Spouse Abuse a Two-Way Street By Warren Farrell, Ph.D. USA Today, June 29, 1994
When I began seven years of research into these issues in preparation for “The Myth of Male Power”, I began with these two assumptions since I had been the only man in the United States to have been elected three times to the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Women in New York City, and these assumptions went unquestioned in feminist circles.
My first finding – that in the U.S. and Canada more than 90% of the domestic violence reports to the police were by women, not men – seemed to confirm these assumptions. But, then the picture became more complex. About a dozen studies in the U.S. and Canada asked BOTH sexes how often they hit each other, all of them found that women hit men either more frequently or about as often as the reverse.
Two of the main studies – by Suzanne Steinmetz, Murray Straus and Richard Gelles – assumed men hit women more severely, so they divided domestic violence into seven different levels of severity. They were surprised to discover that, overall, the more severe levels of violence were conducted more by women against men.
A caveat, though. Men hitting women did more damage than the reverse. However, this caveat carried its own caveat: it was exactly because mens hits hurt more that women resorted to more severe methods (i.e. tossing boiling water over her husband or swinging a frying pan into his face). These findings were supported by the Census Bureaus own survey: As early as 1977, the U.S. Census Bureau conducted the National Crime Survey, surveying 60,000 households every six months for three and one half years. They found women use weapons against men 82% of the time; men use weapons against women 25% of the time. Overall, they found that even the women acknowledged they hit men more than men hit women.
The key issue, though, is who initiates this cycle of violence. Steinmetz, Strauss and Gelles found to their initial surprise that women are more likely to be the first initiators. Why? In part, the belief that men can take it – - they can therefore be a punching bag and not be expected to hit back.
I was still a bit incredulous. I asked thousands of men and women in my workshops to count all the relationships in which they had hit their partner before their partner had ever it them. and vice versa. About 60% of the women acknowledged they had more often been the first to strike a blow: among the men, about 90% felt their female partner had been the first to strike a blow.
I still felt violence was an out growth of masculinity. I was half right. Men are responsible for most of the violence which occurs outside the home. However, when 54% of women in lesbian relationships acknowledge violence in their current relationship, vs. only 11% of heterosexual couples reporting violence, I realized that domestic violence is not an outgrowth of male biology.
Why do we vigorously denounce domestic violence against women and not even know about domestic violence against men?
Women Abuse Men: Its More Widespread Than People Think By Armin A. Brott. M.D. From Special supplement to The Washington Post, 12/28/93
Despite all the evidence about female-on-male violence, many groups actively try to suppress coverage of the issue. Suzanne Steinmetz received verbal threats and anonymous phone calls from radical womens groups threatening to harm her children after she published “The Battered Husband Syndrome” in 1978. She says she finds it ironic that the same people who claim that women- initiated violence is purely self defense are so quick to threaten violence against people who do nothing more than publish a scientific study.
Steinmetzs story is not unique. Ten years after that study, R.L. McNeely, a professor at the School of Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin, and Gloria Robinson-Simpson published “The Truth About Domestic Violence: A Falsely Framed Issue.” The article examined various studies on domestic violence and concluded that society must recognize that men are victims “or we will be addressing only part of the phenomenon.”
Shortly thereafter, McNeely received letters from a Pennsylvania womens organization threatening to use its influence in Washington to pull his research funding. Robinson-Simpson, who uncovered some of the most important data, largely was left alone. According to McNeely, “she, a young assistant professor, was assumed to have been “duped” by the senior male professor.”
Domestic Abuse: Its Not Always His Fault By Betsy Hart, Scripps Howard News Service 8/18/97
Not long ago members of Virginias General Assembly considered a bill meant to keep husbands from abusing their wives: putting a warning label at the top of marriage licenses! It didnt get far. (Possibly calmer heads prevailed and pointed out that its non marital relationships that are a major risk factor for abuse.)
Still, this attempt highlights the prevailing notion in domestic violence circles that “its always his fault.” That, in fact, is the title of the cover article in the summer issue of “The Womens Quarterly, ” published by the Independent Womens Forum, an increasingly high-profile group thats kind of an antidote to the National Organization for Women.
Author Sally L. Satel, psychiatrist and Yale medical school lecturer, shows how accepted Gloria Steinems assertion that “the patriarchy requires violence in order to maintain itself” has become. I.e., abusive men arent criminals, or drunks, or particularly troubled people some of whom may be redeemed. They are just men.
The Chicago Metropolitan Battered Womens Network explains: “Battery is a fulfillment of cultural expectation, not a defiant or sick behavior.” This view pervades the activist groups dealing with this issue, and the bureaucracies that fund them with federal dollars.
Today a dozen states basically preclude treatment other than feminist therapy of domestic batterers, Satel notes, and more are following. Forget joint counseling when appropriate and desired. Involving the batterers mate in treatment amounts to “blaming the victim .
That, despite the fact that many abuse experts unhindered by feminist blinders recognize abuse is often part of a “dance of mutual destructiveness” as psychologist Judith Shervin writes. And that women initiate violence in – relationships as often as men (often using weapons to make up for physical differences) according to leading abuse researchers-widely respected across philosophical lines – Richard Gelles and Murray Straus.
No matter. “Don,” a college administrator arrested for once slapping his wife (they are still together) was required to attend a typical “abuse” program. Every week “the message was clear,” Don told Satel. “Whatever she does to you is your fault, whatever you do to her is your fault. It would have been a lot more helpful if they taught us to recognize when we felt ourselves being driven into a position where we lash out. The message should have been “recognize it, deal with it, and quit hitting.” All Don got was guilt about his maleness.
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