B.C. report on domestic violence shows “war on women” in the home, advocate says

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      Seventy-four percent of British Columbians who died at the hands of a current or former intimate partner over the past decade were women.

      The grim statistic is contained in a report released today (December 19) by the B.C. Coroners Service.

      That three-quarters of the victims were female confirms something that Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services, has known for a long time.

      “This is the ground reality,” MacDougall told the Straight in a phone interview.

      According to her, violence against women is “one of the pressing social issues of our time, and the results of it are lethal”.

      “What we’ve got here is a war on women,” MacDougall said. “The battlefield is the home where it’s supposed to be safe.”

      MacDougall explained that violence against women, especially the kind that comes from men, is rooted deeply in a culture that treats women as “property”.

      “It’s the key reason why men use power and control in relationships, and the ultimate expression of power and control is to kill somebody,” she said.

      The B.C. Coroners Service report covers the period between January 1, 2004, and December 15, 2014.

      It summarizes deaths as a result of “intimate partner violence”. An intimate partner is either a current or former spouse or dating partner.

      The report indicated that deaths reached a high of 23 in 2008.

      For the current year to December 15, there were 14 deaths. The number is double the decade-low of seven in 2013.

      According to MacDougall, women often become subject to life-threatening violence either while they’re leaving or have left a relationship.

      She said that what’s not covered in the B.C. Coroners Service report is something that should be of concern as well.

      “For every woman that has died, there are thousands in Vancouver and British Columbia who are living in fear,” MacDougall said. “That’s the other thing that we have to remember.”

      Comments

      5 Comments

      Yeah well

      Dec 20, 2014 at 11:03am

      Yet another excellent reason to avoid domestic entanglements.

      No matter how many reasons people have for staying together, sooner or later diverging expectations and desires eventually turn the majority of domestic relationships into train wrecks.

      btw, Carlito, Seriously? One interpretation?

      Abnormal?

      Dec 21, 2014 at 9:13am

      23 in 2008
      07 in 2013
      14 in 2014

      Seems like normal variation in this data-set. There are other sources of violence in society that are far greater, e.g. coercive taxation, drug prohibition. The problem isn't "violence," everyone loves violence and most will vote for a party every few years to create "laws" that can only be put into action by way of violence. The problem is violence directed against the _wrong people_, right?

      DAD

      Dec 21, 2014 at 8:23pm

      I am a 47 year old male who lived in an abusive relationship until my divorce in 2008. I drank and she hit & emotionally abused relentlessly. She hit even after I was asleep at night. She nagged and I drank more. Looking back, I am fully aware that I was wanting to medicate myself to death with alcohol(marriage was forever I believed). In 2008, I finally packed my bags and left. The emotional abuse did not stop, as she uses my two children as pawns to torment to this very day. A few years before I left, I quit drinking because I knew my escape was coming.To this day, I have not drank or smoked and have a zest for life again. In all the 20 years we lived together, I never once raised my hand and hit her. Mr Carlito Pablo,you are a good man, and are fully aware that other "reporters" stoop to low levels to get ratings. Don't make me get my girlfriend to punch you in the nose for taking the low road my friend. Merry Christmas and good will to all.

      Seriously?

      Dec 21, 2014 at 9:01pm

      Have to love it when social "scientists" have to work with numbers: the end result is hyperbole. Until 50% of the people killed by other people are women there won't be true equality.

      @Seriously?

      Dec 22, 2014 at 8:32am

      It's getting really bad. They're trying to run this idiotic attack on philosophy departments now, which have, through a combination of mumbling and reason, held off the attacks so far, but the 40something hires in the field are _spineless losers_ who cannot eat a sociologist for breakfast. It's pathetic. Sociology is nothing but a pastiche of metaphysics, exactly as Comte identifies in his sociological schema of social development...

      These people are obviously mentally ill, and we cannot allow their anxieties to control public discourse.