The White Ribbon Foundation has published a disturbing survey on the attitudes of the Australian teenage male's attitude to women.
The study, which reviewed data of 12-20 year olds from the past seven years, found up to 350,000 girls aged between 12 and 20 had experienced sexual assault or rape, one third of boys believe "it's not a big deal to hit a girl" and one in seven thought "it's OK to make a girl have sex with you if she was flirting".
So where do these Australian teenagers get these horrific ideas from? Let's take a peek at an Australian News message board to see what the average Australian male is saying about the dismal revelation that they are raising a generation of wife beaters and twisted sexual deviants.
'Male bashing is more prevalent than any suggested female bashing. Men suffer more physical violence but also non-physical violence such as this stupid article written by another feminist male bashing misandrothist'
'More male bashing'
'We are always putting Women up on soap boxes, why? Cant they stand on their own two feet, or do they always need men to cling too and bolster their egos'
'more women commit sexual assaults against men than men do against women'
'It's well past time women realised that they are NOT a protected species. Any woman who hits a man DESERVES to be sat on her a$$. And feminist man-haters should be executed'
'The 1st thing any man should do when he gets home from work is kick the dog and back hand the missus'
'how about in blue velvet when Isabella Rosselini actually asks the guy to hit her while they're rooting? just goes to show that often they enjoy it'
'the mark of a true man has always been to never hit a woman.' since when?'
'Can imagine when women are on the frontline then the women can shoot at the guys yet the guys aren't allowed to fireback due to some unwritten ethical rule imposed by another bunch of eunichs'
'women that hit men are scumbuckets. Don't put up with them'
'You can slap your little daughter around, give her "a good smack", but can't slap your wife around'
'Have you seen some of these smart-ass little misses around aged from about 16-21...they need a good 'slapping' by someone!'
Makes a person wonder why the figure is only a third when they have role models like these to guide them.
7 comments:
Lucy,
Australia has higher crime rates than the U.S. in every category except murder. Sadly, 5 out of 100,000 americans are victims of murder where only 2 out of 100,000 aussies are victims of murder.
I was pretty surprised by the numbers... I mean, the U.S. is so violent...
Q
This post relates to an interesting effect of the civil rights movements.
In America (and I suspect this had a large carry-over effect elsewhere) women and blacks during the civil rights era attacked discrimination through the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by basically saying that provision required they be treated equally. Of course, this line of argument necessarily required an argument of actual equality between blacks and whites and men and women. This argument was accepted for the most part.
Since the 60s and 70s, however, courts have found that this argument cuts both ways and they have struck down some discrimination against whites and men on the same Equal Protection basis.
The point of all this is that since the civil rights movements took the "we're equal" approach, there seems to have been a back-lash of "well now you're equal, how do you like it?"
"Sadly, 5 out of 100,000 americans are victims of murder where only 2 out of 100,000 aussies are victims of murder."
I found the use of the word 'sadly' quite funny there, Q!
I once got smacked in the face by a girlfriend of mine... a long time ago, I might add... In a previous life!
And I have two things to say about that incident... 1) although violence is always wrong, at the time I felt that I probably deserved it (I'd been a bad boy), and 2) it never occurred to me to respond in kind, partly because, as the bigger and stronger person I could do a lot more damage than her, but mainly because (except in cases of necessary self-defence) being violent towards a woman is not something that a real man does. Ever.
Interesting revelation Cheezy. I've myself noticed that women tend to do most of the hitting in spouse relationships. But, it was virtuous of you (in a very manly way) not to swing back.
But many of these concerns are true. Women swing at men. Women hit their children (of either gender) more than men do.
And what I always find weird is that many government agencies just flat out refuse to acknowledge the existence of woman-on-man violence. Ignoring one side of an equation just perpetuates the problem.
Obviously violent overreactions are never good, but it isn't just the boy's faults. You asked a good question, where's the role model? What dumb father makes it okay for his sons to go around being abusive? Hell, where are their mothers?
If I had to give a rule I'd say: unless your wife is committing some sort of felony (i.e. if she where shoplifting, take it and put it back), actually mauling you (grab the axe and sit on her until the police arrive), or hitting y'all's children, force of any short shouldn't even be thought of.
And child-beating is just for wusses.
Cheezy nailed it above: "being violent towards a woman is not something that a real man does".
I read a book once that similarly pointed out: "The ultimate confession of male weakness is for a man to hit his wife."
--Nog
"And what I always find weird is that many government agencies just flat out refuse to acknowledge the existence of woman-on-man violence."
No doubt you're right about this, Nog - woman-on-man violence definitely does exist, and it's (unfortunately) no surprise that our institutions (in both our countries) find it more convenient to pretend that it doesn't.
But on the other hand, my 'inner voice' (which admittedly is sometimes wrong) is telling me that the problem of woman-on-man domestic abuse is pretty miniscule compared with the over-riding issue of man-on-woman violence. I'd say that not only do men commit vastly more assaults on women than vice versa, because of the size/strength disparity the assaults are generally more serious, or at least have the potential to be more serious.
So I agree with the general focus of public policy being to try to reduce the number of attacks on women by violent men.
Pretty horrific picture that paints of Oz. I understand in some ways the place is a generation back of the US in terms of many social attitudes. I wonder how this compares to the US, or Britain, in around 1970?
Also wonder how these results differ between Anglo, Abo, and Asian sub-populations. Non-homogeneous countries often have very distinct cultures intermingled, and it's hard to know what lesson to draw if you don't know who's skewing the results.
Some people would see that line of inquiry risks shading to racism, but it needn't.
Anyway, my instinct about those guys that complain about all the under-reported male-bashing is they are made terrifically insecure by the perceived loss of perceived privilege. For my part, if my woman took to hitting me, I'd have several reasons to take it, and none to give it back.
I have to admit that i went looking for Australians who were defending the statistic but i didn't have to look very hard, first message board i went to actually.
The fact that a third of these boys who will grow into men who think nothing of hitting their wives or making a girl have sex if she acts flirty doesn't bode well for the next generation of Australians.
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