rape crisis network and dv units are pretty much all combined in scotland hence the relevance however it also illustrates that these crimes in many societies are not seen as anything but female only crimes which marginalises those who deserve help.

  68. 67
    Ampersand says:

    I tried posting a lot of links last night but for some reason my post wasnt allowed

    Duncan, did you see this text, right above the box where you type your comment in?

    If your submitted comment fails to appear, without even an error or “waiting for moderation” message, then our spam-blocking program may have blocked your comment by mistake. When this happens, please contact the moderators right away so we can rescue your comment!

    If this happens again, contact us via the form and we’ll rescue your comment if it’s in the spam folder. But we get hundreds of spam comments, so we won’t know to look for your comment if you don’t tell us.

    (By the way, your comment with all the links was in the spam folder, but I fished it out.)

  69. 68
    FurryCatHerder says:

    PG,

    What I’m saying is that in the Fall of 1986 when I was being beaten on a regular basis and finally got fed up with it, there was no shelter in either Collin or Dallas counties where a man (at the time …) could go. Yes, I called. No, I was not directed to anything when I called the police, or when the police arrived, or after the police left. There wasn’t anywhere to go after the police left, and I did call around and try to find somewhere.

    I was 24 years old, had just spent most all the money I had relocating to Plano (suburb north of Dallas, for those of you who don’t know where Plano is), had almost no friends (had just relocated there …), and no other connections.

    Really, I wish it wasn’t a problem. I wish that instead of getting lucky the following year and having insurance that would pay for couch time with a shrink, I’d been pointed at some group / body / social service that would have helped me understand it wasn’t much fault and I had a choice. But I wasn’t told of any service, and men who speak up about domestic violence aren’t looked upon well.

    — Julie.

  70. 69
    Duncan Macleod says:

    Ampersand.

    Many thanks for posting the links i sent , I heard a few things on other sites about you not being fond of people posting that are of differing views than your own , i can safely say based round this they were wrong.

  71. 70
    PG says:

    thebigmanfred,

    Domestic Violence can have a devastating affect on you, your family, and friends. ____ organization provides assistance for victims. Please call ___. The heart of this message is to incorporate cost-benefit analysis and to indicate where to get help. Is this message effective? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.

    I think this message is too vague to have much effect on cost-benefit analysis. Speaking in generalities doesn’t work well on consumers who already consider themselves informed. For example, I assume myself to be reasonably well-informed about the costs and benefits of organic versus conventionally-grown food. A sign that just says, “Organic Food can be better for you than conventionally-grown food,” isn’t going to impress me. I know that, and I’ve already figured out how much this “better” is worth to me in terms of spending money on groceries.

    However, a sign that says, “People who drink conventionally-produced milk are twice as likely to get colon cancer compared to people who drink organic milk” will get my attention, because that makes a big difference for me: it targets a specific product and a specific concern. It has a particularly strong impact on me because there’s a history of colon cancer in my family. It probably won’t make much difference to people who don’t drink milk anyway and who don’t have any reason to be specifically worried about colon cancer.

    You might think the second sign is not good advertising because it is specific rather than general, but in fact if it makes more impact than the general one, it’s a better use of advertising dollars. Particularly in our ad-saturated environment, it’s necessary to make ads more targeted for people to notice them.

  72. 71
    PG says:

    Duncan,

    Spicy , Scotland is one of the few countries where there is no crime of rape against men only women

    Scotland does indeed criminalize rape committed against men — it just doesn’t put it in the “rape” section of the statute, but instead in the “homosexual offenses” section.

    Criminal law (consolidated) of Scotland says,

    (4) In this section, “a homosexual act” means sodomy or an act of gross indecency or shameless indecency by one male person with another male person.
    (5) Subject to subsection (3) above, it shall be an offence to commit or to be party to the commission of, or to procure or attempt to procure the commission of a homosexual act—
    (a) otherwise than in private;
    (b) without the consent of both parties to the act; or
    (c) with a person under the age of eighteen years.
    (6) It shall be an offence to procure or attempt to procure the commission of a homosexual act between two other male persons.
    (7) A person who commits or is party to the commission of an offence under subsection (5) or subsection (6) above shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine or to both and on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months, or to a fine not exceeding the prescribed sum (within the meaning of section 225(8) of the [1995 c. 46.] Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995).

    The law is written differently with male-on-male rape than with male-on-female rape because Scotland was relatively late to decriminalize homosexuality, and so its law is written as though homosexuality is a crime by default, with a defense that it was in private between consenting adults.

    same as in scotland domestic violence is a male on female crime only.

    If Scotland doesn’t regard men as possible victims of the crime of domestic violence, it seems very odd that they would include male respondents in the domestic violence portion of a government crime survey. According to this government document, “In Scotland the definition of domestic violence used by the police is ‘any form of physical, sexual or emotional abuse which takes place within the context of a close relationship. In most cases this will be between partners (married, cohabiting or otherwise) or ex-partners’ (Goodall & McKay 1998; p7).” Obviously, this does not exclude abuse perpetrated against male victims.

  73. 72
    Schala says:

    “People who drink conventionally-produced milk are twice as likely to get colon cancer compared to people who drink organic milk”

    If they actually use those kind of statistics, I’d like them to show us the numbers. Because from just that I imagine my chance just jumped from 50 to 100% while it probably jumped from 0.01% to 0.02%.

    I mean this in the context of DV as much as any other btw.

  74. 73
    PG says:

    Schala,

    People who drink conventionally-produced milk are twice as likely to get colon cancer compared to people who drink organic milk.

    Uh, how do you get “my chance just jumped from 50 to 100% while it probably jumped from 0.01% to 0.02%” from that? It’s a comparison of two sets of people. Group A drinks conventional milk; Group B drinks organic. All other factors held constant, Group A is twice as likely to get colon cancer as Group B. Whatever Group B’s risk of getting colon cancer, Group A’s is twice that. If Group B has a 50% chance of getting colon cancer, then yes, Group A’s chance is 100%. If Group B has a 0.01% chance, then yes, Group A’s chance is 0.02%.

    The lifetime risk of developing colorectal cancer in the United States is about 7% — 7 out of 100 Americans will develop this cancer at some point in their lives. If the risk statistic says that conventional milk drinkers are “twice as likely,” then it’s 14%.

    Similarly, if the general population of men in opposite-sex relationships have a 1 in 8 chance of abusing their partners at some point in their lives, doubling that chance means they now have a 1 in 4 chance of doing so if they witnessed DV as children. Etc.

  75. 74
    Schala says:

    The link you posted about Scotland law concerning male victims of abuse clearly omits the possibility even, of female on male rape. Not that its an epidemic, or a crisis, but that it’s ignored at all is telling of rigid gender norms into law.

    It considers PIV as a male against female crime (when non-consensual). So wether a male actually is a rapist, the act would be condemned as being initiated by him (wether true or not, they only need prove evidence of sperm) because he is attached to the penis.

    It also seems to omit other means of raping that don’t involve PIV or sodomy respectively. It completely omits female on female rape. Either this law is full of holes or it has a lesser charge for sexual impropriety which would fall under rape elsewhere (forcing someone to perform oral sex, for example).

  76. 75
    Schala says:

    And why I said what I did about your statistic. I want to know the numbers they base this on. Not that their numbers are necessarily wrong, or would mitigate the effect, but a “twice more likely than x” doesn’t tell me anything personally.

    Do they routinely ask perpetrators of DV if they witnessed it as children? Is this from a survey or two or three?

    Not to excuse the behavior of perpetrators, but the culture we live in, while I find it hard to accept it as a rape culture, or a DV culture, I can easily accept it is a violence culture, and it encourages (and punishes men who abstain) violence coming from men.

    Either you are:
    1) Violent against all people who seek trouble with you.
    2) Willing to engage in violence in order to defend yourself and/or your honor/family/siblings/country.
    3) Picked on and bullied because you don’t adhere to 1) or 2).
    4) Female and thus other standards apply.

    Women are sheltered from this expectation by a veil of paternalism and a hint of protectionism.

    1) Paternalism: Women cannot be violent. They are weak.
    2) Protectionism: Women should not HAVE to be violent/defend themselves on their own. They merit our protection, even if they do know how to defend themselves. ie: They should not be subjected to violence.

    Point 2) can be seen in the meme that “Boys shouldn’t hit girls”, which is upheld society-wide. This means any girls or women.

    The problem occurs when someone, wether raised or not with point 2) as a meme/directive or whatever, considers their wife/girlfriend differently from the average girl or woman. I’m not willing to put forward another explanation, because it would be hypothetical (I can’t speak for men), but there probably are some.

    I detach myself from social theory because I’m usually an extreme outlier in everything, thus the use of ‘they’ when speaking of both men and women.

  77. 76
    PG says:

    Schala,

    Even if what you say is true, there’s still a “crime of rape against men” in Scotland, as well as the recognition of men as victims of DV in Scotland. The crime survey summary specifically says that homosexual relationships are included among those for which DV is counted in the government statistics. Duncan’s simply got the law wrong.

    Either this law is full of holes or it has a lesser charge for sexual impropriety which would fall under rape elsewhere (forcing someone to perform oral sex, for example).

    Assuming Scotland follows Anglo-American common law, any unwanted touching would constitute battery at minimum.

    And why I said what I did about your statistic. I want to know the numbers they base this on. Not that their numbers are necessarily wrong, or would mitigate the effect, but a “twice more likely than x” doesn’t tell me anything personally. Do they routinely ask perpetrators of DV if they witnessed it as children? Is this from a survey or two or three?

    Hallelujah! Someone is finally being critical of the basis of the claim made in the ad, instead of just going on about how the ad vaguely makes him/her feel bad!

    I have no idea where they got the numbers on which they base the claim. Demanding rigor in the use of statistics, however, apparently isn’t as much fun as demanding gender parity without having done the factual work to demonstrate that such a parity would match reality.

  78. 77
    Schala says:

    PG wrote:

    Assuming Scotland follows Anglo-American common law, any unwanted touching would constitute battery at minimum.

    Well, this still does invibilize female on female and female on male rape. It’s simply not rape for them (it’s battery apparently). So rape counseling services (in Scotland) shouldn’t have to serve lesbian victims of rape: they don’t exist. Right?

    That’s the problem I have with non-inclusive laws. It can then be logically claimed that rape doesn’t affect x group, because law defines it as not affecting this group (heterosexual men, or lesbian women, in the case of rape in Scotland).

    I’m not sure if the law in Scotland defines DV as including male victims, but it probably has issues considering heterosexual male victims, similarly like rape. As such, defining heterosexual men as outside the scope of DV, makes it pretty unlikely that they would be recognized as needing any help (after all they can’t even possibly, legally, be victims of DV, let alone needing services about it).

    Strange though, that a patriarchy, favoring men over women, would define issues in ways that help most women (straight women) and few men (gay men).

  79. 78
    PG says:

    I’m not sure if the law in Scotland defines DV as including male victims

    According to the summary of findings: “In Scotland the definition of domestic violence used by the police is ‘any form of physical, sexual or emotional abuse which takes place within the context of a close relationship. In most cases this will be between partners (married, cohabiting or otherwise) or ex-partners.'”

    It can then be logically claimed that rape doesn’t affect x group, because law defines it as not affecting this group

    I don’t see how it can be “logically claimed.” Rape in the U.S. historically was defined under law only as non-consensual PIV, yet I can show you documentation from the 1930s where researchers were aware that homosexual prison rape occurred.

    Strange though, that a patriarchy, favoring men over women, would define issues in ways that help most women (straight women) and few men (gay men).

    Are you not aware that until the 20th century, no country defined rape broadly enough to include most of the rape that actually occurs (i.e. rape of non-virgins, of wives by husbands, of people who didn’t fight back until they were a bloody pulp)? And that the reason that “domestic violence” is distinguished in the first place is that assault and battery that took place in the home almost never was prosecuted?

    The patriarchy has never been about maximizing utility for all men. It’s about perpetuating a power structure that values a certain type of “masculinity.” Needless to say, that type of masculinity doesn’t include either homosexuality or men who get hit by women.

  80. 79
    thebigmanfred says:

    PG:

    I think this message is too vague to have much effect on cost-benefit analysis. Speaking in generalities doesn’t work well on consumers who already consider themselves informed. For example, I assume myself to be reasonably well-informed about the costs and benefits of organic versus conventionally-grown food. A sign that just says, “Organic Food can be better for you than conventionally-grown food,” isn’t going to impress me. I know that, and I’ve already figured out how much this “better” is worth to me in terms of spending money on groceries.

    You’ve made some good points here. Speaking in generalities does have the effect of watering down one’s message. The only way this particular message works is if the consumer isn’t as well-informed as they think (i.e. they’re only thinking of the pain to themselves, but not to family and friends). Does that mean there isn’t a way for DV advertisers to reach both groups (those who don’t need their cost-benefit changed and those that do) simultaneosly with the same ad?

    You might think the second sign is not good advertising because it is specific rather than general, but in fact if it makes more impact than the general one, it’s a better use of advertising dollars. Particularly in our ad-saturated environment, it’s necessary to make ads more targeted for people to notice them.

    Generally speaking, I prefer ads that make the most impact (obviously though not at the expense of others).

    *Edited to add – Thanks for the discussion PG

  81. 80
    PG says:

    thebigmanfred,

    You’re welcome, thanks to you as well.

    Does that mean there isn’t a way for DV advertisers to reach both groups (those who don’t need their cost-benefit changed and those that do) simultaneosly with the same ad?

    I think it will be difficult to do a targeted and general message in a single ad. This isn’t the first ad campaign that TFP ever has run; the other ones probably had a more general message of the type you’ve suggested, i.e. “DV is bad. We can help. Here’s our name, number, address.” People who know something about marketing have said they think the ads are effective*, and TFP says they’ve been getting many more calls for help.

    By the way, Dallas law enforcement statistics make it reasonable to say that the majority of people willing to say “I’m getting abused” are women. According to TFP, 70% of women who seek help at The Family Place grew up in homes with domestic violence. And if you do a news search on “The Family Place,” you’ll find that they’ve been talking to the media about serving men for over 20 years — not only by counseling abusers, but also by helping male victims of DV**. With regard to abusers, they have promoted counseling instead of jail sentences. And the Family Place given an annual award — The Family Place Man of Influence Award — to recognize a North Texan who is leading by example to make domestic violence a community issue rather than a women’s issue.

    Honestly, the more I read about The Family Place, the more annoyed I am with Sacks & Co.

    * ‘Ads with shock value like The Family Place’s are sure to offend some, said Southern Methodist University professor Dan Howard, chairman of the marketing department at SMU’s Cox School of Business. But he believes the ads are effective. “I think these are fair. They’re attention-grabbing and they get the message across,” Dr. Howard said. He said they are likely to appeal to a woman’s concern for her children. “There are some women who will do more to protect their children than they will to protect themselves,” he said.’
    ‘Ads designed to shock – and protect Domestic violence group sees kids’ images as outreach tool.’ THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS October 23, 2008

    ** Dallas. The Family Place: Provides crisis assistance and counseling for domestic violence victims – male and female – and for abusers. The Family Place also offers children’s assistance, legal advocacy, emergency shelter and transitional housing, employment, education and a child-care program for women recovering from abusive relationships. (214) 559-2170
    24-hour hot line: (214) 941-1991
    Abuser’s hot line: (214) 692-8295
    ONLINE: http://www.familyplace.org
    ’12 Angry Jurors;Why did Jimmy Watkins get off with probation after brutally shooting his wife to death in front of their son? Two years later, jurors tell us how they reached a decision that made headlines across the nation.’ Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas) October 16, 2001

    In Dallas, there is almost no funding for services specifically geared toward battered gay men or lesbians, but The Family Place, a shelter and counseling service, and the district attorney’s office both routinely serve gay couples, representatives said.
    Mr. Bellomy said he sees Dallas as having a good beginning in tackling the issue, although he hopes to see more resources, such as continuing education for therapists – “I found a few who just weren’t up to speed, and in my view were dangerous,” he said.
    About two years ago, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance started a small Domestic Violence project that funds a hotline and beepers for two volunteers, who can guide victims toward shelter or protective orders.
    About 2 1/2 years ago, The Family Place established a system of “safe houses” for battered gay men, said Sharon Obregon, executive program director.
    With the safe houses, volunteers allow victims to stay with them for a few weeks. A similar setup is available for abused straight men, who make up about 5 percent of heterosexual victims.
    But so far, very few gay men have asked for refuge, Ms. Obregon said.
    “It’s really not utilized the way it should be,” she said. “I think they’re very reluctant to come forward. . . . I don’t know how threatening it is for the gay and lesbian community to ask the police for help.”

    ‘When it’s a gay couple, abuse often overlooked,’ THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS August 3, 1997

  82. Pingback: Men’s Rights Activists Attack Domestic Violence Shelter « The Czech

  83. 81
    idyllicmollusk says:

    I wrote that MRA post almost 3 weeks ago. Why the pingback just happened yesterday remains a mystery.

  84. Pingback: Women Don’t Want to Get Married: Debate Heats Up in Mailbag « Unasked Advice