h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is link to an an article about domestic violence/abuse. It is written by a woman whose boyfriend was convicted in a high profile case. So it is about what happened to her.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-slow-grinding-impact-of-being-worn-down-day-after-day-should-not-be-underestimated-8433310.html

So why when you scroll down to the comments is one from a man complaining about the slow grinding down of men in British society (not at all related to the article and worthy of a whole article of its own)
Followed by one from a man who was the victim of domestic abuse, complaining that the article doesn't mention men. The article is about this woman's experience, and when it mentions other cases refers only to Domestic Abuse not Domestic Abuse by Men on Women. How come any article like this is immediately confronted with "What about da menz? and not "Here's my idea about how to tackle domestic abuse and support victims"

You have no sympathy for Ian? Anna Larke clearly does.

"According to the Centers for Disease Control, in the United States 4.8 million women suffer intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes and 2.9 million men are victims of physical assault from their partners." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence#Violence_against_men

I definitely have sympathy for the men, and that particular man who shared his story.
But the point is, that this girl shared her story, and almost at once, her story was hijacked into sympathy for abused men. It makes me wonder why, and how it would be possible to be supportive to her, while not reducing anyone else?

*headdesk* I have every sympathy for Ian. I have total sympathy for anyone who suffers from domestic abuse. Read my post again - what I am saying is that it isn't binary. We can write articles about domestic abuse from the female angle without it meaning that nobody is acknowledging the abuse suffered by men.

But the first comments are ALWAYS (ok, almost always) "what about da menz". What I'd like to see is more support from all agencies and the population at large to get domestic abuse on the agenda to be tackled in practical ways. Whoever is on the receiving end.

But what I am sick of seeing (and it applies to articles about sexism too) is the blinkered view of "this happens to men too but you don't care about that" because it's senseless. Of course if you are writing an article from one viewpoint - if it's yours - it's the one you know. It's like a case study to represent all other occurrences.

For men, for example, there is a culture of not wanting to be seen as weak so they don't report domestic abuse - it rarely happens with women for that reason. Why isn't anyone writing about it? Again, it tends to be the women who write about it and of course it immediately gets the woman's angle. So... write the articles. And I would be prepared to bet that the first reply isn't "pshaw! it happens to far more women"...

that, obviously, a bit of a rant, sorry - was at REs reply.

Milla - you got it spot on without the rantiness.

"her story was hijacked into sympathy for abused men."

Hardly hijacked. You are free to add your comments to the article.

Some of the reasons we don't hear so much about violence against men were mentioned in my first link.

This is from Refuge's website: "http://refuge.org.uk/get-help-now/help-for-men/men-are-abused-too/

Ian's story does not in any way detract from Anna Larke's. A male's response is perfectly valid.

"The slow, grinding impact of being worn down, day after day, [by one's partner] should not be underestimated"

There has been much focus upon husbands beating wives over the years, decades even. So many that it comes as a total shock to people when it is revealed that maybe just as many husbands are being beaten by their wives.

Yes, *just* as many - *maybe*. For obvious reasons these figures are darker than grey. On top of the violence these husbands are suffering they would become the laughing stock in their local community were the violence known to the public. At least many of them fear it - and with good reason too, I'm afraid.

What good is it to society at large to read about one woman's experience - should not the problem "domestic abouse" at large be discussed and dealt with?

- even if maybe twice as many wives as husbands are subjects to it?

Having said that I agree that in way too many other cases stories are followed up with nonsense.

"Tobacco can't be that dangerous. I know of a man who lived till he was 92 - and he smoked every day from when he was 12"

Sho, it's for a number of reasons, one of which is that people love to complain, another is for the same reason threads on any website with discussions, such as this one, get hijacked - people cannot stay focused on the matter at hand and/or will use any opportunity grind their own millstone.

Is that the right phrase?

A few days ago, when the new years honours list was announced, I read the story on BBC down to the end, and then did something I hardly ever do - I read the comments. There were only five - I guess you have to click on a link to see all of them. Of those five, every single one was complaining about how these sports people don't deserve a gong, how they have a cushy life, how it's their 'day job', what about the volunteers? You get the idea. All negative.

I hate comments sections on news pages. Yesterday I visited a link that Baron Grim pointed to in a conversation, in the Guardian. It's this one http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy if you're interested. Do you notice how small the scroll bar is? If you begin scrolling down, the actual article takes up about 5% of the length of the web page - the rest is comments, and there are four pages of them You can bet that, even on a Guardian web page, the majority of those comments are going to be ill-informed opinionated blustering that does nothing but inflame the situation and lead to pointless arguing.

Still, could be worse... could be a Daily Hate web page.

the point I'm making isn't that there is no abuse of men, it is at a horribly high and silent level due to underreporting.

My point is - and I will try to make it clear: just because an article isn't about men, it is not saying that the abuse doesn't happen to men. And men incensed enough about the abuse against men would be better to vent their spleen elswhere where it can do some good and not on articles about domestic violence (or rape or sexism or whatever)

Am I being clear here? I am horrified at ALL instances of domestic violence and abuse.

I am also horrified that every time there is an article about DV the conversation gets hijacked.

I don't leave comments on newspaper articles because I don't want to register on a billion internet sites.

Sho, I'd be willing to bet the first commenter wasn't at all remarking about the fact that men also are victims of domestic abuse. "The slow grinding down of men for the last 40 years" sounds a lot like the kind of garbage I see on Slate and similar sites (and which I mention in my recent journal about resolving to avoid the urge to read the comments sections), where any time a woman has the nerve to speak about something that affects her personally, or of women's issues in general, she is jumped on by the All Feminists Are Misandrists bandwagon. The first commenter sounded like that was his point - that women have any rights at all is a slap in the face to the poor, oppressed misogynists.

As for the second commenter... I of course sympathize with him, but I never understand people who respond in quite that way. Like it's not possible to simply say "I've been through something similar, how can I help you get through this?" as opposed to "oh, but I've been through so much worse!".

I appreciate that men who are abused by their significant others feel that they would be the laughing stock of their community (or family, even), but I've no idea why that should be the case. If a man is beaten by a drunken spouse, he's a sissy; if a woman is beaten by a drunken spouse, she probably had it coming. And the only real suggestions most people seem to have is "why don't you just leave?" Never mind that the victim might actually love the other person. Or that affordable housing and jobs are not exactly easy to find. Or that time and energy hasn't been invested in the relationship, so the victim truly wants to try to make it work. Or maybe there are kids involved - in my family's case, my dad stayed with my mom even though she abused us all, because he was afraid if he left, she'd get custody, and without him there to run interference, she likely would have killed me.

*Axe* to grind! That's what I was looking for

Also, teh interwebz has done something that's never happened before in human history. It used to be that the only people who got to debate in public were people on television and radio. The rest of us only ever debated with our immediate circle of friends, and a few people did it in debating societies.

Radio and television was very careful about who it booked to debate, and they were usually (but not always) intelligent, well-informed about their subject, expert. In Our Time (Melvyn Bragg's Radio 4 programme) is a good example. The Moral Maze (also R4) is kind of halfway between the two extremes.

Now, anyone with a connection and the willingness to register can post a comment on a website that's going to be read by thousands of other people all around the world, none of whom they've ever met, probably, and anyone with an opinion, no matter how crackpot, can engage in the debate as long as they don't fall foul of any moderation. And as much as you or I can avoid feeding the troll there's always - always - someone who reacts, and the flame war takes off.

ah, PC, you are so right - it's a kind of one-upmanship with some of the comentators. And we can never ever know why one person does what they do, abuser or victim, or why certain families stay together when from the outside it seems so clear that they shouldn't.

and yes, Gosho, it's weird sometimes having to engage with the hard of thinking (but I do so love a good bunfight which is why I read the DM comments occasionally)

I just wonder if people really do think like that, or if their brain switches off when they read and comment on those articles.

From when he was 12 inches??

That IS an early start...

B

so long as he is an legal age to be smoking these days, that sounds ok to me

ok, bit more, I am bit tipsy from the drinking at lunchtime and gone through the backlog bit more

I don't have a problem so much when people jump in with another story, if their are enough people to come in on track within the thread to keep it on track and also to be to be able to include as many people as possible

mmm, this is what I like about h2g2, that sometimes you actually to have a conversation, whatever papers actually it is a load of comments, you might get people coming in with with actual experiences, but mostly, there isn't that much investment into threads or postings, if you are lucky there are good points, personal experiences out there, something bit more indepth in terms of interaction doesn't happen

at best it is reasonably well put, at worst just venting, either way it is just backwards and forwarding, it is not really communicating as I see it

But if you don't adress the problem "domestic abuse" in general why adress the problem at all?

One woman's horrible experience is reduced to entertainment for lovers of horror stories. There you go.

20 women's experiences - and people start believing (like I did) that only husbands beat up spouses.

Yes, let's blame the media - but let's keep in mind that the media is not a faceless monster. The media are you and I - like it or not, the media mirror their surroundings.

Some of you have noticed how everyday people respond to articles with their comments. Shocking, isn't it? We never saw anything like it before, did we? We thought the media were bad - are the comments any better?

I don't think so, but you'd better get used to them. Trolls? Oh yeah, but beware: there is at least one in every family.

- - -

Now to something (almost) completely different: It seems to be in the nature of women to talk and write about - well, stuff for lack of a better word - just for the sake of talking about it. There is absolutely nothing wrong about this. Forgive this male if this sounds patronizing or whatever. It really isn't meant to do so.

However, as you probably have heard before, males seem to be more "goal oriented". A conversation has to have a purpose. Be it only to make the person standing next to you in the pub be the laughing stock - until he comes up with a witty response.

Might this explain why men can't let the history mentioned in post 1 stand alone? I dont know, but I hope someone someday will find a way to reduce domestic violence

I'll admit to having no interest in the opinions of the uninformed. If I want to read a review of a film I'd like the opinion of someone who has actually seen the film, and not just seen the trailer. If I am thinking of whether the new resturant is any good I'd like the opinion of someone who has eaten there.

I enjoyed newspapers much better before comment sections. Discussions on h2g2 are different, they seem to actually get somewhere.

I've recently been reading a flame war by people who should know better. Background: there is an exam you have to pass in the UK to be a GP, after various changes recently it's now harder to pass. Also after various changes it seems that there are vast differences in pass rates between doctors who trained in the UK, and those who trained overseas, also between women and men, and possibly with ethnicity.

Anyway, a flame war broke out on the comments section of this article on a doctors website between a group of doctors who are taking legal action (the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin), and, wait for it, The PRESIDENT of the royal college of GPs. This seems to spill over onto the comments fora on doctors.net (not open accesss) and onto twitter. The whole thing happened on Christmas day.

As a result someone involved in the BAPIO accussed the president of the royal college of GPs of being a Nazi.

The issue will be probably going to court in the new year. Can Godwins law be invoked in court. You've already accused her of being a Nazi, she wins and you have to pay costs?

(Should you want to see a rather stupid flame war)

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/practice-business/practice-topics/education/gp-trainees-set-for-more-chances-to-pass-mrcgp-after-row-over-failure-rates/1/20001157.article?&PageNo=10&SortOrder=dateadded&PageSize=50#comments

Z, I fail to see the relevance of your post