There is a concern among the writers of the 280 plus page report prepared for the European Commission on gender equality titled, The role of men in gender equality – European strategies & insights which makes the assertion that “men are often engaged in women’s movements, due to a lack of pro-feminist men’s initiatives, or men are organized according to specific ‘men’s issues’ (like fathers’ rights), which contains the risk of counteracting feminist visions of gender equality.”

The report admits in the opening paragraph that men have been essentially an afterthought in terms of gender equality, “Men as the ‘other gender’ have been taken less into account in the context of gender equality.”

The study claims twice within 5 sentences that, “The majority of all acts of violence are committed by men.” And further that “it is well-known that the vast majority of perpetrators are men.” Whereas research published by the Domestic Violence Research Organization, notes that, “Overall, 24% of individuals [are] assaulted by a partner at least once in their lifetime (23% for females and 19.3% for males).”

With women 84% as likely to commit violence as men it hardly seems like men represent an ‘overwhelming’ majority. In fact the 2,657 page review of literature on domestic violence indicates that, “Rates of female-perpetrated violence [is] higher than male-perpetrated (28.3% vs. 21.6%).” What virtually all the literature indicates is that females are the majority of victims who require medical attention as a result of intimate personal violence. Given that last fact, it provides stable ground for understanding how the social bias against men comes about in terms of domestic violence, given that the male victims are a minority and men don’t report violence against themselves as frequently as females are encouraged to do. Society it seems, doesn’t view female perpetrated violence as an issue – even though women are dishing it out as much as men are.

Under the paragraph titled, ‘A balanced approach to men and gender equality’ there was a worry that getting men involved in “gender mainstreaming and gender equality strategies bears the risk that gender is framed within certain terms in traditional sex role theory, mainly reflecting topics where men seem to be disadvantaged (e.g. custody, education or health), opening up anti-feminist discussion.” It seems there is great reluctance to even admit that men are in fact losing out in those three categories.

The report was also quite keen to stress that a particular agenda was to be built and followed in order, “To avoid risks which are connected with involving men in gender equality strategies – for example mainly reflecting topics where men seem to be disadvantaged – a close connection between critical, pro-feminist research on men, masculinities and gender equality with policies is crucial. The concept and understanding of men and gender equality in government policy should be based on current research results and a balanced approach towards these issues, rejecting a general ‘male discrimination’ – perspective.”

The above paragraph is only two sentences long, but it its jammed with meaning. Government can only be balanced if pro-feminist research policy is in place.

The report also claimed that much of male violence against women and intimate partners is based on being entitled to power and privilege. However, according to research reported by Professor Dutton of the University of British Columbia, titled, Patriarchy and Wife Assault: The Ecological Fallacy “No direct relationship exists between power and violence within couples, and no direct relationship exists between structural patriarchy and wife assault.” The EU commissioned paper argued that equality can only be achieved “if cultural, social and political patriarchy is dismantled.”

The EU report admitted that the scale of violence committed by women against their partners has not been properly researched. Yet they were so convinced that men are responsible, that they emphasized the text when they wrote, “Men are consistently more likely to be perpetrators than women.” And the editors added emphasis again when it was written that “there is no symmetry between female and male victims.” With women 84% as likely to commit intimate partner violence as men, their seems to be a lot of symmetry…

There is something to be said about of how society is conditioned, and there is a concerted effort underway to change that conditioning towards the deconstruction of traditional concepts of male masculinity, to change it to a caring masculinity from one that is perceived as an aggressive violent one. However, not all males are violent and aggressive. Of 7 billion people on earth violence causing death represents 1.5 million and of that 52% are due to suicide, 35% to homicide, and 12% to war or other conflict. The vast majority of those deaths are – male. We are, and always have been an aggressive species, although that’s no reason not to try to reduce it, in spite of ourselves.

And a closing heads up, the logo that represents gender equality is formed by two signs that originate from mythologies of alchemy. The female sign representing Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. The male sign representing the red planet Mars, the god of war…