Domestic Violence

WHY THIS REPORT IS ON MY WEB SITE. For various legal and political reasons, there appears to be an abundance of misinformation in the popular press concerning the issue of domestic violence.

Let me say at the outset, that I strongly support the idea of spouse abuse shelters and the services they provide to victims. However, much of the women's shelter movement is seriously misinformed about the causes and scope of the domestic violence problem.

This misunderstanding of the domestic violence issue is so extensive that city and county governments, the courts, law enforcement, prosecutor's offices, mental health clinics, and other tax supported agencies are now structuring programs based on feminist propaganda rather than responsible scientific studies.

The following is a summary of domestic violence research. Please, help get this important research on the subject of domestic violence to the public.

The Feminist View Of Domestic Violence

Vs.

Scientific Studies

One of the most pervasive myths of our society is that domestic violence is something men do to women. Solid scientific research reveals that domestic violence is something women do to men more frequently than men do it to women. While it is true that men account for most violence outside the home, women instigate most domestic violence and they injure men more frequently and more severely.

The Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, under grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, recently finished the last of three national studies on domestic violence.

The first two studies revealed results similar to the latest study. Anyone who would like a copy of the latest study may order it from the University of New Hampshire (ask for document V55). The data tape and documentation of the 1975 and 1985 studies are available from the Interuniversity Consortium For Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan. Original data is also available on CD-ROM from Sociometrics, Inc. in Palo Alto, CA.

* Women are three times more likely than men to use weapons in domestic violence.

* Women hit their male children more frequently and more severely than they hit their female children.

* Eighty two percent of all people have their first experience of violence at the hands of their mothers.

There is much confusion about whom to believe in the debate about domestic violence. On one side we have women's shelter advocates and feminists who rely on law enforcement statistics. On the other side we have social scientists who rely on scientifically structured studies. Unfortunately, the results of scientific studies do not receive media attention. America's press is seemingly more interested in political correctness than scientific accuracy. Therefore, the public perception, and the perception of many well intentioned domestic violence activists, is radically skewed away from the more balanced perception of social scientists.

The typical response of the abuse shelter feminists upon first hearing the results of the scientific studies is to "shoot the messenger". You can almost hear their minds snap closed. On the other hand, abuse shelter personnel who have not accepted the feminist "party line" are grateful to have accurate information upon which to implement rational programs for prevention, intervention, and treatment of abusers and their victims. What is happening at the abuse shelters in our community?

I could not find studies which compare the efficacy of scientifically based programs to programs based on feminist politics. However I am willing to wager that scientifically based programs are more effective than programs guided by feminist propaganda.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN OTHER COUNTRIES

It is important to note that there have been the same kind of studies done in many countries. There is cross cultural verification that women are more violent than men in domestic settings. When behavior has cross cultural verification it is safe to assume that it is part of human nature rather than a result of cultural conditioning. Females are most often the perpetrators in domestic violence in all cultures that have been studied so far. That leads many professionals to conclude that there is something biological about violent females in family situations. Researchers are now exploring the role of the "territorial imperative" as a factor in women's violence against men. Women see the home as their territory. Like many other species on the planet, we humans will ignore size difference when we experience conflict on our own territory. So, the scientific results that reveal the violence of American women are not unique to our culture, and do not indicate a special pathology among American women. World wide, women are more violent than men in domestic settings.

Below is a summary of the most recent and significant studies I could find about domestic violence in Canada. There were two waves of data collection. The first was done in 1990 the second was finished in 1992.

This study was done by "Ms." Reena Sommer, a research associate with the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and Evaluation. I emphasize the "Ms" to call attention to the fact that scientific studies of DV are dominated by female social scientists. Someone mentioned that the figures might reveal a gender bias as if all scientists are male. In this field many of the recognized experts are women.

Minor Violence	Percent of Females	Percent of Males
Threw an object (not at partner)	23.6	15.8
Threaten to throw object	14.9	7.3
Threw object at partner	16.2	4.6
Pushed, or grabbed	19.8	17.2
Severe Violence
Slapped, punched, or kicked	15.8	7.3
Used weapon	3.1	0.9

A survey of couples in Calgary, Canada found that the rate of severe husband-to-wife violence was 4.8%, while severe wife-to-husband violence was 10%. Brinkerhoff & Lupri, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 13:4 (1989)

Abuse shelter advocates and feminists have severely distorted the DV picture and deliberately produce fraudulent statistics and disinformation. Even when they quote well grounded statistics, they misuse the information. Here is an example: One of the favorite statistics quoted by abuse shelter advocates is that a women is the victim of domestic violence every 15 seconds. This statistic is deduced from a well conducted piece of research which was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, a well respected professional journal for marriage and family therapists. The abuse shelter advocates arrived at this figure by using one of the conclusions of the study, i.e.; 1.8 million women suffer an assault from a husband or boyfriend per year.

What abuse shelter advocates always ignore is another finding of the same study, i.e.; 2 million men are assaulted by a wife or girl friend per year, which translates as, a man is the victim of domestic violence every 14 seconds. This is typical of the wide spread deception practiced by abuse shelter advocates.

America's press establishment is a party to this deception and shares the blame for exacerbating the DV problem by perpetuating a false diagnosis.

Women usually initiate domestic violence episodes (they hit first), and women hit more frequently, as well as using weapons three times more often then men. This combination of violent acts means that the efforts of finding solutions to the domestic violence problem need to focus on female perpetrators. We need to recognize that women are violent, and we need nationwide educational programs that emphasize the women's role as perpetrators. Other studies show that men are becoming less violent at the same time that women are becoming more violent. Educating men seems to be working. Educating women to be less violent should now be the main thrust of public education programs.

Any domestic violence program which accepts the "male abuser – female victim" paradigm is based on a false premise. These kind of domestic violence programs actually perpetuate the problem of domestic abuse and do not deserve to be supported by private citizens or government agencies. Many government agencies, and legitimate charities, have been funding a feminist political cause, rather than funding rational, solution focused, domestic violence prevention programs.

What kind of domestic violence prevention programs do we have in our community? Do our domestic violence prevention programs devote as much attention to violent females, as they do to violent males? If not, why not?

Let me quote from a book on the subject by McNeely, R.L.. and Robinson-Simpson, G (1987) "The Truth about Domestic Violence: A Falsely Framed Issue":

"Yet, while repeated studies consistently show that men are victims of domestic violence at least as often as are women, both the lay public and many professionals regard a finding of no sex difference in rates of physical aggression among intimates as surprising, if not unreliable, the stereotype being that men are aggressive and women are exclusively victims."

However, part of the feminist agenda is to make men look as bad as they can. The American press cooperates with this libelous portrayal of men. The feminist view of domestic violence is part of the problem. The media boycott of news about the scientific studies is part of the problem. The scientific view gives us hope for solution. Please do your part to share this very important information with your community.

======== NEWS CLIPS ========

Here are some exceptions to the usual media boycott of the science based stories about domestic violence:

Just as bad cases make bad laws, so can celebrity cases reinforce old myths. The biggest myth the O.J. Simpson case is likely to reinforce is the myth that domestic violence is a one way street (male-to-female), and its corollary, that male violence against women is an outgrowth of masculinity.

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 Strauss 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 men's 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 Bureau's 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 hit 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. Male to male violence is so much an outgrowth of masculinity we don't abhor it, we applaud it. We applaud Mike Tyson for his violence and then wonder we he is violent; we applaud O.J. Simpson for his violence and then wonder why he is violent. In fact, we call male to male violence entertainment: football, boxing, auto racing, ice hockey. When we protest it -- as with bullfighting -- it is due to the damage done to the bull.

We, the people, subsidize male to male violence with our money, respect, applause and love. Hopefully, the O.J. Simpson saga will help us understand this without forgetting than when men and women are together, the violence that erupts is a two-way street

When Women Abuse Men:

It's Far More Widespread Than People Think

"Despite all the evidence about female-on-male violence, many groups actively try to suppress coverage of the issue. Steinmetz received verbal threats and anonymous phone calls from radical women's 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.

Steinmetz's 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 women's 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."

Murray A. Straus, a sociologist and co-director for the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, blames "women in the battered [women's] shelter movement" for denying that women physically abuse husbands, ex-husbands and boyfriends, or playing down such abuse.

"There's this fiction in the shelter movement that in all cases, it's him, not her" who's responsible for domestic assaults, Mr. Straus said in a recent interview.

Mr. Straus said at least 30 studies of domestic violence – including some he's conducted - have shown both sexes to be equally culpable. But he said some of the research, such as a recent Canadian national survey, "left out data on women abusing men... because it's politically embarrassing."

Women and men "are almost identical" in terms of the frequency of attacks such as slapping, shoving, and kicking, Mr. Straus said.

Using information on married couples obtained from 2,994 women in the 1985 National Family Violence Survey, Mr. Straus said he found a rate for assaults by wives of 124 per 1,000 couples, compared with 122 per 1,000 for assaults by husbands.

The rate of minor assaults by wives was 78 per 1,000 couples, and the rate of minor assaults by husbands was 72 per 1,000, he said. For the category of severe assaults, he said, the rate was 46 per 1,000 couples for assaults by wives and 50 per 1,000 for assaults by husbands.

"Neither difference is statistically different," Mr. Straus wrote in the journal Issues in Definition and Measurement. "As these rates are based exclusively on information provided by women respondents, the near equality in assault rates cannot be attributed to a gender bias in reporting."

WOMEN AND MEN EQUALLY AT FAULT

FOR DOMESTIC ABUSE

The article given below appeared in the Albany Times Union. It was written by Judith Sherven and James Sniechowski of Los Angeles. She is a clinical psychologist and he also holds a doctorate in the behavioral sciences.

Once again, the myth of the evil brutal male perpetrator and the perfect, innocent female victim is being broadcast and written about as gospel. The discussion is national. The rage and sorrow, palpable. Only when we come to terms with the fact that domestic violence is the responsibility of both men and women, however, can we put a stop to this horrible nightmare.

Domestic violence is not an either-or phenomenon. It is not either the man's fault or the women's. It is a both-and problem. Both male and the female are bound in their dance of mutual destructiveness, their incapacity for intimacy and appreciation of differences. They need each other to perpetuate personal and collective dramas of victimization and lovelessness, and so, regrettably, neither can leave.

This is a very untidy idea for people who have grown up with movies in which the "good guy" triumphs over the "bad guy" rescues the damsel from distress. But to tackle the plague of domestic violence, we must alter our perspectives.

Half of spousal murders are committed by wives, a statistic that has been stable over time.

The l985 National Family Violence Survey, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and supported by many other surveys, disclosed that women and men were physically abusing one another in roughly equal numbers. Wives reported that they were more often the aggressors. Using weapons to make up for physical disadvantage, they were not just fighting back.

While 1.8 million women annually suffered one or more assaults from a husband or boyfriend, 2 million men were assaulted by a wife or girlfriend, according to a l986 study on U. S. family violence published in the Journal of Marriage and Family. That study also found that 54 percent of all violence termed "severe" was by women.

The Journal for the National Association of Social Workers found in l986 that among teenagers who date, girls were violent more frequently than boys.

Mothers abuse their children at a rate approaching twice that of fathers, according to state child-protective service agencies surveyed by the Children's Rights Coalition.

Because men have been taught to "take it like a man" and are ridiculed when they feel they have been battered by women, women are nine times more likely to report their abusers to the authorities.

In l988, R. L. McNeely, a professor at the School of Social Welfare of the University of Wisconsin, published "The Truth About Domestic Violence: A Falsely Framed Issue" again revealing the level of violence against men by women. Such facts, though, are "politically incorrect".

Even 10 years earlier, Susan Steinmetz , director of the Family Research Institute at Indiana University-Purdue University received threats of harm to her children from radical women's groups after she published "The Battered Husband Syndrome".

Why are we, as a culture, loath to expose the responsibility of women in domestic abuse? Why do we cling to the pure and virginal image of the "sweet young thing" and the "damsel in distress"? If we are sincere about change, we must acknowledge the truth: Women are part and parcel of domestic violence.

The women's movement claims its goal to be equal rights for women. If that is so, then women must share responsibility for their behavior and their contribution to domestic violence. Otherwise, we remain in a distortion that overshadows the truth. Only the truth will show us the way out of the epidemic of violence that is destroying our families and our nation.