Author:
Aiden Christensen
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Date Posted: 10:26:28 02/02/03 Sun
Well, congratulations on your new issue. And as much as I like the magazine and this current issue, what motivates me to post is a complaint.
[img]http://users.skynet.be/gedi/emoticons4u/mad/1106.gif[/img]
Specifically I would like to take issue with the information given Mr. Bob Koch by the Weber County Sheriff’s Office on Domestic Violence. In JUST CAUSE... CAUSE IT MATTERS!! Domestic Violence is the following statement:
“The Weber County Sheriff’s Office on Domestic Violence is there for those who need support. I spoke recently with the heads of that office, Karen Sprinkel and Diana Crowder, and they gave me some alarming, informative statistics. They told me that 97% of the victims are women and children, and half of those children will repeat this abusive behavior as adults.”
The truth is there is an unfortunate parity of victimhood between the sexes; men are victims of domestic violence at least as often as women. It is also true that women are injured more frequently than men even though they are as just as likely of initiate violence and are more likely to wield a weapon. However, there is a wide gap in the way we, as members of society, are taught to perceive the significance of violence applied against members of either sex. Neither men nor women consider violence against men as a crime. In fact, it is often depicted as humorous when a woman attacks a man. And men are not nearly as likely to report an attack as a crime, nor seek shelter services (indeed, DV shelters are considered shelters regardless of whether or not they also serve men). As a result, there are far fewer reports of DV against men, and surveys that phrase DV in terms of criminal assault under-report the frequency of domestic violence committed against men.
Martin S. Fiebert, at the Department of Psychology of California State University, Long Beach publishes an annotated bibliography currently numbering 133 scholarly investigations: 107 empirical studies and 26 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. In other words, studies that compare the actions of both sexes consistently report the rates of domestic assault are equal between the sexes.
In fact, this is nothing new. Erin Pizzey founded the first women’s shelter in 1971 in Chiswick, England, and can thus be considered the founder of the women’s movement. She is a truly great woman. She and her staff observed that of the first 100 women coming into the refuge, 62 were as violent as the partners they had left. So the above referenced bibliography of scholarly investigations only confirms what Pizzey and her staff plainly saw from their experience working with women in their DV shelter. My question is this: if it was so obvious to these pioneering workers in domestic violence, and also repeatedly documented in scholarly investigations, why isn’t the Weber County Sheriff’s Office aware of the fact?
Before ending this post I want to leave you with a thought: What message are we sending to our children if we ignore violence perpetuated by women? Let’s look again at the Street article:
“They told me that 97% of the victims are women and children, and half of those children will repeat this abusive behavior as adults. This is where counseling comes in. If we can stop the violence from festering in these children before they grow up, maybe we can turn future abusers into understanding and caring human beings.”
So what happens when we ignore the half of DV cases perpetuated by women, or worse – blame the violence on men regardless of the actual perpetrator?
Erin Pizzey says this sends a terrible message to children trapped in violent families. Kids learn that ``this is what women do, this is what women are. My mother can batter me, hit me, beat me, shame me, humiliate me, and society ignores what she does. But my father has only got to lose his cool'' and he's stigmatized, criminally charged and ``loses his family'' in divorce proceedings.
Think about it.
Further Reading:
Abused Men Brochure: Outlines how men cope with domestic violence.
Violent Touch: Breaking Through the Stereotype is a research summary on abused men, by David Fontes, Ph.D., former Director of SAFE.
The Hidden Victims of Domestic Violence, by Nancy Wolf, is an excellent essay on the issue of abused men in our culture. She discussed the research, the cultural issues, and more, in a well-documented, well-written essay.
In Defense of Men, by Sheridan Hill, a feminist author who investigated the issue of domestic violence and went from scoffing at the idea that men can be abused to acknowledging that women, too, can be violent.
FAMILY VIOLENCE: A report from: Family Resources & Research
Abstract: Sex Differences in Aggression Between Heterosexual Partners:A Meta-Analytic Review
Archer, Josh (2000):
in APA Psychological Bulletin
"Meta-analyses of sex differences in physical aggression to heterosexual partners and in its physical consequences are reported. Women were slightly more likely (d = -.05) than men to use one or more act of physical aggression and to use such acts more frequently. Men were more likely (d = .15) to inflict an injury, and overall, 62% of those injured by a partner were women.
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