Domestic violence is not as one-sided as we think
SO, we were playing Trivial Pursuit many years ago and, to make it more interesting, we played in teams of two players each, and we also decided that we should give cryptic clues whenever the opposing team did not know the answer.
We were having so much fun with the cryptic clues that it became a game within a game. We then question, (something to the effect of) what is the motto of IBM?
The opposition did not know the answer, so it was time for a cryptic clue. My partner said: “The answer is really simple if you think about it!”
“What kind of clue is that?” the opposition asked somewhat frustrated by the clue.
“Well,” I said, “think guys, come on. Just think!”
They got more frustrated and retorted “we are thinking, but we can’t think of the answer!”.
“Think!”, my partner said, enjoying their frustration.
“We give up”, they said angrily, “your clue is not helpful to us. You are spoiling the game!”
“Think guys!” we persisted. “Okay, okay,” they said, “enough silliness. Now tell us the answer!”
“The answer is think,” we laughed.
They did not believe us and asked to see the card. When they saw that the answer was “think” they rolled on the floor with laughter and we joined them.
I related that story to many students over my many years as a lecturer to show them that sometimes that the answer is to “think”.
Of course, it’s not enough just to think these days because students are expected to think creatively and critically but also to think about how they think.
In other words, to think about their thinking.
You may have heard of Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking. Very simply, he said that there are different levels of thinking. The first level is remembering the information, the second is understanding the information, and the third is applying the information in a new situation.
The higher levels of thinking are creating, evaluating and analysing.
Analysing involves taking the information apart and looking for relationships, evaluating involves critically examining the information and making judgements, and, creating is to use the information to create something new.
Why bother with thinking when it is much easier and more fun to just jump to conclusions or to accept things at face value. Take Women’s Day for example. I mean I can see the sense of protesting against the unfair treatment of women, and I agree that it is a very important struggle.
I also agree that violence against women and children is unacceptable and must stop.
It seems that there is a war between men and women. It seems to me that men are exclusively being portrayed as the violent and abusive ones in relationships. So much so that we all have come to accept this as an undisputed fact. Somehow, we have been massaged into accepting this as the way things are. But what about violence against men?
Rachel Stewart, in her 2015 opinion piece in a New Zealand newspaper (I’m using the New Zealand example because I want to show that it’s not just a South African problem), says that men are to be blamed for domestic violence and they are the only ones who can solve it. She goes on to say: “Sorry boys, but it’s just not acceptable to trot out the tired old line that women hit men too. It’s a fact that men physically hurt women more times than the reverse, and implying anything else is just another form of abuse towards us.”
In his response, Wayne Burrows asks why she calls it “the tired old line” and the “fact that men physically hurt women more times than the reverse”.
He goes on to argue that the police admit that the reported cases of domestic violence is a very small fraction of the problem. He then refers to a video of a domestic dispute that was aired on television in which both the man and woman were fighting, and the woman said that the man tried to walk away but she “kept going at him”. The police arrived and handcuffed the man and dragged him away.
Now, consider that Dr Warren Farrell, in his research publication Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say, lists over 50 studies where it was found that there were equal incidents of men violent against women and women violent against men or “women were more often violent than men”.
Okay, I can hear the protests that I chose a male academic to make my point! Actually, I think that Warren Farrell was being kind, because a female academic, Professor Lynn Magdol, found that “nearly twice as many women perpetrated violence as men”. Whaaaaat!!! No ways, I hear you protest. Well, she goes on to say that when the “violence was severe, this ballooned to more than three times the rate”.
It seems that Rachel Stewart’s approach that men are the problem is not helping to find a solution. The approach that men are the enemy is somewhat adversarial and warlike, don’t you think? I mean, it’s like visualising two armies ready to do battle.
I’m not sure who is going to win this war, but it seems that it is being fought everyday.
In the last few months, three
men disclosed to me that their wives had assaulted them. I was so shocked that I could not even respond because I would never have guessed that these seemingly loving women were even capable of violence.
The worst thing is that the wives didn’t deny it but tried to downplay the intensity of the violence.
This is not something that men discuss openly or even confide in their friends about. To be sure, male friends are likely to laugh it off and chide the man for not being man enough to stand up for his rights.
Now, I am not saying that men are innocent or non-violent, and I’m not saying that women are wrong to protest against the way they are unfairly and unjustly treated. So please don’t accuse me of doing that. What I am saying is that the problem of domestic and gender violence is far more complex and not as onesided as some would like us to believe.
As I said, the answer is “think”.