Juno News - YWCA campaign “demonizes men with false numbers” (ft. Janice Fiamengo)

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 let's move on to this other issue which admittedly was one that completely stayed off my radar until

00:00:14.160 i read about it from janice fiamengo's great newsletter the fiamengo file and part of the

00:00:20.240 reason it completely escaped me is because it involves someone who used to play for the nhl

00:00:24.860 which i'm told is a cricket league might know maybe it's football hockey hockey nhl hockey yeah

00:00:30.340 i get so many angry emails when i do that gag i know nhl is hockey that's about all i know

00:00:36.600 but it was a rather moving psa from a former nhl figure let's roll this for you now

00:00:42.720 i don't remember the hit i remember everything leading up to it

00:00:52.220 but nothing after he came from behind me i didn't see it coming i was hit in the side of the head

00:00:59.620 i remember being confused my ears were ringing it's hard to talk about i still experience pain

00:01:08.060 mood swings the headaches are debilitating

00:01:11.520 but this isn't my story

00:01:14.800 it's mine

00:01:17.720 that was former vancouver canucks captain trevor linden in a psa for the ywca uh talking about

00:01:41.360 the disparity between concussions in hockey and concussions in women who have suffered from

00:01:47.860 domestic violence now i i should say first and foremost it's a very compelling powerful ad it's

00:01:54.140 very well produced it's a well uh it's a well presented message it's a shocking message when

00:02:00.020 they say 92 percent of women girls and gender diverse people who experience traumatic brain injury

00:02:05.980 uh do so as a result of violence by an intimate partner and they also talk about the staggering

00:02:13.020 statistics of what percentage of women will encounter a brain injury from this and i i'll talk about those

00:02:19.820 numbers in a moment but i just first want to say it's often very odd when people try to link two

00:02:26.580 disparate issues and two distinct issues together one kind of random one that just happened to come up

00:02:32.640 yesterday is this uh tweet from neurodiversity ireland so neurodiversity is typically the world

00:02:39.080 of autism and they say that there's no neurodiversity without lgbtq plus and we can't be neuroaffirming

00:02:45.900 without being lgbtq plus affirming and we can't respect people with autism unless we respect people

00:02:51.380 with lgbtq plus identity and you're looking at this and you're like i don't know why these two things

00:02:57.200 matter and and this is where you you get into territory where you're making comparisons that

00:03:02.520 are leading people to a particular conclusion that might not be the right one but in this particular

00:03:07.420 case we have numbers that are contributing to that janice fiamengo is a retired professor from

00:03:12.960 the university of ottawa and also writes the fiamengo file on substack and joins me now janice good

00:03:18.960 to talk to you thanks for coming on today well thank you very much for having me on your show andrew

00:03:24.200 i i'm really pleased to be able to talk about this concussion campaign hoax the key paragraph here

00:03:32.760 just to to put into context that staggering number there is that four in ten women and girls in canada

00:03:39.620 will face violent from a current or former partner according to statistics canada and 92 percent of

00:03:46.060 those will suffer a traumatic brain injury due to blows to their head or strangulation and you say in

00:03:52.040 your newsletter here uh that is effectively saying that more than 30 percent of canadian women more 0.99

00:03:57.580 than and girls more than three and ten will get a brain injury from battering so the numbers are pretty

00:04:03.720 clear there what's what do they get wrong well everything is wrong in it it's also mentioned that for

00:04:10.300 every one professional hockey player who experiences a concussion 7 000 girls and women in canada will

00:04:19.700 experience traumatic brain injury or a concussion so i look that up it says that on average about 80

00:04:26.860 professional hockey players suffer concussion a year so 80 times 7 000 that if my math is correct would be

00:04:36.560 about 560 000 canadian girls and women suffering concussion from intimate partner violence every year

00:04:45.140 that is a staggering number now how is that number arrived at well first of all there's the reference

00:04:52.440 to the stats can survey which found that more than four in 10 canadian women reported suffering from

00:05:01.600 intimate partner violence in their lifetimes it also happened to mention that about one third of

00:05:07.920 canadian boys and men reported suffering from intimate partner violence as well but of course that's not

00:05:13.620 mentioned then it gets to another study that makes this claim about 92 percent however when you look

00:05:22.200 into both of these studies you realize that the social science behind the claims is simply not

00:05:30.020 it's it doesn't support those particular claims and i really looked into this very carefully for one

00:05:38.280 the claim about 44 percent of girls and women suffering intimate partner violence it is a large survey

00:05:47.180 conducted by stats can over 43 000 people but they measure violence so extremely elastically that it

00:05:57.540 clearly has nothing to do with concussions but they count violence to include psychological violence

00:06:03.080 violence that means being called a bad name they count a wide range of so-called physical violence

00:06:09.520 including someone punching a wall having an object thrown at you that may or may not have hit you

00:06:16.200 that you know might have caused damage if it had they count um being forced or someone trying to force you

00:06:24.000 to perform a sex act that you didn't want to perform uh shoving all sorts of things so and and while i would

00:06:32.140 agree that some of these things are certainly abusive and some of them are violence i don't think the

00:06:38.660 psychological violence is quite at the same level being called a bad name um but but certainly it is

00:06:44.680 hard to see how those types of violence could possibly lead to traumatic brain injury so there's a big

00:06:52.200 problem with the total number there when we go to the 92 percent it gets even stranger but just to jump in on

00:07:01.260 on those figures first because i i i want to just preempt the obvious criticism here that you and i

00:07:07.180 are are downplaying this when i i certainly am not and i i know you're not and i believe that abuse is

00:07:11.980 wrong but abuse and violence have never in my understanding been synonyms i mean i'll defer to you

00:07:17.180 as the english professor those words have very different meanings so they're including things that are

00:07:22.780 non that are abusive and non-physical yes as violence yes and that's a huge problem for

00:07:30.340 understanding what it means when people start talking about the numbers of women and girls who

00:07:36.440 suffer from supposed violence and violence that's not directed at the woman or girl but at a wall or

00:07:42.920 throwing a plate or something which again could be very threatening it could be very traumatizing

00:07:47.000 could be a stepping stone to violence but it is not directed at a person right and it has absolutely

00:07:53.260 nothing to do with traumatic brain injury clearly and uh you know they it's impossible to tell from the

00:07:59.800 survey how severe the violence was that was reported so they lump in everything if you remember that 20

00:08:06.680 years ago you had a jealous partner that will be counted as you're having experienced violence along with

00:08:14.440 everything else there isn't even a category in the stats can survey in the report that was based on it

00:08:21.000 for the types of violence that lead to traumatic brain injury which are choking until you pass out

00:08:28.920 or violence to your head they don't even have a category for blows to the head so they're talking

00:08:35.800 about a whole range of issues they they lump together for example being shoved pushed or thrown down

00:08:44.440 well even right there it's impossible to know how severe to be shoved yes that might be quite severe

00:08:50.280 or might not be very severe at all and uh and and there is no way of telling from the survey whether

00:08:56.840 that violence led to the person having to go to the hospital you know whether it led to an actual injury

00:09:03.160 or not it is simply a way of measuring self-reports we don't really know what those numbers mean at all

00:09:11.000 and the range of types of acts or verbal acts that are measured there is simply far too elastic to draw

00:09:18.760 any clear conclusions about numbers so with that how do they get to that 92 yeah so 92 is even stranger

00:09:27.800 and i find more shocking it refers to a study which then refers to another study it's so it isn't even the

00:09:36.440 study that's referred to that study is an american study of black women who experienced severe violence

00:09:45.000 both in childhood and in their adult life specifically being choked or being knocked unconscious out of

00:09:53.880 those it was only 95 women that's a fairly small survey out of those women about 33 experienced uh assumed

00:10:04.600 not even clarified but assumed traumatic brain injury now within that study it referred in a background

00:10:12.360 section of the report to another study that found up to 92 percent listen to this of women who experienced

00:10:22.760 traumatic brain injury 92 of those women had received the traumatic brain injury as a result of intimate

00:10:33.160 intimate partner violence so then they flipped the numbers around and said that of women who experience

00:10:40.040 intimate partner violence up to 92 percent will have traumatic brain injury i think that's called a faulty

00:10:47.720 syllogism it's i think i learned that in my first week of research methods in university which was like a

00:10:55.480 mandatory course that everyone had to do of like one of the things that you are never supposed to do when analyzing data

00:11:01.160 data yeah is reverse your your cause and your effect yes it's i i find that shocking it it either indicates

00:11:08.360 i mean i don't know what what to conclude about that except that either the researchers who come up with

00:11:15.240 these claims are not able to read the studies that they're basing their claims on or it means that they are

00:11:23.720 deliberately misinforming us misrepresenting the studies that they're relying on but either way it is

00:11:30.520 a shocking misrepresentation of the reality of intimate partner violence your your point on this is

00:11:40.040 something i i'm curious about because obviously i think facts matter and i think regardless this is not

00:11:45.800 uh in my view a moral judgment on on the substance of this it's it's saying that these are the numbers and

00:11:51.960 the numbers don't lie unless we interpret them the way they do and then we can twist them but but

00:11:58.120 ultimately this is still a real issue and and we know that intimate partner violence exists and we

00:12:02.360 know that it can have very serious mental and physical consequences so why why is this something

00:12:07.960 that's so important to you well for one thing although we know that intimate partner violence exists

00:12:14.760 i don't think we really have any clear understanding of how prevalent it is and how serious it is and

00:12:22.680 i don't think we have any understanding from these kinds of studies which inflame the situation uh

00:12:29.960 notice of course again uh male victims of violence are never mentioned here so no and there have been

00:12:37.400 some statistics canada surveys that have found males are 50 of victims of intimate partner violence this

00:12:43.480 particular one found that males report violence at a rate of 36 in their lifetimes boys and men will

00:12:52.520 experience some form of intimate partner violence compared to that 44 so that is not a massive

00:12:59.720 discrepancy there and we're talking about mostly boys and men who are victimized by girls and women

00:13:06.760 so um when we're talking about violence i think it's very important to understand that violence is a human

00:13:13.480 problem it is not a problem in which males are solely perpetrators and girls and women are solely

00:13:20.920 victims it tends to be caused not as the feminists will tell us because men are exerting their power 1.00

00:13:27.480 over women and girls and you know through violence which is what this campaign specifically says

00:13:33.480 but no actually most people who are not feminist ideologues who study this problem will tell us that

00:13:40.360 violence occurs because of a variety of circumstances they're the same for both males and females and

00:13:47.320 they have to do with substance abuse they have to have to do with mental illness and they have to do with

00:13:53.480 childhood abuse people who are abused as children tend to become abusers so that is a much more human way

00:14:02.760 of understanding the problem i would say a much more useful way and what a campaign like this does with

00:14:08.520 these really staggering numbers is it demonizes boys and men and it terrorizes girls and women and it

00:14:19.480 misinforms girls and women about the realities of the world that we live in and i think it it it makes it 1.00

00:14:27.480 seem justified to treat boys and men as a category of human being who are deserving of contempt disgust and harsh

00:14:38.120 punishment and i think it also means that when boys and men are accused of violence or sexual violence

00:14:45.240 that we tend to think yeah they're probably guilty because i heard that horrific statistic about 560

00:14:52.040 000 girls and women a year being the victim of intimate partner violence so this is probably a

00:14:57.720 case where this guy did what he's being accused of doing and i think that's just terrible it really

00:15:04.280 miss miss miseducates all of us about the realities of men and women's lives i i mentioned before i i

00:15:12.200 brought you in that rather absurd tweet trying to link you know autism awareness with pride and i i think

00:15:18.280 that we're seeing to maybe not as dramatic a way of doing that but but something very similar here of

00:15:23.960 taking this issue that people know that there's been a lot of advocacy on and research in which is

00:15:28.280 concussions and brain injuries traumatic brain injuries and trying to like push it into this

00:15:32.520 other narrative and and in a way that maybe it just doesn't quite fit at all and it's not to say there

00:15:38.200 can't be traumatic brain injury from this but it's like if there is that's not the core issue the core

00:15:43.480 issue is the intimate partner violence yes and i i find that often when you read these studies there

00:15:49.640 was a study a few years ago that's been well some years ago now but it's been repeatedly cited

00:15:56.040 about the relationship between violence against women and natural disasters there was a huge

00:16:04.200 kerfuffle years ago about the australian wildfires and claims made that men who came home from fighting

00:16:10.120 those fires were taking out their stress on the women and girls in their lives and the study that

00:16:16.200 was cited to prove this was a study about hurricane katrina that claimed that violence against women had 1.00

00:16:22.200 increased had doubled following hurricane katrina and when i looked into that study it was unbelievable

00:16:29.800 how how weak the research was on which that claim was based it was a tiny study it showed that yes

00:16:37.080 violence had allegedly doubled um but it had gone from a tiny tiny number in this small study to double

00:16:43.000 that number which is essentially meaningless when the numbers are so low and it found that violence against

00:16:47.640 boys and men that what they had reported anyway uh had been higher both before and after hurricane

00:16:54.760 katrina so boys and men were reporting higher levels of psychological violence and higher levels of

00:16:59.800 physical violence both before and after and that was never mentioned in any of the discussions about the

00:17:04.520 meaning of the connection between disaster and and violence against women so so so often there are attempts

00:17:11.800 to uh as they say raise awareness and um call for greater resources to be put into protecting girls and

00:17:19.720 women and it's based on extremely shaky statistics and it seems designed really just to support a particular

00:17:28.520 world view in this case in which men are always guilty and women are always innocent victims and it's a shame

00:17:36.200 yeah and i'm glad you mentioned the percentage issue because that's always been that this point that

00:17:40.600 i've tried to take issue with because i think it's one of the most insidious ways in which something

00:17:45.400 is overblown in terms of its effect i i know with hate crimes we see it all the time where uh there'll

00:17:51.000 be a report that says oh you know hate crimes against this group have increased by 60 percent and you

00:17:55.960 look at the numbers and they've gone up by 14 you know 14 individual cases and that's a an increase in in

00:18:02.360 60 percent and i remember i wrote a column about this years ago when i was with global news and the editor

00:18:07.800 actually would not publish uh large parts of it because they say well no percentages don't lie and

00:18:12.920 i said well actually they do uh you know if they don't lie in the sense that yes 60 of you know 100

00:18:18.760 is 60 but they they do lie when you're trying to make a point that something has had this dramatic

00:18:24.360 increase you know there's a difference between something going up from a thousand to 1600 say and

00:18:29.400 something going up from 10 to 16. indeed yes and that is the thing and you know and it's so

00:18:35.560 frustrating when you see that people are people with an agenda are quite willing to obfuscate by

00:18:43.160 using the percentage rather than giving us the actual numbers and so many of us don't have time

00:18:49.160 you know to look this took me a couple hours you know to read through that huge stats can report and

00:18:55.560 to actually figure out what they meant by violence and then to look through the various studies that were

00:19:01.720 cited to prove this 92 percent number most people don't have time to do that kind of research so

00:19:07.400 that's why it's so important that the people who are doing the reporting are scrupulous about explaining

00:19:15.080 to us what those numbers actually mean and when you mix in advocacy um you know political agendas

00:19:23.320 with reporting you get this kind of um you know phantasmatic uh scaremongering and it's

00:19:32.200 yeah it's really concerning janice fiamango you can read her takedown of this psa and lots of other

00:19:39.480 great work over at the fiamango file on substack janice thank you so much for coming on today great

00:19:44.520 to talk to you as always great to talk to you andrew thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show

00:19:49.240 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - July 02, 2023

YWCA campaign “demonizes men with false numbers” (ft. Janice Fiamengo)

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