Deborah Orr: Ignoring the Obvious to Perpetuate Myths about Violence

I'm not sure quite what to write about Deborah Orr's recent piece in the Guardian. Orr seems to have completely ignored all of the research into mental illness and propensity to violence to write one of the most ridiculous pieces of "poor ickle menz" I have read in ages. Orr uses the murder of April Jones and the recent spate of detective TV series, with female leads, to claim that men who commit violence must be clearly ill. She conveniently ignores 50 years of detective programs and 150 years of detective novels with male leads and entirely male casts who  investigate male violence to come up with this clearly ridiculous point. 

This is the conclusion of the piece:

I can't help wondering what it's like to be a man, tainted by association with the tiny minority of men who do such things. I can't help wondering, also, if the widespread male defensiveness that such an ever-present prejudice seems understandably to induce is an integral part of the ongoing problem. Women are against violence. We even have a campaigning group called Women Against Violence. Unfortunately, all this also suggests is that men are in favour of violence, and if not violent themselves, then guilty by association. A leading neuroscientist, Kathleen Taylor, this week suggested that in years to come Islamic fundamentalism might be seen as a mental illness. It seems to me that lack of mental health, not gender, is the defining motivation of all violence. The problem isn't men, it's alienation. And believing that men are the problem may be alienating men on a massive scale.

Now, I haven't taken a survey of men but my partner has watched every single program Orr mentions and he doesn't feel insulted about their portrayal of men. Using Orr's understanding of statistics, I'm going to assume that his reaction is what all men think.*

Orr can write as many myths as she would like but it won't change the fact that she is just wrong about two points: 1) almost all violence is committed by men; and 2) having a mental illness drastically increases a person's chance of being a victim of violence. It does not dramatically increase their chances of committing violence against themselves or others; regardless of how many episodes of Law & Order featuring violent schizophrenics you've watched. 

Men are responsible for majority of violence committed. 

Men who commit violence aren't mentally ill. It's erroneous and offensive to suggest otherwise. The vast majority of men who are violent are violent because they choose to be; not because they are ill. It is articles like this which perpetuate myths about people who are ill and allows men to deny responsibility for the violence they perpetrate. We have a serious problem with male violence and ignoring the evidence of who perpetrates violent crimes so that men don't feel sad isn't going to change that.

If men's feelings are hurt at the thought of being part of the group of people most likely to commit violence, they need to step up and call out violent men. 

Men need to stop being violent: physically and sexually.

After all, men are just as likely to be victims of male violence as women. 

Let's stop making excuses and start taking responsibility.


*Obviously, he isn't representative of MREs but I'm fairly sure we can discount them. He's also not representative of all men being white, well educated and middle class but I'm fairly sure he's representative of the level of intelligence of most men since university education is most definitely not an indicator of common sense. 

More Reponses to the article:

Yes, Men of Sound Mind do Commit Murder by UK Feminist

A Little Ramble about Mental Illness and Crime by the Not So Quiet Feminist

My Name is Jemma and I have a personality disorder at POTsy not Potty

Mental Health, Violence and Me at Carregonnen