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Domestic violence facts reveal startling truth
The Advocate
The issue of domestic violence has been widely regarded as a female problem with male perpetrators. However, there is an assortment of evidence available that the opposite is often true.
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A front page story in The Advocate last week indicated that every 15 to 18 seconds an act of domestic violence occurs in the United States, according to criminal justice instructor and former cop Chris Gorsek. While most would be led to believe the bulk of these attacks occur against women (especially if one were to read the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s gaudy statistics), the truth is that both men and women suffer from the same amount of domestic violence victimization.
The “15 to 18 seconds” figure falls in line with my own research on the subject. According to “Abused Men – The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence,” a book by Phillip Cook, The Family Research Laboratory (FRL) indicated that 1.8 million women are severely abused (kicked, punched, had an object or weapon used in an attack) each year, equating to one woman beaten every 18 seconds. However, Cook writes, “To accept the Family Research Laboratory results for women should mean having to accept the same sources for male victimization. Both men and women experience an equal level of domestic violence victimization, but in the most severe category the number of women being assaulted has declined, from two million to 1.8 million while the number of men assaulted has stayed at two million. This means that a woman is severely assaulted every 18 seconds by her mate, and a man is similarly assaulted every 15 seconds.”
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) cites 85 percent of domestic violence victims are women, a figure taken from the Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief between the years of 1993 and 2001. FRL’s statistics are recognized as being more accurate numbers because they are based on a nationally representative sample rather than a “crime” survey and cover a variety of violent actions that the Justice Department neglects. FRL’s statistics include up to the same year, 2001, but initial research results were first published in 1977, a far greater range.
The fact is one-third to one-half of all domestic violence victims are actually male. Much of this hidden gender bias has to do with procuring funding for programs that help victims of domestic abuse, the belief being that “battered” women will receive more funding than a laughably “battered” male. President Bill Clinton gave a speech in 1994 while signing into law the Violence Against Women Act, and mentioned 900,000 women were beaten each year. Ironically, that number was actually closer to the number of male victims. The survey that year found that nearly 40 percent of the victims in the Violence Against Women Act were men.
Two other hardly mentioned issues have to do with social stigma. One is the belief that men often “have things coming” when they say or do certain things to women (hitting on them, cheating, etc.), but this sort of rationalizing is one reason the NCADV’s “statistics” are likely skewed. The other is the social “fact” that men are supposed to be strong, and be able to “handle” the women they’re with. Accept it: Some men just aren’t strong. Some are emotionally weak for one reason or another, or just lack the generally masculine nature that men are “supposed” to have. It’s not an insult, just a fact; some men are “wussies,” as they would socially be referred to. And when they know they’re “wussies,” why would they want to appear even weaker by admitting they’re beaten and abused by women, “supposedly” the gender that is weaker?
Social deterrents, as well as the ego, are part of the reasons why many of these crimes go unnoticed, and it’s worse for men in these cases. On the NCADV’s domestic violence “facts” page, men are mentioned only twice – having to do with rape and stalking. In a pamphlet from the Bradley-Angle House, one of the more predominant local domestic violence shelters, only statistics about women and children are mentioned, and although the pamphlet is littered with photos, there isn’t a single one of an adult male. There is scant mention of men in most discussions having to do with domestic violence, even though there is significant proof that males face just as many problems as women do. In a world where people are striving for equality, this is one of the few remaining areas where men are ignored on a nearly discriminatory basis. After all, October is “Domestic Violence Awareness Month,” not “Violence Against Women Awareness Month.”
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