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How are you distinguishing:
From
Statistically speaking the rate of abuse from men to their partners is extremely high. I don't know how to manage this best but it seems likely that at least some of the situations of abuse would be helped by having spaces without men in them. Does that mean we should force men and women apart? No. But how to manage that I will concede is a difficult problem.
In many cases of abuse the abuser keeps the victim close and prevents any outside contact as much as possible. Having the moment without the abuser nearby can provide an opportunity to escape which seems to provide some significant utility. On the other hand someone who is supported by their partner and actually does derive benefit from that would suffer from the separation, not to mention the suffering of the men who would theoretically be separated from their partners and kids.
I don't have the answer, but I do see it as fundamentally different from the self destructive behaviour situation. Someone who is disabled is no less able to make bad choices. If I could be a tradie, say an electrician, and I can go to the pub after work and smoke a pack of cigarettes then the same should apply to a disabled person. Is it the best decision? No. But it is theirs.
In the same way an abused partner should be able to make the decision to stay in the abusive relationship, whether that be a good or had choice. That said, paths out from abusive relationships and from smoking should both be made available as much as is reasonably possible.
No. Higher than the other direction but hardly extreme
Statistically speaking the harm from drug adficts and alcohol is is much higher
In Australia, the country I live in, roughly 1 in 4 women have experienced intimate partner violence since age 15. For men this is 1 in 14. 23% compared to 7.3% to be clear. That means that about 3 times as many women have experienced IPV than men. This includes LGBT relationships, so abusive men who abuse other men would show up as part of the men being abused statistic, as with women abusing women.
As for the harm from drug addicts and alcohol use/abuse, where does the harm come from? Surely if I am in my own home and I take a drug and while high I stay at home I am not harming anyone? If I were to hurt my partner or other people in my house that would be a possible route for harm to occur. But if I don't drive drunk or high and I don't hurt those immediately around me how does harm happen?
I would suggest that much of the harm around drugs comes from the criminal enterprises involved with production and supply, crime committed to fund addictive drug use, and over policing coming from having already had one interaction with police leading to petty things becoming criminal due to that interaction. Surely there are other harms, but think about how much of this would be alleviated by legalising the less harmful drugs and decriminalising the rest. The legalised ones can be produced under regulation and made safer to consume as well as being made affordable. This would kill the criminal systems around drug production and supply. For the decriminalised ones it would shift the lower towards the user, allowing users to have power over dealers and have a way out of those fairly toxic relationships.
But again, we can always talk about some other harm out there and ignore the case at hand. I would rather close the conversation with a simple statement. We do have a problem with men abusing women which is larger than all other forms of abuse. We would all benefit from this being reduced. And lastly when managing something like a shelter it is reasonable to take a few extra steps to provide a way out for women who are particularly vulnerable at that time. Should we offer that for men? Of course. But is it going to be used far more by women? Yes.
You’re confusing “way too women experience partner violence sometime in their lives” with “all men are violent criminals and need to be separated”.
While yes, a lot of drug related violence is caused by the drug war, the harm for drugs is easy to see from with a significant portion of the homeless, theft and ciolence as the worst addicts fall out of society, and ruined wasted lives. Harm for alcoholism is much more obvious and easy to see, but I’d also add all the victims of drunk driving to it’s harm
I'm not saying all men are abusers or harmful and therefore need to be separated, not at all. If my partner and I were to utilise a service it would not offend me to have a short conversation with her, away from me, to ensure she could say things without me hearing them. Having a safe way out of abusive relationships is the key predictor of whether women will stay or leave. In the 70s women couldn't get a credit card or bank account in their name so couldn't leave, but once that changed a whole bunch of women left their husbands and escaped to improve their lives. In a situation like a temporary housing shelter it would be ideal to have that conversation and offer a way out. Is sex segregation the best way of doing this? No. Is it better than nothing? Depending on the rate of intimate partner violence, maybe? I don't know for sure, but I am open to the possibility that it is better to have that be a space without men.
And yes, most of the harms of alcohol are socially accepted to some degree and thus hidden, so it isn't well studied and understood. I think we agree that most of the harm comes from the legal context of drug use, not from the drugs themselves as such. I mean paracetamol can cause some harms but it is balanced by the benefit and we make a rational decision to use it. I think the same applies to weed and MDMA, but all of the social and legal things around those two generate tonnes of harm and obfuscate the actual issue.
I want a government to run a test of many different approaches in different areas, matched to reduce confounding, so we can see what actually works. Should weed be legalised or decriminalised? What works better? Which measures do we care most about? Same for all the other issues. Run the studies with agreement in the legislation that if the study shows X works we will do X. It would mean we decide in advance our response to the outcomes of the studies and then work from that basis going forward without regard to current party in office or political pressures.