Domestic violence victims in highrisk areas lose out in the focus on false “hot spots”. Georgia Osland

One of the fascinating aspects of modern Left-wing culture is the creation of false notions of victimhood.

Left-feminists in particular spend a lot of time constructing a world of persecution around themselves.
In an era in which women are dominating men in higher education attainment and workforce entry into professions such as the law, neofeminists
still believe in outdated theories of patriarchy.

Having grown affluent and elite in their social habits and economic profile, feelings of oppression are vital to their political identity.
After all, it’s not possible to be Leftist without thinking that powerful tyrants (in this
case, men) are out to get you.
In filling Sydney’s social pages at charity balls and ladies’ luncheons, it must be hard,
in the joy of the moment, to feel oppressed.
by Mark Latham

So an omnipresent threat has been created: a belief that hiding down every gentrified
street, that lurking behind every Mercedes and BMW is a vicious wife basher.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but this is the argument Left-feminists have propagated
throughout Australia’s media and political system.
Patriarchy means that all women are equally at risk of domestic violence.
Are there any recent examples of this argument – perhaps one that’s been published
in The Australian Financial Review?
Exhibit A is an article 12 days ago by Anna Bligh, the former Queensland Labor
premier, now prominent at a number of Sydney social events.
Bligh used NSW Crime Bureau data to identify so-called domestic violence “hotspots”
in the upmarket Sydney suburbs of Mosman, Manly and Randwick.
Yet curiously, in presenting her findings, she didn’t quote any statistics for domestic
assault incidents in these areas.
If she had, the inaccuracy of her position would have been immediately apparent to
Financial Review readers.
Women in Mosman, Manly and Randwick are living in three of Australia’s safest
communities.
In 2014-15, Mosman had a domestic assault incident rate of 141.9 per 100,000
population, Randwick 147.0 and Manly 185.3 – each of them well below the NSW
average of 395.4.
In listing her “hotspots”, Bligh wasn’t really looking for troubled neighbourhoods.
MISMATCHED CONCLUSIONS
She was trying to mount a conclusion that matched the patriarchy template: a belief
that high-income suburbs also have high levels of family violence.
In truth, they don’t. The highest rates of domestic assault in NSW are in underclass
communities, particularly those with large Indigenous populations.
If Bligh had been serious in identifying hotspots close to the centre of Sydney, she
would have listed Redfern (791.7 domestic assault incidents per 100,000 population)
and Waterloo (1040.3).
Or in western Sydney, the Mount Druitt/Struggle Street suburbs of Bidwill (1917.5) and
Emerton (1584.2).
Or in western NSW, the domestic violence hell-holes of Walgett (5179.6) and Bourke
(3543.9).
The wrongness of Bligh’s position is self-evident: she made no mention of any of these
areas, while writing of DV “hotspots” elsewhere.
Yet women in Walgett are 37-times more likely to experience domestic assault than
those in Mosman.