My new series for Spectator TV, featuring men that speak out against male violence, and do something to challenge it. Part one and two (of a six-episode series) out now. First up, Michael Foran:
Here is one of the thoughts this provoked for me as a man :
What action am I taking? Not a lot to be honest. Listening to my partner, following and supporting podcasts like this, TLP, Meghan Murphy. Tried a little bit to start a discussion about porn at my church men's group but that fizzled out. My main effort is just on raising my daughters. That's my priority and it's tough enough to try to prepare them for what life is going to throw at them and is already throwing at them. It feels fraudulent for me to try to arm them intellectually against liberal feminism, which is basically pink-brain neoliberalism. I am totally out of my depth trying to acquaint them with the positions of radical feminism that they need to hear and understand. This podcast reminded me that I need to talk to them again and more concretely about porn and its warping effect on sexual expectations. Very awkward subject.
The other thought this prompted was, who funded the (intra-feminist 80s-90s) sex wars? Thinking about Jennifer Bilek's current work on who funds TRAs, the libfem ascendancy of the sex wars, the "freedom" of women to be sex objects and atomised commodities, seems like an absolutely necessary precondition for the TRA movement to move the goalposts further and commoditise womanhood itself. From my position of total ignorance I wonder if there is research on who funded the sex wars and a suspicion it could have been some of the same oligarch deviants that Bilek identifies as the funders of transacfivism?
This might be a duplicate comment because what I was writing seems to have disappeared but perhaps it is lurking somewhere. This is a great conversation about the legal dimension of (predominantly) women's rights. Until recently I had assumed that women's rights movements were making progress. What I had not appreciated was that these rights are not simply to be won once because the threat to them is continually changing shape. 'Feminism for Women' and 'Material Girls' are two books that made me realise that it was not just about incremental progress battle by battle, but the re-fighting of old wars. The task is truly Sisyphean for women - or at least for those who have noticed their rights are being undermined or dismantled completely. I have been working on something for about 6 months which includes a discussion of some books that changed my outlook entirely (including the two I just mentioned). What was almost as illuminating was the vile and vindictive criticism these books attracted - so my angle is on the misogyny baked into that. Back on point: people like Michael Foran are playing an essential role in making the legal aspects accessible that would be easy to underestimate. By making the implications of proposed laws intelligible to lay-lawmakers and the public, perhaps dangerous precedents can be avoided. I really want to understand this better and although that will make zero difference to anything, perhaps if more of us do it, we can raise the floor of the discussion together.
Hi Michael. I strongly recommend you read William Collins's "The Empathy Gap: Male Disadvantages and thr Mechanisms of Their Neglect" (2019). He's the man behind a remarkable website, The Illustrated Empathy Gap http://empathygap.uk/. He will be a speaker at an event I'm hosting in Budapest next August, an International Conference on Men's Issues (ICMI) http://icmi2024.icmi.info. The first was held near Detroit in 2014. Playlists of all the ICMI talks can be found on our YouTube channel.
It is funny I was going to mention Fiamengo to you but as someone who I have differing opinions, particularly on the history of feminism and the suffragette movement. I liked some of what she has said about specific issues like post modernism but I find her tendency to group everything she dislikes as a outcome of feminism/Marxism simplistic. The difference was that when we clashed I had the receipts for my claims - but let's not dwell. Anyhow I have a series on the history going back to Josephine Butler nearly two-centuries ago which will go out next year too. I will add that book to my library - will you commit to reading Feminism for Women by JB?
This conversation gave me hope. In particular the idea of principles: ‘The point at which they move from being simply the way you operate in the world into being genuine constraints on your conduct.’ Yes Michael! And Julie: I love your interview style and your approach to dialogue. Nothing is ever black and white.
So, a reasonable person might ask, where are the women speaking out against female violence, and doing something to challenge it? Well, there's Erin Pizzey, 84, just awarded a CBE - how did THAT slip past the feminists who vet the honours lists?. She's been telling stark truths about domestic violence - including that it's not a gendered issue, and never has been - for 50+ years.
Erin's keynote speech (video, 38:05) at the 2016 International Conference on Men's Issues, in London http://icmi2016.icmi.info was titled ‘Intergenerational Family Violence v. The Big Lie’ (video, 38:05):
Why do feminists NEVER speak out against female violence? Perhaps because:
(a) They know (but can never admit) that the most violent couples are lesbian couples, and women are almost twice as likely to be abused by female partners than by male partners (ONS figures):
OK I'll bite. Let's just look at the two opening sentences of your 'whataboutism' so I can help you understand what you wrote:
"So, a reasonable person might ask, where are the women speaking out against female violence, and doing something to challenge it? Well, there's Erin Pizzey, 84, just awarded a CBE..."
See, you can answer your own question. To your second question:
" - how did THAT slip past the feminists who vet the honours lists?."(sic)
I'll take a stab at that. Because they don't vet the honours list? This is not as difficult as you seem to think.
Your skewed-framing of the ONS data is interesting example of something I was writing about already so it might be useful, but perhaps, not in the way you would prefer.
OK, a second response. Given that Erin Pizzey is vehemently anti-feminist, given their attacks on her and their relentless lies about domestic violence for 50+ years, maybe I should have framed the first question as, "Where are the FEMINISTS speaking out against female violence, and doing something to challenge it?" I don't know of even one, and I've been working in this area for 15 years.
Why not instead ask what are feminists doing about it Mike? Look at the work done by women's shelters to provide safe havens - are you suggesting they turn away women who happen to be in violent relationships with other women? The question really answers itself. I can't give you a citation but I am pretty sure that Camile Paglia and Christina Hoff-Sommers have commented on female on female violence. It exists of course but not dominantly so. [typo corrected].
What is empirically true is that men are disproportionately more violent than women. I was once in a relationship with a violent female alcoholic but I never felt like I was in any real danger. She couldn't imprison me or abuse me physically and frankly I was more afraid of what she would do to herself once she got into cutting. Sure she could have stabbed me in the night but turns out she didn't. I do know women who were physically abused by men including multiple examples in my own extended family, one of which led to a suicide. We can all cherry pick what suits us Mike but just look at the ONS data with an open mind. I understand you may have a rational personal reason for feeling so strongly and I don't want to trivialise that, but surely you can see that women are physically more vulnerable in general.
- the relative risk of women being abused by female or male partners;
- the numbers of each sex killed in domestic homicides
The ONS data I pointed to clearly shows (and has done, for many years) that women are more likely to be abused by female than male partners. How, then, can most of the people who kill partners (or ex-partners) be men? Simple. More women choose male partners than female partners. Domestic homicides are so strikingly rare (in comparison with the populations of men and women) that they tell us nothing about domestic violence in general.
"Surely you you can see that women are physically more vulnerable in general." No, I can't see that, for the simple reason it's a statement of societal empathy for women (there is no empathy for men) and demonstrably untrue. The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project (PASK) https://domesticviolenceresearch.org/ was published in May 2013 in the journal Partner Abuse and is the most comprehensive review of domestic violence research ever carried out. This unparallelled three-year research project was conducted by 42 scholars at 20 universities and research centres. The headline finding of the PASK review was that:
"Men and women perpetrate physical and non-physical forms of abuse at comparable rates, most domestic violence is mutual, women are as controlling as men, domestic violence by men and women is correlated with essentially the same risk factors, and male and female perpetrators are motivated for similar reasons."
A key numerical result from the PASK review was:
"Among large population samples, 57.9% of intimate-partner violence (IPV) reported was bi-directional, 42.1% unidirectional, 13.8% of the unidirectional violence was male-to-female, 28.3% was female-to-male."
The last point is worth emphasising. In the 42.1% of (heterosexual) couples in which one partner is always the perpetrator and the other the victim, the woman is TWICE as likely to be the perpetrator and (therefore) half as likely to be the victim.
But there's more than one way to kill partners or ex-partners. In the UK the male suicide rate is 3.5x the female suicide rate. It's well-documented (William Collins's book provides copious evidence) that most allegations of domestic abuse reported by women in divorces are bogus, mainly to give them an advantage in the family courts (including the provision of legal aid denied to their partners). Following exposure to the family courts, where men often permanently lose access to their children, the male suicide rate increases to about 10x the female suicide rate.
As for which sex is the more violent - and women kill partners and ex-partners by proxy more often than men, we've reported on many cases - what could be more violent than killing the innocent? Women kill 73+ million unborn children every year - WHO statistic - a genocide unparalleled in human history. Who have always been behind giving women the power to kill their own children? Feminists.
I'll give a quick reply to this now but I will look at it tomorrow because there is a lot to unpack. Suffice to say for now that physical vulnerability differences are obvious irrespective of how you feel the dice are loaded by society. I have worked in many places including several countries in Africa where you can see the plight of women net of any western style checks and balances. When you look at modern slavery it impacts the physically weaker, i.e. women and children - in fact children are often used to force women to comply.
I started to reply to this here but it would be rude of me to clutter up the comments section given this is completely off topic. I will put something together and then put the link here.
Hi Michael. Our exchanges are only "off topic" in the sense that Bindel focused only on male violence (as always). One of the roles of comments streams is to introduce and debate related issues which the article author(ess) has purposely neglected - in this case, female violence against both men and women. And against children for that matter, given that far more children are harmed and killed by their mothers than by their fathers.
Here is one of the thoughts this provoked for me as a man :
What action am I taking? Not a lot to be honest. Listening to my partner, following and supporting podcasts like this, TLP, Meghan Murphy. Tried a little bit to start a discussion about porn at my church men's group but that fizzled out. My main effort is just on raising my daughters. That's my priority and it's tough enough to try to prepare them for what life is going to throw at them and is already throwing at them. It feels fraudulent for me to try to arm them intellectually against liberal feminism, which is basically pink-brain neoliberalism. I am totally out of my depth trying to acquaint them with the positions of radical feminism that they need to hear and understand. This podcast reminded me that I need to talk to them again and more concretely about porn and its warping effect on sexual expectations. Very awkward subject.
Great conversation. It’s amazing what a little common sense can do.
The other thought this prompted was, who funded the (intra-feminist 80s-90s) sex wars? Thinking about Jennifer Bilek's current work on who funds TRAs, the libfem ascendancy of the sex wars, the "freedom" of women to be sex objects and atomised commodities, seems like an absolutely necessary precondition for the TRA movement to move the goalposts further and commoditise womanhood itself. From my position of total ignorance I wonder if there is research on who funded the sex wars and a suspicion it could have been some of the same oligarch deviants that Bilek identifies as the funders of transacfivism?
This might be a duplicate comment because what I was writing seems to have disappeared but perhaps it is lurking somewhere. This is a great conversation about the legal dimension of (predominantly) women's rights. Until recently I had assumed that women's rights movements were making progress. What I had not appreciated was that these rights are not simply to be won once because the threat to them is continually changing shape. 'Feminism for Women' and 'Material Girls' are two books that made me realise that it was not just about incremental progress battle by battle, but the re-fighting of old wars. The task is truly Sisyphean for women - or at least for those who have noticed their rights are being undermined or dismantled completely. I have been working on something for about 6 months which includes a discussion of some books that changed my outlook entirely (including the two I just mentioned). What was almost as illuminating was the vile and vindictive criticism these books attracted - so my angle is on the misogyny baked into that. Back on point: people like Michael Foran are playing an essential role in making the legal aspects accessible that would be easy to underestimate. By making the implications of proposed laws intelligible to lay-lawmakers and the public, perhaps dangerous precedents can be avoided. I really want to understand this better and although that will make zero difference to anything, perhaps if more of us do it, we can raise the floor of the discussion together.
Hi Michael. I strongly recommend you read William Collins's "The Empathy Gap: Male Disadvantages and thr Mechanisms of Their Neglect" (2019). He's the man behind a remarkable website, The Illustrated Empathy Gap http://empathygap.uk/. He will be a speaker at an event I'm hosting in Budapest next August, an International Conference on Men's Issues (ICMI) http://icmi2024.icmi.info. The first was held near Detroit in 2014. Playlists of all the ICMI talks can be found on our YouTube channel.
For the definitive history of feminism (in stark contrast to what feminists would have you believe it is) I strongly recommend a playlist of 39 videos by the Canadian Professor Janice Fiamengo, The FIamengo File 2.0 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGFFi6pRCnCdQTe1iG3Tw4Td9jvhY2w74. It starts with "Why I am still an anti-feminist" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyRUHSsZZa4&list=PLGFFi6pRCnCdQTe1iG3Tw4Td9jvhY2w74&index=1.
All the best for 2024 and beyond.
Mike Buchanan
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS
http://j4mb.org.uk
It is funny I was going to mention Fiamengo to you but as someone who I have differing opinions, particularly on the history of feminism and the suffragette movement. I liked some of what she has said about specific issues like post modernism but I find her tendency to group everything she dislikes as a outcome of feminism/Marxism simplistic. The difference was that when we clashed I had the receipts for my claims - but let's not dwell. Anyhow I have a series on the history going back to Josephine Butler nearly two-centuries ago which will go out next year too. I will add that book to my library - will you commit to reading Feminism for Women by JB?
What a wonderfully intelligent and thoughtful guest. Enjoyed listening to, thank you.
This conversation gave me hope. In particular the idea of principles: ‘The point at which they move from being simply the way you operate in the world into being genuine constraints on your conduct.’ Yes Michael! And Julie: I love your interview style and your approach to dialogue. Nothing is ever black and white.
Really enjoyed that Julie and Michael. Michael has a very wise head on young shoulders.
Useful, and actually more interesting than I was expecting it to be (dry law etc).
Good discussion. Good to hear men appreciate radical feminism. We are the best!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🙂
Such a brilliant conversation! Looking forward to the next ones.
So, a reasonable person might ask, where are the women speaking out against female violence, and doing something to challenge it? Well, there's Erin Pizzey, 84, just awarded a CBE - how did THAT slip past the feminists who vet the honours lists?. She's been telling stark truths about domestic violence - including that it's not a gendered issue, and never has been - for 50+ years.
Erin's keynote speech (video, 38:05) at the 2016 International Conference on Men's Issues, in London http://icmi2016.icmi.info was titled ‘Intergenerational Family Violence v. The Big Lie’ (video, 38:05):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D73v1lKcMo&list=PLjMscr0TpRqivyYVcMdSEI5maZl2ttgkG&index=1
Why do feminists NEVER speak out against female violence? Perhaps because:
(a) They know (but can never admit) that the most violent couples are lesbian couples, and women are almost twice as likely to be abused by female partners than by male partners (ONS figures):
https://j4mb.org.uk/2022/12/09/are-women-more-likely-to-be-abused-in-lesbian-or-heterosexual-relationships/
(b) It would undermine the fraudulent domestic violence industry, a goldmine for feminists for 50+ years.
Mike Buchanan
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS http://j4mb.org.uk
CAMPAIGN FOR MERIT IN BUSINESS http://c4mb.uk
LAUGHING AT FEMINISTS http://laughingatfeminists.com
Adolf Hitler reacts to radical feminist Julie Bindel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZjcPaBrGqI
“the fraudulent domestic violence industry, a goldmine for feminists..”
You are lost. Wow.
And why are you posting here?
Why? So readers of this comments stream are informed of truths they'll never hear from Ms Bindel.
OK I'll bite. Let's just look at the two opening sentences of your 'whataboutism' so I can help you understand what you wrote:
"So, a reasonable person might ask, where are the women speaking out against female violence, and doing something to challenge it? Well, there's Erin Pizzey, 84, just awarded a CBE..."
See, you can answer your own question. To your second question:
" - how did THAT slip past the feminists who vet the honours lists?."(sic)
I'll take a stab at that. Because they don't vet the honours list? This is not as difficult as you seem to think.
Your skewed-framing of the ONS data is interesting example of something I was writing about already so it might be useful, but perhaps, not in the way you would prefer.
OK, a second response. Given that Erin Pizzey is vehemently anti-feminist, given their attacks on her and their relentless lies about domestic violence for 50+ years, maybe I should have framed the first question as, "Where are the FEMINISTS speaking out against female violence, and doing something to challenge it?" I don't know of even one, and I've been working in this area for 15 years.
Why not instead ask what are feminists doing about it Mike? Look at the work done by women's shelters to provide safe havens - are you suggesting they turn away women who happen to be in violent relationships with other women? The question really answers itself. I can't give you a citation but I am pretty sure that Camile Paglia and Christina Hoff-Sommers have commented on female on female violence. It exists of course but not dominantly so. [typo corrected].
Hi Michael. Just one question arising from your comments, how exactly do you believe I am "skewed-framing" ONS data? I'm genuinely puzzled!
Let me try to help Mike. Look at the 2023 worksheet on the tab ‘Table 23’ which covers domestic homicides. In the period between March 2020 and March 2022, the total number of domestic homicides was 370. 249 of the dead were women and 121 were men. Incidentally, although you accuse feminists of being unconcerned with female on female violence, you don’t seem to be concerned with male on male violence. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/domesticabuseprevalenceandvictimcharacteristicsappendixtables
What is empirically true is that men are disproportionately more violent than women. I was once in a relationship with a violent female alcoholic but I never felt like I was in any real danger. She couldn't imprison me or abuse me physically and frankly I was more afraid of what she would do to herself once she got into cutting. Sure she could have stabbed me in the night but turns out she didn't. I do know women who were physically abused by men including multiple examples in my own extended family, one of which led to a suicide. We can all cherry pick what suits us Mike but just look at the ONS data with an open mind. I understand you may have a rational personal reason for feeling so strongly and I don't want to trivialise that, but surely you can see that women are physically more vulnerable in general.
Here is my response to the comment below... https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelvigne/p/pulled-through-the-lens-of-a-comment?r=2bzb33&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thanks Michael, but you're conflating two issues:
- the relative risk of women being abused by female or male partners;
- the numbers of each sex killed in domestic homicides
The ONS data I pointed to clearly shows (and has done, for many years) that women are more likely to be abused by female than male partners. How, then, can most of the people who kill partners (or ex-partners) be men? Simple. More women choose male partners than female partners. Domestic homicides are so strikingly rare (in comparison with the populations of men and women) that they tell us nothing about domestic violence in general.
"Surely you you can see that women are physically more vulnerable in general." No, I can't see that, for the simple reason it's a statement of societal empathy for women (there is no empathy for men) and demonstrably untrue. The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project (PASK) https://domesticviolenceresearch.org/ was published in May 2013 in the journal Partner Abuse and is the most comprehensive review of domestic violence research ever carried out. This unparallelled three-year research project was conducted by 42 scholars at 20 universities and research centres. The headline finding of the PASK review was that:
"Men and women perpetrate physical and non-physical forms of abuse at comparable rates, most domestic violence is mutual, women are as controlling as men, domestic violence by men and women is correlated with essentially the same risk factors, and male and female perpetrators are motivated for similar reasons."
A key numerical result from the PASK review was:
"Among large population samples, 57.9% of intimate-partner violence (IPV) reported was bi-directional, 42.1% unidirectional, 13.8% of the unidirectional violence was male-to-female, 28.3% was female-to-male."
The last point is worth emphasising. In the 42.1% of (heterosexual) couples in which one partner is always the perpetrator and the other the victim, the woman is TWICE as likely to be the perpetrator and (therefore) half as likely to be the victim.
But there's more than one way to kill partners or ex-partners. In the UK the male suicide rate is 3.5x the female suicide rate. It's well-documented (William Collins's book provides copious evidence) that most allegations of domestic abuse reported by women in divorces are bogus, mainly to give them an advantage in the family courts (including the provision of legal aid denied to their partners). Following exposure to the family courts, where men often permanently lose access to their children, the male suicide rate increases to about 10x the female suicide rate.
As for which sex is the more violent - and women kill partners and ex-partners by proxy more often than men, we've reported on many cases - what could be more violent than killing the innocent? Women kill 73+ million unborn children every year - WHO statistic - a genocide unparalleled in human history. Who have always been behind giving women the power to kill their own children? Feminists.
I'll give a quick reply to this now but I will look at it tomorrow because there is a lot to unpack. Suffice to say for now that physical vulnerability differences are obvious irrespective of how you feel the dice are loaded by society. I have worked in many places including several countries in Africa where you can see the plight of women net of any western style checks and balances. When you look at modern slavery it impacts the physically weaker, i.e. women and children - in fact children are often used to force women to comply.
I started to reply to this here but it would be rude of me to clutter up the comments section given this is completely off topic. I will put something together and then put the link here.
Hi Michael. Our exchanges are only "off topic" in the sense that Bindel focused only on male violence (as always). One of the roles of comments streams is to introduce and debate related issues which the article author(ess) has purposely neglected - in this case, female violence against both men and women. And against children for that matter, given that far more children are harmed and killed by their mothers than by their fathers.
Here is my full response. https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelvigne/p/pulled-through-the-lens-of-a-comment?r=2bzb33&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web