So much for the narrative that sexual assault allegations destroy the lives of the accused. This poor girl's experience is exactly why victims don't come forward.

Actually I think it serves a very important purpose: it reminds parents to pay attention to their children's behaviour, because they can't always verbalise what is happening.

While there are indeed examples of parents bullying teachers, most parents trust teachers and teach their children to respect and obey them. Teachers are not infallible and some of them abuse that trust.

I saw this happen with my son not with his schoolteacher but with one of his sports teachers. This teacher had been upset with me over another issue and was taking it out on my son. He was behaving strangely and getting upset over minor issues but never once mentioned what was happening because he had been taught to respect his teachers. Finally another parent approached me and asked if my son was okay - they had witnessed him being humiliated in front of his class and were concerned. I rang another parent who I knew was present on that day and asked for verification. They burst into tears and apologised because they couldn't stop it from happening. They asked me for consent to remove him from the class if it ever happened again. It never did because I removed him immediately.

As long as this lady can provide evidence that what she has written is true, or that she has reason to believe it is (eg. witness statements), then she is within her rights to publish it. Teachers are not entitled to a protected status any more than the rest of us are.

You've made my point for me Rob. You are seeing this through a filter of what happened to you. Did it occur to you that you might not be the only person on this thread who has experienced DV? And nobody said you didn't experience or know about it.

Why isn't she (or you) talking about homelessness, or terrorism, or child abuse, or farmers? Because it's a story about women dying. 7 of them at the hands of their intimate partner. It's okay for this story to be about that. It doesn't mean the other things aren't important - just that they aren't the topic at hand. The real question is why you tried to make them the topic at hand.

What segregates us as a society is not articles like this - it's violence, aggression and entitlement. Yet I don't see you asking to talk about who are primary perpetrators of violence.

If you feel passionate about these issues, then perhaps you should write a story about them. And if you do that, please do me a favour and count how many people show up asking 'what about women?', then report back here.

'Only' 7 women have actually died from domestic violence related issues.

'Only' 7...........

So I guess that's okay then, lets move on and talk about something that matters, like men dying.

This is why MRA's aren't taken seriously. Because they refuse to allow discussions to occur that aren't about how badly men are suffering, and use tactics like this to derail conversation. It's okay for a story to be about something you can't relate to personally. Really. You don't have to try to change the narrative to make it about you.

Right, clearly this an expose of some women's 'madness', not the behaviour of an abusive and controlling person who happened to be famous.

/sarcasm off

I agree with you. Connie deserves support for the work she is doing and she should never have been persecuted in the way she was.

Her perpetrators are definitely extremists - and they certainly don't represent the views of society as a whole, nor the views of all feminists. The idea that we live in an extreme feminist society based on the experiences of a single individual is a ludicrous proposition.

Can we please be clear that Diazepam is not an antidepressant? It is sometimes used in the management (Note: not treatment) of anxiety, and also used to manage muscle spasms, insomnia and alcohol withdrawal. Misinformation like this makes people reluctant to trial genuine antidepressants for fear of addiction.

Discrimination would require that she acts in a specific way. It's not discriminatory to experience emotions. Her fear belongs to her.

I didn't say you were making excuses for anyone, I asked you how your comment added to the primary topic. This article is not about this particular study. It is referenced briefly, and not used as evidence. Did you really not understand my post or are you just trying to derail further? You still haven't responded to this by the way.

You said:

'In regards to the uni statistic, sexual harassment included things like hearing a joke that you found offensive, which accounted for about 1/5 of that 51%.'

Not only does this not constitute analysis, it also doesn't communicate any surprise at the percentage. I'm not buying your line.

Statistics absolutely do need to stand up to scrutiny. There's a difference between scrutiny and nit picking. Do you think researchers should have provided separate data for assault on campus vs assault on transport? Or should they have excluded data for assault on transport altogether? If so, why? Why didn't they? (note that this was a deliberate inclusion based on their definition of a university setting) How would this better meet the initial research goals of the study? Those would be the kind of critical questions that would constitute analysis, not 'hey, they included data on this and this'.

Am I the only one wondering why you were doing everything yourself? Isn't a marriage supposed to be about partnership?

I'm not being nasty here, I'm being blunt: it's a necessity when you are regularly communicating with someone who needs things spelled out factually. Your own experience with autism does not qualify you to diagnose, or exclude diagnosis of, ASD in another person. Any more than mine does. Especially when your sum total experience of them is online.

Autism is not just social awkwardness, as I'm sure you're aware. What you may not have experience with are other kinds of 'social awkwardness', including social anxiety disorder and avoidant personality disorder. These are genuine and debilitating (but treatable) disorders. They are not personal failings attributable to self obsession.

There is a massive difference between being unaware and being consumed with inner dialogue - but being consumed with inner dialogue doesn't mean being self-centred. This is a judgement you are making about someone you have never met (hence: judgemental). An online article doesn't enable you to distinguish between being 'honestly unaware' and 'being consumed with your own inner dialogue'. Or are you suggesting she is being dishonest about being unaware?

I work day in and out with people with various conditions, including ASD and anxiety. Many of them are consumed with inner dialogue. It's rarely about self-preoccupation as you suggest. Far more often, it's about fear of hurting others.

And yes, I have my husband's back. Sometimes more than he wants me to, although he usually finds it entertaining. I'm sure you have your son's back too. He no doubt has a plethora of gifts that accompany his ability to see the world from another perspective. I hope you can help him to use them to make it a better place.

Looked at any stats on the gender distribution for perpetrators of violent crimes recently?

It's still unclear to me what you are trying to add to the discussion. How does the discrepancy between assaults that are perpetrated against women on university campuses vs. assaults that occur against women on public transport on the way to university campuses apply to the actual topic - that being making excuses for boys behaving badly?

And no, you're not introducing new definitions, merely criticising the ones that are used in the study. That's precisely my point. If you have a better definition, by all means, offer it up. If you don't have one, then what are your grounds for criticising the definition the authors have used? Is that statement just superfluous?

I don't see where you are 'analyzing the issue'. You are not addressing the issue at all. You're criticising a minor side note. If I was 'afraid of analyzing the issue' I wouldn't be asking you to actually clarify your point of view. I am. You haven't.

The article is about the response by an Australian tv panel, referencing DV data. Hence: Australian data please.

Even if you assume equivalency of data, you're still only comparing one study to multiple other studies. Unless you're subscribing to the narcissistic myth that US data somehow supersedes data from other countries?

Also, current data please, not just lifetime prevalence. :D

Asperger's syndrome does in fact include difficulties with seeing the world from the perspective of another. It's not a choice that someone with Asperger's makes, they actually do need to learn how to do these things. I've no idea if the author has Asperger's but my husband does, and many of these behaviours describe him well. He's learned over the years to change a lot of them not because he stopped being self-centred (he never was) but because I explicitly pointed out socially unacceptable behaviours and suggested alternatives.

I wonder if it's ever occurred to you that people who are having a private conversation might actually find you intrusive, and not want you to join them? Or that people who don't say 'hi' to you when they arrive at a party just didn't notice you? Perhaps they have issues with social anxiety? I can guarantee you that those with social anxiety (and who often appear awkward) are a long way from self-centred. Their thoughts are often dominated by the fear of upsetting you in some way.

Let me point out the obvious: aside from making a lot of assumptions about the author, your comment is judgemental and uninformed.

Can you explain what you mean Jan? In what way are boys being treated disrespectfully? In this article or elsewhere?

I'm not sure what your point is? Are you trying to suggest there is not an issue with sexual harassment within that demographic? Within our society in general?

Regarding the 'uni statistic', the point being made is that many young women are being assaulted by young men, not that assault is happening on university campuses. If it's happening on public transport how is it separate? Separate to what? Universities aren't the focus here, that study is simply being used as an illustration.

If you have a different definition of sexual harassment than the one used where does your definition come from? How did you validate your definition?

Are you actually just deflecting here to to avoid acknowledging the real issues that exist?

CDC data isn't widely used in Australia, which is the country of reference here. Which doesn't invalidate the point, but it's still not a consistent finding.

Yes, they report on a smaller study that shows that, right after they report a larger study that didn't, which is consistent with my original comment. When you pick out a single point that supports your argument and ignore the rest, you are being dishonest, plain and simple.

"The Australian Research Centre for Health and Sexuality (ARCHS) conducted a national demographic and health and wellbeing survey of 5,476 LGBTIQ people (Pitts, Smith, Mitchell, & Patel, 2006) and found significant levels of intimate partner violence:

41% of male-identifying respondents, and 28% of female-identifying respondents had experienced physical violence within a same-sex intimate relationship; and
25% of respondents had experienced sexual assault within a same-sex intimate relationship (with women-identifying and trans respondents more likely to experience sexual assault).
A smaller study of 390 LGBTIQ respondents in Victoria, also conducted by ARCHS (Leonard et al., 2008) found that that just under a third had been involved in a same-sex relationship where they were subject to abuse by their partner:

78% of the abuse was psychological and 58% involved physical abuse;
lesbian women were more likely than gay men to report having been in an abusive same-sex relationship (41% and 28% respectively); and
26% of respondents had experienced sexual assault within a same-sex relationship (Leonard et al., 2008)."