I guess when I'm commenting on slogans like 'believe all women' I'm making a deeper comment about simplistic human thinking, the tendency to manipulate and fall prey to manipulation on the basis of what appears reasonable on the surface alone. People are reactionary, which leads to a host of inequities. What we need is a more dispassionate society, people taking a breath or two before jumping to conclusions.

I fully agree that domestic assault should be taken seriously, but speaking as a man who has been burned once too often by deliberately manipulative women, I can't consider all cases of reported domestic assault without also keeping it in mind that the purported victim may be lying in order to jam up the other party, or curry favor in some way.

Given the consequences for men, not only in legal terms, but also where it concerns the toxic court of modern public opinion, Prima Facie is no longer acceptable in these matters. Anyone investigating a domestic assault has to have a broad, comprehensive eye on the matter so as to ensure an injustice isn't perpetrated on an innocent party by a bad actor.

Incidentally, I just discovered that the word 'slogan' comes from an Irish phrase meaning 'War Cry' so take that for what you will, in terms of language and human thinking anyway.

I really want society to be better and we aren't going to get there if we don't start investigating deeper as a matter of course, hence why I put so many things into this essay. We take too many things for granted and it's going to be a steep learning curve, but we have have a better understanding of our present reality if we're to emerge relatively unscathed from our present state of ignorance.

Anyway, it's a complex discussion, too much so for a simple comment thread. Still, I'm glad to have had this small part of it with you.