How much reason do women have to oppose abuse against men?

I already imagine some people pointing out that most women have male friends and/or male relatives who they genuinely care about and would not want to see subjected to abuse.

Let me first get that out of the way by saying this: they have female friends and relatives too. So even if you take the simplified sentiment of "abuse vs. not abuse" you will already have the issue of whether protecting one's male friends and relatives from abuse is worth preventing one's female friends and relatives, AND oneself, from being in a position to abuse and get away with it.

When you think about it, though, you realize that it is more complicated than that. As I pointed out in another thread, there is also the issue of false accusations of abuse, including those where the aggressor pretends to be the victim. In practice, police make mistakes, and jurors make mistakes, so these issues are inevitable there. So it is now expanded further, to a more general concept:

"Who should be more protected from abusers and from false allegations of abuse, and who should benefit more from abusing and from making false allegations of abuse? My male friends and relatives, or my female friends and relatives and myself?"

Now obviously, benefits from abuse and false accusations thereof are going to be ill-gotten benefits, but in practice, humans tend to accept them, as is evident from the world we live in today.

Similarly, the popularity of the Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female on Male double standard today gives me the impression that women tend not to have as much of a problem with double standards that benefit them, otherwise you'd see them protesting against it as much as they do against the double standards against women.

I'll probably be considered a misogynist for even bringing this up. It's not like it's a real counterargument anyway though, because "misogynistic" doesn't always mean "incorrect" anyway.

edited 15th May '11 6:11:57 PM by neoYTPism

very true.

Also true, though I'll point out the obvious; that you're playing with dynamite by saying it.

Simple - no one should benefit from abusing others and false accusations, and both genders should be protected from abuse and false accusations.

Obviously, women only look at everything in terms of the sex binary.

Way I see it, any woman who opposes abuse towards women and is pro abuse towards men is a hypocrite at best, and a vile shrew at worst.

Granted I'd wager 90% of feminists are for equality for both sexes.

edited 15th May '11 6:22:41 PM by MarkVonLewis

Thank-you for your intellectual response and for avoiding the use of a strawman.

edited 15th May '11 6:22:57 PM by Jordan

@Jordan: I think he was endeavoring to be facetious.

I interpreted that as his parody of how he thought women/feminists sound. From what I could make sense of it anyway.

I don't see how you can protect anyone of either sex from false accusations. Seems even more difficult than protecting people from false convictions.

"Way I see it, any woman who opposes abuse towards women and is pro abuse towards men is a hypocrite at best, and a vile shrew at worst." - Mark Von Lewis

Not necessarily. So long as she doesn't claim to believe in equality of the sexes in the next breath, she isn't necessarily a hypocrite for thinking Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female on Male; just someone with a moral reference frame very different from our own.

And again, see my post linked to; my point was that there will inevitably be difficulty in telling who was the aggressor in abuse cases, etc...

That doesn't cover the vile shrew part.

Anyone pro-male abuse has no right to call themselves a feminist.

That still begs the question as to why we see more protest against... arguably less dire double standards against women, such as them having fewer top jobs in business, (and even then, how much of that is due to discrimination and how much is due to gender differences is still disputed) than against double standards as dire as Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female on Male.

I think at the end of the day, since what qualifies as "feminist" isn't exactly widely agreed upon, the question shouldn't be one of ideology but one of gender. Don't ask whether it is because feminists or nonfeminists do whatever, but whether it is because men or women do whatever, even if it's politically incorrect to talk about it that way...

The double standard of female-on-male abuse and why it is not given as much attention has as much to do with disparaging stereotypes against females as it does against disparaging stereotypes against males. I.e., women are too weak to actually hurt a man, women are Hair-Trigger Temper hysterics because they're on the rag, women are automatically submissive to men and can't be domineering, and so on. By raising awareness of the issue of female-on-male violence, it shows that not only do men deserve the same protection as women, but that women are not always the damsels in distress at any given moment.

"Who should be more protected from abusers and from false allegations of abuse, and who should benefit more from abusing and from making false allegations of abuse? My male friends and relatives, or my female friends and relatives and myself?"

What a loaded question. Obviously, both genders should be equally protected from false allegations of abuse and abuse itself. Neither gender should benefit from abuse and making false accusations of abuse. Your question poses the issue of domestic abuse as if women have to make a choice about which gender they want to be more "loyal" to, with the implication that defending female abusers, even when they are aware of their crimes, infers some sort of benefit for themselves. IT DOESN'T. You still have to live with the guilt of letting an abuser walk free, and not helping the victim of the abuse.

edited 15th May '11 7:22:39 PM by LilPaladinSuzy

Neo, do you think women are Always Chaotic Evil or something like that?

Because the obvious answer is that women are human beings, so halfway decent people oppose other people being abused.

As far as false accusations go, I figure that given that historically, women being abused wasn't always taken that seriously, that there would be a reluctance to assume that any woman who does claim abuse is probably lying. In general, even though people do make false accusations, it wouldn't make much sense to assume that everyone who makes accusations is a liar, would it?

I don't think you've really presented evidence that women don't oppose abuse against men.

Edit- It also strikes me that given the stigma attached to those accused of abuse, I could just easily turn the question around as how much reason do men have to oppose abuse against women.

edited 15th May '11 7:28:21 PM by Jordan

Wait, what? How the hell does it make more sense to link someone's behavior directly to their gender than to their stated political philosophy? What's next, dividing people into teams based on their hair color?

I oppose abuse against men not because I see anything in it for me. I oppose abuse against men because it's the right thing to do, and because other people don't.

edited 15th May '11 8:35:41 PM by annebeeche

Maybe there's nothing specific about opposing abuse against the opposite gender that benefits you, but do you really not think that, in general, doing what you perceive as "the right thing" benefits you in any way?

I'm failing to see, OP, why you think the forums benefit from yet another thread by you about your obsessive recurring topic.

There's lots of reason to oppose it.

There's relatively few reasons to make it a primary action point. What I mean by that, is that it's ok and correct to think that female abuse on male is a serious problem when it occurs. It's not ok and correct think that because female abuse on males occurs sometimes that male abuse on females isn't a real problem and should be ignored. Because I'll be honest. That's the argument I hear. A lot.

Along the same lines, how do you make sure that less false accusations occur? You raise the bar for evidence/witnesses required in order to make said accusation. Which obviously is problematic in a lot of ways. And as long as it seems like that's what we're hinting around, no, people are not always going to be receptive to what you're saying.

I think it would help to raise awareness of emotional abuse—it seems a lot of people still think of abuse solely in physical and sexual terms.

Well I'm cold and logical about this. If the courts aren't doing it's job in accurately identifying the abuse, then I would endeavour to fix up the justice system.

Interestingly, when I was introduced to the concept of domestic abuse there was no standard gender roles explained to me. There was no "men abuse women" and so on. That was only from outside of education, amongst the local culture, where men were expected to be strong and thus came the responsibility not to hurt women. In fact, in education settings I basically saw equal amounts of examples for both male on female and female on male abuse. Sometimes male on male abuse. I haven't seen female on female abuse yet but I'm not in school anymore. Missed my chance!

Once again showing that culture is blight upon civilization.

, I think that's two different definitions of the word culture being used.

The first is pretty much an inevitable result of group associations and human need for generalizations. The second is artistic expression.

No, I meant both.