Thoughts on the Side

Numbers for consideration: ….

Posting on 30 Nov. 2009, to Online Opinion Australia's free Internet Journal of Social and Political Opinion, Greg Anderson reports that one in three domestic violence victims, are male. That is to say, 30% of the total number of victims of domestic violence, are men. Now let's turn that into a figure with more punch. Assuming these figures were collected on specific dates and related to a specific period of time ... say we had 400,000 victims of domestic violence, 120,000 of these would be men.

One hundred and twenty thousand men experienced domestic violence at the date these figures were collected. That's a lot of men.

Back to the numbers. 400,000 victims of domestic violence, remove the 120,000 males from that group. There are 280,000 people left. 280,000 victims of domestic violence. That's more that twice the number of men.

280,000 women experienced domestic violence at the date these figures were collected. Somehow women seem to be more vulnerable to domestic violence.

But I wonder, is a gendered breakdown of domestic violence figures relevant or helpful? Does such a breakdown play into the hands of gender extremists? Does dividing the male and female victims of domestic violence divide the ranks of those who might be more successful at overcoming domestic violence, if they were united? I wonder.