Comment at Whaleoil

I was trying to make a comment over at Whaleoil, but the problem is that tables do not work that well in wordpress comments. (I think Cam uses wordpress and disqus: I do and have the same problem.

Anyway, Cam started this post with

Domestic violence must be stamped out at all levels, including leafy suburbs where suppression orders to protect those in high political office who like to show their women the back of their hand.

Yeah, violence is not OK.  But you have to define it. If it includes aggression, it is universal, if it includes minor violence it is almost universal. I commented back (note I am inserting the tables the way I would have liked to)

Cam, half the relationship aggression is done… by the girls. From Magdol, J Consult Clin Violence, 1997, and among (then) 21 yo in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary study (each heading as a sum of people admitting to an event and then a breakdown by type)

I have simplified the table from the paper, I have inserted the tables which is here, and removed the confidence intervals — those differences are, as you would expect, statistically significant.

Violence is a human problem. It is a problem for men, It is equally a problem for women. We need to stop the political discourse on this long enough to read the research — done in this country — which does not support the current idea that it is a male problem.

I could produce figures like this all day. Until we see violence as something we all do and start changing our definitions back — reintroducing words like assault and removing “special crimes” such as male assaults female — we are not going to get progress.

Because most men are sickened by violence. Serious violence is rare. And they do not want to be blamed for what others do, and fear being arrested for what happens to them..