2022: UK women killed by men or where a man is the principal suspect
2021: 144 UK women killed by men or where a man is the principal suspect
2020: 110 UK women killed by men or where a man is the principal suspect
Karen Ingala Smith
As I see it
Karen Ingala Smith 
The sexual element of intimate partner violence inflicted upon women by their male ‘partner’ I think is largely ignored. Jade Hales was raped peri or post mortem by Anthony Showers. I’ve suffered myself during two relationships spaced apart by 14 years yet a similar behaviour I recognised because I’d experienced it before when I was younger. I know domestic abusers are sexually gratified by the control; seeing the pain and despair is fetishised by them. They are aroused by the suffering of the victim. This isn’t discussed rather its skated over. The ritualistic nature of the abuse and its effects is deeply understood by the perpetrator yet they won’t ever give their game away. They’ll never admit that torture turns them on. I can never look at a man again as a partner after the abuse I’ve suffered. I couldn’t be with a woman either, I’m too afraid of the hurt sexual relationships cause. I’m asexual and have been for almost 3 years, that includes any sort of sexuality at all. I’m completely free from it. I question society’s dependence on sex myths; ‘everybody masturbates’ … well I don’t. I wanted to reach out to ask why sex and its intrinsic link with the rituals of abusers is largely ignored?
Thank you very much for raising this and I’m very sorry to hear about what was done for you.
I agree this is a huge problem and it’s something i’d like to look at in the course of my research over the next few years, however, I’m relying on mainly public sources of information and it isn’t always mentioned at all, let alone skated over, especially in the course of intimate partner violence.
In their book ‘When Men Murder Women’ R & R Dobash (2015) have a section on sexually motivated murders and talk about when it is under counted, missed and under-reported. It’s worth reading.
I’ve talked about it in presentations I’ve given a few times but I haven’t managed to write anything that I think gets the balance right. I also think a lot of domestic violence support service providers need to improve how we/they support women whose abuse has included sexual violence. I don’t think it is usually addressed well enough and that’s something we’ve been looking at improving our response to where I work.
Best wishes,
Karen
Karen thank you for your good and important work. It’s about time we joined the dots on lethal male violence and all its patterns and permutations, its prevalence, and its astounding frequency. Also, to shine a very bright light on all the weird excuses that people make on its behalf – as if lethal male violence (towards women and men both) is some kind of precious and treasured natural aspect of our species that needs to be expected, accepted and preserved. No it’s not. We need to move on as a species. It’s about time we all stood up and said NO. STOP IT. STOP IT ONCE AND FOR ALL. NOT ACCEPTABLE.
I am sick of reading the news, day in, day out, of women who are stalked and murdered, beaten and murdered, raped and murdered, by men. The media, the police, the justice system, and our society in general has a very suspicious habit of breaking the epidemic of male-on-female violence down into un-related constituent parts (‘It’s an online dating predator thing’, ‘It’s just some prostitute, well what do they expect’, ‘He loved her and she made him so jealous…’, ‘It was just a domestic’, ‘It’s a weird serial killer’, ‘a paedophile thing’, ‘it’s someone having a psychotic episode ah poor fella’, ‘sounds like someone went postal’ and so on and so on) in order to direct attention away from the fact it is simply and purely male violence yet again. And again. And again. And again.
Please keep up the good work. We’re supporting you.
I find it very odd given violence is overwhelmingly perpetrated by males against females that all these males are supposedly suffering from Horners Syndrome!! Just another convenient excuse/justification for males to commit violence against women and girls and then said male perpetrators claiming ‘I’m not responsible because I suffer from Horners Syndrome!’
Once upon a time not too long ago male scientists claimed women and girls are ruled by their hormones; have wandering uteruses and hence this is why women and girls supposedly experienced ‘hysteria’ and are incapable of rational/intellectual thought because they are biologically ruled by their emotions. This was how males justified their misogynistic lie that women and girls must be subjected to male control/male oppression. Not so with violent males because they are suffering from Horners Syndrome so this neatly absolves them from enacting their choice and agency – instead they are victims of a medical disorder!
http://academic.mu.edu/meissnerd/hysteria.html
Whilst the above link focuses on misogynistic male justifications during Greece’s Classical Age, these male lies were widely accepted by men for centuries.
Yes Rosemary, I am in the Dark Ages because I disagree with you! I am perfectly aware of the head injury argument, but it in no ways explains the gender bias.
About 70% of UK violent crime is done by people who have some form of head or head>neck injury. Their mugshots show evidence of this because their eyes exhibit Horners Syndromw – a light or positional discrepancy between them.
The injury is often vascular related, which means it can be mended, that is provided psychiatrists allow neurologists to examine and operate on the criminals.
Barriers to this are tied up with the public’s insistence on recriminative justice, but no amount of that will reverse the original organic damage causing people to lose empathy, logic, correct judgement, ability to concentrate and to express themselves and remember how they want to.
Leeds jail is researching the relationship between violent crime and head and head>neck injuries, and there is similar research at Swansea University. But until head hitting is banned, and all school leavers examined for a predisposition to be violent, the analysis will continue but to no avail. There is also the Bandura Effect – childhood observational learning which makes them more likely to kill people when they are adults, that is through watching adult violence. Anyone exhibiting both of these syndromes needs intensive treatment including de-hypnosis, otherwise, in the wrong circumstances they will maim and kill.
Good luck with your work.
Rosemary – The U.S. Department of Justice sponsored a National Crime Victimization Study in 2007. This evaluation found that 75.6 percent of all offenders were male and only 20.1 percent were female. In the UK in the case of homicide, men are more frequently the perpetrator. For those suspects where proceedings concluded in 2011/12, 89% were male (210 suspects) and 11% were female (25 suspects). For crimes against the person men were responsible for 33,171 offences or 89% of the total in 2011/12. For sexual offences, men were found guilty in 98% of cases (although there are problems with the data as many crimes of this type go unreported). In the remaining cases, the victim wasn’t able to identify the gender of the offender. To gender neutralise violent action and claim that the causes are primarily physiological is to ignore everything this blog is about.
Yes. That’s why the crimes continue. But one day, there will be enough empathy with the victims to face the fact that people are violent for reasons, and these reasons can be treated, so the violence stops. Sadly, you, like much of psychiatry according to Nick Clegg, are still in the Dark Ages, intent on reporting and analysing but not interested in solving.