In Russia, Australia and American South I have seen the same problem. There is a lot of violence against women, and the families hide it, silencing those to whom it happens. This corrupts the character of the place. It makes everyone dishonest and insincere. And that degrades the national character.

Many of these people claim to believe in conservative values such as integrity, character and family. They fail according to all of the above. Integrity includes honesty, and people hiding their crimes fail to show honesty. Character means controlling what you do with your fists and your mouth, and a man who beats up on a woman fails to show character. As for family, it is ill-served by being used to support wrongdoing within the family. That discredits family as such and leads many people of goodwill to avoid family life. The most important family value is being good to one’s children, and people who fail to do that fail to exercise family values.

I have been married to a woman who was quite quarrelsome, but I was never violent or abusive to her. Nor have I ever been ugly to my daughter. I have been maligned by many people. Yet I have exercised correct conduct within my family. If I can do it then so can the next man.

For as long as there are men who choose to be ugly to women, there will be a need for one or another kind of feminism. In feminism itself we have seen many trends, some better than others. In confronting family violence, I do not stand by feminism or political correctness. I stand by conservative values of character, family and integrity.

For this reason domestic violence should be a conservative cause as much as it is a liberal one. Domestic violence degrades national character and makes people worse human beings. It results in people lacking self-control and it results in people lacking honesty. This means that people who do it – and people who hide it - fail according to conservative values. Which then means that it should be part of conservative agenda to fight such a thing.