Men and family violence - challenging the paradigm

The public's perception of domestic and family violence is dominated by statements from the domestic violence industry.

A recent paper by Micheal Woods challenges these perceptions.

The Rhetoric And Reality Of Men And Violence (2007). By Micheal Woods, Senior Lecturer, Men’s Health Information & Resource Centre, University of Western Sydney. ... (full paper).

The "men are bad" model

The industry's model is stated in an extract from “Partners Against Domestic Violence” (2005), the collaborative body established by State and Federal governments in 1997.

“Domestic violence is a mechanism that oppresses women and maintains male power over women. Therefore domestic violence is gendered violence. Its focus is on the structural power differentials between males and females and how these are played out at the level of intimate relationships where men abuse power to maintain control over women. Male structural power in the public domain is reproduced in the private domain”.

The problem with this model is that it fails to explain why most men are not violent towards their partners. It also fails to explain why some women are violent in their interpersonal relationships.

Look at actual risk factors

Instead of a simplistic "men are bad" approach, the actual data suggests Domestic Violence (DV) is the result of social breakdown and committed by people who lack personal social control.

As Woods explains - the major risk factors for DV are:

1. Alcohol. The data from the ABS (2006) shows that alcohol is often present in all forms of interpersonal violence.

The experience of many Aboriginal communities is further evidence. The communities with successful alcohol management approaches show a reduction in all forms of interpersonal violence (including DV).

2. Poverty and social stress. Poverty and social stress is a further important contributory factor to rates of DV. Studies examined the relationship between domestic assault and disadvantage in NSW. Five factors were found to be significant independent predictors of the recorded rate of domestic assault within a postcode. The 5 factors are:

· the percentage of Indigenous people resident in the postcode,

· the percentage of sole parents under 25 years of age resident in the postcode (as a proportion of the total number of families),

· the percentage of rental accommodation in the postcode that is public housing,

· the male unemployment rate, and

· the level of residential instability in the postcode (measured by the proportion of residents who had a different address one year ago).

Together, these five factors explain 61 percent of the variation in the rate of domestic assault. See 2005 study from NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.

"It is time to reject ideology, and adopt models and explanatory frameworks that incorporate all known relevant factors. To reduce DV requires frameworks for planning prevention & interventions that recognise contextual factors, including the contributions of the concomitants of poverty, such as financial and social stress, as well as alcohol, drugs, mental illness and inadequate conflict management and affect regulation skills." - Micheal Woods.

See also white ribbon lobby campaign pushing ideology.