Jacqui Watt, CEO of major Australian domestic violence service 'No to Violence', says most men present with a 'victim mindset' and have put themselves in that position.

gurthanix · 2020-08-06T14:19:37+00:00

The organisation headed by Jacqui Watt is in charge of running the "Men's referral service", one of the primary services to which police refer male victims of domestic violence in Australia. In this video she clearly expresses a policy of treating male (and only male) victims with suspicion, saying that most victims referred to her organisation by police are actually perpetrators.

While the statement may be technically true, as some evidence indicates mutually abusive relationships are more common than unilaterally abusive relationships, the data does not support the conclusions that this phenomenon is exclusive to men. The fact that no equivalent effort is made to ferret out perpetrators among female victims (aside from being a clear example of institutional sexism perpetrated by powerful feminists against men) means that the process is self-reinforcing: many male victim-perpetrators and few female victim-perpetrators are detected, because the testing is biased to only look for male examples.

This behaviour is condoned and indeed abetted by official policy in the state of Victoria, as seen by the official state guidelines on handling male victims. The page repeatedly encourages practitioners to interpret the behaviour of female accused perpetrators charitably, up to and including the suggestion that non-defensive physical violence be interpreted as "retaliatory" and hence not "evidence of a pattern of violence". The same page instructs practitioners to ask male complainants a battery of "gotcha" questions, explicitly aimed to discover that the complainant is in fact an abuser trying to use the system against his partner. Indeed, this seems to be the primary purpose of the only page in the Family Violence Bench Book dealing with male victims.

The system in Australia, or at least in Victoria, is intentionally set up to discriminate against male victims. It has been set up this way not by "the patriarchy", but by feminists who hold key positions in government and non-government bodies. To date there has been no outcry from feminist groups against the injustice of this system, only from men's right groups.

romulusnr · 2020-08-06T19:40:54+00:00

How is this not victim blaming?

romulusnr · 2020-08-06T19:44:40+00:00

After some searching, it looks to me that the whole point of NTV is not to support men as victims, but to support men as perpetrators "fix" themselves and get help for their violence. (It's all very convenient. We love you, you're just evil, and we can make you comply into non-evilness, in our image.)

So in context it isn't all that surprising.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/urgent-need-violent-men-facing-delays-in-getting-help-amid-pandemic-20200714-p55btz.html

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/helpline-calls-by-family-violence-perpetrators-skyrocket-amid-isolation-20200410-p54iw7.html

https://www.miragenews.com/long-waitlists-for-men-s-behaviour-change-programs-survey-shows/

Sonic-Oj · 2020-08-06T20:18:42+00:00

Literal victim blaming.

Neveah_Hope_Dreams · 2020-08-06T21:01:42+00:00

Ooohh, victim blaming, huh?

omegaphallic · 2020-08-06T22:48:21+00:00

She should resign immediately if this is what he thinks.

yadoya · 2020-08-06T19:34:25+00:00

I think it's true, but the same could be said about both genders

SonnBaz · 2020-08-06T16:44:15+00:00

*Claps*

nwkegan · 2020-08-07T09:19:17+00:00

I think her viewpoint is somewhat nuanced.

Around 1:22:

“It’s complex... it’s not as straight forward often as victim-perpetrator. We know that, we know that life is complex, we know that most of the men who are presented in groups will have had their own history of being violated at some point in their lives or of having violence dealt upon them, and these are all things that need to be I think teased out on a trauma informed basis.”

From this we can conclude that she might be more interested in resolution than shifting the blame to men.

MidNerd · 2020-08-06T15:56:52+00:00

The vast majority of men could send the vast majority of women flying through a wall if they so wanted. I do think there's something to be said for snapping people out of a victim mentality, not just men but anyone in any position. even if its absolutely a fact that you are a victim is terrible for your psyche to internally identify as one. When I view my past relationship troubles where the girl was emotionally manipulative... when I view it through the lens that it was my fault to me that is much more empowering and useful than identifying as a hapless victim.

TimothyGonzalez · 2020-08-06T17:02:07+00:00

I find the title to be misleading, she makes a much more nuanced and fairly reasonable point imo.

Jacqui Watt, CEO of major Australian domestic violence service 'No to Violence', says most men present with a 'victim mindset' and have put themselves in that position.

Crosspost "Jacqui Watt, CEO of major Australian domestic violence service 'No to Violence', says most men present with a 'victim mindset' and have put themselves in that position." from /r/MensRights:

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