Yesterday I had an interesting exchange of emails with a contributor, Ela, to a prominent UK feminist website and blog, interesting not just in its subject but in the how I came to recognise the type of person who I was corresponding with. In an earlier blog I outlined my James Bond theory of personality, where we all contain varying amounts of Bond (dynamism), M (belief in hierarchy) and Q (belief in change), and I freely admit that I am a strong Q with Bond as my second suit. Although the format of James Bond seems a little strange in terms of feminism, I used the Bond characters because most people have at least seen some of the films rather than by Bond’s gender or views on women. The interesting thing is that the personality traits I describe are equally shared by men and women; they appear relatively impervious to the influence of society.
OK, so as a Q I believe that change will happen and that it is best we accept this and learn how to manage it, and even use it to look for competitive advantage where necessary. However, all changes are basically changes to how we as humans think and act, although on the surface they may only appear to be a change in technology. To the Q, the human is the basic element of society.
To the M, the basic unit of society is the hierarchy. Ms want their view of hierarchy to be maintained so that they can climb it to gain power, and they will quite happily kill, maim, or just be completely unpleasant to people they see as threatening their hierarchy. If their hierarchy of comfort is not the one in power, they will seek to destroy the competitive hierarchy and replace it with their own.
Anyway, here is the email exchange, I have merely changed names and tidied up the format a bit: first up is my comment on a blog entry dealing with a men’s group complaining of sexist adverts from a group helping survivors of family violence.
Oh no, not the 'violence in the home is instigated by men' thing. I am a man, and I have been the target of violence from my partner. All I could do was escape, with nowhere to escape to because who was going to take my predicament seriously? Eventually I was able to leave permanently, but how many more men are there out there who cannot because they are surrounded by male and female bigots who cannot accept that violence knows no gender.
Here is Ela’s reply, explaining why my comment would not be published:
Subject: New Comment Added to ‘News today'
Dear Geepig
Thank you for your comment on The Femini, unfortunately I won't be publishing it. I absolutely acknowledge your bravery in speaking up against female violence against men and would seek to support any person who has experienced domestic violence. However your comment ignores the decades of research on relative rates of domestic violence which show it is largely male violence against women. I note your mediation of this in relation to "instigation" and assume you're referring to the argument that "women start the fights, men end them". Sadly we live in a country were at least two women a week are murdered by current or former partners so even if that argument were correct (which research suggests it isn't) then that's no justification for the end result. Women's Aid have some really useful statistics on this (see Link1 : Link 2 : Link 3 ).
What we do know is that domestic violence accounts for between 16% and one quarter of all recorded violent crime. (Home Office, 2004; Dodd et al., 2004; BCS, 1998; Dobash and Dobash, 1980) and 45% women and 26% men had experienced at least one incident of inter-personal violence in their lifetimes. (Walby and Allen, 2004) ) – however when there were more than 4 incidents (i.e. ongoing domestic or sexual abuse) 89% of victims were women. In 2007 there were 27 murders of men by their partners (including gay and bisexual men with male partners) and around 110 murders of women by their male partners alone.
I do want to point you towards some helpful organisations though, as it seems you still have ongoing issues around your experiences. There are useful resources at the following sites:
Link1 : Link2 : Link 3 : Link 4
One thing I would say is that patriarchy disempowers both men and women and issues around male survivors seeking help are often connected to the feeling their masculinity has been somehow damaged by abuse by a woman. This is just one way men are disempowered by patriarchy and feminists have long worked to challenge this.
I hope you find the helpsites useful and do continue to contribute to The F Word.
Ela
Right, there is a lot of statistics in their, I thought, and a bit of a shotgun approach to links – which is a fair response as there it is highly likely I will not answer and this would then be her only shot at supplying help.
I was a bit surprised at "women start the fights, men end them" as I had only stated that a woman had started the violence and I had responded by attempted to leave. My belief is that violence only leads to more violence, and my response is always to run.
Secondly, I wondered what was the root of this comment: patriarchy disempowers both men and women as in my experience, matriarchies do exactly the same – unless you are an M that has climbed that particular hierarchy.
Subject: New Comment Added to ‘News today'
Hi Ela,
Thank you for your taking the time to respond even though I am sorry that you will not be publishing my comment, although I wish I could say I am surprised. However, you do realise that in doing so you have put yourself in the same position as, for example, publishers of the 19th century who would not publish work by women? ;)
Anyway, that aside, I think you might find it useful to learn more about my viewpoint. First of all, I do not feel that rhetoric like 'women start fights, men end them' nor quantitive assessments about who suffers most helps in any way at all, in fact they block one's understanding about what is really happening. You are an individual, and if you suffer violence it does not matter what sex you are, just as it does not matter what colour hair you have, that fear is very personal, and it is you, as that individual, who needs help. You look for help or simply a place to share, but no, there is no room at 'my' inn because your face does not fit. By looking at people as men or women, you are damaging your own humanity, you are seeing certain kinds of people and not the similarities in experience. I am a man, therefore I must have x and y views. Are you not, therefore, ignoring decades of research on how individuals think and feel?
Whether or not we live in a patriarchy often becomes irrelevant. I live in a world where I am not seen as a human being, but as a walking set of classes - man, engineer, husband, psoriasis-sufferer, alien-in-Poland etc. Inside, though, I am a human, where my gender is about as relevant as my height, hair colour, or native language - none of which I had any choice in, and none of which I reject. To accept a woman's view and not a man's view based on the quantity of incidents would be like rejecting comments concerning violence against dark-haired woman because it is less common than against light-haired woman (assuming we had statistics that showed violence according to hair colour , of course...).
So, are you content that you have rejected me based on gender and incident count and not on the quality of my experience? Does my basic humanity count for so little? Would you prefer if I just moved along, away from the doorstep of your consciousness, and stayed with people of my own class?
Good luck with work,
Geepig
So I thought, if she can push her views, let he be subject to mine, I will give her some data on my world view.
Subject: Re: New Comment Added to ‘News today'
Dear Geepig,
Thanks for taking the time to respond, we do welcome dialogue at The F Word.
> However, you do realise that in doing so you have put yourself in the same position as, for example,
> publishers of the 19th century who would not publish work by women? ;)
I would disagree - publishers in the 19th century refused to publish works by women because they are women. I decline to publish your comment because it was factually incorrect and our Charter clearly states we will not publish comments which make assertions which cannot be evidenced.
> You are an individual, and if you suffer violence it does not matter what sex you are, just as it does not
> matter what colour hair you have, that fear is very personal, and it is you, as that individual, who needs help.
I'm afriad I have to disagree - in terms of the person yes the fear is real, justified and individually help must be provided (and I've been working with groups seeking to start refuges for men for a long time). However you cannot dismiss the social trends data - take the analogy with education for example. Policy makers are talking about a "crisis" in male education at the moment based on the gender differential of achievement between boys and girls at different Key Stages. Would you also argue we should actually be saying "achievement is an individual matter and therefore we should dismiss the quantitative research evidence"? What about, returning to domestic violence, the statistics were reversed and it was
> By looking at people as men or women, you are damaging your own humanity, you are seeing certain kinds > of people and not the similarities in experience. I am a man, therefore I must have x and y views. Are you
> not, therefore, ignoring decades of research on how individuals think and feel?
My humanity is fine and dandy thanks. I see the people I meet as individuals, I see the collected data, both qualitative and quantitative in terms of trends by gender, race, class, sexuality and other social divisions. That doesn't mean I assume x group has y view - that means I see that x group is experiencing a phenomenon mpre than y group. I agree there are some similarities in experience between male and female DV survivors - but there are also major differences in that experience. Just as I see similarities between heterosexual male and bisexual or homosexual male DV survivors and also major differences.
> Whether or not we live in a patriarchy often becomes irrelevant.
Only if you have privilege in that system which, given your identification as a professional white man is undoubtably the case.
> To accept a woman's view and not a man's view based on the quantity of incidents would be like rejecting
> comments concerning violence against dark-haired woman because it is less common than against light-
> haired woman (assuming we had statistics that showed violence according to hair colour , of course...).
I am not sure of the assumption you are making here. Is your argument that we should count number of incidents reported by the victims and the perpetrators and compare them? How does that further the issue when in actuality one is too many?
> So, are you content that you have rejected me based on gender and incident count and not on the quality of > my experience?
That's not what I've done. I declined to publish the comment because it was factually incorrect. Your gender is irrelevant (in exactly the way you are asking it to me) - read more of the site and you'll see we publish comments from all kinds of commenters not just women. If however you want to make the argument that being a man therefore makes you a "special case" I don't see how that fits with your gender neutral argument - either men are subject to the same rules of factual accuracy as our women commenters (or indeed as I view it factuality is the issue not gender) or they are a special case. Unfortunately you can't argue it both ways.
Ela
…and she has responded with lots of facts – lots and lots of them, but she is not accepting that I am a human, I am a minor statistic, and as a minority I have no real standing in her view. It seems that violence against males will have to wait until someone can show undeniable statistics that 110 men are dying every year, killed by their partners, before even one male deserves respect.
Ela is a strong M, and as a consequence her care and help are nothing more than notches on the bedpost of her career. Humans as individuals have no meaning, her real interest is to see her vision of hierarchy is instigated without one thought what the consequences might be.
As a strong Q, I can see that change needs to happen, but I also know that replacing one hierarchy with another just because it suits one power group is not the way to do it. Society needs a new hierarchy – and one that is neither a patriarchy nor a matriarchy, but one that does give equal opportunities to all human beings.
Subject: Re: New Comment Added to ‘News today'
Hi Ela,
One day, when you see me chained up to the railings outside your place of work, perhaps you will realise that to understand statistics, first you have to understand that they only express what you seek to measure, and not what you have yet to realize you need to measure. I am a suffragette for humanity, not merely one of your statistics, and the more links and statistics you throw at me, the more I can see that you do not really see people as human beings, your classifications have eroded your ability to see.
If you were to reject those comments that cannot be evidenced, you would have to reject over 90% of the comments that have already been accepted. I am sorry that you cannot see me as a human being but just the class you have conveniently fitted me into, because it will forever distort the help you believe you are undoubtedly giving.
By the way, who said that I am white?
Geepig
Subject: Re: New Comment Added to ‘News today'
Dear Geepig,
I don't engage with writers who resort to ad hominem attacks - it's a sign of the weakness of someones argument to do that.
Ela
‘ad hominem’ is Latin for ‘without evidence’, and is a sign of weakness to use terms your respondent may not know.
Subject: Re: New Comment Added to ‘News today'
Hi Ela
Well, I am sorry that you feel that way. I work in innovation, the domain where evidence does not yet exist in the formal sense, so I feel your denial of my attempts to present my existence as a human and as a thinker as a double blow.
I am sorry if you feel offended, it was not my intention, and I hope that your future is full of verifiable data, it sounds like a comfortable place to be. ;)
Geepig the inconvenient
A strong Q meets a strong M - what we really needed was a good Bond :)
The scary thing is that most organisations are riddled with Ms, they are the ones who are attempting to beat other people based on statistics and quantities - while the essential human element of 'quality' is ignored. Strong Ms really do fear other hierarchies and anything which looks like an attempt to damage their own. Find a group of people and mention 'grammar' and you will see who is an M because they are the ones talking about how the teaching of it was better in the past and how in the future everyone will be stupid because they will not be able to use the language properly (even though language has spent most of its long life without the 'benefit' of education).
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