Misrepresented Statistics Tell No Tales

Federal Deputy Opposition Leader and spokeswoman for education, training, science and research Jenny Macklin offers to 'throw some numbers at you' in an op-ed piece in The Daily Telegraph:

There is no doubt that violence against women is a major issue. Let me throw some numbers at you: 57 per cent of Australian women have experienced at least one incident of violence in their lifetime.

Two out of three women who experienced violence said their children had also witnessed the violence. Finally, 77 people die each year on average from domestic violence-related causes in Australia.

We need a national plan of teaching respect and responsibility in our schools so we can get serious about wiping out violence against women.

And notes:

The AFL has begun a program, Respect and Responsibility, to tackle violence. Andrew Demetriou and the AFL have been active with White Ribbon Day and encouraging healthy attitudes to women. The role people like Goodes play in their communities is invaluable but we need to support these young role models.

I know my Dad has been a great role model for my sons. Together with our football heroes, all our fathers, our husbands and sons need to be front and centre teaching respect so we can get serious about saving 77 lives every year.

It's a relatively gentle, encouraging piece of writing, not strident or chiding as often are calls on men to fight against domestic violence.

But a closer look at Mackin's words reveal a despicable dishonesty in which she misrepresents the statistics. Let's look again with some added emphasis:

...no doubt that violence against women is a major issue... 57 per cent of Australian women have experienced at least one incident of violence... Two out of three women who experienced violence said their children had also witnessed the violence... 77 people die each year on average from domestic violence-related causes in Australia... get serious about wiping out violence against women... get serious about saving 77 lives every year..."

We are left in no doubt the issue is violence against women. However, when it comes to the fatality figures, Macklin switches to gender neutral.

This is because up to 22 of those dead people were male:

"During the nine years between 1989 and 1998 an average of 55 women aged 15 and over were killed by their male intimate partners each year."

These figures come from 1999 research by the Australian Institute of Criminology.

Fifty-five plus 22 equals 77. And, as the AIC report points out, where males are killed by their intimate partner, in 84% of cases the killer is female. That's 18 of our 22 dead men, with the remaining four presumably killed by homosexual partners.

Macklin's choice of words is the giveaway - she plainly seeks to pump up her case by combining the male victims with female. For those men, it's a posthumous spit in the eye.

It's so easy to turn any dispute over domestic violence figures to an 'us versus them' argument in which each side battles to make out the other is worse. That's idiotic.

The sad fact is that non-fatal domestic violence is equally perpetrated by both men and women. A University of Melbourne La Trobe University study reveals:

Men and women report approximately equal rates of being assaulted by their partner...

The imbalance in results when these assaults become fatal may be a reflection of the generally greater physical strength of men, although it's worth pointing out a Monash University study's findings show how violent women level the playing field in the non-fatal arena:

Women were more likely than men... to have been injured by being hit by their partner or by hitting against something and to suffer bruising and inflammation, especially to the head. Men were more likely to be admitted to hospital indicating their injuries were probably more severe. They far more frequently than women were lacerated or punctured by knives, especially to the head and arms. The hit by a partner of object category was of equal proportions for men and women and this for men usually comprised being hit by cars, ashtrays, footwear, etc.

As for Macklin, deliberate distortion or misrepresentation of statistics doesn't do the cause any good. An injection of honesty might do better.

-- Nick