Domestic violence also affects men
In challenging her assertions, Mr Finlay, for some inexplicable reason, went off on a tangent about domestic violence. In doing so, he simply regurgitated discredited feminist propaganda which conflates domestic violence with violence against women.
Had he researched the subject, he would have found that all independent two-sex studies show men and women are both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence in almost equal numbers.
The study on domestic violence carried out by the National Crime Council in conjunction with the ESRI was the most comprehensive ever carried out in Ireland.
It found that 29% of women and 26% of men suffer domestic abuse while 13% of women and 13% of men suffer physical abuse. The results of the study relating to gender prevalence broadly reflect the findings of the five other two-sex studies carried out in this country.
As regards his comment that “women’s refuges remain full …” the research found that, of those turned away from refuges, 46% were for reasons other than the refuges being full. It also found that 49% of admissions to women’s refuges are Travellers (according to the 2002 census, Travellers account for just 0.6% of the population).
Mr Finlay, quite rightly, remarks that children in homes where women are abused are traumatised by those incidents. But children are also traumatised in homes where their mother is violent and abusive towards their father.
Another significant finding of the NCC research was that, while one-in-three female victims report domestic abuse, only one-in-20 men do so.
The reasons for this are obvious and their isolation is compounded by misleading articles such as that written by Mr Finlay. Not only are these men condemned to suffer in isolation but the same applies to their children.
Mary T Cleary
Amen
St Anne’s Resource Centre
Railway St
Navan
Co Meath.
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