Finland urged to act as intimate partner violence affects over 100,000 women. Another case of natural stupidity?

Finnish media reiterates an old claim – that domestic violence is a typical male phenomena. In support of their claim they do not refer to scientific studies, but to statistics Finland. Our species easily falls victim to “natural stupidity”. I have developed a model to suppress natural stupidity – Rational entrepreneurial thinking. The idea that domestic violence is a male phenomena is based on marxist feminism. In Sweden, Eva Lundgren was recruited to promote that idea. In 2001, together with a gynecologist, a social worker, and a jurist, and with support of the government arm Brottsoffermyndigheten, she published a book about her viewpoints. In reality, the typical perpetrator of domestic violence is a woman. In 2005, Uppsala university banned Lundgren from teaching and supervising. 6 pages.

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Finnish media reiterate an old claim – that domestic violence is a typical male phenomena. In support of their claim they do not refer to scientific studies, but to statistics Finland. This is their summary:

“Over 131,000 women in Finland have experienced life-threatening intimate partner violence, according to Statistics Finland. Yet the issue remains largely unspoken in public debate, despite the scale and severity of its impact. In 2023, police recorded over 9,300 victims of domestic violence, most of them women. By comparison, there were just 2,700 robberies during the same year (Link to source)”.

According to star-psychologists Daniel Kahneman (1934 – 2024) and Amos Tversky (1937 – 1996), our species easily falls victim to what they refer to as “natural stupidity”. That means we rely on information which is either prototypical, available, or easy to access or a combination of them (Kahneman och Tversky, 1972; Kahneman and Tversky, 1977; Tversky och Kahneman, 1973).

For example, most people believe that fat in the food makes you fat. That's because the fat in the food is prototypical to the fat on your body. In reality, sugar and other carbs make you obese (Hall et al. 2019; Lustig, 2017; Yudkin, 1972).

Availability bias is exemplified by things that are reported in the media. For example, in 2018, a girl from Sweden showed up outside the Swedish parliament suggesting that children should be absent from school 20% of the time. According to the girl, that would favor the climate. In reality, being absent from school 20% of the time will actually inhibit learning. Here's my take (Österberg, 2019).

A third example is domestic violence. The phenomenon has been studied at least since the 1970s. But in the 1990s, the Swedish government recruited a Norwegian feminist sociologist – Eva Lundgren – to investigate domestic violence from a feminist point of view. That means reframing domestic violence as Men's violence against women. Together with Gun Heimer – a physician specializing in gynecology, Ann-Marie Kalliokoski – a social worker, and Jenny Westerstrand – a jurist, they designed an inquiry to study the phenomena. But they only interviewed women. That means Lundgren et al disciminated against men. The result claimed that ~45% of the women reported being victims of domestic violence, and an unprecedented difference between men and women never seen before. The study never went through peer-review, but was published by the government arm – Brottsoffermyndigheten (Lundgren et al. 2001).

Science is tricky, and there are certain steps to be considered in order to make things right. And then there are the biases – natural stupidity.

To avoid natural stupidity, I have developed a model called Rational Entrepreneurial Thinking (Österberg, 2021, kap 3). it is based on three established theories:

• Epistemic vigilance – to minimize the risk of being accidentally or intentionally being misinformed, be suspicious of statements and the purpose of Communication the statement, especially from legacy media (Sperber et al. 2010).
  
  
• Disjunctive reasoning – take all sources into account (Stanovich, 2009).
  
  
• Numeracy – ability to understand, reason with, and apply simple numerical concepts, the foundation for instrumental and epistemic rationality (Brooks och Pui, 2010; Stanovich et al. 2011).

In the 1970s Murray Straus (1926 – 2016), a sociologist, developed an inquiry to assess domestic violence – The Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS; Straus, 1979; Straus et al. 1996). Studies using CTS or similar shows the following pattern:

• Physical violence – Women account for >50% of incidence and injuries.
  
  
• Lethal violence — equally unlikely (0.0000005) affect children, men or women (e.g. Liem och Koenraadt, 2008).
  
  
• Psychological violence (relationship aggression) – typically female. Psychological aggression (relational aggressiveness) includes custodial conflicts which are also a typically female behavior.

(Archer,2000, 2004; Bates, Graham-Kevan och Archer , 2014; Bates och Graham-Kevan, 2016; Bates, 2018; Bates, Kaye, Pennington och Hamlin, 2019; Bergkvist, 2002; Crick och Grotpeter, 1995; Hyde, 2005; Thornton et al. 2012).

Listen to Dr Elizabeth Bates: Intimate Partner Violence (34 minuter).

Ergo. Domestic violence is typically a female phenomenon. This is what the Finnish Police, child commissary, and managing director the Bensow foundation have said about domestic violence:

1. Women relational aggressiveness (psychological violence at home) is the big challenge (Helsingfors Police department, April, 2022). During spring of 2022, a mother murdered her child at a facility which social workers in Helsingfors called “institutions for women with mental challenges” (Björkqvist, HBL, 2022). In neighboring Borgå, 50 kilometers east of Helsingfors, a mother who was under observation by the social service tried to murder her five year old son (Nyqvist och Curry, HBL, 2022).
   
   
2. Psychological violence and lethal violence against small children has increased (Elina Pekkarinen, Finland's child commissary, November, 2023).
   
   
3. 40% of Finnish school kids are victims of psychological violence in the home environment (Maj Estlander, Bensow, November, 2023).
   
   
4. Women's domestic violence is the big challenge (Finnish Amnesty reported that Helsingfors police told them that, February, 2024 (Österberg, 2024).

What is it that media people have reported?

They have likely reported about women's claims of being a victim (Lundbgren et al's approach), which is different from being a victim; women report 90% of the cases of domestic violence, but are the typical perpetrator of domestic violence. That is paradoxical and may lead to people falling victim to natural stupidity.

In 2005, four years after the publication of the book Dr Lundgren was the main author of, and in which she discriminated men but still claimed that domestic violence should be pronounced Men's violence against women, Uppsala university banned Lundgren from teaching and supervising about power, gender, violence (Hagekull, 2005; Holm, 2011).

In conclusion, the media report seems to be consistent with the feminist claim that domestic violence should be framed by their viewpoint, but inconsistent with official reports in Finland about domestic violence, which are consistent with scientific studies on the matter.

Also read:

2025. Intimate Partner violence. The case for women's “hanger” and Finland

2025. Finland ranks third in EU for divorce rate, marriage rates remain low. A closer look at the science and the numbers

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2024. Women's domestic violence, diet-heart hypothesis, and ADHD. The case for Typ 1 & 2 errors and malnutrition

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2023. Another child is abducted, this time stolen from the parent by a young women in Finland, but it may just be the tip of the iceberg.

2023. People can't see the forest for the trees: the case for gender-bias in violence, and intimate partner-violence in particular.

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2023. Public talk: Domestic Violence, Custodial trials, and Parental alienation

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2022. Amber Heard Responds to Johnny Depp's Message About Moving Forward: 'Women's Rights Are Moving Backward'. A Comment

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2022. (In Swedish). Domstolsprocessen mellan Amber Heard och Johnny Depp – vem är förövare av relationsaggressivitet?

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