"People think that if you can bombard people with numbers and jargon, you have more legitimacy"

Sometimes, those numbers and jargon are called facts--something Walter DeKeseredy, a professor of criminology at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology refuses to consider-- when it comes to domestic violence research. In an interesting article in the National Journal, Neil Munro looks at the politics of domestic violence:

Proponents of the rival perspectives have amassed studies and facts to buttress their arguments. Feminist-affiliated groups cite surveys from battered-women's shelters to bolster their claims of male violence; family-conflict advocates and groups of divorced fathers cite data collected in surveys of men and women. The different perspectives "have historically been fueled rather than resolved by research, which has ... generated a variety of findings, some flatly contradictory ... [and has] left little room for cooperation," according to a report by participants in the Wingspread conference.

Advocates on either side charge the other with dishonesty and bad intentions. Murray Straus, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire, says that feminist groups deserve credit for launching the campaign against domestic violence. However, they "have created a climate of fear that has inhibited research," he wrote in the July 2007 issue of the European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research.

Straus and like-minded researchers are "advancing a political agenda that supports the goal of fathers' rights groups," responded Walter DeKeseredy, a professor of criminology, justice, and policy studies at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. "People think if you can bombard people with numbers and jargon, you have more legitimacy, but it is a struggle about whose side you are on -- and our side is on the side of women, and we're proud of it."

So Professor Dekeseredy admits that he is proud of the fact that he overlooks statistics and methodology, which is basically what "numbers and jargon" are--and just sides with whatever studies favor women? What kind of research is that?