Many factors contribute to this form of violence. Persistent gender inequality is a fundamental systemic cause, but researchers have identified additional risk factors. These include alcohol and drug use, past experience of family violence, financial stress and sexist attitudes.

One psychological factor that may be implicated in intimate partner violence is objectification.

Feminist thinkers such as Cambridge scholar Rae Langton and American philosopher Martha Nussbaum have proposed men who treat their partners as "object-like" are disposed to harm them because they fail to see them as fully human.

Objectification can involve men judging their partner's value in her physical appearance, seeing her as a possession, or denying her agency and autonomy. The common thread is a subtle or not-so-subtle form of dehumanisation.

Recent psychological research has tried to test these ideas, with intriguing results.

Our new research

Past research found young men who sexually objectify women are especially likely to perpetrate sexual violence. It also showed that men who unconsciously associate women with objects have a relatively high propensity for sexual harassment.

In our recently published work, we moved from considering violence towards women in general to violence towards men's intimate partners. You might expect men would be less likely to objectify those they claim to love. The appalling statistics on intimate partner violence suggest otherwise.

Our new article presents findings from three studies on the role of objectification in intimate partner violence. Each study sampled American men aged 18 to 35 who were in a committed romantic relationship of at least one year's duration.

In our first study, men completed a computer-based task - the Implicit Association Test - commonly used to measure unconscious bias. We adapted the task to assess how much they automatically associated women with inanimate objects or animals.

The group also responded to questionnaires measuring how often they engaged in a range of abusive and sexually coercive behaviours towards their current partners.

Although based on self-reporting, and therefore open to distortion, these measures are valid predictors of violent behaviour.

As expected, men with relatively strong tendencies to associate women with objects reported higher rates of violent and coercive behaviour. This effect did not occur because these men held more hostile sexist attitudes toward women.

Objectification and sexism were distinct predictors of intimate partner violence, suggesting that objectification independently contributes to this form of violence.

Voodoo dolls

Our second study extended the first in two ways. First, we adapted the association test to examine how much men automatically associated their partner with objects, rather than women in general.

Second, we added a more behavioural test of violence. The Voodoo Doll Task allows participants to use "pins" to stab a doll, presented on a computer screen, that shares their partner's name.

Each participant has an opportunity to use as many pins as he wishes after vividly imagining a provocative scenario. He is at a bar with his partner when she starts flirting with another man and expressing discontent with her current relationship.

Stabbing a virtual doll with digital pins is not the same as inflicting actual violence, of course. However, people who use more pins are more prone to real-world violence. Their inhibitions against acting violently are likely weaker.

In our study, men who tended to associate their partners with inanimate objects reported higher rates of violence, as in the first study. They also stabbed the voodoo doll with more pins if they were highly upset by the provocative scenario.

Our first two studies examined objectification as the tendency to associate a person with objects. Our third considered it as the tendency to focus on the person's physical appearance.

In our experiment, men were randomly assigned to write several sentences about their partner's appearance or about her personality. They then completed the Voodoo Doll Task and several short questionnaires.

As we predicted, young men induced to focus on their partner's appearance stabbed the doll with more pins.

They also rated their partner as having fewer personality traits associated with being emotional and capable of action (which contrasts the inertness of inanimate objects).

What this means in the real world

Our three studies indicate objectification plays a role in men's intimate partner violence against women. Men who implicitly see their female partners as object-like are at greater risk of acting violently towards them.

Inducing an appearance mindset may also promote intimate partner violence, suggesting objectification may be implicated in violence even among men who are otherwise not prone to it.

These findings offer a new perspective on intimate partner violence and how to prevent it.

Fundamentally, they imply this violence is partially rooted in a failure of empathy. Some men are unwilling or unable to appreciate their partners as complete humans.

Cultural changes that boost or encourage men's appreciation of women's experiences, and reduce their focus on their physical appearance, may help reduce the terrible toll of violence in heterosexual intimate relationships.

Further information and support

If you are a victim of family violence or in a relationship that makes you fearful about your own or anyone else's safety, seek help as soon as possible. You have the right to be safe.

• Elder Abuse Helpline | 0800 32 668 65 - 24 hours
• Family violence information line (link is external) | 0800 456 450
• Gandhi Nivas (link is external) - supporting men to be free from violence | 0800 426 344
• Hey Bro helpline (link is external) - supporting men to be free from violence | 0800 HeyBro (439 276)
• Hohou te rongo kahukura - outing violence (link is external) - building rainbow communities free from violence
• National network of stopping violence (link is external) | 03 391 0048
• Sensitive Claims ACC (link is external) | 0800 735 566
• Shakti - for migrant and refugee women | 0800 742 584 - 24 hours
• Shine National Helpline (link is external) | 0508 744 633 - 24 hours
• Victim Support (link is external) - support for men and women victims | 0800 842 846 - 24 hours
• Women's Refuge crisis (link is external) line | 0800 733 843 - 24 hours
• Rainbow Youth (link is external) - promoting healthy queer, trans and takatäpui relationships

• First published in The Conversation
• Adriana Vargas Saenz is Lead Researcher at Atlassian & Honorary Fellow, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne
• Nick Haslam is Professor of Psychology, The University of Melbourne

That is, unless they radically reform to give equal standing to women.

Dr Middleton, author of Jesus and Women, tells The London Economic (TLE) digital newspaper why the Church's future is important, and why it must be in female hands.

Why the Church is important

TLE: In an increasingly secular society, why do you think the Church is still important?

Middleton: A strong argument can be made that the gaining of female rights and freedoms in the West has its roots in Christianity.

It is also generally accepted that democracy could only have emerged in a culture grounded in the Christian belief that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

It was successive movements engendered by Christianity - both lay and religious - that gradually transformed the West into the society and culture that it now is.

Interestingly, Martin Luther's emphasis in the Reformation - which was initiated by him - was on the importance of individual religious and moral autonomy.

That is considered to have been a significant factor in the emergence of liberal democracy along with the separation of Church and state and emphasis on individual rights and freedoms.

It's a mistake to perceive the Reformation and the Enlightenment as events that happened in opposition to the Church.

Rather, the Church, in its upholding of and teaching of Christianity, generated these events due to the supremely high ethical standards it has always preached and the calibre of the education it provided.

The internal dialectic within the Church reflects Jesus' battle with the religious establishment of the biblical era and his efforts to reform Jewish legalism.

In such a context we can postulate that the establishment of Christianity in the Empire was the second move in this battle.

It took 1,800 years to reach the Enlightenment and 2,000 years to the first gaining of female rights.

The current falloff in church attendance can be defined as an important initiation of the next move, which has the potential to so furtherly progress the Christian West and to resolve Church schisms.

By doing the latter it will finish or change the role of the Roman Empire in the Church.

Overall falloff in attendance

TLE: While the major Christian branches in the UK, the Church of England and Catholic Church, have seen big falloffs in their congregations, there are many other smaller Christian sects. Are they in the same precarious situation and facing extinction?

Middleton: Overall, due to the increasing proportion of the young who claim they have no religion, in the UK church membership is forecast to decline to just over four per cent of the population by 2025.

Interestingly, the smaller Christian sects are closely related to the reformed tradition because they don't have hierarchies, and in many the congregations are autonomous.

It's reported, however, that in most there is still a falloff in church attendance - though not as high as in the largest UK churches, Anglican and Catholic.

There is one new Christian denomination that is said to be increasing both in the UK and throughout the world: the Pentecostal Church, says Middleton.

This denomination focuses on individual spirituality thanks, it says, to the love and action of the Holy Spirit.

There are, however, large falloffs in Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist denominations.

The reasons for the decline of Methodism are considered by its leaders to include the increased secularisation in the West and the intellectual changes in British culture with the rise of science.

This is a serious concern as the renewal of Christianity is necessary for the full possible progress and survival of our world.

Hierarchical inequality

TLE: How did gender and social inequality manage to seep into the Church hierarchy?

Middleton: Evolutionary biologists have discovered and described how religion and politics evolved in tandem with one another as a means for creating male patriarchal power structures to support male domination of the world and of women.

As a result, religions are forces for social control, especially of women.

For this reason, the distinction between religion as a phenomenon and the forms individual religions take while under the control of their founders must be kept in mind.

In the early Church, women and men were equally involved in Church ministries.

With its change of status into the state religion of the Roman Empire, however, it became highly patriarchal.

It was shaped by Roman political structures for several centuries and still remains under the influence of its imperial past.

The Vatican is a political state and the papacy itself is an absolute monarchy. Popes are supported by a hierarchical power structure of its ordained males that equates to an aristocracy.

As I discuss in detail in Jesus and Women, the revolutionary attitude of Jesus towards women is in stark contrast to that of the institutional Church, transcending time and place to such a degree that it provides further evidence of his divinity.

Women are vital

TLE: Your latest book, Jesus and Women, argues that women are vital to the survival of the Church in the 21st. century. What led you to this conclusion?

Middleton: Women were always the main supporters of Church attendance and in the early Church - as well as in Jesus' ministry - overall, the most drawn to his preaching and teaching.

The beginning of a large falloff in Church attendance in the mid-20th century was partly due to male and female disillusionment with hierarchical political and religious institutions stemming from the Second World War.

However, second-wave feminism was the main cause of church attendance falloff for women - due to the sexism of institutional Christianity.

There are female campaigns now for the achievement of equal female ministries in the Church, and also great female theology to guide it.

Due to Jesus' lovingly egalitarian treatment of women, the Church must eliminate its sexism by granting women equal authority.

If it does, there will not only be a massive renewal of church attendance, but a modern version of the ideal Pauline church whose communities were totally equal, regardless of social class or gender.

Such a reform will pave the Church into a much more spiritual and loving version of Christianity.

A version that will also impact on the public sphere to gain social justice for all and will be as lovingly liberating for males as for females. Read more

• Timothy Arden is a writer for the London Economic

This is the latest push to give women a significant place in the Catholic hierarchy.

After submitting their candidacies for various leadership roles, including deacon, priest and bishop, the women attended a mass at the Madeleine church in central Paris to mark the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene.

French Catholic woman Anne Soupa, who in May declared herself a candidate to lead the archdiocese of Lyon, accompanied the seven women to Paris.

The post in Lyon has been vacant since Cardinal Philippe Barbarin stepped down last year as a result of a paedophilia scandal involving a priest in the diocese.

"The Church is experiencing a deep crisis, and we need to open up its doors," says Soupa.

"Women are rendered invisible in the Catholic Church."

"In this age of equality, when women's abilities are recognised by all, we can't continue like this."

"This isn't a move against the Church, but for it," Soupa says.

Scores of paedophilia and sexual abuse charges have been laid before the Church throughout the world in recent years.

These charges have prompted calls for a major shakeup of the Church, which critics say has failed to adapt its traditions to the demands of the modern world.

Although Pope Francis backs many progressive causes such as allowing priests to marry, to date he has refused to allow women to be ordained or to open certain roles in the Church for them.

As an example, last year he declined to allow women become deacons, an ordained position just below that of priest. Proponents say allowing women to become deacons could help fill the gap in countries were priest numbers are dwindling.

Source

• rfi
• Image: France 24

Timothy Wright is retiring in December after 17 years running the Sydney Church of ­England Grammar School.

He said he welcomed discussion around what it meant to be a man in the 21st century but not in a manner that unfairly generalised against half the population.

"It's hard to have a conversation about this issue without people conjuring up issues of sexual harassment or domestic violence or ‘toxic masculinity'," Dr Wright said of the term popularised by the latest wave of feminism.

"Attach that description to any other group in society and people would be outraged."

With most of his 34-year ­career spent in boys schools, Wright believes there are benefits to educating boys in a single-sex environment.

He pointed to "compelling" research from New Zealand, conducted by Victoria University of Wellington.

The research found ­superior academic results and higher university entrance rates compared with those boys at mixed schools.

The independent study by Dr Michael Johnston, Faculty of Education at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), compares the performance of young men in Years 11 - 13 at New Zealand single-sex schools with those at co-educational schools.

The research shows that over the period from 2013 to 2016, young men from single-sex boys' schools have gained passes in higher proportions than their counterparts at co-educational schools in:

• NCEA qualifications,
• University Entrance
• New Zealand Scholarship

The VUW report follows on from the 2012 New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) report.

This report concluded that single-sex schools provided a significant advantage for boys in New Zealand.

The data illustrates there is a clear nationwide trend for young men in boys' single-sex schools to be:

• more engaged
• stay longer in school
• Achieve better academic results across all deciles and also significantly, across ethnicities including NZ European, Asian, Maori and Pasifika.

Both studies were completed for the Association of Boys' Schools of New Zealand.

Click here to see key findings of VUW study.

Source

• theaustralian.com.au
• educationcentral.co.nz
• archive.educationreview.co.nz
• Image: pnbhs.school.nz

It also shows some New Zealanders now have a more tolernat of bad language and nudity than was found in previous years.

Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) chief executive Belinda Moffat said the research "indicates these changes are strongly influenced by, perhaps, greater exposure to broad and diverse content through the internet."

Moffat emphasised the small focus group meant the results were not indicative of all New Zealanders' opinions, but said the research still bore interesting results.
The research results were outlined in a report called Litmus Testing 2016.

Opinions on the offensiveness of the content was predicated on the "Good Taste and Decency" standard.

The focus groups were asked to listen to five polarising clips the BSA had delivered verdicts on.
The clips included:

• Sean Plunkett's interview on RadioLive with National Foundation for the Deaf chief executive Louise Carroll
• The Edge's breakfast radio hosts, Jay-Jay, Mike and Dom, playing a game with ex-contestants of The Bachelor television show, in which contestants attempt to "deep-throat" a cucumber
• A George FM breakfast show in which the hosts made derogatory remarks about a woman whose social media profile had been brought to the hosts' attention (not by the woman herself.
• A Paul Henry show interview in which Paul Henry asked his guest whether she had had sex with Richard Branson.
• A Radio Hauraki "Like Mike" segment in which Jeremy Wells impersonated broadcaster Mike Hosking making politically incorrect remarks about Maori.

The research, which was conducted by the Nielson group and commissioned by the BSA, involved assembling focus groups of six to eight people in Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton and Ashburton.

The participants were aged between 18 and 65-years-old and came from a variety of economic and ethnic backgrounds, and there was an equal split of men and women.

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• Image: media.npr.org

Speaking at the London Film Festival last week, Streep said "the Church is a body that excludes people".

"There are two places you [women] can't vote in the world - in Saudi Arabia, although they are registering people supposedly, and the Vatican," she said.

"That seems wrong to me."

Streep plays suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst in the new film "Suffragette".

Continue reading

St James Catholic Primary School in Brighton, east of Melbourne, included an article titled "15 Ways to Protect Your Marriage" in its August 7 school newsletter.

The article, submitted by parish priest Fr Gerard Johnson, contained tips for wives to keep an eye on her husband's co-workers and being "careful" on a girls night out.

It also suggested that couples should have complete access to each other's social media accounts and text messages.

A mother, only identified as Rachel, is seeking an apology from the school after the eldest of her two daughters came home and asked if she could no longer have male friends as suggested by the full-page newsletter article.

"Parents already feel let down by the Catholic Church by its inability to keep up with the times, but are now concerned that in 2014 our children are being educated in this sexist and misogynistic environment," she said.

The article originally appeared on iMOM Family First and says porn is the "cancer that's ruining the sex lives of countless married couples" and suggests married women should not talk about sex with members of the opposite sex.

Another parent, who remained anonymous, called the newsletter article "outdated claptrap".

"It has caused an uproar in our community," she said.

The article's first paragraph states: "Even when things are good in your relationship with your husband, it's wise to keep your eyes open, communicate well and put some ‘guard rails' in place to keep things on track and safe."

"Since women are often the more communicative half of a marriage, it may fall on you to initiate discussions and see that important things are addressed . . . ," the introduction continued.

Fr Johnson said he was disappointed at the response, but added that he had received far more positive feedback than negative.

He rejected claims the article was sexist or derogatory towards women, saying that the points raised refer generally to the total marriage relationship.

St James's principal said the school had no control over the portion of the newsletter concerned, over which the parish priest had the final say.

Sources

• 15 Ways to Protect Your Marriage
• Daily Mail
• Herald Sun
• Image: More Than

Her pakeha friends ask if the traditional role of women in the powhiri is sexist.

"I just try to explain that females have their own type of mana. Traditionally Maori really revered their women, and looked after their women, and I guess it's about maintaining that kind of whakaaro."

That view is a stark contrast to some older women.

Parliament could change its protocol to allow women to speak in Maori welcome ceremonies after complaints from some female MPs who felt the current tikanga belittled their status.

The Speaker of the House, David Carter, is in the process of reviewing parliamentary protocol after two senior female Labour MPs raised the red flag last year in July.

During a powhiri for Youth Parliament, Labour MPs Maryan Street and Annette King were made to move from the front row of seats or paepae, which is the orators bench usually reserved for men.

Street believes it sent the wrong message to the youth MPs, and says it was time for Parliament to develop its own kawa [protocol].

"This isn't how I want young people to see Parliament. I want them to see Parliament as a place of equals, and this kawa doesn't reflect that".

Suggestions by MPs include making provisions for women to speak in welcome ceremonies, and allowing high ranking female MPs to sit in the front seats or paepae. Continue reading.

Source: The Wireless

Image: RNZ

In an opinion piece in Eureka Street, Catherine Marshall points out that while a few newspaper writers "have done much to highlight the misogyny that is inherent to this form of entertainment, they have done so against a rousing tide of public support for this seedy American import".

The league's founder is Mitchell Mortaza, who "implicitly concedes that the only way female athletes can attract attention in a saturated sports market is by taking off their clothes".

Marshall concludes that "Few women would sanction a 'sporting code' that required male athletes to run around nearly naked and unprotected on a sports field, all in the name of titillation; indeed, they would regard it as inhumane. Let's show women the same respect".

• Read Catherine Marshall's article
• Image: Zimbio

Catherine Marshall is a journalist and travel writer.

Fr Sean McDonagh of Ireland's Association of Catholic priests said it was obvious from the language of the new missal that not a single woman had been consulted while it was being drawn up.

Critics say the new missal includes multiple uses of the use of man and meant to mean both men and women.

Fr McDonagh said it is regrettable priests had to fight a linguistic battle over inclusiveness when it should be taken for granted.

The first of many changes were introduced in Ireland last Sunday and despite criticism from priests, the Irish bishops have supported the new text.

The Irish Times reports reactions of the people to the new translation from Latin are mixed.

Sources

• Irish Times
• The Journal
• Catholic Living Today blog

• Redefining Marriage,
• Children being raised in a "gender free" environment,
• Alasdair Thompson's comments on workplace productivity,
• Cardinal sees 'no theological obstacle' to women priests.

They are however connected by the underlying issue of gender difference. At one end of the continuum there are those who think that gender difference is a social construct. At the other end are those who think that gender is defined biologically. Are women and men interchangeable at will?

"To speak of 'the order of human nature itself' becomes progressively more difficult and less convincing when gender is regarded as a purely human construct, a cultural invention, and not something given in nature," said Cardinal Francis George in a recent column. " Nature itself has now been mostly reduced to a field for scientific experiment and human control. Even biological differences are to be manipulated for economic profit and according to personal preferences. Whatever restricts personal choice is politically and socially unacceptable. So two men should be able to marry, if that is what they want; and women should be candidates for ordained priesthood, if that is what they believe. Women and men are interchangeable at will."

Source

• Catholic New World
• Image: Tommy's Window