Letters 08-02-10

Time to make a come back…

The last few editions of the paper have had attack after attack on women. It’s about time to make a stand against this recent misogynistic wave, and to defend the women’s rights movement.

Hosam Abdel’s letter about the ‘feminist agenda’ of the paper, and the women in the office, ended up not being an attack on journalism but an attack on women for being women. So yes, ‘P.Terphile’, it was misogynistic. A woman standing up to this attack, and defending others from it, is then personally attacked in a similar vein with reference to ‘vagina shaving’ and ‘lesbian bicycle co-operatives’ (neither of which were ever featured in the paper). Yes, this is misogyny: hatred or contempt of women.

Given that the mass media is overwhelmingly patriarchal, a ‘feminist agenda’ in the paper is at the very least a re-balancing of the media world, and possibly a useful step towards women’s liberation. Challenging objectification in the media, raising awareness about rape myths, challenging dangerous parliamentary bills, engaging in open debate about beauty pageants, Men’s Societies and promoting women’s choices in their lives are usually severely sidelined in the media. Women and non-women alike should be celebrating the fact that the women’s liberation campaign is active and – for the most part – well respected. Women’s equality and liberation is for the benefit of all, or do we not all want to live in a society where, as a good friend puts it, mutual love and respect for all as the basis?

A reply also has to follow from the letter about domestic violence. Domestic violence against men should certainly not be dismissed as non-existent, but the letter printed was severely factually inaccurate. The emphasis on targeting perpetrators rather than victims is laudable in prevention – it is the perpetrators who have the power to end domestic violence rather than the victims, however I dismiss the idea that women are deemed more important victims than men.

Now for the facts. Firstly, John Dias mentions a ‘peer reviewed’ report without making any reference to the report itself, please do share. The last 35 years may have revealed some interesting ideas, but the last 5 years have revealed reliable statistics and some shocking results and attitudes.

The oft-quoted figure of 1 in 6 men experience domestic violence does not take into account sexual assault, which is overwhelmingly man on woman, nor whether violent acts were repeated.

The Home Office Research Study (276) into Domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking: Findings from the British Crime Survey by Sylvia Walby and Jonathan Allen gives the most up to date picture of domestic violence.

Repeat attacks is an area which often shows the differences between how men and women experience domestic violence, and suggests that behind the statistics there is a systemic abuse of power and control within relationships.

In this report, of women, 43 per cent had experienced one act of domestic violence from a partner or former partner person, while a further 25 per cent suffered one or two further incidents. Of men, 69 per cent said that the event was never repeated by that partner, while for 21 per cent it was repeated once or twice more. Among women, 32 per cent of those who had experienced domestic violence did so ‘many times’ (that is, four or more times), as compared with 11 per cent of the (smaller number) of men who had done so.
Women constituted 89 per cent of all those who suffered four or more incidents.

On average 2 women a week are killed by a male partner or former partner: this constitutes around one-third of all female homicide victims. (Povey, (ed.), 2004, 2005; Home Office, 1999; Department of Health, 2005.)

Domestic violence is generally not just physical; it has to be seen within a framework of power and control, repeated habits formed within a relationship. Initial results from a survey into violence against women by NUS is already showing that women students are in no way exempt of these trends, so yes this is an issue we should engage in on campus, but we should engage in the facts and not whichever lies suit our agenda.

The younger a person is, the more likely they are to be subject to inter-personal violence. In all cases those under 25 are the most likely to suffer inter-personal violence.  (Walby and Allen, 2004) Just another statistic to show that on campus we really do need to be engaging in these issues.

Hazel Kent, UMSU Women’s Officer