back to article Jacqui Smith pulls in another TV psych in violence probe

Jacqui Smith has beefed up the government's roster of TV psychologists advising politicians on society (or Paps) with the recruitment of Dr Linda Papadopoulos, a longtime provider of academic heft to the likes of GMTV and BBC 3. Papadopoulos has been drafted into a Home Office Consultation entitled "Together We Can End …

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  1. Scott

    Another one

    Are another expert the goverment emplyees to giv ethem advice so they can then go and totally ignore it because it doesn't promote the lose of Liberties throught terrorism or pedophiles.

  2. Scary

    Wacky

    Please replace "Jacqui" with "Wacky Jacqui" throughout this article in accordance with editorial policy.

  3. Mat
    Thumb Up

    Kudos to the author.

    Just the perfect amount of sarcasm!!

  4. Andy Lamb
    Flame

    Wacky, Wacky, Wacky...

    I'm sorry but wtf?!? That woman is nothing more than a standard politician who has forgotten who they worked for, but with a (sexist) Napoleon complex larger than Rimmer's!!

    Why don't these politicians/police/etc work on *enforcing* the laws already in place properly - that might work, hmm? Oh that's right, because so many of them would be guilty of one crime or another the state would grind to a halt leaving no-one in power..... That isn't such a bad idea - trial run without the shepards running this flock - how many econemies would collapse if the workforce running the businesses had contol?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh I see.

    Famous psychologists are BETTER psychologists. Otherwise they wouldn't be famous, right?

    That's how it works, right? Famous people are better people? Guys? Anyone?

    More importantly if everyone knows it's the parents fault, why won't anyone say it? The government will tell parents to do everything except raise their children not to be crazy. Why is that?

  6. Geoff Johnson

    She'll be talking to...

    I notice it doesn't say she'll be Listening to anyone.

    Business as usual then.

  7. Dave Bell

    Same old...

    The last paragraph suggests this latest recruit is as irrelevant as all the previous attempts to get scientific input. The politicians will just ignore anything they don't agree with.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Sexism

    Once again, women and girls are victims or potential victims, while men and boys are the perpetrators or potential perpetrators. This despite the fact that there's a lot of domestic violence perpetrated by women, and a lot of violence perpetrated against men and boys.

    I suspect this old-fashioned, sexist attitude that Jacqui Smith and the government seem to have is very much a part of the problem. I wouldn't be surprised if it fosters old-fashioned, sexist views of the sexes, which, in turn, would sustain the very culture in which such violence continues.

    Such sexism also encourages some people to take advantage of such prejudice. For example, violent women can use such prejudice to paint themselves as victims forced to fend off their abusers. The government's prejudiced approach to domestic abuse may well fuel abuse.

    And then there's also the problem that men who are abusive towards women can also point to such sexist prejudice, and claim that they themselves are the victims of "political correctness" and "feminazism" when accused. This means the government's sexist efforts are self-undermining anyway.

    The government could do a much better job, simply by ditching its old-fashioned sexism, and taking a genuinely nondiscriminatory approach to dealing with the serious problem of domestic violence.

    As for the "sexualisation of teenage girls", I think the government must have forgotten what adolescence is like, for both girls and boys. Are they really going to end up legislating against puberty? Perhaps they should just sex up the Junior Anti-Sex League, just as Orwell told them to in his instruction manual.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Inappropriate comment no.1

    Dr Linda = Phwoar!

  10. Mad Mike

    Sexist Idiots

    And violence against men and boys is OK then? Jacqui Smith is the most overtly sexist and biased woman I've ever seen. Obviously just the job for Home Secretary. No need for balance or sense there...............

  11. Ash

    I needed to know this earlier

    I'd have turned up with a NO2ID plaquard if I had known Wacki Jacki would be in my nearest city.

  12. rge
    Paris Hilton

    scary spice

    whey-ey, get your Paps out, Jaquii.....

    Another hair-brained idea by the slightly wacky home secretary

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Did she catch one of her sons on the net?

    Holland had liberalized p0rn for decades and dutch people are some of the nicest people I've ever met. I suspect, yet again, Jacqui has started with an outcome and then tried to fit a problem to it.

    Presumably she caught one of her teenage boys on the net looking at stuff she just made a criminal offence to look at, and now is conflicted?

    So she's trying to link it back to violence? And since TV shrinks are people with known views (their views are broadcast on TV) it makes it easier to choose someone to tout your message during election times.

    Why not ask her if her sons have ever seen p0rn on the net and if they have, does she consider their behaviour normal?

  14. Hud Dunlap
    Paris Hilton

    Rihanna brown

    "We also need to understand whether there is a link between exposure to these images and boys’ expectations about acceptable sexual behaviour, and to violence."

    I wonder how she will handle the Brown beating Rihanna case. Since it seems she will not testify against him and is back with him. There were a couple of reports of polls in high schools that showed Teenage girls thought Rehanna got what she deserved. Although I am sure that somehow violent porn on the web and the media in general will be blamed.

    Paris, because supposedly it was her text message that started it all.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nice credentials love...

    ...You know, I think she really _could_ change the way things have been for the last several hundred thousand years with credentials like that - GMTV and all. Sigh - still at least the intention seems good, if not horribly, exasperatingly futile. Like most legislation.

    On the other hand if you criminalise and then lock virtually every male, and a lot of females up using one form of legislation or another, you will find a tangible drop in `crime` of all types! Bingo!

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Very nice.

    While I applaud any serious effort to reduce domestic violence, even by this government, I do not like this type of effort.

    Screaming “Protect the poor women and girls” immediately places an impression of guilt on all males. It also portrays females as inherent victims, needing constant and vigilant protection from the vicious male. In some, small number of, cases this may be true. However it also hides another side of the problem, domestic violence against men.

    Yes; snigger, snigger, fnarr fnarr. This is fine until it is you who ends up in casualty explaining to the doc that ‘the little woman’ kicked you so hard she broke your kneecap. Now let’s all join in the laughter. The embarrassment caused by this type of violence, coupled with the feeling that I would not be believed, kept me silent about the abuse for years. The constant destruction of my self esteem and confidence, together with the physical abuse led me to seriously consider suicide. And who would have believed any complaint I made? I am 6’ 1”, she 5’ 5”, I outweighed her by 3st. Anyone would have believed her had she made such a complaint against me, after all violence against women happens all the time. It must do, it happens so often that the government needs to have action programmes against it. So could I keep out of the house and her clutches for a while. Where? No allotment etc. How about the pub? Worst place possible. Now I am a drinker (read drunkard) and we ALL know that drunkards beat their women don’t we? So I and uncounted others continued to suffer, and some killed themselves. Are we laughing now?

    Action does need to be taken on domestic violence. But it needs to be taken with the realisation that domestic violence is a two way affair and that men also suffer from this blight. Simply protecting females will exacerbate the female to male violence with the impression that “nobody believe that it happens, so no-one will believe you if you tell them that I poured boiling water over you. WILL THEY!” Bin there. Done that, pulled the boiling hot tee-shirt off.

    Domestic violence is wrong! Any domestic violence is wrong! We, as a society, need to start being a little more protective of the victim and a little more disapproving of the perpetrator, which ever gender they happen to be.

    PS

    I put up with this for 5 years before I left my former wife. My choice was simple; leave or take the pills. She couldn’t understand why I left her. I found a woman who had also been physically abused and we have just celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary.

  17. Eponymous Cowherd
    Joke

    Actually, its all Jacqui's fault.

    She makes me *so* angry, I want to go out and kill something.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    What happened to equality?

    What utter sexist drivel

  19. Martin Lyne

    Now look

    Now look what's happened.. my ears and eyes have been coated in bullshit. *Sigh* It'll take more than a TV psychologist to get that off.

    Perhaps they could stop violence against ALL PEOPLE by actually making punitive sentences mean something. Build prisons, lock the fuckers up, make them do hard labour for free. It's just like the outside world *only no women to beat up* (er.. for them I mean, not like we all have women to beat.. shit now I'm in a hole spouting my own bullshit nad drowning in it!)

  20. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Flame

    When worlds collide

    To counter the "impact the prevalence of sexualised images has on young people"

    using a "resident psychologist at the Cosmopolitan"

    ...

    What's the stage beyond facepalm?

  21. Throatwobbler Mangrove

    i wasn't convinced

    until i saw her CV - but anyone that's trusted by Lorraine Kelly AND Matthew Wright gets my stamp of approval!

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    You London folks

    "To that end, Jacqui braved the chilly wastes of Birmingham on Thursday to get on the consultation's roadshow bus as it hits the West Midlands."

    Bearing in mind she is MP for the shithole known as Redditch (15 miles down the road), it was hardly a trek to the artic circle.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Two things

    1) You can't end violence - it is part of human nature.

    2) I am annoyed by the implication of the project's name that violence against men and boys is OK.

    Actually, three things

    3) This is just another trawling expedition by Wacky Jacqui to find more reasons to invade our privacy and control our lives. "Will no one thing of the women and girls" she shall bleat, before drafting in further totalitarian measures.

  24. Luis Ogando
    Thumb Down

    Sticking Plaster

    While I wholeheartedly agree with any course of action which highlights awareness of violence to ANYONE (including women and children) I can't help feeling that the approach is treating the symptom and not the cause.

    What we need is a law which makes it illegal to physically or mentally abuse anybody, regardless of age, gender, creed, race, social standing, sexuality, etc.

    What's that? We DO have such a law?? Y'know - you really wouldn't think so. We're so effing soft in this country that the perpetrators of the crimes get better legal protection than the victims. and it's FREE!

    Mine's the one with the piss taken out of it!

  25. Dennis
    Black Helicopters

    So yet another justification for Phorm. RIPA and Mega Databases.

    Its not about terrorism it about stopping domestic violence. I have hard facts to back me up, my friend who is a doctor AND a woman AND has been on the GMTV says so.

    Well at least until she stops toeing the party line then we will completely disregard her expert advice and carry on with the introduction of the police surveillance state.

    The fact that all the specialist police units set up to deal with these problems spend their time eating donuts and playing poker is part of the problem and is non of our business.

    Walk along 'Sir' there is nothing to see here unless taking passing interest in the people around you is suspicious behaviour and should be reported to the police as terrorist activity.

    Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean I'm wrong.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Here we go again.......

    More of the same old same old from Ms Smith and her cohorts.

    Expect the "2 women a week" are killed "statistic" to rear its ugly head again even though its made up!

    If the home secretary wants support for these initiatives from men then she needs to start prosecuting the women who make false allegations of rape and DV. Obviously that wouldnt please the likes of wimmins aid who get all shirty about that.

    She could also start making court orders in the family courts enforced properly although again this would mainly effect the women that breach them, and we cant have that can we.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not men then

    "Together We Can End Violence Against Women And Girls".........

    what about men and boys?

    After working in the DV area for a long time it's this sort of thing that gets men killed.

  28. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    Paris Hilton

    Sorry to be vulgar...

    But I'd give that Linda Papadopoulos one any day of the week.

    Obviously Paris becasue she's been sidelined by a Doctor of suck-ology.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    meh

    Doesn't matter - the witch and her puritan cohorts have already decided what the answer is and they will now find a list of wackos to support it. Freedoms dead - live with it.

  30. Richard Johnson

    sexist?

    How about "Together We Can End Violence Against Men" as well?

    According to National Statistics, men are around twice as likely as women to be victims of violent crime, but women are about twice as likely as men to be worried about violent crime.

    http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=1661

  31. david

    I can solve all the worlds ills...

    I will write a paper called: Together We Can Solve All The Worlds Ills. Here it is::

    Together we can stop the environment being fucked

    (Tell people to stop doing it)

    Together we can stop wars

    (Tell everybody to be nice to one another)

    Together we can stope people being hungry

    (Give everybody enough to eat)

    Together we can stop the economic meltdown forever

    (Tell the banks to sod off and die we'll go back to making things and selling them to make the money go round)

    Together we can stop people dying

    (Ask Dog to make us all immortal)

    Together we can part the Red Sea

    (This one might be difficult but we could try to get Moses back on the job)

    There, that's a good mornings work...I think I can go home now.

    Worthy but a waste of space...

  32. darkmooink
    Coat

    priorities wrong

    "Papadopoulos has been drafted into a Home Office Consultation entitled "Together We Can End Violence Against Women And Girls"."

    surly it should just be "Together We Can End Violence" ? or is violence against men and boys acceptable or at least more acceptable?

    mine is the one with blood splatted all over it

  33. Psymon

    my god..

    It all sounds so... reasonable.

    OK, now I'm confused and/or fightened. Jackie's actually taking sensible, well reasoned advice from experts that actually know what their talking about?

    Oh wait, I forgot the second stage of the operation is to chop that advice into misinterpreted sound bites that fit their own agenda...

  34. Hollerith

    Best possible resource, of course

    Good to know that the Gummint is reaching out for the real experts in this field. Maybe raising the question about why men are violent to women, as opposed to guessing it's because women are encouraged to turn themselves into sexual objects (this isn't automatically a reason for attacks) would expose some of the causes. Violence is not about sex but about power. One view is that men attack what is 'lesser' than them to relieve the pressure and tension that they suffer being lower than other men on the pecking order. It's the big boy hits smaller boy, smaller boy hits little boy, little boy kicks the cat. For 'cat' substitute woman' and you pretty much have it. That's only one explanation -- there are others. But a TV pundit is not going to go for the hard isues and big problems around violence in osciety, of which violence towrds women is a sub-set; she or he is going to go for the touchy-feely quick-fix stuff.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Won’t somebody please think of the children!

    Glad to hear that they have found the most appropriate person to review of the sexualisation of teenage girls - the host of "My Big Breasts and I".

    I remember she also had a gig as one of the resident psychologists on the popular Channel 4 freak show "Big Brother", which also did not exploit the participants in any way.

    Sounds like Wacky Jacqui has been speaking to Harriet Harmen at length about equal rights for women. Jobs for the girls!

    I think I got out of bed the wrong side this morning and have ended up in a parallel universe where morons are running the country. Wake me up after the General Election in May 2010.

  36. This post has been deleted by its author

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Curious....

    Why has she taken Big Brother off her CV...?

  38. Steve

    "Ending violence towards women"

    And they're planning to acheive this through a campaign fronted by Jacqui & Linda - two people who make me wish there was a way to stab someone through the television?

    Maybe they'd do better without using two people who actually deserve a bit of violence

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Completely ignores...

    ""Together We Can End Violence Against Women And Girls"."

    Men and boys can be (and are) on the receiving end of domestic violence. Jacqui only seems to talk about women and girls, however.

    Men are actually in a more weakened position in this respect. A man that defends himself against a violent woman is seen by society as "hitting a woman" - it's even possible for her to then go to the police an be taken seriously while the man is automatically suspected.

    If he doesn't defend himself, he's "not a man" because he's "letting a girl beat him up"!

    There's very few statistics about the levels of domestic violence with a male victim, probably partly because men just don't often get taken seriously when it happens to them - by the authorities or by society. Chances are reasonable there aren't as many male victims as female, but does that mean they should be ignored?

    It doesn't matter who the victim or the abuser is - domestic violence is simply wrong.

  40. Paul
    Coat

    Misleading headline

    Derek Accora for Home Sec.

  41. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    gah

    Sigh.

    I wouldn't ever suggest that Jacqui Smith is anything other than a vile and idiotic human being. Nor would I suggest that women beating up men doesn't exist or isn't a serious problem.

    But women are still more often on the receiving end of domestic violence and more likely to be seriously hurt, as far as I know (I'd look up some figures if I didn't have to spend the day moderating your thoughts on the matter). Why all the screams of 'sexism'? It's a problem, isn't it? Or isn't it? Nothing wrong with addressing it, even if in this instance it's being poorly addressed. But you can't put the same resources into something that doesn't occur as often, even if it's a deserving cause. Tackling female violence against men is a whole other campaign (which I'd wholeheartedly support). It may be just as important (as is clear by that AC post earlier - glad to hear that had a happy ending), but it is smaller, and no amount of hollering about Labour bigotry is going to change that.

    Not that Jacqui knows what the hell she's doing with this embarrassing piffle but sheesh, there's nothing wrong with acknowledging something is an issue, you know. (And I know many of you have but I fear the indignation is tipping a bit far the other way.)

  42. Osiris
    Joke

    Visons of the future

    Her next method to end violence to women will be seperation. All women to the east and men to the west.

    Perhaps we could build a wall down the center of the country just to make sure?

    And all that extra wall space for cameras! Perfect!

    Population might take a bit of a hit, but im sure allowing imigrants in will solve that.

    Oh if only I were joking :(

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    ...but only if she gives the "right" advice

    this government don't do science, they rule by headline and public opinion, and damn the evidence and effects.

    We _will_ start burning witches at the stake again. Because althought the scientists tell us they don't exists, the "court of public opinion" will demand it.

    If you join the dots, from a government which has discovered there is no political downside to ignoring experts, to an MP who feels confident enough to want to criminlise peoples thoughts, then the UK is starting to look like a place you really wouldn't want to live.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Sarah...

    As a general rule of thumb, violence against people is wrong (self-defence and organised combat sports are about the only exceptions I can think of).

    AIUI men and women are about equal on the receiving end of violence, but women report it more because it is "weak" for a man to admit he has been beaten by a woman and "accepted" that boys-will-be-boys. So that is one reason for the calls of "sexism".

    The other reason is because this is a Labour politician and they ram "equality" down our throats with frothing zeal, yet they chose to ignore it when it suits them. In this glorious new world of Labour equality, they should be treating violence against mean and women equally. The fact they are not is grossly hypocritical.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Papadopolous?

    I'd shag her...

    I think I just proved them right :/

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    actually

    Thinking about in this murky mind of mine, the problem probably isn't really violence against woman, it's the notion that violence is a solution to problems. Problems tending to be control of a situation or venting frustrations. Much like why I used to fight with my brother before I grew up.

    Many of the people who are violent against woman are violent towards men, and if they arn't it is becouse they are scared of the other men or scared of being seen to be violent in public.

    They are violent towards woman becouse they are, for the most part, weaker and, in a relationship you can do it away from of prying eyes.

    It's becouse it's easy, it's a release.

    I don't think it has anything to do with any kind of image or sexualisation, it has to do with control, frustration, general moral melayse, misery, indirect anger, anger, and an inability to deal with problems. Also opportunity.

    I came from a home that had domestic violance, your opinion of the world changes when you have your old man dragging your mother around to keep the fight infront of you, watching your mother yanking your old mans nob so he stops strangling her. Phoning the police on your own father, strange times indeed.

    Why did it happen? Well not becouse my old man was sexist. More becouse he was desperate, rubbish at expressing emotion, miserable, lost, drunk, angry, and soon to be unemployed, a broken shell of a man. Hell he didn't even have any porn, didn't like violent films, he liked b-movies though, and classical science fiction, used to play the violin, and read two or three books a day when he didn't have work.

    The problem is far more complicated then a bunch of tv wackos, a bunch of interest groups and it just pisses me off when I hear about these things on TV self rightious s--- heads looking for funding, tv wackos looking for ratings and ----ing politicos looking to look tough.

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    for the masses...

    ----

    this government don't do science, they rule by headline and public opinion, and damn the evidence and effects.

    ----

    For the masses I use emotion, for the few I reserve reason - Adolf Hitler

  48. Peyton

    missed a step?

    "...TV psychologists advising politicians on society..."

    Mightn't step #1 be to get a sociologist or two weighing in on the problem?

  49. Shakje

    Simples

    1. Domestic violence against women is bad.

    2. The majority of domestic violence (let's say vast majority) results in women getting hit and not men.

    3. Domestic violence against women probably has far different reasons to domestic violence against men because of cultural beliefs.

    So why is this a bad thing? If anything petition for a similar survey to be done about the other way round, however don't knock them for doing something like this. Knock Waqi for being a tit instead.

  50. Gary McCabe
    Alert

    Do something

    Can I ask all of those who posted a sensible comment here- and there are many, though many were AC- to actually do someone about this and write/email/fax their bloody MPs and if possible Jacqui Smith?

    This is too important to ignore. Wholesale criminalisation of men, victimisation of women.

  51. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Do something

    Oh for heaven's sake, it isn't 'wholesale criminalisation of men'. For 'men' read 'some men', not 'all men', OK? This is not the issue. Don't get bogged down in legitimate use of language just because it's Labour who are wrong about almost everything.

  52. David Pollard

    Consultant to Cosmopolitan?

    Reg readers wishing to conduct further research into issues of cultural stereotyping may be interested to note that Cosmopolitan's latest competition, with an opportunity to win one of eight copies of 'Essential Astrology for Women', doesn't close for another week or so.

    http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/chatroom/topic/69037

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @Sarah

    One of the reasons is we've never seen the government focus on male victims, or even really make it out as an issue that happens to male victims.

    Digging out stats? I mentioned a reason why there's few of them.

    And the "anon coward" because despite my being annoyed at the sexism displayed by Jacqui I'm still somewhat embarressed about the fists, feet and -one time- a hunting knife I was the target of, at the hands of a woman.

    I ask not for women to be sidelined, as men seem to be in this issue, but for a little equality... but that seems too much to ask sometimes, as "men are responsible for the patriarchal society that has held women down for so long"... maybe they were, but I sure as hell wasn't.

  54. michael

    @ sarah

    if the tital was "Together We Can End domestic violence" or "Together We Can End Violence Against partners and children" then I would have much less of a problem but it is called

    "Together We Can End Violence Against Women And Girls"

    that is blatant sexism and in my opinion the implications of such a title need to be re thought

  55. Liam Johnson

    Discrimination

    Dear Sarah

    >>more likely to be seriously hurt, as far as I know

    And thererin lies the problem.

    Discrimination always looks fine from the discriminating side. It is always justifiable and fits with the world view, so it must be true.

    Read the post "very nice" above.

    A guy in that situation couldn't even defend himself. Punch your wife because she is attacking you with a kitchen implement - again - and who do you think ends up in prison. The man.

    No one would ever believe him. EVER. That is discrimination at it's worst.

    Perhaps you are right that there is more violence against women, but as long as everyone discounts the mere existence of violence against men without even looking, then that is always going to be the case. As long as there is stigma attached to reporting the crime, then you are going to have skewed statistics.

    But what you really see from the posts here is how many men are pissed off with being treated as a potential rapist and murderer, but as soon as any of them mention it, they are told to suck it up and be a man. How could anyone discriminate against a white male, when eveyone knows that it is the white males that are the worst sexist racist bastards.

  56. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: @ sarah

    But... if you're seeking to end that specific kind of violence, what's wrong with that as a title? It's not 'blatantly sexist', it's just specific. If you wanted to look into stopping quite so many deer being run over on the roads, specifically, there'd be nothing wrong with titling your consultation 'Tackling Deer Deaths On British Roads'. (I hate the gloopy 'Together We Can' crap as much as anyone.) We all know that badgers, frogs and pheasants also get run over, but that's another report, even if you could broadly suggest it would be a good idea to tackle *all* roadkill incidents (if you were so inclined and thought it was important). It's not prejudice. I'm sorry if you're intent on seeing it that way, but... it's not.

    Anyway, if you do have a grievance, could you take it up with Jacqui so I don't have to moderate quite so much of the jumping up and down around here?

  57. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Discrimination

    Liam - I'm really not discriminating. Nor would I ever suggest that men don't suffer at the hands of women. I believe I said something to that effect, and referred to the AC post too.

    Hey ho.

  58. Peter Fielden-Weston

    Re Sarah Bee

    The way that this proposal is worded is sexist. Most commentators here are pointing out the fact that highlighting only one side if the problem is almost as bad as doing nothing at all. While a “Save the females” campaign will help in some small ways, it will also server to hide the damage being done to males.

    We only have to look at the effect of the “think of the children” campaign have had on the male numbers in primary and junior schooling. All males have been demonised because of the actions of a very few. It is very noteworthy that in some cases there was also a female involved in the atrocities. The females role was never hyped by the media in the same way that the males was though. Is this because all of these “little women” were terrified of the man? I doubt that that was the case otherwise the tabloids would have spread that across the front pages with great glee.

    Males have suffered a huge amount of unnecessary and undeserved blame and oppression in the last couple of decades. Attitudes towards men have changed in a lot of not so subtle ways. Now it is seen as reasonable that sections of society be “protected” from men. Not just one or two men but all men. I find that unacceptable.

    A cartoon depicting a woman berating a man can be published and be considered acceptable by most ‘normal’ people. A similar cartoon, with the roles reversed would not. Why is this so? Isn’t the abuse of either gender unacceptable?

    TV adverts are shown almost daily depicting people in situations which would be totally unacceptable if the gender roles were reversed. Why? Is it acceptable for men to be shown as stupid but not acceptable to show women as such?

    Otherwise reasonable moderators say that the bigger problem is mens violence against women and we should tackle that first. We can leave the smaller problem until later. Why, is it unimportant? Remember that the smaller problem is still part of the whole problem. It is the whole problem that must be looked at.

    These are attitudes which must be highlighted if we are to bring a rational focus onto DV and equality.

    It is time for the media, even a red top like el Reg, to start hammering back at the politicians demanding some balance. Don’t target DV against women, target DV. Remember when you’re calling for a new womans shelter that a DV shelter would help more. I know that DV against women is a larger problem that that against men. However I also point out that DV is a larger problem still.

    Jacqui Smith has shown herself to be a sexist bigot. Now it is up to you, the media, to tell her, and others like her, that sexist bigots and bigotry of any form, from either gender is unacceptable.

    </rant>

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Do something

    For better results email the potato in your vegetable rack. Sure they can't do anything but at least they wont talk back, and you can cook them for their stupidity.

  60. Tony
    Heart

    @Sarah

    'Tackling female violence against men is a whole other campaign'

    Why?

    Surely domestic violence is domestic violence, regardless of the respective genders of those involved? I don't claim to be an expert having never been on GMTV (hell I try not to even watch the drivel), but surely the reasons that people commit domestic violence are the same - A desire to dominate the other person thorugh physical or emotional violence, possibly caused by feelings of inadequacy elsewhere in their lives or having had an abusive past themselves.

    Why not just call it "Together We Can End Domestic Violence"?

    Why muddy the water by focussing on one group that is a victim (admitedly the largest one) and completely ignore other victims that suffer exactly the same crime for exactly the same reasons?

    Instead of actually looking at the causes of domestic violence as a whole and attempting to find solutions to them, naming the consultation as they have done sends entirely the wrong message: That the violence occurs BECAUSE the perpetrators are men.

    Hence the cries of 'sexism' from the posters here.

  61. michael

    re:re:@sarah

    point taken

    but you are so much better a listener than jacqui is :)

  62. Enrico Vanni

    Think of the cost.....

    What is this celeb collecting as a consultation fee?! While 'idiot' (J. Clarkson) Brown continues to pretend the UK isn't bankrupt, his government's propensity to to continue to piss money up the wall knows no end....

  63. michael

    re:Discrimination

    "But what you really see from the posts here is how many men are pissed off with being treated as a potential rapist and murderer,"

    yes I think that is it we need to start a masclist movement to counter the feminist one?

    it is interesting I just read in the metro how a case against a man for rape had been dismissed. it had been brought cos a woman had said she was to drunk to rember if she had consented so thinks might be moving in the right direction

  64. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Moderatrix...

    > But women are still more often on the receiving end of domestic violence and more likely to be

    > seriously hurt, as far as I know

    How do we know that?

    Thankfully, my experience of domestic violence is insufficient to achieve statistical significance - but I know more male victims than female ones.

    *None* of the men reported it. That means that, in the circumstances of which I'm aware, there were more reports of violence against women, despite a lower incidence.

  65. Pat

    I'm interested in what they DON'T say.

    HO Quote = "Together We Can End Violence Against Women And Girls".

    Subtext = and keep violence against anyone else because they don't matter.

    It's rather like equal rights. If this needs to be supported and enforced then it should be for everyone in our society, but no, it's only 'equality for some' (?? WTF) that requires funding for special interest groups. If you don't have a Gov't approved special interest group then forget any chance of equal treatment from Gov't, its laws and its minions.

    Anyway, I'm sure we can rely upon Jacqui Loadsamoney Smith and her posse to 'round up the usual suspects' while making some rather sizeable expense claims and consultancy fees.

    As regards HO consultations, they only seem to be available when they support the Gov't ideology. Some years ago there was one exploring violence by adults against children, and IIRC in summary most sex offenders were men, but most violence was performed by women. It stuck in my mind because I remember wondering if there was any correlation between the amount of time an adult HAD to spend with children and the number of violent incidents, as overall women have to spend more time with children than men do. Lo and behold, when I went back to check more thoroughly the document had been disappeared. (Who'd 'a' thought it?)

  66. Jimmy

    The silence of the lambs.

    Surely this can't be the same Ms Smith who so blithely signed off on an unprovoked war on another country. The resulting savagery that this display of "shock and Awe" created, resulted in the violent death and mutilation of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, men, women and children.

    The stink of hypocrisy from this bigoted little Feminazi is enough to make me want to throw up in her face.

  67. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I blame Easteners

    Albert square has a lot to answer for, it teaches our children that life is an endless stream of deceit and violence and unhappiness.

    Our young people are impressionable, they've grown up watching this all through their lives and the unrelenting twaddle of misery has coloured their view on how adults should deal with each other. Once grown they treat each other like sh*t, just as they saw on TV. We need to cancel that show immediately!

    But ahhh, you know what, I think that it's easier to blame the thing that fits my agenda and is in the press. So how about I hire a TV expert and we go blame that instead. You know, the Internet, or Computer games, or maybe that Twitter thing I read about.

    TV experts are great because they can read a script and know how to take direction. Plus we know their views, because they're on telly, so we can choose the telly expert that will deliver the correct views under our direction.

  68. Steen Hive
    Thumb Down

    @Sarah

    For me the problem isn't even the title, it's the undoubted premise that even the specific problem of "Tackling violence against women and girls" can even be analysed without a reasonable baseline dataset which one could imagine would include such things as a measure of how many females end up injured as a result of males defending themselves.

    On Wacky's past form, I bet you a pound to a pinch of shit this "project" won't touch that one with a barge-pole.

  69. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: re:Discrimination

    I'm going to get out of this thread because I really can't stand to hear what is essentially becoming people raging against the idea of protecting vulnerable women just because nothing has been said about vulnerable men in this instance - even if that's not what you mean, it's how it sounds. Seriously, folks, think through what you're saying and what underpins it. Also, try and get away from the bloody *title* of the thing and try taking apart the content of the proposal which is not going to help anyone, male or female.

    Last point - Michael, it's not about feminism, and feminism isn't - or shouldn't be - about being anti-men. Feminists who are anti-men shouldn't be allowed to call themselves feminists - equally, it would be nice if people realised that most women who would like to see women treated more fairly absolutely do not want that to be at the expense of men, much less to see men treated less fairly. Y'know?

    And there have been - and are - plenty cases of women making false accusations of rape. They don't help anyone. The actual rape conviction rates are still woefully low here, and these cases are only going to make that worse. (Do I need to point out that I feel bad for the bloke, or indeed any bloke, who has suffered a false accusation of rape? Would you assume I didn't give a shit if I didn't make that clear, being an entirely self-interested female and all? Eeesh.)

    Now I'm done. As you were.

  70. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looking forward to

    the We Can End Racism, Sexism and Alienation against White Males document.

  71. michael

    @pat

    "Lo and behold, when I went back to check more thoroughly the document had been disappeared. (Who'd 'a' thought it?)"

    it was probably just left on a train or deleted by accident or locked in a file cabinet in a toilet with a sine of it saying beware of the leopard

    "never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by cock-up"

  72. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Body Matters

    Anyone else remember a BBC programme many years ago called Body Matters? It had Dr Graeme Garden and two other docs presenting it.

    I still remember how one episode began. Before the opening titles, two actors staged an "incident" in the studio. A man and a woman, apparently members of staff, were having an argument. One slapped the other. That was pretty much the end of the matter.

    Then the opening titles ran, and the show began.

    At some point during the show, the studio audience were asked about the "incident". The question was: who slapped who? A show of hands revealed that the majority remembered seeing the man hit the woman. But when the staged scene was replayed, it was clear the woman had slapped the man.

    Seeing so many people remember it the wrong way round made a lasting impression on me. There's hardly anything else I can remember from that show, and certainly nothing else I can remember well enough to be useful.

    I can imagine Jacqui Smith interpreting such a result as meaning that public opinion demands that more be done to protect women from violent men.

  73. michael

    @ sarah even though she is probley at the pub

    "Last point - Michael, it's not about feminism, and feminism isn't - or shouldn't be - about being anti-men. Feminists who are anti-men shouldn't be allowed to call themselves feminists - equally, it would be nice if people realised that most women who would like to see women treated more fairly absolutely do not want that to be at the expense of men, much less to see men treated less fairly. Y'know?"

    my point is that the whole of the accusation is "she was to drunk to rember" that is a woefley low burden of proof that seamed to be needed to get the case to court

    as pepol have said there seams to be a shift to a "all men are bastards and it is mens fault the world is f*ked up" point of view and maby it is time it was corrected

    sorry if that offends you did not mean it

  74. Liam Johnson

    @Sarah

    >> raging against the idea of protecting vulnerable women just because nothing has been said about vulnerable men in this instance - even if that's not what you mean, it's how it sounds.

    No, I think you need to reread our replies here. Nobody has suggested that these women should not be helped. I am all for it, as I am sure, is everyone else here. The problem is the “in this instance” bit, because I don’t expect that will ever happen.

    If more women than men are harmed my domestic violence, then including the men will not put a large extra burden on the project. Yet even that is not clear – it is a pure assumption that more women than men are victims. Sure it sounds right, but that does not make it correct. But as I said, discrimination always sounds reasonable.

    Or are you really sure that we are going to be seeing the “Together We Can End Violence Against Men And Boys” campaign any time soon?

    If you think that is going to be on the cards in the next few months or years, then I will admit that you are just a lot less cynical then me.

    But if you don’t expect that campaign any time soon, you really ought to have a hard think about why you would want to ignore victims of a crime on the grounds of sex alone.

  75. Ted Treen
    Coat

    @Sarah

    Has anyone ever told you you're devastating when you're angry...?

  76. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sarah...

    Look Jacqui has framed the question "should internet p0rn be banned" in terms of "should vulnerable woman be protected" with a TV expert to give it a gloss.

    i.e. she's frames the problem in terms of the solution she wants.

    So this is not about finding a problem for domestic violence, because the expert signals the theme for the report in her comments. She won't consider poverty, TV, stress etc. the signal is clearly there. Adding "but I don't want to prejudge" after you've just prejudged doesn't change anything.

    So don't take offence if the commenter here think that this is another man-hating anti-p0rn agenda because that's exactly what it is. They'll do the usual thing, try to find a correlation, then treat it as a causality.

    If you recall the xtreme p0rn bill that had the same trick. The research paper they quoted essentially interviewed rapists with a leading question, to get a correlation, then treated the forced correlation as causality. The rapist got to pass the blame away from themselves, and the researcher got their soundbite for their report.

    It had nothing to do with preventing rape and everything to do with finding a basis to ban extreme p0rn.

  77. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    I'll Take Part in Their Consultation

    I'll take part in their consultation.

    http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2009-vaw/

    It's an opportunity to actually explain to them how their "sexist" approach might actually compound the very problems they're trying to solve. And I intend to take a positive, constructive approach, to make it as hard for them as possible to simply dismiss my contribution as, say, misogynistic, ignorant whinging. (Not that this will be a problem for Jacqui Smith. She's proven how effortlessly she can blatantly disregard expert advice - what hope have I got?)

    While I don't know exactly what I'm going to say, yet, I've already got a vague idea.

    The gist of it is that widespread preconceptions of the sexes - sexism - underlie the abuse the government is trying to deal with. Therefore, it's necessary to take an approach that doesn't itself reinforce those same, sexist preconceptions. That means in order to effectively tackle violence against women and children, it needs to be tackled as part of domestic violence more generally (which includes, for example, violent fathers abusing their own sons). That way, the problem is tackled without counter-productively reinforcing the underlying sexism.

    Does that sound reasonable?

  78. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: @Sarah

    Why are you being so absolutist, Liam? Where have I said it's a good idea to ignore victims of a crime on the grounds of gender? I'm just pointing out that the more people bleat about sexism - which undoubtedly exists, both ways, in varying proportions - the more they lose sight of the real issues.

    This is just bonkers, honestly. We're clearly not starting from the same basic, reasonable position and there's no getting back to it.

    I really would like to see a campaign to draw attention to the fact that men can also be victims of domestic abuse - people assume it doesn't happen, of course, and it's a delicate and complex issue about which little has been said. Which means it deserves its own analysis - just as violence against women does, because each scenario, while it may have much in common, is different and requires specific attention. And I hope it happens that violence against men is properly addressed, especially because of the issues with shame etc which have been raised.

    It's just that you could insist on total inclusiveness about almost anything, and if you followed it to its logical conclusion, all charities would be obliged to divvy up their funds equally among all the good causes in existence.

    I know that's bollocks but honestly, I can't grapple with this any more. And it's going to look like I support Jacqui Smith if I carry on and if you think that then you can kiss my (for the purposes of this argument, non-gender-specified) arse.

  79. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Sarah...

    Yes, AC, totally agree. She's just as bad for women in that sense as the aforementioned women who knowingly bring false rape accusations.

  80. Tony
    Heart

    Come back Sarah! We didn't mean it!

    I (certainly) and most other posters here (probably) are not saying that domestic violence against women and children is in any way insignificant or acceptable.

    The reason this has got my back up so much is that the initiative is inherrantly flawed from the start by the spurious assumption that domestic violence perpetrated against a man is inherantly different from that perpetrated against a woman and that it needs a different solution. I certainly haven't seen any meaningful research to back this up. Making dangerous assumptions of this kind actually make it less likely that a meaningful solution can be found and as you have seen here today only serves to polarise people and undermine the initiative.

    I am sure that the home secretary's involvement also cranked up people's annoyance levels (as she is not exactly popular round here), not to mention the fact that the best 'expert' she could find to advise her normally spends her days analysing the vapidity levels on Channel 4's friday night 'retardathon'.

    Seriously though - No need to get stressed about this. I think we all agree that domestic violence = bad.

    kthnxbye.

  81. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Sarah...

    (I mean, she's not good for any of us. Men included. God, bloody gender issues. Next time, I'm coming back as a snail.)

  82. RW
    Paris Hilton

    @ Divine Moderatrix Sarah Bee

    "women are still more often on the receiving end of domestic violence and more likely to be seriously hurt, as far as I know"

    You'll be hard pressed to find any credible figures. I've kept my eyes open for years for anything that might shed light on this, but very little has surfaced. Too much institutional bias, too much posturing by the feminazis, too many men refusing to tell the truth about their black eyes (and broken kneecaps), too much sheer bad record keeping, too many pre-determined agendas to support.

    But once, just once, I ran across a news article that seemed believable. It suggested that the incidence of girl-on-boy domestic violence was roughly on a part with boy-on-girl d.v. Something to do with hospital ER admissions, iirc.

    Human nature being what it is, men and women aren't especially different in most ways. A few folds of skin, some glands that developed differently, differences in the amount of subcutaneous fatty tissue, and that's about it. If you accept that p.o.v. then common sense suggests that both sexes are equally prone to violence against their nearest and dearest.

    In statistics, there's the concept of the "null hypothesis", the hypothesis that there is no observable difference between two sets of observations. A lot of statistical theory is devoted to the issues of determining if the null hypothesis is wrong, and if so quantifying the difference. But unless pretty good proof to the contrary is found, one accepts the null hypothesis. A looser expression of this approach might be called the Missouri method: no assertion of differences (between the sexes, between tomatoes and cucumbers, or any other groups) is accepted unless demonstrated by hard evidence. [Missouri is nicknamed the "show me" state.]

    Let me suggest, dear Sarah, that the reason you suspect otherwise is that you discuss

    DomVio with your co-females. That is to say, there's a fundamental bias in your method of data collection. If you discussed DomVio with their husbands and bfs, you might hear a very different account that would take you aback.

    It is well known that prominent elements in the feminist movement see nothing wrong with propagating anti-male falsehoods that are known to be false. The book "Who Stole Feminism", by Christina Hoff Sommers offers the unsavory details.

    An excerpt is at

    http://geneva.rutgers.edu/src/faq/feminist-myths.txt

    PS: being all in favor of reasonably equal treatment of the sexes, may I suggest the addition of a "male sex symbol icon" to counterbalance Paris?

  83. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Re: re:Discrimination

    "I'm going to get out of this thread because I really can't stand to hear what is essentially becoming people raging against the idea of protecting vulnerable women just because nothing has been said about vulnerable men in this instance - even if that's not what you mean, it's how it sounds."

    Well I generally stick to lurk mode, but I can't let that one go by.

    Sarah - I really don't think you are reading what most of the posters are saying, or refusing to understand it deliberately from the need to be a devil's advocate in this instance.

    I haven't read a single comment advocating that the issue should not be tackled or that the campaign isn't in some way laudible.

    However, most if not all are saying that the broader issue should be tackled head on as DV, not just DV against half of the population.

    The continually segregated message of "Against violence against women" repeatedly reinforces the message that domestic volence against females is important and (by omission) domestic violence against men is not. I would be happy to see The Wackster trumpetting the horrors of domestic violence regardless of gender. From the little I know of it, sex actually has little to do with the issue anyway; like all bullying, it is an issue of power and control.

    Men do not have the monopoly on control and manipulation.....not by a long way.

  84. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Online Survey! It's Rubbish!

    The Home Office have an online survey:-

    http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/keepwomensafe/survey/

    I got most of the way through, then stopped in disgust. I just couldn't complete it when it was so obvious, from so many of the questions, how the results would be interpreted.

    A lot of the questions were obviously intended to allow the government to interpret the answers to support their agenda.

    For example, there was this question:-

    "I think that women who are abused or assaulted have usually done something to encourage it"

    The available options range from "Strongly agree" to "Strongly disagree". "Strongly agree" will obviously be taken as bad, and therefore a clear sign that the government needs to do more to change social attitudes in order to reduce violence against women and girls. "Strongly disagree" will obviously be taken as supporting the government's efforts to do more to reduce violence against women and girls.

    Most of the survey is like that. It's like someone in the Home Office watched that episode of Yes, Prime Minister where Sir Humphrey gets Jim Hacker to give contradictory answers to the same question by asking the right survey questions. One set of questions gives one desired response, while another set gets a different result. Except whoever put this survey together was either totally incompetent and made it too obvious that it's a trick survey, or they did it on purpose, perhaps as a kind of sabotage.

    Anyway, I think I'll send them some feedback about it, so they know I (and others) weigh such a ploy very heavily against them. I will lambast them for undermining efforts to deal with the serious problem of domestic violence.

  85. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    tshh

    Why has this turned into a meadering and pointless debate about sexism, as opposed to latching on to the crux of the matter - New Labour Spin department using another insidious psychological weapon to pass yet more insane, unfounded , puritanical maddness?

    Even if it isn't new law, it may be new regulation, observation, and an ever increasing in the "suspect everything, suspect everyone" mantra of the British Government.

  86. david

    @Sarah

    <grantvoice>Shut up or you'll get a slap</grantvoice>

  87. Steve

    Re: take it up with Jaqui

    "Anyway, if you do have a grievance, could you take it up with Jacqui so I don't have to moderate quite so much of the jumping up and down around here?"

    Maybe you should change the link from "Post a comment" to read "Post something Sarah likes because, even though she's the moderator, she seems to get annoyed at having to actually do some moderation".

    If it was about ending domestic violence against women and *children* you'd have a point about it not being sexist, but this is not just about domestic violence, it's about violence against "women and girls" in general committed by males. There's no mention of violence by females against males or by females against females or by males against males.

    "Also, try and get away from the bloody *title* of the thing and try taking apart the content of the proposal which is not going to help anyone, male or female."

    Yes, let's do that.

    "As part of this, the Home Office will tackle "attitudes that may uphold it (violence against women) in order to help women and girls feel safe,"

    "We also need to understand whether there is a link between exposure to these images and boys’ expectations about acceptable sexual behaviour, and to violence."

    It's about helping females "feel" safe about males and looking at the way images of females might turn boys into wife-beaters. No pre-judgment there then.

  88. Peyton
    Flame

    wtf

    "Let's tackle the broader issue"? Is it completely beyond the realm of possibility that violence against each respective group occurs for different reasons, and that perhaps resolution of each requires a separate approach? I know it's going out on a limb to suggest that men and women do things for different reasons - after all, we've only observed differences in behaviors between the two sexes for our entire human existence. sheesh

    For the "oh you don't know how bad we men have it" crowd: http://www.abanet.org/domviol/statistics.html. Of course, I'm certain that the dozens of reports cited are all biased and should be completely dismissed, right?

  89. Liam Johnson

    and around again

    Hi Sarah,

    Normally I am all for the middle ground. The world is shades of grey, not back and white. (Am I still allowed to say black?)

    My problem with this, is comments like this from the article.

    "We also need to understand whether there is a link between exposure to these images and boys’ expectations about acceptable sexual behaviour, and to violence"

    Note that we are not talking about perpetrators here, we are talking about boys. All of them, no exceptions.

    So before a boy as even got to know himself, he is a potential rapist and wife beater. How do you really think that works? Do you really think that helps?

    You seem to be convinced that the positive benefits will outweigh the negatives, but you can justify all sorts of crap that way. If it were just a matter of supporting women in difficulties, I would have less of a problem, but it is actively aimed at "retraining" boys/men too.

    My original reason for posting was really your insistence that "women are still more often on the receiving end of domestic violence", which you even admitted, was completely unfounded. Then "just because nothing has been said about vulnerable men in this instance", and then the "Tackling Deer Deaths On British Roads" bit. All of this indicates you are happy enough sorting the women out now, and we will get around to the men later. But there is no indication in the article that men will ever get any help, they are already characterised as the perps.

    You seem to have rethought your direction on this one since the first few posts you made, wondering why so many were complaining of sexism and could we all just get a grip. We are talking here about domestic violence against men - I have never been a victim of that, but there are two things which struck me as obvious from the AC posts here.

    1. Nobody ever, ever, reports it.

    2. The feeling of worthlessness from not being able to sort it out yourself, for all the obvious height and weight advantages.

    So maybe you can see why you got such a lock of flack, by stating that

    1. Women are mostly the victims anyway, even though there are no reliable stats.

    2. Yes, we can sort out the men, but it is obviously not priority 1 like women.

  90. Dave
    Thumb Down

    @AC Online survey

    The results so far are here: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/keepwomensafe/survey/results.php?showresults=true

    Though to be honest the way the questions were phrased, IMHO, the results were never in doubt.

    Still Jacqui, not long before you are booted out you sexist, ignorant, pig thick POS

  91. elderlybloke
    Paris Hilton

    Your rampaging female MP

    may get demoted to the opposition next election , like our ex PM, Helen Clark (in New Zealand).

    Then with a bit of back room (Not smoke filled these days) politics she could be exiled to the United Nations and completely disappear like our Helen.

    Will use Paris and she looks nicer than Helen

  92. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Male Victims

    When I was in junior school, a boy in my school once told me about the domestic violence he was subjected to. It was his mother's boyfriend who was dealing out the blows. This abusive man would say he was "only playing", even though the boy made it more than plain that such "playing" was beyond merely unwelcome. The boy's mother didn't really do much, if anything, to stop the abuse.

    This boy also had a tendency to get into trouble with the school. He had problems with his behaviour. He ended up being one of the very few pupils in the school to be given the cane. He was, in effect, punished by society for being a victim of domestic violence.

    Assuming he's still alive, he must, by now, be a grown adult. An adult who knows, from first-hand, personal experience, what it's like to be on the receiving end of domestic abuse. I wonder how he must feel when Jacqui Smith and the government keep repeating "women and girls", "women and girls", "women and girls", with men and boys only ever in the role of the abusers.

    All these years later, and it looks like we've made no progress at all.

    There are also men who know exactly what it's like to be raped, because they were raped when they were boys. How must they feel when the idea that a man could know what it's like to be raped is ridiculed.

    These men and boys are still being let down by government and society. Yet again, while women and girls get the help and support of government, police, various other authorities, charities, awareness-raising campaigns, etc, men and boys are left to suffer in silence. They fear ridicule, they feel ashamed, they expect no one will believe them.

    I believe them.

    All those years ago, there wasn't much I could do to help that boy who told me about the abuse he was suffering. I told one of my parents, but that was about it. I didn't know what else to do.

    But now, all these years later, while it might not do much to help that boy now, there is something I can do to help other such men and boys. I can speak out against the prejudice, the discrimination, the failure of the government and society to treat men and women, boys and girls as equals. That's what I'm doing now.

    How can it possibly be wrong to object to the government's shameful omission of male victims from their latest effort to deal with the serious problem of domestic violence and abuse? How can it possibly be right to criticise those of us who dare to stand up for the men and boys who have suffered, and still suffer, such abuse?

  93. Brezin Bardout

    @ wtf

    Yeah, you're right females have it much worse. So, of course that makes it okay to completely ignore males as being irrelevant.

  94. Hud Dunlap
    Flame

    @Dave

    I wish they would have asked if you knew any men who were the victims of domestic violence.

    I think that would have been eye opening for a lot of people.

  95. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some statistics.

    Every week two women are killed by their partners.

    (One man is killed by his partner every week too, the balance accounted for by the fact that small people find big people harder to kill than vice versa, but let's ignore this because the victim is a man, and men are all rapists and that's all they are.)

    Every week, 29,999,998 men don't kill their equivalent female, whereas since the vastly greater number, 29,999,999 women don't kill their equivalent male, this explains why we spend millions on shelters for women, and nothing for men.

    Most children who are harmed, murdered, abused are done so by thei mother, the next nearest person to harm children is their mother's boyfriend, followed by the step mother, the father comes a miserable fourth, but because the father is a heterosexual aberration from the feminist viewpoint denying wimmin choices, he's the one who is demonised.

    The situation is how it is because in the cave, women were pretty useless at everything, and the only way they got food is by being a pain in the arse. Women therefore complain by nature.

    Judges never give the children to the dad, because firstly, they know the woman will just go and shit out another one, and torture it instead, and secondly, social workers hate men and despite their role being to "support the children" since this doesn't aid their own personal child at all, they revert to the cave and support the mother instead. A live mother statistically gives more help to the social worker's children, than a child, and if the other child is dead, that's one less competitor for the social worker's children.

    The good ones are however worth it. (Such as Corinna from femjoy - Phwoar!)

  96. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @sarah - different AC.

    I would not ever want any victim of DV to NOT get help, unfortunately they don't often want to leave the abusive relationship. This means that the Perpetrator also needs help to stop being violent. And this is where the problem occurs. CPS run courses for Male abusers. That is all. Female abusers don't exist according to them.

    I hate gender politics but it plays a huge role in everything. The problem with Jacqui using someone that sees men as evil and women as not reflects on government policy, and also local policing strategy. Men are guilty, women should be let off as they are mothers/carers/unwell/female. You have grandparents doing the same thing at the same yet the grandmother gets a suspended sentence and grandfather gets locked up for what is an indentical crime (right down to the time and location of offence).

    It is the fact that this government is trying to use MEN as demons that realy gets me worried.

    Sorry for the long post...... I'll be quiet on the gender stuff now

  97. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Can we now...

    call her whack-off jacqui?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7970492.stm

    Mine's the one with a VM remote and a large bill in the pockets.

  98. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    @Sara or whomever

    thanks for posting my "whack-off jacqui" comment - that just caps a fantastic weekend - cheers guys.

  99. dephormation.org.uk
    Paris Hilton

    The link between exposure and violence

    "We also need to understand whether there is a link between exposure to these images and boys’ expectations about acceptable sexual behaviour, and to violence."

    I wonder what effect it had on Wacky Jacqui's husband?

    What are his expectations for bedtime tonight?

    I wonder if he encountered a violent reaction?

    Could be a bit cold in the dog house, though I understand MP's are able to claim expenses for a second dog house in the country.

    Paris, because she's got a familiar face.

  100. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Amazed she has the time

    what with all the porno watching she does.

    Oh yeah, she blames it on her pussy whipped hubby, poor bastard.

  101. N
    Thumb Up

    whack-off jacqui

    Does this mean we can claim for porn on our expenses now?

  102. Youngdog
    Happy

    People in glass houses......

    I don't think anyone really has the right to condemn the mad witch just because her husband has watched a few grumbleflicks and charged them to expenses ( a victimless crime eh Jacqui?). But on the other hand that is OUR money he spent. But since when is having more front than Southend a crime?

    Hmmmm, this really is a tough one. There is only one answer - I think we need to call a session of the COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION!

    Honestly, you could fit the credibility of this governemnt in a thimble and STILL have room to spare.

    I do hope this is the straw that breaks the camel's back

  103. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Rejected comment: 'What do they expect? roses?'

    What a nice comment to start the week.

    I considered letting this one through so it could get blowtorched by the rest of you, but I think it's better off nixed. Just don't come around here talking about "bitches who deserve all the violence they get", AC. I'm sorry if you suffered at the hands of one woman but that doesn't give you carte blanche to be so hateful towards the entire gender.

    If that makes you angry, let me know, and see if I put it up for the internet's consideration.

    Good day, sunshine!

  104. alan

    re Did she catch one of her sons on the net?

    Presumably she caught one of her teenage boys on the net looking at stuff she just made a criminal offence to look at, and now is conflicted?

    Close but no cigar, it was the husband and we as tax payers have paid for it :)

  105. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Huh!

    "Together We Can End Violence Against Women And Girls"

    What about Men and boys? Sexism seems to be ok when it is against the male of the species. If that comment had been written about doing something positive in favour of men and boys, Wacqui and co would have been down on it like a ton of bricks. I'm no woman hater - in fact I am rather partial to them :-) but this reverse sexism has to stop. It prevents any sense of equality (although I don't believe men and women are equal - men do some things better in general, and women do other things better in general, so equality of opportunity would be a better bet IMHO, but that's another topic!) being fostered as WJ and co are forever painting women as victims and men as perpetrators. That is not (always) true.

    I find it an interesting contrast that WJ views any man who looks at any kind of porn as some kind of threat to society, and yet here is her husband watching some. But then she also claims her Redditch home is her 2nd home, despite living there before becoming a politician, and continuing to live there afterwards I assume....

    Mine's the unisex one that can be buttoned either way.

  106. ted frater

    Reply to Sarah Bee,

    Perhaps you can copy my post to me in an email as I dont recall saying what you have quoted in your rejection message. If I had been able to post to your comments via email then Id have a record.

    No intention to upset you. Just telling it like it is.

    Believe me.

    Ted Frater

    Dorset UK.

  107. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is it really just me...

    or are all of the Government "advisors" on this subject female? So this is really just another example of ZaNew Labour's "equality for all" and "discrimination-free society" principles at work then.

    Mine's the one with the ticket to "Kangaroo Court" for the hearing into the seizure of all the IT kit, books, photographs, magazines, videos/DVDs etc seized under the 'extreme porn' and ' unacceptable depiction of women' legislation belonging to the latest World's Greatest Threat To Wimmin -- Richard Timney of Redditch.

    Wait, what's that? He was only doing research for the Home Office investigation into the links between porn and violence towards women? Has anyone told Waqui Jacky so she can let him bill his costs as 'research'...? I'm a bit surprised the spin doctors haven't thought of that already...

  108. Jimmy

    Gemini ascending.

    In other breaking news.... the Minister for Science and Technology has announced that his department has retained the services of celebrity TV astrologer, Belinda Bogshite who will provide insights into the mysteries of particle physics. The minister said in a statement that he had been impressed by Bogshite's scholarly repudiation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle which had previously been regarded as a key element in quantum mechanics.

    Who'd a thunk it?

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