The Desolation of VAWG

CPS logo

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has just published their latest, 2014/15, “Violence against Women and Girls Crime Report” amid a flurry of high profile publicity including the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, appearing on Radio 4’s flagship “Today” programme. I am please to see that as I was compiling this post, a list of 31 signatories, led  by Ally Fogg, published an open letter in the Guardian complaining about this report.

As always, and in case this very obvious point gets lost in the many details below, let us acknowledge immediately that there are some very nasty men who commit horrible crimes against females. This is undeniable, and, as far as I know, no sane person would wish to deny it. However…

There are three things wrong with the term “Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG)” as it is now generally used, and specifically as it is used in the CPS report. They are that “Violence” does not mean violence, “Women” does not mean women and “Girls” does not mean girls. This post elaborates these points.

Fatal though these three observations are to the credibility of VAWG, they are mere details. The rot starts with the very concept of VAWG. Why, in God’s name, is it even necessary to point out that the relentless focus on VAWG, unbalanced by any consideration of violence against males, is discriminatory? The matter is simply a logical syllogism.

There are those who would argue that “VAWG” crimes against males are so rare as to warrant no attention. But even were this true, the argument is fallacious. Its fallacy is easily exposed by proposing a movement to “stop violence against white people” on the basis that only a minority of the UK population is non-white. In fact, the smallness of the excluded demographic is irrelevant. Even if there were only one non-white person in the country, it would still be obnoxious to exclude that person from your initiative to “stop violence against white people”.

Yet it is acceptable, not only to the ideological zealots but also to the bulk of the public, to talk endlessly about stopping “Violence Against Women and Girls” with no regard for males.

But it gets worse because, in fact, men are the majority recipients of violence. The 2012/13 CSEW indicates that 3.2% of adult males were the victims of violence one or more times compared to 1.9% of adult females, whilst in 2013/14 these CSEW figures reduced to 2.3% and 1.4% respectively.

But it gets much worse because, in the specific case of sexual assault, male victims face an enormous credibility problem, so that the crime data in no way reflects the underlying prevalence of male sexual abuse. This is true when the abuser is male. It is even more true when the abuser is female. One of the most pernicious aspects of the VAWG phenomenon is that it perpetuates the invisibility of male victims, reinforcing the societal prejudice. For this reason I take this opportunity to reiterate some of the issues and evidence about male sexual victimisation.

But it gets much, much worse still. To deny equal compassion to adult men is one thing, but to do the same to male children of however tender an age is quite another. And that is what happens when the VAWG mindset takes over the mass psychology. It is unforgivable. We see it all the time. We see it in the reporting of Boko Haram’s attrocities. We see it in the reporting of the child abuse in Rotherham and in Oxfordshire, the media frequently referring to “the abused girls”, ignoring the fact that there were boys amongst the abused (at least 80 and 50 respectively). We see it in the myriad initiatives to assist girls in the shrinking number of areas where they are educationally behind boys, whilst doing nothing to assist boys who are really the ones sinking educationally (see here and here and here and here). We see the cold hearted gender malice exposed most chillingly in Yvette Cooper’s denigration of school boys, without evidence, and in the plan to teach 10 year old boys to hate themselves, to be smuggled into our schools under the cloak of Sex and Relationship Education.

And still the public remain stubbornly asleep.

And even though the soft left and feminist fellow travellers are becoming uncomfortable and complaining about such things as the Tim Hunt affair, they have yet to realise that the monster they helped create is out of control.

Girls will be boys and boys will be girls; It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world

I am often irritated by the inability of the public to see through feminist propaganda. But, to be fair, how can one blame the public for assuming that Violence Against Women and Girls means violence against women and girls?

You see Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) has a very particular, and peculiar, meaning in the mad world of feminism – which therefore includes the CPS. It means a particular category of crime. Precisely what crimes are included in VAWG varies. The defining characteristic is that the crimes chosen are those for which the majority of the victims are, or are assumed to be, female. This year the list is, domestic abuse (DA), stalking and harassment, rape and sexual offences, forced marriage and honour based violence, female genital mutilation, child abuse and human trafficking – with a focus on trafficking for sexual exploitation, prostitution and  pornography.

But the data in the CPS VAWG report does not relate to these crimes when committed against females. The data relates to these crimes when committed against anyone, female or male. Yes, everyone. For the purposes of compiling the crime data in the VAWG report, “women and girls” actually means “women and girls and men and boys” – everyone.

Throughout the CPS VAWG report data are presented under the title “violence against women and girls” but the data are actually the total for both female and male victims.

Only a reader alert to the issue would notice the occasional reference to “the proportion of female victims”, and this is often missing completely from some crime categories. Thus, for example, no mention is made in the section on child abuse of the gender of the victims. And yet this is the very category in which I would expect approximate gender symmetry in victimisation. But no, that is not to be permitted. For the purposes of compassion, boys will be subsumed as girls.

You, dear reader, being a sane person, are probably assuming I must have fucked up on this one. But no. It’s nothing new. The inclusion of cases of male victimisation in the data ostensibly for female victimisation has been going on for many years. It is entirely deliberate. It is a con.

The insistence that male victims be subsumed into the umbrella term “women and girls” was given a good shaking in the context of the recent Welsh Bill on Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence. It made no difference. The decision of the Welsh Assembly was that VAWG is a category of crime and does not exclude male victims.

Why do this? One reason is simply to inflate the statistics. They are always keen to inflate the statistics, because the feminist power base rests on a constant narrative of victimisation. But the more pernicious reason is to bury male victimisation. By including males within the VAWG report it can be claimed, if challenged, that male victims have been considered. But they haven’t. They’ve been deconsidered. They’ve been hidden.

As Ally Fogg has said, The public is being furnished with information from a major public body which is so misleading as to be reasonably considered downright false. What makes this more disturbing is that the authors of the CPS report appear to have performed considerable verbal gymnastics to conceal the true nature of their data.

Mr Fogg goes on to note that, “When one talks to survivors of intimate abuse at every stage of recovery, one of the most common recurring themes is that above all they want to be listened to, believed, understood. Those who find the courage to report their abuse to the authorities will often say they are motivated not so much by the need for justice or revenge but some kind of public validation that what happened to them was real, and was wrong.

Exactly so. And it is all the more chilling that the determination to deny this catharsis to males originates from the same lobby that emphasises its importance to females. It is hypocrisy and indicates deep seated sexism.

A Welsh excursion

There is nothing particularly different about the Welsh experience. I give this as an example only because it is quite recent. Let it stand for the UK as a whole.

The background notes to the recent Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Bill reference the 2012/13 CSEW data. I reproduce the data below and also show in brackets the corresponding data for 2013/14 (links given above).

  • There were 7.1% (8.5%) of women and 4.4% (4.5%) of men in England and Wales who reported having experienced any type of domestic abuse in the last year;
  • In the last year 4% (5.9%) of women and 2.8% (2.8%) of men reported having experienced partner abuse (non-sexual);
  • In the last year 4.1% (4.4%) of women and 1.9% (2.5%) of men reported having experienced stalking;
  • 2% (2.2%) of women and 0.5% (0.7%) of men had experienced some form of sexual assault (including attempts) in the last year;
  • 2% (2.2%) of women and 1.5% (1.7%) of men experienced family abuse (non-sexual) in the last year.

Despite the evidence that a large proportion of victims are male, the notes – and the Bill – cling relentlessly to the standard feminist line that these offences are “gendered” and disproportionately affect women in a context of male power and privilege. For example,

The Welsh Government recognises in Wales, consistent with the rest of the world, women are disproportionally impacted by all forms of intimate violence. In recognition of this, the Bill contains provision to require persons exercising relevant functions under the Bill to have regard, along with all other relevant matters, to the need to remove or minimise factors which increase the risk, or exacerbate the impact, of violence against women and girls.

In recognition of the disproportionate impact of gender-based violence, domestic abuse and sexual violence on women and girls, the Bill includes a specific provision relating to violence against women and girls.

It requires persons, in exercising specified functions under the Bill, to have regard, along with all other relevant matters, to the need to remove or minimise any factors which increase the risk of violence against women and girls, or exacerbates the impact of such violence on victims.

This reflects the Welsh Government’s long-standing recognition of the higher prevalence and disproportionate impact of gender-based violence, domestic abuse and sexual violence against women and girls. It further outlines the recognition of the gendered nature of gender-based violence, domestic abuse and sexual violence as mostly perpetrated against women and girls by men, and that this is both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality.

That’ll be “men bad, women good”, then. I particularly like “the recognition of the gendered nature of gender-based violence“. I don’t know what gender-based violence is, but if there is such a thing then “the gendered nature of gender-based violence” is indisputable, it being a tautology. And then we read,

Local Strategies must be based on a robust needs assessment which will identify where women and men require different services and support. Authorities, in the preparation and implementation of these strategies, will be expected to focus on the different needs of victims, recognise gender is an important consideration and reflect that in the services which are provided. Where evidence highlights the need for gender specific services, this should be reflected in Local Strategies, which acknowledge the differences in services these groups require and are proportionate to need.

It is usually the case in feminist influenced legislation that there is a killer paragraph that opens the door to the desired discriminatory practices. This last paragraph is it. It clears the way for provision of support for victims of one sex, whilst providing nothing for the other – on the basis of “different needs”. The CSEW indicates about one in three domestic abuse victims is male, but this is interpreted as “disproportionate impact on women and girls”. And if there were any doubt about the allocation of funding, remember “Local Strategies….will identify where women and men require different services and support“. In other words, local groups are free to exercise gender based discrimination – specifically as regards funding of support services. Notwithstanding Mankind Initiative’s attempts to represent the legitimate interests of male victims it was always inevitable that the feminist – and overtly sexist – view would triumph in Wales as it has everywhere.

The feminist view of IPV can be characterised by the following passage from the book “Perceptions of Female Offenders” (Brenda Russell, editor), which presents IPV as “a result of patriarchal social systems where men are exclusively the batterers and females are exclusively the victims….This Neo-Marxian model posits the masculine (bourgeoisie) as occupying the upper rungs of privilege, authority, and power over the feminine (proletariat). Thus, domestic violence is the physical manifestation of his social dominance as it is forcibly imposed on her submissive feminine body. Conversely, female violence is initiated reactively, purely as a form of self-defence.” Whilst explicit reference to neo-Marxism is particular to anti-feminist commentators, nevertheless this same patriarchal control theory of DA can be found on the sites for women’s support services, e.g., Women’s Aid.

From this ideological perspective, the number of male victims is irrelevant, because they can never be real victims any more than female perpetrators can ever really be culpable. Guilt is intrinsically encoded in gender in feminist theory. It is not what you do, but who you are which makes you the villain. Clearly this is sexist, but this particular sexism has become known as “women’s equality”. It is not only men that are disadvantaged by this false perspective. Women abusers are also disadvantaged because it has led to a dearth of perpetrator services for women wishing to control their violence.

CPS VAWG Report 2015 – The Data

The CPS report concerns prosecution and conviction data. The most important thing to bear in mind is that the gender ratios in conviction data do not necessarily reflect the true gender ratios of either victims or perpetrators. It is clear that the criminal justice system is grossly gender biased in respect of sentencing (see here and here). It is also well known that, whilst all IPV crimes are under-reported, men under-report to a far greater extent than women. Moreover, in the case of domestic abuse it is also well known that men face incredulity when they do report, thus diminishing the numbers of female perpetrated cases which come to court. This is even more emphatically the case for sexual assault on males.

Rape

In her Foreword to the 2015 VAWG report, the DPP, Alison Saunders, claims that “2,581 defendants were convicted of rape, an increase of 233, just under 10%, since the previous year”. This is curious because the Ministry of Justice seems to think the number was 1,164 – even when male victims are included.

The Executive Summary confirms the figure of 1,164. It states, quoting the MoJ data, that “3,459 cases were sent to the Crown Court for trial, compared with 3,020 in 2013. In 2014 there were 1,164 offenders convicted of rape in England and Wales, a rise from 1,121 in 2013.”

Indeed, the figure of 1,164 seems about right. The MoJ figure given in 2013 as a three year average was 1,070 (see Figure 1.1 of this). So what on earth does Alison Saunders’ figure 2,581 mean? The Executive Summary lets us in on the secret. It states,

CPS data on successful rape prosecutions include not only cases initially charged and flagged as rape, but also cases where a conviction was obtained for an alternative or lesser offence.

Eh? What? Rape is not rape, then? Just as violence is not violence and women are not women and girls are not girls? What lesser offence?

To try to shed some light on this I have taken a look at the MoJ data

Convictions in 2014 Female victims Male victims
Rape of person > 16 525 7
Rape of person < 16 321 22
Rape of person < 13 234 55
Sexual assault by penetration 198 4
Sexual assault 1,394 99
Sexual assault by penetration < 13 125 5
Sexual assault < 13 304 49

Adding all the data classified as rape does indeed reproduce the MoJ total figure of 1,164 (noting that this includes male victims).

Adding all the data for people over 13 years, that is combining sexual assault and rape, gives a total of 2,570. This is very close to Alison Saunders’ figure of 2,581, and the difference can probably be explained by the distinction between fiscal and calendar years. In particular there seems no way of reproducing her figure of 2,581 without including the 1,394 cases of sexual assault (without penetration) on female victims. So this must be the explanation – Alison Saunders’ figure for rape actually includes sexual assault.

The metropolitan police guidance on what constitutes sexual assault is this: “A person commits sexual assault if they intentionally touch another person, the touching is sexual and the person does not consent.”

I do not know how it is established whether touching is sexual. I presume, in practice, it is inferred from the body part touched. So, touching a woman’s breast or bottom, even through clothing, without her consent is sexual assault. (On which definition I have been subject to sexual assault myself on three occasions – each time by a group of women. You will be unsurprised to hear I didn’t call the police. It failed to ruin my life, or even my day. I don’t think this is because of my male power and privilege – especially when I was 8 – I think it’s because I have not been socialised to regard having my bottom pinched and my testicles fondled by women as something I am entitled to complain about).

The VAWG report has lumped these offences in with the rape data and referred to them all as rape. Clearly there just isn’t enough rape for their liking and they feel obliged to talk it up.

What is being presented in the CPS VAWG report as rape of females is actually rape – or perhaps unauthorised fondling – of females – or perhaps of males. Clear?

Sexual offences against males

Attrition

While I have the conviction data for sexual offences against male victims to hand, it is worth looking at the attrition rate. This is the distinction between the number of recorded crimes and the number of ultimate convictions. It is a pet gripe of feminists that the attrition rate for rape (of women) is so high. What they never bother to mention is that the attrition rate for sexual offences against males is even greater. The Table below shows you just how great the attrition is for sexual crimes against males.

Sexual offences against males Recorded 2013/14 Convictions 2014
Rape of male > 16 662 7
Rape of male < 16 415 22
Rape of male < 13 1,120 55
Sexual assault on male by penetration included in this figure 1,961 4
Sexual assault on male 99
Sexual assault by penetration on male < 13 included in this figure 1,651 5
Sexual assault on male < 13 49

For rape of an adult man, only 1% of recorded rapes result in a conviction. Not more than ~5% of recorded crimes against males result in convictions in any of the sexual offence categories.  Compare these with the attrition rates for female rape of ~6% (1080 convictions cf 18,528 recorded cases), and for other sexual offences ~9% (2021 convictions cf 22,499 recorded cases). Whilst the proportion of convictions compared with recorded sex crimes is small in all cases, presumably for good reasons, it is far smaller for sexual offences against males than against females.

It is worth comparing the number of recorded sex crimes against boys and girls under 13. The number of recorded rapes of boys under 13 in 2013/14 was 1,120 compared with 2,833 girls. The number of recorded sexual assaults on boys under 13 in 2013/14 was 1,651 compared with 5,119 girls. Between one in three and one in four sex crimes recorded against the under 13s are against boys.

Increasing prevalence of male rape

Sexual offenses against males are surely the most under-reported of all crimes. Yet there is evidence that the rate of reporting of male rape is increasing sharply. The rate of reporting of male rape in Manchester has more than doubled in the last year.

Similarly, a Warwickshire charity reports being “inundated” with reports of male sexual abuse

And again, in Avon and Somerset, police report that twice as many male rape victims are coming forward compared to 2010.

In London the rate at which male rapes were reported increased by 120% between 2012 and 2014.

You might have thought that a CPS report ostensibly about “a category of crime”, and covering both sexes, would have mentioned this steep increase in the reports of male rape. But no. Of course not.

And I haven’t even mentioned prison rape.

Female Perpetrators of Sexual Abuse

Boy Victims

The above observations largely miss an unrecognised issue. This is the sexual abuse of males by females, which our society stubbornly refuses to acknowledge as a problem, or even a possibility. In the case of sexual offences against children, it is slowly being revealed that illegal sexual activities between female teachers and male pupils are far more common than previously supposed. It is probably fair to say that in the UK this phenomenon has yet to be properly acknowledged and is presently beneath the surface. This article states that, “it’s thought that as many as 1,500 intimate relationships between teachers and pupils happen every year“. (This figure appears to relate to just the UK and presumably to offenders of both sexes. I don’t know the provenance of the figure). In the USA the number of prosecutions of female teachers for sexual abuse of their pupils is now in the hundreds per year, and rising as the phenomenon has become recognised. In U.S. schools in 2014 almost 800 school employees were prosecuted for sexual assault, nearly a third of them women. The proportion of  identified women offenders is increasing steeply.

Examining recent UK cases (e.g., the cases of Emma Webb, Charlotte Parker, Eppie Sprung Dawson, Bernadette Smith, Kelly Ann-Marie Burgess, Loren Morris, Karen Ackland, Hayley Southwell, and Charlotte Holl) demonstrates that women’s sexual offending commonly displays the following characteristics: persistent grooming which continues for years, offences against multiple victims, offences against pre-pubescent victims (hence physically as well as legally children), and threats in the event of disclosure. The words used by judges in their summing-up at the trials have included statements such as, “a disgraceful abuse of power“, “a case of gross child abuse“, and “very serious offences indeed“. And yet the women whose offences were described in these terms still receive only suspended sentences. (No, I am not calling for such offenders to be flogged and hung. It is not my job to decide on sentencing, thank heavens. It is the double standard which is sickening).

Most people simply do not believe that the sexual exploitation of boys is damaging. There have been cases (though only a few) when women offending sexually against boys have been sentenced to prison. But when this happens, the public signal their displeasure. Consider the case of Madeleine Martin, the 39-year-old RE teacher and mother of two, who was jailed for 32 months and placed on the sex offenders’ register for sleeping with a 15-year-old male pupil. Barbara Ellen was cross. She wrote in the Guardian, “do we seriously think that a female teacher sleeping with a male pupil is on a par with a male teacher sleeping with a girl pupil? I don’t. And neither, I’d wager, would most 15-year-old boys….If anything, one would have thought they might be jealous. The internet is awash with sites dealing with “older woman teacher-pupil” fantasies. And there lies the rub – should the law be treating male and female pupil victims equally when male and female teenagers are so different?

Barbara Ellen can rest assured that, in general, the judiciary reflects her (overtly sexist) position, as do most of society. It is interesting to see a call for differing concern for victims based on their sex stated so openly, though it merely reflects the de facto position. It is grimly amusing to see this justified on the basis that males and females are different, the very fact which is so strenuously denied by feminists in other contexts and which forms a corner-stone of their ideology. And as for there being “internet sites dealing with older woman teacher-pupil fantasies”, if this is a valid basis for legitimising activities then God help us. We will be awash with rape and perversion and 50 shades of sexual violence.

Barbara Ellen’s position, simply put, is that “he enjoyed it and he should be grateful for the attention”. Here is a video of one boy failing to be grateful for such attention, and the great concern of the “public” is evident from their laughter. No one reported this woman to the police. Had a man done this to a girl, he would have been arrested as soon as he got off the train. Do note the boy’s fear-grin at the end.

Think of these same sentiments expressed in the context of a man’s sexual exploitation of a girl. Barbara Ellen’s views are obnoxious. In her world view only females are precious and vulnerable. Males are neither and male children deserve no protection. It never crosses her mind that a teenage boy’s facade of sexual bravado has been imposed upon him by her. Yes, by her and her kind. Because the assumption of braggadocio is the role which boys have been allotted. It is no coincidence that this psychological trap then gives spurious justification to female preference. That the outcomes for sexually exploited boys are no different from those for girls is something in which Barbara Ellen and her kind have no interest.

Adult Male Victims

And then there is female sexual abuse of adult males, at which public incredulity maxes out. It just isn’t possible to coerce a man into sex without his consent, is it? Except that the research says it is, and, moreover, it is common.

Of course, in English law, a woman cannot commit rape because rape is defined as an offence committed using a penis.

There are other offences, namely “assault by penetration” and “causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent” of which women can be guilty, but both require the consent only of the penetrated party. There is no concept in English law of the specific illegality of a woman having normal heterosexual intercourse with a man against his wishes (“made to penetrate”). Whether an issue of consent arises depends upon whether the geometry of the person’s genitalia is concave or convex.

The only sexual offence which is gender neutral is “sexual assault”, which does also hinge upon consent, and so this would be the category under which a woman could be prosecuted. But this is usually considered to be a lesser offence than the others.

There is a problem with the letter of the law, but the greater problem is societal. It is not regarded as possible for a woman to physically force a man to have sex with her, and it is regarded as benign for a woman to coerce a man into having sex with her. But both happen, and commonly.

Research into the sexual coercion of men by women specific to the UK appears sparse, but there is a wealth of relevant studies coming from the USA. Here are a few examples,

  1. Young females are just as likely to be perpetrators as males.
  2. Three hundred and two male college students were recruited for the current study from a midsized Midwestern university. Of these men, 51.2% reported at least one sexual victimization experience since age 16.
  3. The study found that females and males had carried out sexual violence at nearly equal levels by the age of 18. Of the survey respondents who reported being perpetrators, 48 percent were female and 52 percent were male.
  4. In this study half of those (men) surveyed said they ended up having sex against their will. 18% of surveyed men say women used physical force to make them have sex against their will (reference)
  5. According to a paper published in the American Psychological Association journal, Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 43% of high school and college-aged men say they’ve had “unwanted sexual contact,” and 95% of those say a female acquaintance was the aggressor.
  6. This study concluded that federal surveys detect a high prevalence of sexual victimization among men—in many circumstances similar to the prevalence found among women.

You can find 18 more references of this kind, dating back as far as the 1980s, listed here. Some of the conclusions being, for example,

  • 14% of men (and 29% of women) reported they had been forced to have intercourse against their will.
  • Survey of 461 women (general population) 43% secured sexual acts by verbal coercion; 36.5% by getting a man intoxicated; threat of force 27.8%, use of force 20%;  By threatening a man with a weapon 8.9%.
  • 43% of college women admitted to using verbal or physical pressure to obtain sex.
  • 28.5% of women reported the use of verbal coercion, 14.7% had coerced a man into sexual activity by getting him intoxicated and 7.1% had threatened or used physical force.
  • 70% of male college students reported experiencing some type of harassment, pressuring, or coercion by a female.
  • Lifetime prevalence of 24% for women having made a man engage in sexual activity against his will.

…and on and on in like vein.

Then there are the 42 studies compiled by Martin Fiebert on the sexual coercion of men again with similar findings. The numbers differ widely from study to study, but the constant feature is the very widespread nature of the sexual coercion of males by females, most often not much less than in the reverse direction.

And finally there is the US National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey whose headline results include,

  • Approximately 1 in 20 women and men (5.6% and 5.3%, respectively) experienced sexual violence other than rape in the 12 months prior to the survey.
  • 8% of men reported they were made to penetrate someone else at some time in their lives.
  • 13% of women and 6% of men reported they experienced sexual coercion at some time in their lives.
  • In 2011, 1.6% of women reported being raped and 1.7% of men reported being made to penetrate

D A Hines makes an observation that suggests male sexual victimisation by females is likely to increase as women become more dominant. He reports a study of “7,667 university students from 38 sites showing that the relative status of women at each site predicted significant differences in levels of sexual victimization for men, in that the greater the status of women, the higher the level of forced sex against men…..In addition…..greater levels of hostility towards men at a site predicted higher levels of forced and verbal coercion against men. Finally, sexual revictimization occurred for both genders and across all sites, suggesting that sexual revictimization is a cross-gender, cross-cultural phenomenon.”

But the prevalence of sexual abuse and coercion of males by females, evident in all the survey based research, is simply not reflected in the crime data. The reason, of course, is that it is rarely reported. In most cases male victims do not even register that their experience is abuse because they have been conditioned to disregard it.

This psychological blinding of men to their own victimisation is well illustrated by the young man who awoke, in his own bed, to find himself already inside a women whom he hardly knew, with her humping away on top of him. She had entered his room uninvited while he was asleep.

“The most traumatic part was the complete assumption of consent,” he said, “I was physically revolted by the experience. It just felt so shockingly wrong. I didn’t really have the mental framework to encapsulate it as a violation at the time. It was just a really invasive experience. All I could think was, How can I get this to end? How can I get this to end without hurting her?”

By any sensible definition, this man was raped by the woman. But so strong is his social conditioning that, rather than feeling outraged by this violation, his first thought is consideration towards his rapist – not wanting to hurt her – whilst she is raping him. I do not find this incredible. I find it very credible, because this social conditioning acts on me too. It is a most graphic illustration of how men subjugate their own interests in favour of that of women.

This is deep psychological manipulation of men in which they are programmed to collaborate with their own disadvantage.

What part does the obscenity of VAWG play in this? It reinforces and consolidates the existing prejudice. One of the main purposes of VAWG is to bury even deeper the already submerged reality of male sexual disadvantage by giving countenance only to men’s obligation to sacrifice themselves for women – HeForShe.

[I doubt that cases of men being raped in their own homes whilst asleep by a woman who has broken in are common. But this case is certainly not unique, see for example this and this and this].

At the end of the press release announcing the publication of their 2015 VAWG report, the CPS states,

It is important to note that men and boys can also be victims of these offences and our policies ensure they have the same access to the support that we offer all victims of these abhorrent crimes.

What a cynical lie that is.

It is rather unusual that it be phrased so carelessly. Usually this piece of misdirection is expressed along the lines “men and boys have the same protection in law” – a claim that is more easily defended as regards the letter of the law (if not its implementation).

The people responsible for this false claim will know full well that men and boys have vanishingly little resource to turn to for help if they suffer intimate partner or sexual violence. But they do not care.

It is especially callous to make this claim now, when Survivors UK, the only service for male sexual abuse victims in London, has just had its funding cut to zero. Previously they enjoyed a whopping 2.5% of the total money allocated for support to sexual assault victims in London by the mayor. Now they will get nothing at all. One of the few British therapists who specialises in helping male survivors of abuse has quit his role on the grounds that the conditions under which he had to work made the task impossible.

In the context of the withdrawal of all funding from Survivors UK, a young woman saw fit to criticise men’s advocates for their lack of outrage. Whilst I can be accused of many things, I had not expected lack of outrage about male disadvantage to be one of them. Please take this post as an expression of my outrage should there still be any doubt. Perhaps I can deflect a little outrage this young woman’s way – I am outraged that she suggests that Survivors UK was previously funded to the level of £15M – it was actually only £32,666.

[Added later: thanks to the good offices of Conservative London Assembly member Kemi Badenoch, Survivors UK did receive funding from the then-mayor, Boris Johnson, in February 2016].

Harassment and Stalking

The VAWG report implies a total of 6402 convictions for the various categories of harassment and stalking. The large bulk of these (5128) were in the category “harassment without violence”. Note that “harassment without violence ” is being classed as VAWG, i.e., Violence. So Violence is not violence.

The report is strangely silent on the gender breakdown of the perpetrators and victims. In a report which is entitled “Violence Against Women and Girls”, and in which this phrase is used repeatedly throughout, the inevitable impression to the unwary is that the bulk of these offences are against females. But are they? Does anyone actually know?

The MoJ data files and the police recorded crime data files which I have seen do not breakdown harassment and stalking statistics by gender. All one has to go on, then, is the CSEW survey results. The 2012/13 CSEW indicates 4.1% of women and 1.9% of men reported having experienced stalking, hence about one in three victims of stalking are male. But stalking would appear to be only a small part of the “harassment and stalking” category, the bulk being “harassment without violence”. What is the gender breakdown here? I don’t know. Does anyone?

Child Abuse

The report includes no gender breakdown for the victims of child abuse. This is one of its most egregious aspects given that it is presenting itself as “VAWG”.

How can the VAWG report claim to be about girls? There is no evidence presented that girls are even the majority victims of child abuse.

So I turn instead to the 2009 NSPCC survey of child maltreatment. This was based on data collected from 2,160 parents or guardians of children and young people under 11 years of age, 2,275 young people between the ages of 11 and 17, and 1,761 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24. (In passing I note that the NSPCC could not be accused of anti-feminist bias). Headline findings were,

  • (i) Boys and girls under 18 are about equally likely to be victims of child abuse (combine the results of the two graphs below).
  • (ii) There is perpetrator gender symmetry by a parent or guardian for victims under 11, and near symmetry for ages 11-17 (first graph below)
  • (iii) In the case of severe physical violence by a parent or guardian, females were perpetrators in 13.6% of cases reported for the under 11s, in 27.1% for the 11-17s and 35.3% for the 18-24 year old age group.
  • (iv) Rates of sexual abuse of children (<18) by a parent or guardian were very low.
  • (v) The NSPCC survey does not report the gender breakdown of the perpetrator for cases of neglect or sexual abuse. However, (ii), (iii) and (iv), above, logically imply that neglect must be far more commonly associated with female parent or guardian perpetrators (in roughly 65% to 86% of cases).

Neglect should not be interpreted as a lesser offence than, say, physical abuse or sexual abuse. Neglect can lead to death, for example through starvation of an infant, as cases histories testify.

Gender of Perpetrator when Parent or Guardian

NCPCC 2009 survey parent perpetrators

Gender of Perpetrator when a Non-Resident Adult

NCPCC 2009 survey non_parent perpetrators

Expectations based on the NSPCC survey do not align with the data in the CPS VAWG report. For 2014/15 the number of convictions for child homicide, offences against the person, sexual offences, and total child abuse were stated as 10, 2277, 3975 and 7469 respectively. Sexual offences were attributed 98% to male perpetrators (which the NSPCC survey would suggest would be predominantly not fathers or guardians). But more puzzling is that 75% of “offences against the person” were attributed to men. I believe that neglect should be within this category, in which case I would have expected women to account for about half the perpetrators on the basis of the NSPCC survey. But I note that there are 1207 cases uncategorised in the total. What are these, and what is the gender of the perpetrator in these cases? In view of the anomalies in other parts of the VAWG report, I have little faith that the impression given in respect of the sex of the perpetrators of child abuse is objectively accurate.

If it is true that 75% of convictions for child “offences against the person”, including neglect, were of men, I suggest that this might be because a greater proportion of male offenders are prosecuted. It is the same phenomenon that is familiar from partner violence.

Evidence from the USA indicates that when the abuser is the mother acting alone or the father acting alone, the mother is the abuser nearly twice as frequently as the father (36.8% versus 19.0%). Where the abuser is one or more parent, the mother is involved in the abuse in 80% of cases. Overall the mother is involved in the abuse in 61% of cases. This is likely to be because of the high frequency of abuse in the neglect category (which is also the most common category involved in child homicides).

But the most heinous misdirection of which the VAWG report is guilty in respect of child abuse is the omission of any indication of the sex of the victims, whilst presenting case studies for which only females are ever revealed as the victims. The genderless terms “children” and “victims” are used, I suspect to hide victimisation of boys. The impression is thereby given that the victims are solely, or predominantly, girls, an impression that is almost certainly false. (The word “boy” occurs in the report just twice, in both cases as examples of perpetrators).

What sort of people would do this?

Infanticide

Once again, the unwary could not be expected to know that the term “child homicide” does not include all killings of children. There were 17 prosecutions for child homicide in 2014/15 (10 resulting in convictions). But these figures will not include infanticide. Infanticide is defined in English law as the killing of a child under 1 year by its mother. It is little appreciated that infanticide is a crime defined by the sex of the perpetrator as well as the age of the victim.

The crime of infanticide was created in 1938 specifically to provide mitigation from homicide for mothers. I have tried but failed to find recent data on the incidence of infanticide. Criminal justice data is no indication because mothers are very rarely prosecuted for infanticide. In 2014 four women were convicted of infanticide. In all previous years since 2004 there were either none, one or two such convictions. But it would appear that infanticide is far more common than these numbers suggests, the overwhelming majority of cases never entering the criminal justice system.

Over twenty years ago, Thomas, Ref.[1], drew attention to the curious way in which the criminal justice system in Britain treats infanticide. In the period 1980 to 1990, 293 children less than 1 year old were victims of infanticide in Britain. Yet only 42 suspects were charged with infanticide in the same period. In the years 1989/90, the discrepancy was even more marked. There were 50 child victims but only one suspect was brought to court.

Yarwood, quoting Pearson, reported that in England and Wales, between 1982 and 1989, “fewer than 10% of mothers convicted of manslaughter for killing their children (at any age) were imprisoned: only two of the mothers who’d committed infanticide were.”

The implication is that the number of undisclosed infanticides may be comparable to, or exceed, the number of disclosed child homicides. If so, women would be responsible for the majority of child deaths. (Note added later – this does indeed appear to be the case, see here).

On top of this there is the difficult issue of SIDS (sudden infant death, or cot death). The fact that SIDS is four times more common for children of lone mothers than for those of married mothers is noteworthy, though it seems that there is no official concern about the matter, presumably because it would not be PC to express concern.

The total number of cot deaths in 2013 was 160, far larger than the number of child homicides. If only 10% of these were really concealed homicides, as was suggested in April 2004 by researchers from the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) (see Yarwood), this alone would significantly increase the homicide statistics.

Consequently, the implication of the VAWG report that men are responsible for the majority of child deaths is, at best, insecure and is probably the reverse of the truth, if the full truth were revealed.

Domestic Abuse (DA)

The CPS VAWG report states that there were 68,601 convictions for DA in 2014/15, of which 92.4% were male defendants. Hence there were 5,214 convictions of women for domestic abuse in 2014/15 and 63,387 convictions of men. An FoI enquiry by Mankind Initiative revealed the number of convictions for domestic abuse two years earlier in 2012/13 as 3,231 women convicted and 49,289 men. Hence, whilst there has been a 28.6% increase in the number men convicted in this two year period, the increase in the number of women convicted is a huge 61.4%.

I believe that 5,214 must be the largest ever number of women convicted of domestic abuse in one year. Unsurprisingly, this interesting fact does not leap out at you from the CPS report. (Of course, there was also a record number of men convicted of DA, but the report is assiduous in getting that point across). [Added later in 20015/16  this has increased further to 5,641 women convicted of DV].

Also of interest is the fact that 16% of the 68,601 convictions related to male victims, i.e., 10,976 men. In view of these men having been proved beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law that they are victims of DA of criminal severity, how is the almost total absence of support for such male DA victims justified?

Recall that the CPS’s press release claimed that,

It is important to note that men and boys can also be victims of these offences and our policies ensure they have the same access to the support that we offer all victims of these abhorrent crimes.

As noted before, this is the most appalling lie.

Mankind Initiative is the leading service assisting male victims of DA in England. It runs on a budget which is around 0.02% of the public money spent on providing support to female victims of DA. To put this in context, Mankind Initiative could run for five years on Alison Saunders’ annual salary (and for 10 weeks on her expenses alone). This is obscene.

FGM

The gender bias in this case is so extreme I cannot bring myself to write about it again – see this.

Despite the high profile of FGM there has been only one prosecution and that ended in acquittal. (It was a farcical affair in which a surgeon was accused simply for doing his perfectly proper surgical job).

You may wonder why, given the intensity of the FGM campaigns, that no one has been successfully prosecuted. Could it be that it has not proved possible to find a perpetrator of the designated villainous sex – male? Just a thought.

I am minded of what Alison Saunders said in the Radio 4 Today interview. Excuse my brief excursion back onto the subject of rape.

Saunders claimed that CPS work had shown false accusations of rape were very rare indeed. She was referring, I presume, to the March 2013 report “Cases Involving Allegedly False Rape and Domestic Violence Allegations”, Ref.[2]. This report is so misleading as to be effectively false. It has been roundly criticised on page 35 here.

What this report actually does is to compare the number of prosecutions for false accusations of rape with the number of prosecutions for rape, and on the basis of this claims that the rate of false accusation of rape is 0.6%. This preposterous exercise deliberately conflates the number of prosecutions for false accusation with the actual number of false accusations. The only secure statement one can make about the rate of false accusations of rape is that no one knows what it is. But the claim that it is only 0.6% is absurd.

There is no difficulty compiling a list of proved cases of false and vexatious accusation. And recall that 43% of prosecutions for rape, some 1955 cases (using the CPS figure, which includes sexual assault) resulted in acquittal in 2014/15. Is the CPS really claiming that virtually every one (strictly 1928 out of the 1955) were miscarriages of justice – rapists who got away with it? Are they? If so, they are not doing a very good job, are they. The CPS is, after all, charged with getting convictions.

But it’s worse than that. The number of accusations is the number of recorded rapes. The number of rapes recorded by the police in 2014 was 20,725 (both sexes and all ages). Is the CPS really asserting that 20,601 of these were guilty and the criminal justice system is so poor that only 2,581 (or, in truth, 1,164) were convicted? Are they saying that British justice is that crap? Really? But if so, it is largely the CPS that is crap, is it not?

The truth is that, whilst some real rapists must indeed get away with it – no justice system is perfect, and the emphasis should be on not convicting the innocent – nevertheless it is obvious that the rate of false reports must be substantial. Some of these will not be vexatious, but the shear weight of numbers – and the readily available case histories – imply that many will be malicious false accusations. But no one knows exactly what percentage.

The purpose of my raising this issue under the title “FGM” is that, using the CPS’s own reasoning, if that is the appropriate word for the argument in Ref.[2], the absence of prosecutions for FGM proves there is no FGM at all.

Case Studies in the CPS 2015 VAWG Report

Scattered about the report there were 44 summary case studies. Of these, 41 were tales of male abusers. In the other three cases the sex of the perpetrator was not stated. So in no case out of 44 was a female illustrated as being abusive. Where the sex of the victim was stated they were female. In some cases the sex of the victim was not mentioned. In the one case where I happen to know the sex of the victim, the case of the abusive priest, I know the victims were boys. This was not mentioned.

Even if you believed the data in the report were a true reflection of the relative victimisation of males and females, the 44 case studies do not reflect this data. The case studies are clearly intended to reinforce the “males bad, females suffer” perspective and not a single instance conflicting with this loaded narrative is to be permitted.

The Future

Both the VAWG report and the press release refer to the intended ‘strengthening’ of the law to include coercion and control – the subject of my previous post Con, Not Consultation. The CPS is clearly gearing up to accommodate these changes in the law, the purpose of which is to trawl with a finer net. They are intent on putting more men in prison, and they will, despite having prosecuted and convicted record numbers this year.

The CPS and its milieu

The question that must be asked is why the CPS is permitted to be ruled by an ideology which exercises gross discrimination against one half of the population. There is ample evidence presented in this post that this is indeed the case. The answer is that the CPS is embedded within a ruling establishment which is equally ideologically biased.

References

  • David Thomas, “Not Guilty: In Defence of the Modern Man”, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1993.
  • Crown Prosecution Service, Cases Involving Allegedly False Rape and Domestic Violence Allegations, March 2013, by Alison Levitt QC and the Crown Prosecution Service Equality and Diversity Unit.

22 thoughts on “The Desolation of VAWG

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  6. Partridge

    One of the country’s top-ranking policemen recently talked about the importance of believing the ‘victim’ (meaning the accuser). When this attitude, along with other feminist-influenced policies, permeates throughout the whole legal and judiciary system, as it is in the process of doing, then we are in danger of ultimately arriving at a system where an accusation alone will be sufficient to convict, false accusations will abound, and justice will be distorted and subsumed by ideology.

    This brilliant piece from mra-uk should signal the beginning of a prominent and momentous campaign, not only for the maintenance of true justice, but against the fraudulent ideology that is feminism. But evolution is more effective than revolution at achieving long-term change. The politicians who entangled us with the EU knew this, and feminism is operating in an even more insidious way. I fear our society, unless it wakes up soon, is sleep-walking towards a feminist-controlled totalitarian state, no less nightmarish than those controlled by the other political and religious totalitarian ideologies of history.

    Reply
    1. Jack Strawb

      Where the MHRM isn’t doing as well as it might is failing to take the next step. We can write all the spectacular articles we want–but unless those who are politically vulnerable are forced to comment on this knowing they will have to defend any defense of the vile current policy publicly, nothing is likely to change. That’s one of the possible next steps. Without it, nothing.

      Reply
      1. wordsIVue

        That’s true. I think the problem is that most MRAs are either intellectuals or hands-on with helping men, and not many are accustomed to political activism. Even though our numbers are small, if we get organized and active we could pack quite a punch.

        Reply
          1. wordsIVue

            It doesn’t need to be cloak and dagger, in fact the more visible the activism the more effective it is. It can be as simple as sending an email or a tweet to a public figure. Trick is to do it in a coordinated and sustained manner to put pressure and force a change.

        1. Seax

          I would agree with the ‘intellectuals’ statement. I had a reason to look up the definition today on Wikipedia. The difficulty is that some do not have the ability to punch back in the current climate. Perhaps if mortgages were not directly at risk for speaking out it would be easier.

          Reply
  7. disqus_QL05BqU79X

    “The question that must be asked is why the CPS is permitted to be ruled by an ideology which exercises gross discrimination against one half of the population.”

    Because we allow them to do so. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this will not stop until the bona fide criminals – Crown officials – are placed under citizens’ arrest and tried at Common Law.

    Reply
  8. wordsIVue

    “Adding all the data classified as rape does indeed reproduce the MoJ total figure of 1,164” – That seems to be by adding the figures for under-16s and under-13s separately, but that would be double counting under-13s. Unless the under-16 category actually means 13-16, but it seems unlikely that there could be 321 rape victims between 13 and 16 when total rape victims over 16 were only 525. It’s a minor point, but possibly another instance of inflation of rape statistics.

    Reply
  9. Groan

    A tour de force. Since te creation of a specific offence of Domestic Abuse in 2014 there should be no need for there to be statistics created from a basket of offences that are defined as Domestic Violence or Domestic Abuse when prior to the creation of the offence last year there was no such offences in English Law.
    As always a breathtakingly economical and comprehensive work..

    Reply
  10. Paul Jackson

    This is a brilliant piece of work which puts our government, legal system and pathetic mainstream media to shame

    Reply
  11. CitymanMichael

    I wrote to the Home Office – Home office classification, my question & reply pasted below: –

    1. 19C – Rape
    of a female over 16 – Classification. I copy the text below –

    Allegations
    of rape which come via third parties or from Sexual Assault Referral Centres
    (SARCs). A report of rape must be recorded as a crime in the
    following instances: · The victim provides personal details and seeks a police
    investigation; or · The victim (whether anonymous or not) provides details of
    the allegation to be passed to the police but decides not to pursue the
    allegation; or · The victim undergoes a forensic examination with samples
    submitted to the police for analysis (whether or not personal details are
    passed to the police).

    My question relates to
    the thinking behind classifying a crime in the circumstances of an alleged
    victim providing details to be passed to police but deciding not to pursue the
    allegation. Would most people not think, like I do, that this is
    open to abuse by centres which rely for their funding on lots of recorded
    rapes?

    The Home Office Counting Rules (HOCR) have a
    specific victim focus – that being a key aim of the National Crime Recording
    Standard (NCRS) – to encourage victims to come forward in order that they are
    able to engage appropriate criminal justice services in an effective way. We
    have seen no evidence that SARC’ s (or similar) inflate reports in the way that
    you suggest.

    Reply
  12. Pingback: William Collins: The desolation of ‘Violence Against Women and Girls’ | Justice for Men & Boys

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