Home / Dr. S / Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate Partner Violence

I just saw a news story about a man who brutally beat a woman and killed her, dead as a door nail, on mother’s day. Of course, there will never be a public analysis and we (and by “we”, I mean the general public) will never know why he did it. The media will present the story and we will interpret it as just another sad example of the violence women experience at the hands of the mean and brutal men of this world. Men are like that, don’t you know: violent. Just in case we don’t see it that way, the media will trot out, as they did in this story, the angry female from the victims services organization and she’ll tell us just how bad male perpetrated violence against women really is. And she doesn’t even have to say it is “male perpetrated” because the vast majority of people will simply hear it as such.

The almost universal belief that men are the perpetrators and women the victims of domestic violence is apparently backed up by criminal statistics that show that eight of ten victims of IPV are women (Mann, 2012). That is, when people show up at a police department and report an IPV incident, they are almost always female. But, this curious asymmetry is not supported by recent research that has clearly shown that men and women are about equally likely to be victims of IPV  (Straus 2004, Straus 2007)! Researchers call this “gender symmetry” in domestic violence and suggest that over two hundred studies support that symmetry. What’s even more interesting (or perhaps disturbing) is that leading researchers in the field also suggest that decades of evidence of gender symmetry has actively and intentionally suppressed and distorted (Straus 2010, Graham-Kevan 2007, Straus 2007) by feminist sociologists who are either unaware of the empirical evidence or blind to their own gender biases.  Feminist sociologists have, in other words, worked to “invisibilize” IPV against men.

Of course, the question that arises at this point is, is this true, and if so, why? Has violence against men been “invisibilized” and is it a problem, or are women the primary victims. If you go by recent studies, violence against men has clearly been invisibilized. Feminists have suppressed data, ignored data inconsistent with their theories,  selectively cited studies, created evidence by misleading citation practices, obstructed publication, and even persecuted those who take a contrary position (Straus, 2007). If you accept this however, then the issue becomes the contradictory police statistics. There is no ambiguity in police statistics that show that 8 out 10 times it is the women who report violence to the police. So, who is right? Are women the primary victims or have feminists done us a disservice? And if the latter, what are we to make of police statistics? How do you sort this out?

Well, it is actually not that difficult. The simple truth is, official government statistics are distorted and they give a false picture of reality. Perhaps an example from my own life will bring the issue into clear focus. My wife is an IPV counselor. She provides free counseling to victims of domestic violence through a local non-profit organization. I do a bit of IPV counseling myself to support her and bring a male voice in when needed. We thus have a direct window into the phenomenon of IPV. What we found over the years is quite interesting. We find (in line with recent studies) that most couples report bidirectional violence. That is, in intimate relationships, it is most often the case that both partners are engaging in violent acts. We also find that men in relationships are about equally likely to report experiencing IPV as women. That is, men beat women and women beat men. What’s more remarkable is that, of all the men that we have seen over the years who have reported forms of IPV in their relationships to us, not a single one has ever reported to police! That is, men experience violence, but they keep their mouths shut about it. Even when we encourage them to report the violence they experience, they don’t. This remarkable observation calls into question the utility of official police statistics which, in this light, seem entirely useless and unrepresentative of actual social reality! If you use police statistics to paint a picture of IPV, your picture is distorted and untrue.

Upon hearing that police statistics are useless as empirical indicators of IPV, you may be initially disconcerted, even confused, but don’t be. Explaining the anomaly is not that difficult. Men do not report their victimizations because:

  • There is a culture of silence when it comes to female perpetrated violence.Women specifically, and culture more generally, have silenced men! (I actually seen examples in clinical practice where women literary shut their men up in order to prevent them from talking about/reporting the domestic abuse they receive at home).
  • Men experience intense feelings of shame when they are victims (Adebayo 2012) of female perpetrated violence.
  • Female assault just doesn’t register as assault in the mind in a lot of cases. That is, men do not report because of the stigma associated with being “weak” and presumably “unable” to defend themselves, the ridicule that necessarily attends this stigma, and the fact that they don’t see it as assault. Police officers laugh, friends exclaim surprise when an individual “allows” a female to beat them, and family members downplay and minimize the assault as if being hit by a girl isn’t being hit at all.

The net result of all this is that IPV perpetrated against males is almost completely erased from the criminal statistics, and totally absent from the sociological (and social) radar.

So, is violence against men “invisibalized”? Clearly it is. The notion that women are primarily the victims of IPV is erroneous and can only be supported by ignoring the evidence or using biased police statistics, which is exactly what outlets like Huffpost do  (see Vagianos, 2014). Is this a problem? It most certainly is. More and more studies show that all forms of violence, whether they be physical, psychological, emotional, or even spiritual, have long term negative consequences for individuals and society (Sosteric 2013). In other words, it doesn’t make you strong, it makes you damaged. What’s more, traditional “feminist” approaches to treatments, treatments which assume patriarchy as the cause,  have been singularly unsuccessful in improving IPV statistics and recidivism rates (Graham-Kevan 2007), just as we might expect since patriarchy isn’t the real cause. Sadly, it is all a bunch of radical hot air, really.

Because feminist approaches are ineffective, this has to be looked at more carefully. And if what I’ve said so far doesn’t convince or if you find yourself looking for ways to undermine what I’m saying, I can use my own life as an example. In my life it is the women who have been the most violent toward me. I’ve been hit by a man in my life only once, and frankly, it was my fault because I instigated. On the other hand, I’ve been physically assaulted, emotionally abused, and psychologically harangued by past intimate partners more times than I can count. And, it is not just the physical violence we need to be more empirical about. I’ve experienced multiple forms of female violence from multiple intimate past partners. I’ve been put down, abandoned, insulted, emasculated, neglected, and disparaged many times in my life, and its always been at the hands of a female. And the IPV I reference here does not even include violence at the hands of my mother (another female) who whipped and beat me whenever she bloody well felt like it. She didn’t have any problems with breaking a wooden spoon on my hand or flailing me with one of her leather belts. And she didn’t have any trouble making it worse if I told her she should stop. I remember wailing in pain and begging her to stop and she just hit me harder and harder and harder. I’ve never experienced that kind of violence at the hands of a man, ironically, and this female perpetrated violence has never appeared in any official record of domestic abuse because nobody ever investigated it as such. I, for reasons already enumerated, never reported it. Overall, men have been much kinder to me. I don’t know what its been like in your direct experience, but in my experience (and probably in Walt Disney’s experience as well, if you can judge his “wicked witch” archetypes as evidence), it is the females of the species who are the most violent and brutal. And I’m not going to sugar coat it for you. I was left with a damaged psyche as a result of the abuse. I had emotional and psychological issues for a good forty years of my life as a result of the female on male violence that I experienced. If you don’t like hearing it, tough. You can’t erase that experience, you can’t stop me from talking about it, and thankfully it is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss it as irrelevant. From this point forward, any rational, reasonable, sociologically sophisticated, unbiased, and effective analysis will have to take into account the full reality of IPV, and the fact that women can be just as mean, viscous, violent, and cruel as men.

Now of course, having said all this, I want to point out, I’m not bashing females or feminism here. Like I said above, men are equally violent. The sad truth is, we all participate in the psychopathology caused by The System. As regards feminism, there is definately something to be said for feminist theories of patriarchal domination. We should not forget that barely a hundred years ago, women could not vote, were considered weak and emotional, and were seen as generally incapable of making meaningful and rational decisions. Women were, and in fact still are, dominated by a patriarchy that diminishes the female sex, exposes them to violence, undervalues their social contributions (women are generally paid less than their male counterparts), and generally oppresses them down. Down to this day, stereotypical male characteristics (and individuals) are elevated (strength, competition, rationality) while female characteristics are devalued. In other words, patriarchy is real. Patriarchy does exist, it does have an impact, and we should not deny it. We need to thank the feminists for all their great work in exposing and fighting what is a pernicious, deeply embedded, and highly immoral aspect of all human cultures. In other words, respect and props to the feminists for all the great work they’ve done over the years! All I’m saying here is we (and by “we”, I mean sociologists, students, and society) need to take a closer look because our current understanding of IPV is off base, biased, and totally inadequate.

Interpersonal Violence Survey

Interpersonal Violence Survey

Please take a few moments to fill out the survey below. Note, your responses are totally anonymous. Not even your IP is stored with the date. Also note, when you submit the survey you will automatically be redirected to the results page.

There are different ways to classify intimate partner violence. For the purposes of this survey we will break it down into four broad categories. As you read through these please be aware, we typically downplay or even ignore our own perpetration (see this article for an example how some feminists downplay violence perpetrated by woment). The truth, unfortunately, most people engage in some form of interpersonal violence. Yelling at your children, spanking them, withholding affection from your partner, engaging in snarky comments designed to belittle, shame, or shut somebody down, are all violent acts AND we’ve probably all engage in some or all of them either at home, at work with our colleagues or employees, at school with our students, and so on (I know I have). When reporting your perpetration, don’t feel shameful or guilty, just be honest and open. Solving this problem requires that we are all open and honest not only about the violence we experience, but also the violence we perpetrate.

Physical violence is the intentional use of physical force with the potential for causing harm, injury, disability, or death Physical violence includes, but is not limited to pushing, throwing, grabbing, biting, shaking, chocking, slapping, punching, burning, using a weapon, using restrains, etc.

Sexual violence is a) violence aimed at coercing sexual activity, b) sexual activity perpetrated against an individual (e.g. minor) who is unable to understand the nature of the act, unable to communicate unwillingness, or under the influence of alcohol or drugs or c) sexual activity that an is unwanted, or that the individual feels is abusive (i.e. non-consensual BDSM).

Psychological violence is a form of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) that damages an indidual's mental state and leaves them with disordered cognition, personality disturbances, suicidal orientations, damage sense of self, poor self esteem, etc. Psychological violence involves verbal abuse, verbal coercion, threats, manipulation, coercive tactics, use of fear to control. Psychological/emotional violence also includes disrespect, treating an individual like a servant, treating an individual like a child. Psychological violence includes humiliation, controlling behaviour, information withholding, and social isolation. Psychological/emotional violence also includes name calling, yelling, shaming, negation, imitation/mocking, judging, criticizing, and other attempts to undermine self-esteem and self-efficacy.

Emotional violence is a form of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) that damages an indidual's emotional health and development and leaves them feeling rejected, fearful, insecure, isolated, insignificant, unworthy, and unloved. Emotinoal abuse involves, like psychological abuse, verbal abuse, verbal coercion, threats, manipulation, coercive tactics, use of fear to control. Emotional violence also includes disrespect, treating an individual like a servant, treating an individual like a child, humiliation, controlling behaviour, information withholding, and social isolation, name calling, yelling, shaming, negation, imitation/mocking, judging, criticizing, and other attempts to undermine self-esteem and self-efficacy.

Financial Violence is withholding of funds, withholding of information about house finances, control over spending, preventing an individual from working, obtaining an education, or advancing in their career path, misusing a power of attorney, persuading, tricking, or threatening an individual out of money, property, or possessions, cashing, and use money for purposes other than what was intended by the adult.

Please indicate below whether or not you have been a victim, or perpetrator, of the various forms of violence. Be honest, both as a victim and a perpetrator.

Sending

References

Anthony Abayomi Adebayo, Domestic Violence against Men: Balancing the Gender Issues in Nigeria. American Journal of Sociological Research, Vol. 4 No. 1, 2014, pp. 14-19.

Graham-Kevan., N. (2007). Domestic Violence: Research and Implications for Batterer Programs in Europe. European Journal of Criminal Policy Research 13: 227-232.

Mann, R. M. (2012). Invisibilizing Violence Against Women. Power and Resistance: Critical Thinking about Canadian Social Issues. L. Samuelson and W. Antony. Halifax, Fernwood Publishing.

Straus, M. A. (2004). “Prevalence of Violence Against Dating Partners by Male and Female University Students Worldwide.” Violence Against Women 10(7): 790-811.

Straus, M. A. (2007). “Processes Explaining the Concealment nad Distoration of Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence.” European Journal of Criminal Policy Research 13: 227-232.

Straus, Murray A. (2010). Thirty Years of Denying the Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence: Implications for Prevention and Treatment. Partner Abuse 1: 332-362

 

About Dr. Michael S. (Dr. S)

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He's busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, All.

17 comments

  1. Michael,
    Well, that was provocative! As you point out, the devil is in the detail–or rather the definition. What is violence, and what is reported (or not) as violence is at the heart of any “domestic violence” calculation.
    You have tweaked my sociological imagination with this blog! Up to now, I’ve assumed, along with the police statistics, self-report data, etc., that males (particularly young males) are more likely to be physically violent than other demographic sub-groups. How would you re-define violence, and do you think there is a way to “count” violence in a different fashion?

  2. I think first we have to realize that we don’t necessarily need to redefine violence. The studies I cited show that men and women are about equally physically violent. The difference is that men typically do more physical damage than women do, for obvious reasons. I wouldn’t get too smug about this however since I think when women emotionally assault their partners, they do far more emotional damage than men do.

    That said, I do think we have to redefine violence to include any act that hurts and harms. So, physical and verbal assaults, emotional cruelty or neglect, public shaming, social ridicule, etc. Research is more and more emphasizing that emotional/psychological abuse carries consequences more severe than physical abuse (see my little research note linked below), so that has to be included.

    If you consider this even briefly you’ll realize this definition makes our society look like a very violent place, and it is. I think we typically experience the most violence in the home, followed by school, and then work. I base this on my own life, and the lives off all the traumatized and damaged individuals I’ve seen in my counselling practice over the years. I’m pretty sure research would back this up, and of course I think any individual who pauses to consider will realize same.

    Measuring this violence could only be done via self-reports or surveys. Official statistics based on police records will never be an adequate representation of the reality of violence, a) because they are hopelessly biased and b) because they do not yet categorize to measure emotional, psychological assaults. As regards to surveys, I could see individuals interested in this sending out survey’s to clinical counsellors and asking them to survey their clients. I could also see large-scale studies, or even informal classroom surveys. I think the major methodological issue would be underreporting. A lot of people don’t think of their daily actions as violent in any way, even though they clearly are. This is especially true when it comes to our children. As a society we’ve convinced ourselves that violence against children is about discipline and character and so when asked if we’re violent towards our children, many would simply say no. I’ve seen parents deny even profound levels of emotional and psychological violence. This is also a problem for women. I’ve seen some pretty violent and abusive women, profoundly so. One of the hardest things to get through to these women is that there actions are violent towards their partners. I’ve seen women shame, insult, and emasculate their partners at home, in session, and in public. When challenged they either discount it outright, or justify it based on the presumed failures of their partners. They give themselves license, in others words. It is bizarre and quite delusional.

    Anyway, I’m rambling. It would actually be interesting to develop a short survey on violence and include it as part of this article.

    Debilitating impact of child abusehttps://sociology.org/sociology-versus-psychology-the-social-context-of-psychological-pathology-and-child-abuse/

  3. Timothy McGettigan

    Mike,

    As usual, you have composed an extremely provocative article. You do precisely what sociologists should (but too rarely) do by opening cans of worms and calling for more enlightened dialogue about important social problems. In doing so, you also open yourself up for attack from everyone who would prefer to restrict their thinking to the same old intellectual ruts. Because your work is “dangerous” it is all the more worthwhile.

    Well done.

    Tim

  4. Could the statistics you’re stating be relative to culture? I see in your references that your statistics are from Europe and Nigeria.

    I ask because the evidence in the US as I have seen it still seems to suggest that the majority of victims are women. These calculations aren’t just taken from police reports, but also the National Crime Victimization Survey, which estimates the number of victimizations experienced, regardless of whether or not it was reported to the police.

    • hi Emma that’s a great question. Unfortunately, I don’t think so. The U.S. based NCVS suffers from the same bias noted in my article here, which arises because it relies on crimes reported to police (you can read the actual survey questions by downloading the pdf here). When you look at that then yes the impression is women are primarily the victims. However I think if you find some self report surveys where you ask people if they have ever victimized another person, whether reported or not, or if you surveyed family counselors, you’d probably find evidence to suggest it is bidrectional and equally perpetrated, just as in the UK and elsewhere.

      For example, we are conducting an informal IPV survey. We have only received seven responses so now, three women, four men, but so far both men and women have reported being both the victims AND perpetrators of IPV.

      You have to really pay attention to the source of the statistics here. Anything sourced in crime reports will be hopelessly biases, IMHO.

  5. Hello Dr S.

    I’m really sorry to hear what you have been through, but I’m also very surprised to see that as a sociologist you have very little objectivity in your writing. One of the first thing one must take into account when thinking sociology is that we must thins of society as a whole, and definitely not from a personal point of view.

    A big part of this article describes personal experiences. I’m sure these personal experiences means a lot to you, but they help very little when it comer to sociology.

    Nevertheless, here’s what I would like to add:

    The portrayal of feminist as people who believe men are evil and women are angels is far from true. These would be pseudo-feminist. What we (feminists) state is that sexism cause these inequalities between women and men, with gender violence being one the main characteristics. This DOES NOT mean men are to blame. Sexism is all over the place, and it’s perpetuated by both men and women. For instance, when people (both men and women) state that female rape victims are to blame for their own raping (because of their clothes, behavior, etc). So men are not the problem, society is the problem when it comes to sexism, and therefore gender violence.
    Domestic violence is not (and should not be seen as) only suffered by women. I understand organizations that work with this kind of violence are aware of that. Domestic violence suffered by women IS more usual though.

    Your claim about “men in relationships being about equally likely to report experiencing IPV as women” is interesting, but I think it lacks enough data to support it. Basing these assumption on your own experience doing IPV counseling is risky. Again, I would not take it as a characteristic of society as a whole without further investigation (but it’s definitely a place to start!).

    Men fearing reporting domestic violence to the police because of what “people think” seems very likely. It is nothing new that men are pressured to be strong, and women are seen as weak, of course. Nevertheless, I think proving that men and women experience domestic violence just as often is very very hard, especially based on the premise that the official records are not helpful. This could be in fact a very interesting investigation. If you know about someone who did it, please let me know!

    I would like to state that in Argentina, where I live, one women dies every 30 hours because of domestic violence. This happen to men much less often. This is according to stadistics, of course.

    I think murders must be reported to the police almost everytime (if not each time), since it’s very hard for people not to notice that… you’re dead. Lastly, I would like to say that even though it’s very sad that many women in your life have been violent toward you, this is does not directly reflects society. For instance, if we take for example my own life, I’d say that there was no men nor women who have been violent toward me, but this does not mean there is no violence in society. I’m very shocked that as a sociologist you chose your personal experience to talk about society.

    By the way, I think the violence you received from your mother qualifies as child abuse. I don’t think you could rely in police reports to state if women are less, more or equally violent toward their children, because is very rare that a child report to the police these abuses, but I think some organizations could have useful information (I will investigate this).

    I would love to hear what other sociologists have to say about this article.

    Victoria.

  6. Hi Victoria.

    Ok, a few things. First of all, this article is not based only on my personal experience. There is a lot of research out there that clearly demonstrates GENDER SYMMETRY in relationship violence. I cite a couple of the relevant articles in this overview, so I think anybody that wants to say that this article is not based on research, and this includes, you Victoria, needs to first read the research cited, and then offer a conclusion. This is basic social science.

    Second, I strongly disagree with you that my personal experience is invalid as a social science data. Let me remind everybody reading this that is is our experiences in society, in institutions, that is the essence of sociology. To try and invalidate my personal experience just because it doesn’t fit with YOUR preconceptions is, well, shameful. Honestly Victoria I wonder if I was a female reporting my experience of male violence if you would be so quick to invalidate my experience. I assume not. I assume because you self-report as a feminist you would be much less likely to disregard the personal experience of a female. Also, I would just reiterate what I said in point one, which is this article is based first in an overview of research, second in observations from my personal counseling practice, and third in my personal experience. It is important to emphasize that all three lines of research (scientific, clinical, and personal), line up in support of the thesis being presented here. It is not just my personal experience that is being invoked here.

    Third, I absolutely do not portray feminists in the way you say I do. In fact I end this article by issuing a strong statement in support. What I do not support is the mistake that they have made in presenting domestic violence as one that is primarily male on female. As RESEARCH shows, that’s not the case.

    Anyway, you seem to be primarily suggesting that I support a thesis based only on my personal experience. That’s not true, and if you reread the article you will see that is the case. I cite relevant articles, discuss clinical experience, and frame it all in my own experience. I think you need to reread the article, paying a little more attention to what I’m saying, rather than offer this knee-jerk dismissal of an increasingly established social fact which is that IPV is bidirectional.

    Having said that, I won’t say that there aren’t difference. Men tend to be more physically violent, and women tend to rely on emotional and psychological assault. Men hit, women emasculate. An interesting thing that I’ve seen when dealing with emotionally and psychologically violent women is their tendency to deny the validity of the male experience. They often deny their actions are violent or abuse outright, or they say that the men should quit being “pussies” and be able take it. I had one women in therapy that actually told her husband that if he didn’t accept the abuse, it was because he was taking the process seriously. In other words, bend over and take it.

    There is real, palpable, distortion in the way we (and by “we” I mean researchers, feminists, psychologists, and societies), view gender violence. Many people simply “do not see” the horrific psychological and emotional violence that swirls around them.

    As as for the violence of my mother qualifying as child abuse, that statement conveniently (for feminists) erases gender from the equation. Erasing one of the most significant demographic characteristics from open consideration doesn’t sound like very good social science to me, especially coming from somebody who professes to be concerned with the methodological quality of this little IPV article.

    m

    • Thank you for your reply Dr. S!

      This is the first time I ever read something like what you have written, so I definitely will look more into it.

      I would like to say that I do not invalidate your personal experience because it doesn’t fit my conception. What I meant is that any personal experience by itself is not sufficient to support a sociological statement, not mine, not yours, not anybody’s. And even though you do provide data, you use your personal experience as a relevant fact (“And if what I’ve said so far doesn’t convince or if you find yourself looking for ways to undermine what I’m saying, I can use my own life as an example”.)

      I encourage both men and women to speak up about violence, and I would certainly not want you to feel that your personal experience shouldn’t be shared. Please, don’t take what I say personally, because I truly don’t mean to.

      Greetings,
      Victoria

      • I find citation, pie charts and bar graphs, colored ones even, to be boring.
        What I find interesting is personal experience. I realize having an actual book that was written and concludes the points your trying to prove in your article to be true is crucial in the world of academics BUT a real life personal account is the icing, in my book.

        I have read articles written about Franz Boaz, Clifford Geetz, and Luckman and Berger, who have submersed themselves in field work, meaning that they are an active player or part of the research being performed. Even as observers, how can the conductor not influence the research being conducted so they would also be a part of the information to be written. I find this confusing, the rejection of personal account on the matter.

        Also baffling is the status quo for what is accepted as scholarly writing. This is another article that makes interesting points about getting writing published. Think about what happened to Professor Sheldrake and his excommunication from the Grand Halls of Science because his theory colored outside of the lines of acceptable scholarly publication. I can think of personal experiences that prove his theory on Morphic Resonance. If I wrote an article based on those experiences, noting Sheldrake’s theory to back up my article, how would that be any different from an article that provided information from field research? https://sociology.org/fatuous-naive-and-bold-at-the-same-time-welcome-to-the-wonderful-world-of-peer-review/

      • Hi Victoria.

        I’m not taking this personally, but I believe my personal experience is a “relevant fact”. I agree it is not “sufficient to support a sociological statement”, but then I didn’t rely on that evidence to support my “statement”. I presented journal articles, clinical experience, and my personal story in that exact order. Why did you focus directly on my personal statement? You ignored the evidence, ignored the case data, and rejected the argument for gender symmetry in domestic violence outright, and you did it by focusing on the “weakest” part of this article.

        That’s not a very scholarly approach to this.

        Your approach to this article, this personal exchange, is also evidence that we can consider. I’m basically saying in this article that feminists are ignoring key data to support an erroneous view of domestic violence and you did exactly that here. You ignored the data and dismissed the evidence without even considering that it might be true. It was only after I challenged you personally that you have now stopped to think about what I’m saying. This is the problem.

        I also maintain that if it was a women speaking, you would not have dismissed the account. In fact, if it was a women speaking you probably would have nodded your head and said “yes, this is just another example of what we know to be true.” Or maybe you wouldn’t. I don’t know. I have seen scholars do that though, on both sides of the political fence. When the personal evidence supports their view, they get behind it. When it doesn’t, they find a way to undermine in. Like I said above, its not a very scholarly thing to do.

        Anyway, the point here is not to attack you are make you feel bad, the point is to get you to reflect. I think your emotional response to a statement that challenges scholarly/feminist canon is telling. Don’t feel bad, just reflect. I’d like to say that I myself have never done something like this, i.e. ignored evidence to support a view, but i have. Being objective and open to evidence is a real challenge for us. This is why, in my view, we need more discussions like the one you and I hare having.

  7. Hey Michael-

    As a Sociologist, you are the observer, the reporter, so therefore; personal experience would expound any additional published research. Limiting an individuals access to published material and help resources is also abuse. I would agree with you, from personal experiences, social and economic, women are far more abusive. It is though they gang-up and rally in gingoistic pledge to the Sistah-hood. They are organized and will rum with the ball to extremes in order to annihilate who they consider their obstacle. I have experienced this blockage with mental health help, legal help, and government help. Money talks and in the wrong hands is a deadly tool. What women will do to save their name, right?

    • I don’t know if you can say women are “far more abusive”. I think its symmetric. I also think that the types of violence men and women engage in are different. Men are more physically violent, women more emotionally. Interestingly, recent (past 4 years) psychology research is starting to show that EMOTIONAL ABUSE is worse than physical abuse. I know from examples in my own life that emotional damage lingers for decades!

      SO, even though men and women may be equally violent, the types of violence they engage in, and the long term consequences that accrue as a result, are different. A hypothesis we may move forward with here is that emotional violence is far more detrimental, even deadly, than psychological violence. Its a provocative statement I know, especially since we’ve already suggested that women are the primary perpetrators of emotional violence, but then we haven’t even begun to make the link between emotional abuse and things like depression, suicide, poor health choices, and other things that may lead to ill health and premature death. But what if its true? What if the emotional and psychological abuse perpetrated by women is behind a lot of the anguish and suffering we all endure on this world? What if women are equally guilty of destroying marriages, undermining their children, and causing psychological dysfunction? In the literature anorexia is clearly linked to severe maternal emotional abuse. Considering how serious the experience of anorexia is, that’s not a finding that sociologists should wantonly ignore.

  8. What if women are equally guilty of destroying marriages, undermining their children, and causing psychological dysfunction?

    indeed.

    another good article in the making.

    I have a question pertaining to the difference between emotional an psychological abuse. What is it?

  9. Regarding sexual abuse and reporting crimes to the police:

    There was a woman, say, about 10 years ago that reported a rape to the police. This woman told me that when she had finally gathered the courage to report the incident, they sent over a male cop to write the report. When she initially called, a female officer took down the information and “sounded sympathetic” to the caller. The Officer that showed up at her doorstep to write the report was a first generation Asian male. Culturally speaking this was a huge error on behalf of the department. The woman said throughout the writing of the report the Officer appeared to be in disbelief that any of the information involved in the incident were true and in his heavy accent using particular words implied she was at fault for the rape. She said that after he left she felt much worse. Nothing was done with the report other than it was reported. Would this count as emotional or psychological abuse or both?

  10. Aussie male victim.

    Well done Dr S. This is clearly one of the best articles I’ve read on the subject matter,very well researched and written with observation from all sides and angles, explained in clear easy to understand terms and not biased in any way. In the past 12 months I’ve done a considerable amount of reading and research into domestic/intimate partner violence. I’m a victim of physical violence from my alcoholic ex wife. I copped some huge king hits to the head over a number of years and stayed for the sake of our kids and to try to get her to stop her excessive drinking and lashing out with physical violence. After being on the end of it for 5+ yrs and never once raising a hand back or even threatening to and seeing no change I had to leave the marriage for my own mental health and well being and finally got the courage to go to the police to report said assaults,complete with photos of split lips,blood noses etc.

    The shame and embarrassment for a man to admit this is bad enough but to then be invalidated and victim blamed and see the police take no action on her and charge me for an abusive text message to her sent my mental health spiraling to the point of suicidal. I was diagnosed with PTSD as a result and through my doctor and counselling I managed to overcome the worst of it and now starting to get better. I’m not sure if you are aware of the current situation surrounding DV in Australia at the present and the gender biased approach being undertaken that is based on ideology of patriarchy as the main cause with the focus solely on the rights of women and children and a biased discrimination against men with no accurate evidence to back the one sided stance they’ve taken which is being pushed by the misandrist feminists who lie,deceive and distort the true facts and figures. I’m all for equality but it’s far from it. I wish the “dumberment” here in Australia would listen and take note of articles exactly like the common sense one you have written here.

    Keep up the good work Dr S and eventually the Australian governments ignorance might fade and they will start to listen to articles like yours before too many more men like myself become one of the ever growing suicide statistics that are rising extremely fast here in Australia.

    • We really need to hear more stories like yours. There is a massive amount of male anguish that is discounted and repressed, not all of it (but certainly some of it) caused by abusive and violent women. This repressed anguish and suffering effects us all, particularly when it explodes into violence. People gawk in confusion as people like Trump rise but they never make the connection between the anger and hatred caused by their own violent actions, and the hatred and anger that people like Trump exploit. If you scream, yell, belittle, hit, etc., you are causing somebody pain. It doesn’t matter what gender you are, we’re all capable of torturing another human being. We need to recognize that fact so we can stop this crazy train ride into chaos that we all seem to be on.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*