Also, if I had a child with an abusive partner, I’d definitely prefer them to suffer mental abuse than to be GBH’ed or murdered. Mental abuse doesn’t show up as GBH or murder, because by itself it isn’t either of those things. Perhaps the statistics should include cases of mental abuse, but it’s such a difficult thing to quantify or prove, and I guess we have to start somewhere.

Also Kathy, although what you say is of course true (and is an argument against stereotyped views of maleness), the statistics do show that women who kill their partners are a) in a TINY minority and b) tend to have been severely abused by those partners for years. On the other hand, men who kill their partners make up the vast majority of “domestic” murders and have usually been rejected by their partner (hardly a capital crime) or maybe even been “nagged” by her (heaven forbid), and tend not to have difficult backgrounds at all, only a history of violence against previous or current partners. And let us not forget that men are responsible for 90% of violent crime. What is that about?

On the topic of stereotyped views of maleness, I feel sad and angry that we (even women) are more prepared to question them when they might, just maybe, in a blue moon, harm our sons, but not when they continually harm our daughters. What is *that* about?

Personally, I find it more shocking that other people find these things shocking than I do the ability of the human mind to try to protect itself from pain. (A circular remark, perhaps:-)) Empathy, empathy, empathy.

Clarice, of course ’submerged’ is a relative concept, but the metaphor is not the substance of issue. The guy without teeth is welcome to use it of me if he wishes, but I’m not sure it would have the same rhetorical force as Fergal Keane’s writing.

On the other hand, it would probably be inadvisable for a government policy referred to a group of people as ’submerged’, because the government shouldn’t be speaking relatively, as I can do.

If certain experiences cause people to be disconnected from others who do not share and cannot/will not empathise with them, then I feel that to describe this phenomenon as submerging is rather unbalanced, since the disconnection is mutual, whereas the idea of something/someone being submerged seems in itself to be a thing that perpetuates those people’s submersion.

On another note, I disagree that anorexia constitutes a psychological refusal to see the truth. On the contrary, I’d say it’s a defensive response to a whole array of unpleasant truths, possibly even a protest at being “submerged” by one’s culture/society, albeit one that backfires because of other people’s inability to see it as such?