UPDATE: I HAVE RECEIVED A POSITIVE REPLY FROM THE MINISTER -- SEE BELOW:

 

(Open Letter to the Minister of Health -- edited)

Dear Mr. Ryall,

 

Introduction

The Ministry of Health's Justification for its Sexism and Discrimination

 

 

 

Introduction

 

In the context of the vast bulk of research that indicates that women are just as
violent towards men as the converse (http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm),
I am writing to draw your attention to the legal liability of the Ministry of Health for
its defamatory, discriminatory and irrational approach to family violence.

1. The Ministry of Health's webpage on Family Violence
   (http://www.moh.govt.nz/familyviolence) contains an advertisement for "White
   Ribbon Day," which is a discriminatory, sexist, man-hating campaign which
   ignores female violence against men and pushes the propaganda image of
   family violence as an issue of what men do to women, purely and simply;

2. That same page has links to the websites of the National Collective of
   Independent Women's Refuges (womensrefuge.org.nz) and National Network
   of Stopping Violence (nnsvs.org.nz) , both of which make it
   clear that they are not interested in violence towards men by prominently
   posting such slogans as "All women and children have the fundamental right
   to live free from fear and violence," in the former case, and "The safety
   of women and children is paramount," in the latter case.

3. There are no links to any websites that are about female violence or
   violence towards men.

4. There is not the slightest hint on that page that violence by women
   against men even exists.

5. The Ministry of Health is considered by many to be a trustworthy
   organisation. Because the voters and taxpayers of New Zealand have a right
   to expect that the Ministry of Health be a transparent and trustworthy
   organisation, they are likely to draw the conclusion from this page that
   Family Violence is just something that men are guilty of perpetrating. The
   Ministry is therefore guilty of defamation.

6. The Ministry of Health's screening policy for Family Violence excludes
   men, which is sexist and discriminatory.

7. On the page (http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/familyviolence-questionsanswers#not-screened),
   where the Ministry attempts to justify its sexist and discriminatory policy
   of not screening men for partner abuse, it is forced to admit that female
   violence against men exists. It even cites the Feminist, Michael Kimmel,
   as acknowledging "that prevalence rates of males reporting violence from
   partners may compare those reported by females."

8. The above questions and answers page lists only two (2) studies (Langley
   et al. 1997 and Kimmel 2002) in relation to its sexist and discriminatory
   policy, which is grossly unprofessional.

9. It lists only studies which support its sexist, anti-male approach, which
   is also grossly unprofessional.

10. Given that the Domestic Violence Annotated Bibliography cited above
    (http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm) "examines 249 scholarly
    investigations: 194 empirical studies and 55 reviews and/or analyses, which
    demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive,
    than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners"
    (accessed 1 June 2009), why is it (apart from vicious man-hatred and abuse
    of power) that the taxpayer-funded Ministry of Health only cites two
    research studies, and both of those are in support of the discriminatory
    policy which it has pre-determined, for political and psycho-sexual reasons?

11. Moreover, the Partner Abuse Assessment and Response Flowchart in the
    document Partner Abuse Policy which is downloadable from the webpage
    http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/familyviolence-vipprogramme-part2#community
    makes it clear that patients are to be referred to the police and/or refuges
    in cases deemed appropriate. Therefore the Ministry of Health's agenda is
    not just (or even principally) about health - it is about social work and
    law enforcement. This social work and law enforcement intervention is
    denied to men, unless they are deemed to show signs of being abused. This
    social work and law enforcement intervention has nothing to do with how
    likely men and women are to be injured. It is a police matter - not a
    Ministry of Health matter - to decide what cases of family violence should
    be prosecuted. The Ministry of Health is not competent to screen victims of
    family violence and decide who should be referred to the police - especially
    if that screening is done arbitrarily and discriminatorily on the basis of sex.

12. In addition, the document "Recognising and Responding to Partner Abuse,"
    which is downloadable from the webpage
    http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagesmh/5136 , includes the so-called "Power
    and Control Wheel", which is discriminatory, sexist, anti-male, unscientific
    propaganda.

13. Moreover, the webpage http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/familyviolence-vipprogramme-part2#community
    states the sexist lie that "community agencies are the family violence intervention experts."
    In fact, community agencies such as Women's Refuge
    have to meet no standards of intellect or scientific knowledge whatsoever
    and do not allow men on their premises. This means that they are free from
    any objective scrutiny and can be dominated by moronic, sexist man-haters.

14. It is clear (based on my knowledge of the Domestic Violence propaganda
    industry) that the Ministry of Health has predetermined that men will not be
    routinely screened for partner abuse, because that would generate official
    statistics that would show men to be victims of Family Violence, which the
    vicious man-haters in the Ministry of Health want to avoid at all costs.

15. To support this vicious sexism, the Ministry of Health have a
    two-pronged strategy: (i) to pretend to the uninitiated that female violence
    against men does not exist; (ii) to present the more curious with the bare
    minimum of research information, carefully selected to include only the
    research that support its predetermined policy.

The Ministry of Health's Justification for its Sexism and Discrimination:

The policy justification page referred to above
(http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/familyviolence-questionsanswers#not-screened),
states that men will only be screened if there is a "suspicion" that they
have been abused. The reason given for this is that "Partner violence for
men does not meet the criteria for a health-screening programme due to lack
of evidence of health impact. A New Zealand study demonstrates that males
who have been hit by females partners report needing no first aid, medical
or hospital treatment compared with 9% of women who were hit by their male
partners (Langley et al 1997)." However, quite apart from the fact that
this is just one study looked at in isolation, there are a lot of problems
with using this study as the rationale for anti-male discrimination. I list
these problems below:

 

Langley et al.'s Drawbacks

1. First of all, the study focussed on physical injury, whereas the
   Ministry of Health's webpage http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/familyviolence-vipprogramme-part1#consequences
   refers also to mental health harm from family violence. In addition, , the Partner Abuse Assessment and Response
   Flowchart in the document Partner Abuse Policy which is downloadable from the webpage
   http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/familyviolence-vipprogramme-part2#community
   makes it clear that suicide risk is one possible mental health outcome of
   partner abuse. Therefore, even if men do not seek medical help as much as
   women for physical injuries caused by family violence, their mental health
   may be suffering - although they may be unaware of that fact.

2. Secondly, the Langley study only dealt with 21-year-olds, and cannot be
   automatically assumed to be representative of the population at large.

3. Thirdly, there are New Zealand and international studies which show that
   men are just as likely as, or more likely than women to be injured in family
   violence, for example Capaldi, D. M, Kim, H. K., & Shortt, J. W. (2004),
   Capaldi, D. M. & Owen, L. D. (2001), Fergusson, D. M., Horwood, L. J., &
   Ridder, E. M. (2005) (a New Zealand study), Hoff, B. H. (1999), McLeod, M.
   (1984), O'Leary, K. D., Slep, A. M. S., Avery-Leaf, S., & Cascardi, M.
   (2008), Sorenson, S. B., Upchurch, D. M., & Shen, H. (1996), Straus, M. A.,
   Hamby, S. L., Boney-McCoy, S., & Sugarman, D. B. (1996), Straus, M. A., &
   Mouradian, V. E. (1999, November), Vasquez, D., & Falcone, R. (1997). These
   studies cover a much wider age-range than the one study cited by the
   Ministry of Health. They are all cited and summarised in the Domestic
   Violence Annotated Bibliography cited above (http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm).

4. Fourthly, there are methodological problems with the Langley study. The
   Method section of the report is unprofessionally brief, and does not explain
   the reasons for the choice of methodology, which involved interviews by one
   of two female interviewers. Obviously, the facts that both interviewers
   were female and that interviews were used instead of questionnaires make it
   possible that extraneous factors biased the results. I myself was once
   interviewed by a female health researcher about colon cancer screening and
   found that, when I gave an answer which was obviously not the one which she
   wanted, she indicated this by her manner, and gave me a chance to change my
   response!

5. The article by Kimmel is not primary research, but merely a survey and
   interpretation of research results, and it was published in the journal
   Violence Against Women, which (as can be seen from its title) is not even
   interested in violence against men, and can therefore not be a credible or
   unbiased source of information in this area.

Kimmel's Arguments

Kimmel bases his argument around the following points:

1. He claims that women's violence is mainly in self-defence, whereas
   Capaldi, D. M, Kim, H. K., & Shortt, J. W. (2004), for example, finds that
   "Young women were observed to initiate physical aggression toward their
   partners more frequently than were the young men."

2. He claims that women are more severely injured than men are. Although
   some research has produced that finding, Capaldi, D. M, Kim, H. K., &
   Shortt, J. W. (2004), Capaldi, D. M. & Owen, L. D. (2001), Fergusson, D. M.,
   Horwood, L. J., & Ridder, E. M. (2005) (a New Zealand study), Hoff, B. H.
   (1999), McLeod, M. (1984), O'Leary, K. D., Slep, A. M. S., Avery-Leaf, S.,
   & Cascardi, M. (2008), Sorenson, S. B., Upchurch, D. M., & Shen, H. (1996),
   Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., Boney-McCoy, S., & Sugarman, D. B. (1996),
   Straus, M. A., & Mouradian, V. E. (1999, November), Vasquez, D., & Falcone,
   R. (1997) find the opposite to be the case, as I have stated above.

3. He says that the research which finds women's violence to be equal to
   men's violence does not include sexual violence. That is true, but that
   does not amount to denying the existence of sexual violence. It is also not
   clear that more sexual violence is committed by men than by women. As a
   victim of female sexual violence myself, I have formed the clear impression
   that the Feminists who dominate sexual violence politics are just not
   interested in researching or highlighting female sexual violence.

4. Kimmel says that the research which finds women's violence to be equal
   to men's violence does not include assaults by ex-spouses. That is probably
   true, as well. However, that does not deny the reality of assaults by
   ex-spouses, and there is no reason why they should be included in research
   which is about people who are living together.

5. Kimmel claims that men use violence to control women. However, neither
   he nor anyone else has ever proved that men do this more than women use
   violence to control men. All that happens is that Feminists interpret
   situations in an anti-male way, and interpret men's actions as being about
   "power and control," whereas a pro-male interpretation of the data would
   give a totally different result. As I point out in my webpage
   Tracey Swanberg and Dyke TV Tell Lies Because they Can, Because they Want to, Because they Want to ,
   if you search Google for "evidence for the Power and Control model" or
   "evidence for the Duluth model" -- you get zero results.

I suggest that all the women in the Ministry of Health be sacked forthwith.

Not only would that save a lot of money, but it would drastically reduce the
irrationality, discrimination, sexism and stupidity now practised by that
Ministry. The next step would be to eliminate all the men in the Ministry
who were only there because they could put up with - or even flourish in -
that atmosphere of irrationality, discrimination, sexism and stupidity.
Then the men should be hired who had been unable or unwilling to work in
that environment of irrationality, discrimination, sexism and stupidity. If
the States Services Commission is unwilling to carry this out, it should be
abolished.

 

REPLY FROM MINISTER: