insideMAN

insideMAN signs open letter castigating CPS for “misleading and damaging” report that airbrushes out male victims

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In a letter published today in the Guardian newspaper, 30 of Britain’s leading experts in abuse recovery, child protection and men’s health have called upon Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders and other public bodies to reaffirm commitment to addressing and supporting the needs of all victims of intimate and sexual violence.

The letter explains how last week’s CPS report entitled ‘Violence against Women and Girls, Crime Report 2014-15’ seriously misled the public by counting male victims of intimate crimes including rape, sexual assault, child abuse and domestic violence as victims of crimes against women and girls. As the accompanying data section made clear (but the text of the report did not) crimes against more than 13,000 men and boys were included in the statistics, equivalent to around one in six of all victims described.

It goes on to say:

Your article (More people than ever being convicted of violence against women, figures show, The Guardian, 25 June) was inaccurate and damaging. It is simply untrue to say, “about 107,100 cases concerning violence against women and girls were prosecuted over the [past] 12 months.”

Responsibility for this error, however, lies not with your staff but with the Crown Prosecution Service and their report, misleadingly entitled ‘Violence Against Women And Girls, Crime Report 2014-15.’

Despite the title, this analysis included more than 13,000 male victims of crimes including rape, sexual assault, child abuse and domestic violence. Many will have been gay or transgender, many will have had their children or dependents affected.

Designating these men and boys as victims of crimes “against women and girls” not only misleads the public about the complex and diverse dynamics of abuse, but also serves to conceal and marginalise the experiences of all male survivors of intimate and sexual crimes while perpetuating the myth that “real men” don’t get raped, abused or become victims of domestic violence.

Victims of intimate violence face significant psychological barriers to reporting these events. Some fear they will not be believed, or even cast as the perpetrator. Those who find the courage to report their abuse to the authorities often say they are motivated less by the need for justice or revenge but for validation that what happened to them was real and was wrong.

Many men tell us  that the experience of intimate violation has left them feeling like ‘less than a man’ making interaction with authorities even more complex and challenging. For those same authorities to publicly disregard this and erase the experiences of around one in six of all victims is unjust and a cruel betrayal of their bravery.

We fully support drives to eliminate intimate and sexual violence and understand that focussing on female victims is central to this. It is also essential that we retain due consideration for male victims of these crimes. We call on the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders and all public bodies to affirm their commitment to addressing and eliminating intimate violence against human beings of any gender and to take care in future not to compromise the dignity and public understanding of any survivors.

Yours etc.

Ally Fogg, Writer and journalist
Michael May, Director, Survivors UK
Duncan Craig, CEO, Survivors Manchester
Jane Powell, CEO, CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably
Mark Brooks, Chair, The Mankind Initiative
Nick Smithers, National Development Officer, Abused Men in Scotland
Bob Balfour, Founder, Survivors West Yorkshire
Prof. Damien Ridge, Professor of Health Studies, University of Westminster
Dr John Barry, UCL Medical School
Dr Nicola Graham-Kevan, Reader in Psychology, University of Central Lancashire
Dr Mike Hartill, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Sport, Edge Hill University
Dr Ben Hine, Lecturer in Psychology, University of West London
Dr Melanie Lang, Senior Lecturer in Child Protection in Sport, Edge Hill University
Dr Michelle Lowe, Lecturer in criminological and forensic psychology, University of Bolton
Dr Luke Sullivan, Clinical Psychologist and Director of Men’s Minds Matter
Anthony Murphy, Lecturer in Psychology, University of West London
Dan Bell, Features Editor, insideMan magazine
Martin Daubney, Journalist, broadcaster and committee member, Being A Man Festival
Brian Dempsey, Lecturer, School of Law, University of Dundee
Richard Duncker, Founder, Men Do Complain
Alex Feis-Bryce, Director of Services, National Ugly Mugs
Justin Gaffney, CEO, MSH Health & Wellbeing
Glen Poole, UK Coordinator, International Men’s Day
Shane Ryan, CEO, Working With Men
Martin Seager, Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Mark Sparrow, Journalist
Simone Spray, CEO, 42nd Street
Gijsbert Stoet, Reader in Psychology, University of Glasgow
Martyn Terry Sullivan, CEO, Mankind Counselling
Tina Threadgold, Trustee, UKNSWP

 

  • Groan

    The reports below remain the main large scale works on what called “dating abuse or violence” and has become Domestic Abuse and Violence as the terms have moved down the age range from adults. All found interesting data neatly summarised by Nina Schutt.

    Nina Schutt, from her work for Safer Southwark Partnership, states: “The survey carried out among young people in Southwark overall identify that young people both experience and perpetrated various forms of adolescent domestic violence in their dating relationships. The survey also showed that this is something that is being experienced by both young men and women, and that in some cases young men report experiences higher levels than young women. The young men are also more likely than young women to accept aggressive behaviour in a relationship, as well as justify such behaviour with actions made by their partner, such a cheating on them”
    Yet the Exec summaries and recommendations ignore these findings which exite such discussion within the body of these research reports (not least because the authors were not expecting the high levels of male victimisation). Largely because they are commissioned under the “Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy”. So the paymasters had been clear however intriguing the paradigm challenging data on males. The results for females were the only interest. This is institutional sexism and it seems unsurprising that a fundamentally discriminatory government sponsored strategy has again distorted the reporting of data. By this sort of logic the fact that women are very much a minority of victims of violent crime one could safely ignore them and their feelings of vulnerability on public transport or town centres at night. The very fact that women are a minority in prison is rightly taken as an indicator of the need for special attention(for practical reasons of few women’s prisons using a “local” prison is much harder for instance) Yet here a system mainly designed to protect women and girls does the reverse for males who might face issues in navigating this system. It “airbrushes” them out. It seems to me to be the very definition of an institutional sexism. Well done indeed on calling this out on an Organisation that should demonstrate high standards of probity.

    Partner exploitation and violence in teenage intimate relationships, Christine Barter, Melanie McCarry, David Berridge and Kathy Evans October 2009 http://www.nspcc.org.uk

    Young People’s Attitudes to Gendered Violence. By Michelle Burman and Fred Cartmel University of Glasgow Published by NHS Scotland 2005

    Domestic Violence in Adolescent Relationships. By Nina Shutt. Published by Safer Southwark Partnership 2006

    Attitudes of Young People towards Domestic Violence, Judith Bell, Community Information Branch, Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (Northern Ireland) 2008

    • insideMAN

      Thanks for this.

      You may also have seen the high-profile government poster and advertising campaign against DV in teenage relationships in 2009.

      The campaign solely showed teenage boys as perpetrators and teenage girls as victims, I looked into the NSPCC research on which the campaign was founded, and discovered it had revealed similar rates of victimisation between boys and girls — with girls in fact admitting to being more violent to their partners than boys.

      See table 3 on p44 and table 10 on page74 and table 11 on p75 of this report:

      http://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/research-reports/partner-exploitation-violence-teenage-intimate-relationships-report.pdf

      Despite this, the language of the NSPCC report consistently downplays boys’ experiences and the government ad campaign simply ignored the fact there were male victims.

      This isn’t just an accident, it’s deliberate and cynical manipulation of the facts to justify an ideological agenda. That’s bad enough, but to deploy this cynicism against vulnerable boys is an outrage.

      Dan

      • Paul Mills

        I remember this well. A more recent example was last years Christmas campaign by Center Point – just astounding!

      • http://MensHumanRightsIreland.org John Gormley Spokesman MHRI
      • http://MensHumanRightsIreland.org John Gormley Spokesman MHRI

        If you want to see another interesting link have a read of this.

        I had the pleasure of interviewing Deborah Capaldi and Erin Pizzey on the same show we did but the recording quality was so bad we didn’t publish the show.

        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-sacks/researcher-says-womens-in_b_222746.html

      • Groan

        Indeed Dan. I directly quoted Nina Schutt because it succinctly sums up a finding in all the reports referred to. This is that the males were accepting of abusive behaviour against themselves but not if against Girls and this was reflected by the females. In a way this makes intuitive sense in the context of the socialisation to protect females and regard them as more fragile. Or it may reflect a success of years of campaigns about behaviours being abused and wrong so girls have much higher expectations about the behaviour they can expect. The evidence either way would support campaigns directed at boys to give them a similar expectation about behaviours in their teen relationships. Michelle Burman at the University Glasgow went on to do further research on females and violence. In fairness to the various reports the body of the papers does note the “surprising” results for boys and the challenge these present to their theoretical paradigm. However the further research has to be funded and the main funding agencies are government agencies guided in their decisions by the VAWG Strategy. So for instance some of the Bristol Uni. team on the NSPCC research went on to do a similar study on young people in local authority care, a very specific population. This research had findings less challenging to the expected findings of their gendered hypotheses . But in what now makes chilling reading following all the revelations from Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, Bristol and so on. This research found a significant number of their female respondents male “partners” were very much older. A very different situation to the average one year age difference in the research that had deliberately sought to be representative of all young people. Needless to say this quite specific research on an atypical population is the one sees cited most widely. The most robust in terms of sampling and methodology is the NHS Scotland funded Glasgow University research yet I rarely see it cited in policy etc. I commend interested readers to read it. Though there are indeed groups actively distorting evidence the existence of a specific VAWG Strategy results in distortion even without any such intent in directing the work being done and the recommendations reported.

        • Groan

          “A St. Helens woman who stabbed her partner to death with a kitchen knife has been jailed.” ” Amanda O’Shaughnessy, 29, knifed 38-year-old David Butterworth in the back during a row at their home” Just in the local news as she was sentenced today. One assumes that the CPS will record this as another crime against women. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-33412628

      • Groan

        I thought you may be interested that this was being organised at least chimes with the theme that its not just Girls and Women. The Barnardo’s report was very good. A good example of why the CPS approach continues to put males “outside the spotlight”.

        http://www.ccclimited.org.uk/event/outside-the-spotlight/

        “Boys and young men are too often overlooked as actual or potential victims of child sexual exploitation (CSE). This has been confirmed by research published by Barnardo’s in 2014.

        There is a fairly widespread perception that safeguarding is really about girls. Many CSE services are based upon the boyfriend model which can limit effectiveness in working with boys. Usually, boys are more reluctant to report abuse, and the profile of young male victims of CSE is quite different to that of young females.

        Approaches designed to identify, make safe, and support boys at risk of CSE need to be scoped differently to services which work with girls.”

  • http://www.theskirtedman.eu Jeremy Hutchinson

    Pleased to read this open letter and support those who have position within society to highlight the disregard towards mens issues and concerns as fellow human beings in all aspects of life. It annoys me intensely when men issues are pushed aside even dismissed especially when they share those raised by and on behalf of women. It annoys me intensely when men are criticised for behaviour, attitude and verbal comments yet similar by women ignored. As a man I do feel strongly about this even though many issues do not affect me directly but as I do throughout life I say to myself how would I feel if I did alongside issues relevant to me. I now start to feel that public momentum is gathering pace in this area and it can only be achieved by the likes of the signatories to this letter who have a position to get others to listen. I do like the aspect of referencing both genders, inclusion, not as so often is the case with campaigns by women for women as being women only problems or as often happens “air brush” men out. I do mention this time and time again to HeForShe on Twitter. I have done so again with a link to this article.

  • Eric Tarkington

    I congratulate insideMan. Getting 30 experts to sign a protest against CPS hiding of male victims is a great achievement. Educating the public in government abuses of boys and men is the only thing that will bring real, effective change, and insideMan has supported an event with public visibility into officially neglected issues of domestic violence. Focusing the letter on one egregious error out of many in the controversial CPS report may have been the only way to bring all of the signatories together to produce a tactical victory.

    That being said, it is troubling to see the open letter concluding that “focussing on female victims is central” to reduction of intimate partner violence, and accepting that male needs are less pervasive and severe. The CPS report has many other errors, and it also reflects prosecutions, which are undertaken under control of the CPS, reflecting the biases of the CPS and other agencies. Virulent biases against men amongst those agencies have been well demonstrated.

    Lines of evidence other than prosecutions are likely to produce a more realistic picture, and they show that violence between men and women is perpetrated equally or somewhat more often by women. Women also “lead” statistically in violence and neglect against children (including girls) and the elderly. Relationship violence is complicated, making it difficult for the public to understand, but governments show a distressing pattern of trying to obscure the picture in line with their biases. The people need government to help clarify the issues and do what it can to help those who are actually hurt.

    Sadly, the truth we offer to the public is a kind of negotiating position. We are tempted to offer only so much truth as the public seems likely to accept. IMO, we need to examine that strategy, so that we are not negotiating with ourselves and giving away only half the truth. The healing that we seek can’t be served by half of the truth. No matter what the initial reaction, we have to persist in giving the public the chance to decide our social policies based on good information that is as complete as we can practically make it.

    I want to thank insideMan for supporting the open letter. It includes good insights that will improve public understanding.

    • insideMAN

      Thanks Eric, we’re proud to have been a signatory on the joint letter, alongside so many other people and organisations who are committed to campaigning for equality. Ally Fogg did most of the hard work in bringing these voices together and making it happen!