Monday 5 March 2012

Am I the only person to be annoyed by this?

 This is simply so sexist!  Why do people think that this is an appropriate way to report or campaign on a serious matter?

Women and children could die

Well, what about men?  Has this been completely forgotten then?  Or perhaps nobody really took any notice of it in the first place!

Men get hurt too

Or this:

Men get killed as well

Or perhaps men dying doesn't really matter.  To say that this latest shot in an otherwise worthy campaign is stereotypical would be a crashing understatement.  Let's be clear - men deserve and are entitled to the protection of the law every bit as much as women or children.  Making men invisible in terms of protection shows a callous disregard for 50% of the population.  Quite rightly, that sort of attitude towards women has been pilloried for decades and the sort of overt discrimination which they suffered is at least expressly condemned if it has yet to be entirely eliminated.

Google domestic violence and you will find a plethora of sites discussing violence against women.  Now that remains a national scandal and it seems that few of the initiatives of the last 20 years have had much effect in reducing its incidence.  However, failing to recognise the existence of male victims and brushing them off as a statistical irrelevance is, I have to say, deeply prejudiced.  Perhaps not consciously prejudiced but prejudiced nonetheless.  The Lawrence enquiry found the police to be institutionalist racists.  Is family law in danger of becoming institutionalised sexists?


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5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. " Is family law in danger of becoming institutionalised sexists?"

    Isn't it already? ;-)

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  3. On LinkedIn, a sexist man-hating woman named Claire Riches replied to your honest question with man hatred, sexism, and supporting violence against men. Here is the thread that I created at the Crimes Against Fathers website about her:

    http://www.crimesagainstfathers.com/australia/Forums2/tabid/369/forumid/232/threadid/1778/scope/posts/Default.aspx

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  4. The problem is women have been proactive in raising funds for campaigns and refuges since the days when women were dependent financially upon men and couldn't escape if they wanted to. As a consequence much of the DV work is done by charities that are geared towards the needs of women.

    Men on the other hand haven't been very proactive in campaigning and supporting male victims of DV and some seem to prefer to spend time being critical of what women have achieved rather than rolling up their sleeves and doing something constructive. I think it is rather sad that historically DV services have been left to charities and not provided for men and women by the Government.

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  5. I agree with you and it certainly is annoying that men are often "forgotten", however, I also agree with Fiona on why this is happening. But surely all those years fighting for women's rights were supposed to lead to equality rather than to more sexism.

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