Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, mgriff2k4 is angry that the picture to the right here showed up on his computer screen. Sorry, make that fucking angry. “Did this really just fucking pop up on my news feed?” he asks in the title of his post, adding in a comment: “sorry about the word “fucking” but im really pissed off about this.”
Why is he angry? Presumably, he assumes the statistic is untrue, and that it unfairly paints men as evil murderers.
Luckily, in this Age of the Internet it is trivially easy to find out whether statistics like this are true. It involves something called “Google.” mgriff2k4 did not bother to avail himself of this easy-to-use research tool.
But I did. In less than 5 minutes, I confirmed that this factoid is indeed true, at least according to the most recent figures on gender and homicide found on the Department of Justice’s web site, drawn from FBI data covering the years from 1976-2005. According to the FBI, 30% of women who are murdered are murdered by “intimates.” Roughly 20% are killed by husbands or ex-husbands; 10% by boyfriends or girlfriends. (In the overwhelming majority of cases the murderers are boyfriends, not girlfriends; men are ten times more likely to commit murder than women.)
While four times as many men are murdered than women, only 5% of murdered men are killed by “intimates.” Men kill women more than twice as often as women kill men. Women suffer far more serious injuries from domestic violence than men do; so it is not altogether unexpected that they are also far more likely to be murdered by intimates.
If you want to see what this means on a human level, I suggest you take a look at the excellent if depressing web site Domestic Violence Crime Watch, which links to stories in which men are the perpetrators, and in which men are the victims. There are far more of those in the former category than in the latter.
I should note that (as of this writing) one commenter in the thread also found his way to the DOJ site, and noted that men were more likely to be killed by strangers or acquaintances. But he didn’t bother to tell mkgriff2k4 that the sign in the picture was in fact accurate.
Not sure I know what this sentence means (I guess you’re sticking to your vile and dubious comparison between rape and custory law), but what?! You think rape victims don’t report rapes because “the justice system will victimize” them “some more”? Please do some reading about rape and rape victims and try to gain some compassion while you’re at it.
I should add that I don’t actually agree that women should automatically have custody of children, but as soon as you start spewing hateful stuff like this you’ve lost me forever.
Argenti Aertheri says,
“No, it means that if murdered, women have a much higher risk of it being an intimate partner. The 4:1 ratio has no meaning in this context. Because we are not talking about raw numbers here, this was never about the raw number of people killed, but rather if someone is murdered, what are the odds it was an intimate partner? And that answer is a lot higher if the victim was female.”
Unless you are assuming that men have 4 times as many intimate partners as women than the odds of men being killed by an intimate partner are 2/3 the odds of a woman being killed by an intimate partner.
You want to know why feminists get annoyed when it comes to men’s issues? It’s not because we don’t care about them, but if you’d actually bothered to take note you’d see that often a lot of discussions of women’s issues gets invaded by men looking for attention for their issues (or with the illusion of doing that, when they’re actually just there to troll). In fact, how do you think Ozy’s blog on the GMP got its name?
The best example of this is when every discussion of FGM gets invaded by men wanting to know “what about circumcision?!” Then look at a discussion of circumcision (i’ll be right there agreeing that it’s a practice that needs to stop, btw).. See any women complaining “what about FGM?!” Nope.
I can tell you now that if David did a post on circumcision (not that he necessarily would, since it’s not exactly relevant to the blog’s subject), i’m pretty sure that the majority of the feminists here (not that I mean to speak for everyone, it’s just a feeling) would quite happily have a conversation about why it sucks without it going off the rails like conversations about FGM tend to do.
It’s good that places like the GMP exists (even if i’m not a big fan of the place, and that’s not because of the subject matter), designated solely for the purpose of discussing men’s issues! That’s what feminists keep saying! We’re quite happy to discuss men’s issues (and I say that as a man, so it’s not like I don’t have a stake in it), just don’t do it where it isn’t the subject. If you feel there’s not enough talk about men’s issues (and this is where MRAs, and generally sexist men, fall down): start a conversation on them that doesn’t involve invading other spaces!
Unless you want to go discuss white people issues in a discussion about racial minority issues. Or straight issues in a discussion about gay issues. Etc etc.
(I don’t expect him to get this at all. Apologies for continuing to interact with him 🙁 ).
“He could have a vindictive wife who retaliates by attempting to limit his visitation and actively seeks to interfere with it. ”
And how is it worse than “having no visitation at all”, which is what you get when you don’t do anything?
John, I haven’t read over the comments, so I don’t know if people are arguing against your point about the justice system, but if it makes you feel any better, yes, it’s an absolute reality that any person is intimidated, or just flat out does not have the resources to counter a lawyer telling you, “oh you likely won’t get the kids in equal PHYSICAL custody that’s very very rare”…
or especially when a defense lawyer tells you, if this goes to trial and you lose, you’ll get LIFE. We can never predict a jury, and they’re going to say this, this and this…. so you can plea bargain. That’s a real issue with innocent people pleading guilty, men, women, whoever.
And it is like you say, the justice system can victimize a person, and yes, that contributes to rape victims not reporting.
I don’t know if anyone here is arguing directly against that, but what you are saying in this case is correct.
BTW, equal PHYSICAL custody, meaning back and forth for the child is considered bad for the child. It only works well under rare circumstances, it’s Solomon’s problem. “Split the child in half.” and many men openly admit they seek this for monetary reasons only. In fact most of the bitching the MRM does surrounding this topic is their screaming entitlement to give birth and not want to care for their own flesh and blood human beings monetarily. Not wanting to support their own children is a way more pronounced discussion in the MRM than the topic of the human beings they should naturally love and want to DIE for, as normal parents do.
Kyrie,
You misunderstand what I’m saying. If a wife offers a man set visitation in return for agreeing to give her custody. He gets visitation if he does not fight custody. It’s only if he fights for custody that he could get nothing. He could get custody also, but that was the point of the Brian Banks case. Do you fight knowing you could lose more, but possibly win? If Brian Banks felt the system was biased against him as many fathers do, how would that affect their decision?
I’m more objecting to the comments that many people here made that assumes that if a man doesn’t fight for custody, it automatically means he never wanted it. Hope that clarifies things.
Ooh, new one for the list. We already had
Point 1: Men are screwed in custody disputes in divorce court!
Point 2: Actually, men think they’re going to be screwed in said courts, so they don’t even bother trying!
Point 3: I take no responsibility for point 2, even though arguing in favour of point 1 makes me part of that problem. It was actually all the fault of, uh, my brother’s lawyer, yeah, who… look over there! A false rape case! This has something to do with feminism, probably!
and now:
Point 4 – Okay, look, forget everything all that stuff about the law. Even if the law is on the man’s side in a custody case, somehow he still loses anyway, just because.
Looking forward to point 5!
“The problem there, the reason you’re coming up with that useless number, is that you’re putting the numbers of men and women killed annually in there twice once as part of the ratio between the two, and then again as the raw number.”
I don’t think I did? I took the ratio of men killed (or rather, the risk of homicide if male), multiplied by percent of men killed by intimates, multiplied that all by the infamous X and left it while multiplying the risk of homicide if female by the percent of women killed by intimates, by the total number of women killed, and solved for X. And then compared X to the total number of men killed, and laughed at the ratio being pointless. Using the actual risks from the FBI got similar enough numbers that I thought it easier to work with the assumed 4:1 than explain the source of new numbers, but I don’t think I repeated the risk (I would have if I’d used 20 in there instead of 5%).
I am now tired and testing the waters of the amnesia drug (ativan) though, so please forgive me if I’m failing math.
I should hit refresh before commenting, I see we’re just talking past each other because we’re both tired, oops!
“Unless you are assuming that men have 4 times as many intimate partners as women than the odds of men being killed by an intimate partner are 2/3 the odds of a woman being killed by an intimate partner.”
Yes, if we set women’s risk at 1, mens risk would be .67; contra, if we set men at 1, women’s risk would be 1.5. I repeat, for every 100 PEOPLE killed by intimates, 67 will be women. Outside gambling, most people don’t set ratios with 1 as the higher number. Do you get what 2/3rds the odds means? It’s the inverse of 150% odds. (I mean, you seem able to divide 2/3, so try 3/2, note how it’s 1.5, yeah, that’d be a 150% risk ratio)
Re: Banks, I see we have another MRA ignoring racism, color me unsurprised.
Oh and in the land of decent math, it’s more like 2:1. As in women have risk that is 200% that of men.
(Someone check my 67% above, the latest in mind melting meds has kicked in and my math skills are failing)
Yes, John, we KNOW that you’re trying to be nice, just as you’re trying to be open-minded and trying to set aside the fact that you KNOW that you’re stepping, with great trepidation, into a cesspool of vile, man-hating misandrists.
Remember, John, context matters, even in the realm of the type of responses that you receive.
As for the remainder of your post that was addressed to me, I don’t know if I could respond any better than Argenti Aertheri did:
haven’t been able to comment on this thread much because of sneezing fits from all the STRAW in John Anderson’s straw feminists.
“Feminist monolith mean to men” yeah yeah yeah, old stuff.
There are all sorts of problems in how the legal system (created by, dominated by, run by mostly straight white middle class MEN btw) operates.
But you know, it isn’t feminists’ fucking fault, and if all a man does is blame feminists for everything, then I put him firmly in the misogynist troll category, not in the category of someone who wants to work to change kyriarchical gender roles which disproportionately har men of color, men of alternative sexualities, and men in lower socio-economic classes. And I don’t see much concern for those men.
Yeah Ithliana, it’s all well and good talking about ending systematic and often deadly oppression which affects people who aren’t John, but John’s FEELINGS WERE HURT. His PREJUDICES WERE CONFIRMED. Won’t somebody think of John?
John’s idea of the “worst that can happen”: vindictive wife! limits access to children. Oh, the horror of it all.
As opposed to men Killing their ex-wives and children and sometimes other innocent bystanders while the MRA cheers, and
women and children in poverty due to lack of child support.
Oh, and the “women have a support system so saying that they’re forced into prostitution is FALSE” is pure and utter crap and ignores, among other things, sex slavery.
And the idea there’s some lavish support system for ALL women in this country is pure stone ignorant MRA bigotry, and you John Anderson are an asshat troll.
Hmmm lets see…who should I listen to for reputable information- the CDC or some dudes on the internet with a very obvious bias?
Here’s the thing, unless we as feminists agree that men are perfect in every possible way ever, or say that men and women are equal in every way regarding the crimes or bad things they do….then we will be accused of misandry.
Well you know what? I guess I’m a misandrist then, because I refuse to pretend facts and reality don’t matter just to appease MRAs and their victim complexes. Fuck that shit. Women are more likely to be killed in a domestic dispute. There are men out there who rape women. There are men out there who harrass women, who threaten women when they say something they dont like. Fuck MRAs who want me to pretend this doesn’t exist just because they feel it reflects badly on them or other men. Sorry they are to dumb to realize that a group of people may be more likely to do something, but that doesn’t mean everyone in that group will. I can confidently say women as a group are probably more likely to use a man for money, enjoy makeup and shoe shopping but still not get all bent out of shape because of it? Why? Because what some women do, does not reflect on me as an individual. I am not a golddigger, or false accuser, just like most men are not rapists or serial killers.
And here’s another thing. Why can I as a feminist concede when I’m wrong or agree with an MRA point (ie there are more women who initiate violence in a relationship than I originally thought) yet MRAs can never ever fucking conceuniquede with any feminist points. No. they have to argue and twist shit around or pretend men have it equally bad on everything even on the things that uniquely effect women? Because this isn’t about helping men, its about proving your ‘enemy’ wrong.
Women are more likely too be killed by a partner. Men are more likely to be killed by a stranger. Men are also more likely to be killed by other men. Get the fuck over it and accept the facts if you truly want to move forward and tackle these problems.
Also if too check the links on the CDC page, there is one that links the actual number of men and women killed by intimate partners. In 2005, 300-something men were killed, 1000-something women were killed. I can’t get the link because I’m on my phone though (also why my spelling is off)
@TheNatFantastic: Yep, John is the single most important center of the universe, him and his brother.
@Quackers: *CHEERS*
Yes, plus add the fact that while women do rape men, men are more likely to be raped…by other men.
And deciding that all the statistics are lies (and that there is a shitstorm of women getting other men to kill exes but there’s no proof of it because FBI LIES, and the lack of proof, is tah dah, PROOF) is just more trolling.
John’s got a sense of entitlement that would choke a T-Rex, and he thinks it makes him special.
This coming from the dude who thinks Affirmative Action is flooding workplaces with incompetent employees? The dude who claimed that white, hetero, Christian men are the most oppressed group because there are no groups advocating for their rights? You’ll have better luck arguing with goldfish Owly if you’re looking for a blank slate for every post you make
@ithiliana
Yes that FBI thing had me facepalming so hard, as usual no proof was offered either.
As for the rape problem, I think there needs to be a massive campaign that just says look, everyone gets raped, this is how we stop it. Obviously its more fair if male victims are given equal attention, but the very cynical part of me also thinks that if its framed as a people issue rather than mainly a woman’s issue, it will be taken more seriously. Also maybe that fucking clothing myth will finally die.
Bodsworth Rugglesby III,
allow me to paraphrase
1. Point one women are re-victimized by the legal system when reporting rape.
2. Point 2 women believe that they’ll be screwed over by the legal system if they report rape.
3. Point 3 women who don’t report rape are part of the problem.
I realize that you’re still operating under the gender norm stereotype that men should be able to prevail. Men shouldn’t have any fear. Oh heck, men shouldn’t need a lawyer. It’s only women who need people to defend their rights.
I entered thinking feminists would be closed minded. I never imaged that the door would be welded shut.
Self-fulfilling prophecy, John.
Care to explain what you meant by this, John? Because to me it looks like a particularly gross bit of rape apologia from you. Just a thought, but maybe it’s not the closed-mindedness of everyone here but the actual words you have been typing that caused the chilly reception you keep whining on about.