Men Are More Likely Than Women To Be Victims In Dating Violence

[4th law of robotics]

DURHAM, N.H. -- A 32-nation study of violence against dating partners by university partners found that about a third had been violent, and most incidents of partner violence involve violence by both the man and woman, according to Murray Straus, founder and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. The second largest category was couples where the female partner was the only one to carry about physical attacks, not the male partner.

Straus’ new research also found that dominance by the female partner is even more closely related to violence by women than is male dominance. These results call into question the widely held belief that partner violence is primarily a male crime and that when women are violent it is self defense.

“In the 35 years since I began research on partner violence, I have seen my assumptions about prevalence and etiology contradicted by a mass of empirical evidence from my own research and from research by many others,” Straus said. “My view on partner violence now recognizes the overwhelming evidence that women assault their partners at about the same rate as men. However, when women are violent, the injury rate is lower.”

http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2006/may/em_060519male.cfm?type=n

I admit that for the longest time I assumed domestic violence was a predominately male affair. That's how it's portrayed and the crime stats certainly support that. But it's becoming apparent that it's a far more equal-opportunity crime than is popularly believed.

I think removing the stigma on men reporting abuse by their wives/girlfriends and working to get this acknowledged (like by changing the tone of domestic violence PSAs) represents a significant men's health issue.

Just my 2 cents.

[Scuba]

1. Yeah, us poor men are so abused while women have big screen TV's and recliners in the ladies room.

Yeah, that's it.

[4th law of robotics]

2. Reminds me of some of the discussions after the Duke Rape case

was exposed as a fraud.

"Oh yeah, rich white boys have it so rough. I should totally feel bad for them being almost falsely sent to jail for decades. Boo hoo!"

Either you oppose unwarranted violence or you don't. You can't make gendered exceptions.

You need to ask yourself: do you want to live in a world with less violence period. Or less violence against women only?

[Scuba]

4. I oppose violence, but to claim that men are victims more than women is delusional.

[4th law of robotics]

6. Could you present your studies?

Actually it makes perfect sense if you think about it.

The law doesn't technically say it's ok to hit a man but not a woman but if you look at sentencings for DV broken down by gender it may as well. Men are far less likely to report it.

Additionally there is a very strong "real men don't hit women" mentality in our society. There is no comparable "real women don't hit men" stigma. Turn on any sitcom and it's common to see wives slapping their husbands. How often do you see it in reverse? Rarely, and pretty much just on WE or Oxygen (shortly before the man is murdered).

There is a major social stigma against A) men hitting women and B) men complaining about being hit by women.

Given that does it seem all that outlandish that female on male violence exists?

[Warren DeMontague]

10. outlandish? I'm sure it happens sometimes- but I think men are, in general, physically stronger.

It's not an equivalent situation.

But no one should hit anyone, it's not okay, under any circumstances.

[4th law of robotics]

11. You don't need to be stronger than another person to do real damage to them

you could use a weapon or they could be in some way prevented from defending themselves.

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. It is not delusional, it is accurate.

Men are more often victims, but suffer less injury.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/?tool=pubmed

In fact if we accept the premise that early intervention is beneficial, the best intervention would be to stop the women who do the battering in 70% of nonreciprocal IPV before it escalates into reciprocal violence and she gets hurt.

[Kingofalldems]

16. Looks like you just joined in April

Doesn't compute.

[4th law of robotics]

17. Indeed

but I didn't come in to being in april this year.

So it is possible that I have knowledge of events prior to DU.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

3. I don't know that I buy the OP

But that is a stupid-ass reply. Seriously, did you write for a mid-80's sitcom or something?

[Major Nikon]

8. I've known two men who were beaten by their wives

The reason why male initiated domestic violence is in the public spotlight more is because women are more likely to be injured and because men are far less likely to speak about it or seek help.

Both of those I know who were abused by their wives endured violence for years.

[4th law of robotics]

13. There really is no system in place for this

when men are beaten it's mostly treated as a joke by law enforcement, the community, and society at large.

Virtually no resources are dedicated towards helping male victims (your town likely has a women's shelter, no such thing exists for male victims of DV).

So it's not surprising men are reluctant to do anything about it.

[Major Nikon]

14. I don't think too many LEOs treat it as a joke anymore

In most states if you hit someone you live with, you go to jail regardless of whether you are male or female.

I'm not so sure there should be an equivelence as far as male on female DV is concerned. Men aren't nearly as likely to be seriously injured or killed as a result of DV so I don't see as much need for a men's shelter vs a women's shelter.

[4th law of robotics]

19. Is it truly not necessary though?

It's hard to say with this since the social stigma is so great.

Men are less inclined to seek help to begin with (either from the law or health professionals) for any problem.

When you add in the requirement that they publicly announce that they "got beaten up by a girl" I'm guessing that initial hesitation becomes outright horror.

I've seen various estimates but they all seem to say about two or three women are killed by their intimate partners for every man killed by an intimate partner. Obviously that's still skewed towards women. But we should ask: if women were only being murdered by their spouses at half the rate they are now would it be acceptable and warrant the removal of all DV services? Obviously not. So . . .

[Warren DeMontague]

15. I think in terms of getting accurate information, if it's not being reported, that's gonna confuse

the issue.

I do think that, over the years, Law Enforcement and society in general has become more fluid in understanding of relationships and partner dynamics, both in healthy and not healthy relationships. Domestic Violence in lesbian relationships, for one- which was not acknowledged for a long time, but is now recognized as a potential issue in the community...

again, my bottom line is violence is never acceptable.

[lumberjack_jeff]

20. True. Violence is never acceptable.

That is true for the violence leading up to the injury-causing incident as well.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. I think this has been roundly debunked.

The presentation, such as it would have been, would have taken place 6 years ago.

[4th law of robotics]

12. The CDC found comparable results

30% for women, 26% among men.

Their source was apparently an interview so it wouldn't surprise me if the men's self reporting was lower, given the stigma.

I'm not going to argue that men are necessarily being abused more (that's just the title of the article I happened across).

My point was more that it is far more prevalent than our society likes to admit.

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. Domestic violence is a cycle. Usually, neither party is blameless.

The CDC says this:

Objectives. We sought to examine the prevalence of reciprocal (i.e., perpetrated by both partners) and nonreciprocal intimate partner violence and to determine whether reciprocity is related to violence frequency and injury.

Methods. We analyzed data on young US adults aged 18 to 28 years from the 2001 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which contained information about partner violence and injury reported by 11 370 respondents on 18761 heterosexual relationships.

Results. Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases. Reciprocity was associated with more frequent violence among women (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=2.3; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.9, 2.8), but not men (AOR=1.26; 95% CI=0.9, 1.7). Regarding injury, men were more likely to inflict injury than were women (AOR=1.3; 95% CI=1.1, 1.5), and reciprocal intimate partner violence was associated with greater injury than was nonreciprocal intimate partner violence regardless of the gender of the perpetrator (AOR=4.4; 95% CI=3.6, 5.5).

Conclusions. The context of the violence (reciprocal vs nonreciprocal) is a strong predictor of reported injury. Prevention approaches that address the escalation of partner violence may be needed to address reciprocal violence.

In other words, in violent relationships among young adults, the women hit their male partners in 85% of them, compared to 65% of men.

In other, other words, 15% of abused women are innocent victims, compared to 35% of abused men.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

22. Still don't know that I buy it....

....however, I will say this. Most men I know including myself have been raised to believe you never, EVER under any circumstances, hit a woman. Nobody even tosses in the caveat "except if your life is threatened"....this is a success of the majority's "man code" that will of course never get mentioned in radfem circles (or they'll probably bizarrely condemn it, saying it's sexist not to hit a woman because she's a woman). This leads to men taking abuse far more than anyone of either sex should. As far as the actual numbers....who knows, but many men DO stay silent because they are "supposed" to.

[4th law of robotics]

23. I think the stigma against men hitting women is a good thing

men are in general much larger and stronger than women (as always there are exceptions).

I wish there were a similar stigma that ran in reverse though given the "boys don't hit girls" rule. The reason being that by preventing even violence in self-defense men are actually at a disadvantage to women in this regard as they are prohibited from fighting back.

Fundamentally targeting a man because you know he is unlikely to fight back is no different than beating up someone in a wheelchair because you know they can't do anything about it. Even children see the injustice in that.

Anyone who would use their position of asymmetrical power (either from physical strength or the knowledge that the other person is prevented from retaliating or some other factor) is the worst kind of bully and should be publicly shunned in addition to any legal troubles they occur. Male or female shouldn't matter.

The social conditioning should be tweaked. Boys don't hit girls hits on an element of it. But really it ought to be "don't fight anyone who can't realistically fight back".

/"don't fight at all" is probably even better. But I recognize that will never catch on.