Perpetuating myths about men's violence against women

Waleed Aly and the strawmen

Waleed Aly’s NotAllMen think piece published in the Nine Entertainment newspapers last week isn’t wrong on every point, but it fundamentally fails to understand men’s violence against women and the nature of prevention. As much as I’d like to ignore it, I’ve seen the article generate too much misinformation to be able to just pass it by.

Aly was right to point to shame as an underlying cause and targeted intervention as a necessary (and drastically underfunded) response. Anyone who has worked in the domestic violence sector will tell you how eerie the similarities can be across classes and other demographics. Women who drive up to refuges in a BMW tell the same stories of control, dehumanisation, humiliation, and isolation as the women who arrive with nothing, sometimes not even citizenship. People who work with violent men will tell you the same thing too: no matter what the background of the violent man, abuse is often about control, fear, and shame.

That this is true does not justify…