I will, probably, regret posting this, but I feel like I should, nevertheless, because I believe in the need for inclusive, nuanced approaches to understanding and addressing violence across all contexts.
There was this article in Helsinki Time recently, the one about violence against women and high percent of men thinking, that some women may deserve it. It even had a follow-up. I had a few comments regarding it, and those comments... Let's say, they stirred some emotions in people, and I think that caused them to miss my point, which certainly was not to diminish importance of the topic.
Source of the matter
Below I will post 3 of my "main" comments, unedited except maybe a couple of typos. There have been some smaller ones, but these ones have the most context, I believe. Not posting links to them, since I do not know if they will be kept in the future. Important thing before you read them: keep an open mind and try to have just a little bit of good faith. I believe, that lack of those is what caused those emotions. Which is understandable, due to how sensitive the topic is, but still poses a problem for the conversation.
Not to justify violence in any way, but I would ask those men for some clarifications, context. There are people on both sides that behave in ways that are bound to provoke others, intentionally or not. Some enjoy that. From my experience quite a few people like that are women, and they kind of abuse the "you won't hit a girl, right?" idea. Which is technically mentioned in the end of the article as "woman card". Some women in this position can start hitting a man, thinking that there will be no retaliation. In those situations I can see how one could think that the woman is to blame for getting hit. Again, it does not *justify* it, but it is more understandable. The end of the article does kind of imply, that "woman card" is used when it is beneficial, which, in turn, implies, that in other scenarios it is not used, that is the "card" is used, when they get a privilege and have no risks of harm to them, which is not equality. Not all women are like that, of course, but those who are, are usually loud both figuratively and literally. Men with same traits are also the same way, though, so this is not necessarily gender-specific. In fact, I'd suggest redoing the same survey, but ask both genders about both genders: are women to blame when they get hit by men or other women, and are men to blame when they get hit by women or other men. I believe results for that would be more interesting and closer to life compared to certain level of one-sidedness in this case. But I repeat: violence is never justified, at best it can be "understood", and only under very specific circumstances.
Then you missed the whole point of my comment. entirely. the article suggests, that survey's questions were made with gender bias by design, since it was focusing specifically on men hitting women, as if men hitting men, does not matter at all and women hitting anyone does not happen or it is justifiable. My father did not hit my mother (although he id make the gesture multiple times), but my mother hit me as a child and even actively tried to choke me, but I guess that's fine, because she was, obviously, a woman. So the survey only shows one part of the picture. As for getting context... Well, numbers do not provide you a way to solve a problem. They can only indicate existence of a problem and potentially its spread. You need to ask "why" (and often multiple times) to get to the real root cause of a problem. Why you need to do that? Well, I don't know, maybe to fix the problem? Or at least implement measures to reduce the likelihood of it repeating? But since you somehow interpreted my comment as me justifying violence against women, I guess, it's just so much easier for you to buy into sensationalism of the article and flaws survey in the center of it, instead of thinking of how to solve the problem.
While I do not expect people will stop seeing my message as justification of violence against women, here's where I think the issue with the article lies. If you follow the link in the article (and then another link) to check original PDF report for the survey you will notice:
- That it was specifically about *attitude*, not reality. And it does not draw any "conclusions" from the results.
- That does include responses in regards to violence of men against men, and whether male victims "deserved" it. While results for "deserved" are higher than for same question about women, it's not that much higher. Which may mean, that the respondents that were justifying violence against women might have been justifying violence *overall*. That's why context matters.
While I still do not find this survey particularly useful due to lack of questions about violence from women towards other women and men (which could indicate general "approval" of violence in some circumstances, rather than violence by men against women specifically), and lack of questions like "why do you approve of this or why do you think they deserve it?" (there was an open question, but I believe it was too open, and I can't trust the "pre-selected" answers), it does fulfill its purpose of measuring *attitude* towards very specific topic. I would not rely on it as a scientific evidence (at least not when used alone), but it's fine.
Main issue is how Helsinki Times presented the data in the article (and then a follow-up to it):
- They do not clearly state that the survey as a whole was about attitude, even, though, they do use the word multiple times.
- They do not mention the statistics about violence of men against men, and how those compare.
- They start the article with "Men normalise violence against women with their attitudes", which sets the tone to it already. While this is the phrase from official press-release, it is clearly biased or at least based on flawed data, so it should not be treated as a conclusion.
- While the article does have “It is important to stir up societal debate and have a better understanding of the root causes of violence” quote, which is absolutely valid (and was the point of my original comment, when I was saying, that we need context and better data overall), it's placed in a way, that makes it buried in everything else. People will *not* notice it, they will not understand that *this quote* is the conclusion they need to draw from the results of the survey.
While this is all just my opinion, nothing more, this article, the way it's structured, the way it delivers information on an extremely important and sensitive topic, - it can be perceived strictly as "men are bad" without any other nuance, that's actually in there, even if that may not have been intentional. Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of similar articles back in Russia. You know where? In media outlets sponsored by government (or at least putinists) for the sake of distributing propaganda in any way possible, subtle or not. Cherry-picked data, accent on emotions, usually on hate... Those who were able to resists that propaganda, will understand me.
So maybe, that triggered me, and I was too fast, and thus did not phrased my concerns properly from the start. I can see how it may be seen as "whataboutism" under certain angles. But... I think that Helsinki Times could have done better job at framing the information. It is ok to share concerns (they are totally valid), but it's not ok to cherry-pick results and burry important conclusions under emotions. I am not expecting you to edit the article in any way or publish an editorial or whatever it's called, but, please, be better next time. Keep in mind how average consumer process the information from your articles, and that it actually affects how they think and how they perceive the world.
Emotions gone wild
To summarize a bunch of comments I received, the perception (even after all 3 comments) was that I was diminishing the importance of the topic, making it all about men or even justifying the violence against women. Neither of which was ever my intention. My belief was and ever will be: there is no justification for violence. Even when you have to use it to protect yourself from another act of violence, even when there is just no other feasible way to do that. It may make it necessary, but not justified. Violence begets violence, after all. Even when it's used in video games or movies or whatever other entertainment - it's still not a form of justification. It's a way to control the emotions, and as such prevent violence in real life, but nothing more than that.
Unfortunately, intent ≠ impact. I am partially to blame here, of course, I undoubtedly could have phrased things better. Probably should have followed my own advise to Helsinki Time about the structure. Starting with "Not to justify violence in any way, but..." was probably not a good idea and it worked as "reversed psychology", I guess, making people think that it's exactly what I am doing. Mass media should still bear at least some of the blame, too, since there is, indeed, a push towards ridiculing and villainizing men, especially white men. Some do, objectively deserve that (I can name a few, easily), but not everyone.
I also acknowledge, that me expanding on the topic could have seen as "whataboutism" and pulling the blanket. Again, it's phrasing, the structure. I am not that good at those, and you probably can see this in this article, too. But, objectively, the topic is more broad, especially, if we do want to change things, and not just talk about them. As I've mentioned in my 3rd comment, the article reminded me of media from putinists (Russian politics), initially subconsciously, until I properly realized that. This was and still is the hallmark of those people: say a lot of things, highlight problems, but do nothing (or very little) about them.
Clear heads solve problems
It is stupid to think, thank women are not targets, we do have real-life statistics showing that is the case. Women have been targets of abuse, verbal, physical and sexual, for all of humanity's history, after all. But the same statistics do show that men are still more likely to become victims of violence (thanks to violence of men against other men), which does not diminish the problem of violence against women. Especially in domestic setting, where women are far more likely to become victims, although men are less likely to report domestic violence. Which makes think, that I am turning this into "whataboutism", indeed.
But this is, actually my point. Surveys like the original one from the article are important source of insight, and can help measure different aspects of society, including mental state of different categories of people. No argument about that. They surely need to be conducted, and be conducted on periodic basis, so that we can clearly see trends. But they alone are not enough. It's same as you checking your blood for high glucose, getting higher than expected results and then not even trying to do anything.
As with glucose, we need to understand why, and see a bigger picture. We need more "blood tests" (that is surveys) to see other closely related parameters (insulin, sodium, cholesterol), and more comprehensive examinations, like, ECG or MRI or something. ECG and MRI would probably still be a survey in real life, but the goal is same: find the root cause, and then see what can be done to solve that cause. And for that we need more data, which I was pointing out. One may not like the idea of such "equalization" of women's and men's suffering, but the problem is violence in general, not about specific gender or race or religion or sexual orientation or whatever else.
If you've read this far, I beg you, please, look at things just a little bit more broadly. Do not just follow the narrow roads, that media prepares for you. Open your mind to patterns that unite us, both in good and bad ways and look for ways to enforce good patterns and break the bad ones. Including the pattern of assuming, that everyone that thinks just a little bit differently than you is automatically and enemy. Instead, let's have deeper conversations with a common goal in mind: making the world a better place for everyone.
