open letter from amra inc (PDF)

2017/11/23

Page 1
Robert Brockway
President
Australian Men's Rights Association Inc.
Email: president@AMRAinc.org

Nicholas Cowdery AM QC
Chair of White Ribbon Australia
Email: admin@whiteribbon.org.au
Mr Cowdery,
White Ribbon Australia bills itself as "preventing men's violence
against women." Taking this approach, while ignoring the larger picture
of domestic violence (DV) and intimate partner violence (IPV)
disadvantages not just men who are victims of DV/IPV but women who are
victims of DV/IPV as well.
Reciprocal IPV involves intimate partner violence in which each person
in the relationship is both a perpetrator and victim of intimate partner
violence. The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge (PASK) Project, the
largest meta-analysis of DV/IPV research ever undertaken, shows that
more than half of all IPV is reciprocal.[1]
The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study found high
rates of reciprocal IPV among study participants. The document
"Findings About Partner Violence From the Dunedin Multidisciplinary
Health and Development Study" released by the US National Institute of
Justice found:
"When the data were analyzed, victimized women were 10 times more likely
to be perpetrators than other women and male perpetrators also were 19
times more likely to be victims than other men."[2]
The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health also found that
about half of all IPV is reciprocal IPV. The study examined differences
in injury rates between reciprocal and non-reciprocal IPV and found that
injury rates are higher in reciprocal IPV than non-reciprocal IPV.[3]
One of the key indicators of whether a woman will be a victim of IPV is
whether she is a perpetrator of IPV.[3] It follows then that one
important way that a woman can avoid being a victim of IPV is to not be
a perpetrator of IPV. Research by Capaldi has found that this holds
true.[4]
Models that ignore reciprocal IPV can inhibit violent women from
receiving the support they need to stop their violence.[5]
White Ribbon Australia completely ignores reciprocal IPV as it advances
a gendered narrative. By ignoring the prevalence of reciprocal IPV White
Ribbon Australia is preventing effective interventions as its approach
discounts the need to intervene with violent women. This will contribute
to the continuation of reciprocal IPV and actually make it more likely
that the women involved will be injured. By ignoring reciprocal IPV
White Ribbon Australia is contributing to violence against women.
The evidence overwhelmingly shows that the approach taken by White
Ribbon Australia is fundamentally flawed. I encourage White Ribbon
Australia to respond, explaining whether the organisation intends to
address the shortcomings in its approach to IPV and if so, how.

2017/11/23

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Please note that this is an open letter and will be published in various
locations online. In the interests of transparency we strongly
encourage White Ribbon Australia to publish a response. From time to
time we will report to our readers as to whether a private response has
been received or a public response published.
Robert Brockway
President
Australian Men's Rights Assocation Inc.
[1] PASK "Partner Abuse State of Knowledge" project, the largest
meta-analysis of DV/IPV research ever undertaken.
http://www.domesticviolenceresearch.org
[2] "Findings About Partner Violence From the Dunedin Multidisciplinary
Health and Development Study" http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/170018.pdf
[3] "Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between
Relationships With Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner
Violence" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/
[4] "Researcher Says Women's Initiation of Domestic Violence Predicts
Risk to Women", discussing the work of Dr Deborah Capaldi.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-sacks/researcher-says-womens-in_b_222746.html
[5] "Domestic violence is most commonly reciprocal"
http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/35/1/33.1