Violent Touch: Breaking Through the Stereotype by David L. Fontes, Psy.D.
Violent Touch: Breaking Through the Stereotype by David L. Fontes, Psy.D.This site is supported and maintained by the Equal Justice Foundation.
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| Chapter 4 - Psychological Studies Of Domestic Violence |
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Wife abuse compared to husband abuse
Can women show aggressive behavior?
Is there a double standard for domestic violence?
What does the research say about domestic violence?
Archival data on domestic violence
What does archival data tell us about male victims of domestic violence?
Table 6 — Some research sources for percentage of male victims of domestic violence.
Table 7 — Current archival data for domestic violence arrests from Los Angeles Police Department
Presenting archival and NCVS data
Table 8 — Comparison of 1975 and 1985 National Family Violence Surveys (NFVS) with the Commonwealth Fund Survey
Table 9 — Comparison of survey studies by the Commonwealth Fund: Commission on Women's Health
Table 10 — Survey of women's health by the Commonwealth Fund.
Table 11 — California Department of Justice: Domestic violence arrest reports for 1991 through 1998.
What about the "repetitive frequency rate" of assaults between men and women. Is any difference found?
Table 12 — FBI: Uniform Crime Reports, 1995, Table 35 showing percent increase by sex for various crimes between 1991 and 1995.
1975 and 1985 Family Violence Survey of couples:
Table 13 — The 1975 National Family Violence Survey showing repetitive assault rates for husbands and wives by type of assault. Conflict Tactics Scale items. 282
Table 14 — Comparison between the 1975 and 1985 National Family Violence Surveys.
How archival data and survey data should be analyzed
How the data should be presented
Comparing survey research differences
Gender differences in type of assault used from the National Family Violence Surveys
Table 15 — Comparing the types of physical abuse used on partners from the 1975 and 1985 National Family Violence Surveys.
Table 16 — Comparison of type of assaults used by men and women. Data from the 1975 and 1985 National Family Violence Surveys
Table 17 — Percentages of assaults on spouse as reported by women (Straus, 1997).
Table 18 — Projected number domestic violence assaults as reported by women based on data from Straus (1997).
The context or reason for the assault
1985 National Family Violence survey
Table 19 — Results of 1994 national study from England on causes of violence.
Table 20 — Response of victim to assault according to the 1985 NFVS.
The hidden victims of domestic violence
It's time to address this oversight
Aggressive behavior, angry emotion
Suggested reading and information on male victims of domestic violence
Over the past twenty-five years increasing interest has been directed toward the topic of domestic violence against women by their male partners. Forty to fifty years ago few people wanted to discuss spousal abuse in this country. Arrests by law enforcement of people in the general public were avoided when they involved couples in the home. In the early seventies some courageous women who were physically assaulted by their male partners did begin to speak to others about their painful secret. Feminists groups rallied around these women and gave them a voice and political power to encourage legislators and community leaders to focus more attention on this issue. These feminists became strong advocates for these women and were slowly joined by concerned politicians and civic leaders. As a result, funding and services for women and their children were established to help rebuild their lives (VAWA, 1994). Although these feminists have helped thousands of women escape abuse by their male partners, I have come to see that they have addressed only half of the problem.
In general feminists, especially "gender feminists" 1 as compared to "equity feminists" 1 (Hoff-Sommers, 1994), are primarily, if not exclusively interested in showcasing the maltreatment of females by males in society, and are not particularly interested in showcasing the maltreatment of males by females, especially in the area of spousal abuse and child abuse. When they do discuss spousal or child abuse they try to place the primary blame for it at the feet of men, and highlight the problem of living in a patriarchal society. They suggest that either women are only abusing male partners in self-defense, or that women abuse children only because of abuse they have first received from their male partners. Some go so far as to suggest that child abuse will end simply when women are safe. As a result of these beliefs, the only domestic violence discourse that we hear from gender feminists is the abuse to females that is inflicted by males, and not the other way around. Yet what about the fact that there are also male victims of domestic violence by women, independent of self-defense or the evils of patriarchy? Who might these men be and how many are there in the general population?
In this paper I make a distinction between the terms domestic violence, domestic abuse, and sexual assault. The definition for domestic violence covers only that form of abuse which is non-sexual yet physical in nature. It is an act carried out with the intention, or perceived intention, of causing physical pain or injury to one's spouse or domestic partner. The definition of domestic abuse includes physical assault but can also include verbal, emotional, psychological, financial, and other forms of non-physical abuse. The definition of sexual assault addresses issues of rape, sexual acts against another's will, and assaults of a sexual nature such as sexual mutilation or injury to sexual organs in either males or females.
1. Gender feminists assert that differences between men and women are primarily due to gender stratification which occurs through social learning, whereas equity feminists suggest differences between the sexes basically find their foundation in biology. Equity feminists emphasize the need for equal opportunity and fairness for all people without vilifying or devaluating males in the process; whereas gender feminists commonly malign males as perpetrators who want to oppress women, and portray women as the victims of such oppression.
The reality of spousal abuse goes back centuries. It was recorded as far back as 2,500 B.C. One ancient law instructed husbands to engrave the name of their "verbally" abusive wife on a brick that would then be used to knock out her teeth (Steinmetz, 1980, p. 335). Sir William Blackstone wrote of ancient law that a man be given power to chastise, without physical violence, his wife as one would chastise his children. He reminded his readers that "...the husband was prohibited from using any violence to his wife." (Sommers, 1994, p. 205) A husband was given this authority because at the time he was legally and financially responsible for the actions of both his wife and children.
Two Southern American judges made mention of an earlier law that gave a husband permission to beat his wife with an implement that was no bigger than his thumb. It should be noted that both of these judges did not support this law. It should also be mentioned that there have been laws against wife beating in America before the Revolutionary war, and that the origin of the term "rule of thumb" did not originate from this early law for beating a wife, but from wood workers who used their thumb as a measuring tool (Sommers, 1994, pp. 204-208). Nevertheless, it did appear that these two judges tolerated the idea that husbands could use some level of physical chastisement against their wives. History has told us that many husbands have been given social permission to physically chastise their wives. Over the years we have been trying to send a clear message to husbands that such behavior is not only wrong but criminal. Wife abuse has been with us for hundreds of years.
The data tell us that women are murdered by husbands and boyfriends at a higher rate than husbands are by their wives. In 1992 and 1994 the U.S. Department of Justice reported that females are two times more likely to be murdered by husbands and boyfriends than husbands are by wives and girlfriends. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1995, NCJ-154348, p. 3, 1996, NCJ-162602, p. 2) In 1998 the U.S. Department of Justice has estimated that women are almost three times more likely to be murdered by their intimate partners than men are by their intimate partners. In 1996 1,326 (72%) female victims were murdered compared to 516 (28%) male victims, a figure which includes same-sex partners (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1998, NCJ-167237, p. 37). The 1985 National Family Violence Survey suggests that 33% more wives than husbands were beaten up by their spouses (Straus & Gelles, 1986, p. 471). The National Violence Against Women Survey found that 8.5% of women reported having been beaten up compared to 0.6% of men who reported the same (Tjaden, P. & Thoennes, N., 1998, p. 7). The U. S. National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) states that women are ten times more likely to be raped than men (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1993, Table 2). These statistics suggest that women are still more likely to be murdered, raped and physically beaten by their partner than men. Of course, this is of little consolation to the men who are murdered or physically beaten by their wives or girlfriends every year.
Is the abuse against men by their female partners therefore worthy of public concern? There are historical records of husband-beating, which suggest that husbands who were beaten by their wives not only experienced the shame of the beating, but also the public humiliation and condemnation for not "controlling" their wives better.
"In France, a husband who allowed his wife to beat him was made to wear an outlandish outfit, ride backwards around the village on a donkey while holding onto the tail." (George, 1994, p. 137)
This is how one woman justified her attack on her husband (Steinmetz, 1980, p. 336):
"I know I was stronger than him, when he was drunk that is, so I gave him a good shove and kick — whatever I could kick — I didn't aim. And then he'd end up on the floor and I'd beat the daylights out of him."
Although aggression may have instinctual roots, the method of displaying aggression "appears to be learned behavior." (Steinmetz, 1980, p 334) A group of researchers reviewed 72 studies that measure aggressive behavior in both men and women. They found that nearly two-thirds of the studies "did not show the expected higher male than female aggressiveness across all conditions." (Frodi et al., 1977, p. 634) They also found that when women feel an aggressive act is justified, and they receive permission from society to assault, there is little gender difference in the incidents of aggressive behavior between the sexes. (Frodi et al., 1977, p. 647)
Is testosterone the cause of male aggression? Is aggressive behavior gender specific or hormonally based? Patricia Pearson (1997), who has done extensive studies of female aggression, looks at the role of the male hormone testosterone and its influence on aggressive behavior. She states that the research to date is "utterly inconclusive on the influence of male hormones on violence." She goes on to say that one of the major methodology flaws in testosterone research is that the men who are usually tested are prison inmates. This fact is important because "testosterone, like adrenaline, increases in people exposed to conflict." (p. 8) Prison settings typically are environments full of conflict. Pearson also mentions that there are elevated levels of testosterone in female prisoners. Although she raises an interesting point, it does not completely rule out the idea that higher levels of testosterone in either males or females raise the level of aggressive behavior. One can speculate that a large number of prisoners came from an environment that also exposed them to conflict on the streets and in neighborhoods in which they lived.
Sapolsky (1997) has studied the effects of testosterone in the body, and has found that if someone is already aggressive, testosterone will increase aggressive behavior but does not cause it. He explained that giving higher levels of testosterone to a man who is not normally aggressive does not radically change him into an aggressive man. In recent years there have been some surprising studies that challenge the concept that aggression in men is a result of high levels of testosterone. Cook (1997, p. 33) writes that the 1995 conference of the Endocrine Society produced papers "contending that a deficiency of the 'male' hormone testosterone was more likely to produce aggressive behavior, not high levels of the androgen."
Another study found that the female hormone estrogen "was a source of aggressive tendencies." (Cook, 1997, p. 33) What new scientific research may be finding is that any imbalance of testosterone or estrogen may lead to higher levels of aggression in both males and females who are predisposed to violence. This finding may place the discussion of aggression more in the area of choice, childhood trauma, and hormonal imbalance in both men and women, rather than simply being a "male problem."
Research also shows that approximately 60% of women who are arrested for assaulting their husbands had prior criminal records. (Jurik, 1989; Jurik & Gregware, 1989)
Are women also given social permission to "physically chastise" their husbands or boyfriends for behaving badly? This author heard a fourteen-year-old young woman tell her boyfriend, who had made a sarcastic remark: "If you don't stop that I'll kick you where it really hurts!" She gave herself permission to threaten sexual assault against her boyfriend for what he said. It is tragic that injuring a man's reproductive system in the movies is seen as comical relief and engenders laughter by the audience.
Dr. Richard Gelles quotes one female respondent in his study as saying: "He would just yell and yell - not yell, just talk loudly, and I couldn't say anything because he kept talking, so I'd swing." (Steinmetz, 1978, p. 504)
When women give themselves permission to physically chastise or retaliate against their husbands, they give the message to their spouse and children that violence is allowed in their home. This is a wrong and dangerous message. The painful truth is that a number of mothers, as well as fathers, may be increasing the risk of their children becoming adult perpetrators in the next generation.
Pearson (1997) writes that the most well documented cause of domestic violence for both men and women stems from transfer of learned violence from one generation to the next. She writes that learning violence from parents and siblings has a far stronger influence on a boy or girl than gender conditioning. Pearson also mentions two studies (Langhinrich-Rohling, J. et al, 1995, and Malone & Tyree, 1991) which found that boys and girls who are abused by their fathers are more likely to become victims of domestic violence in their adult lives, whereas those who are abused by their mothers are more likely to become perpetrators of domestic violence in their adult lives. Langhinrichsen-Rohling et al. (1995) speculate that this is because "fathers may teach children how to respond to authority," resulting in learned helplessness, and "mothers may be more responsible than fathers to teach their children about how to resolve differences and handle conflict" (p. 173) by engaging in violence to resolve conflicts. Pearson supports this theory by saying that men may be more likely to instill submission in their children, which can contribute to their victimization as adults, while mothers who are abusive toward their children may be more likely to instill aggression as a means of communication with others. This suggests that there is a strong link between child abuse and domestic violence. Other researchers also support the concept that child abuse sets the foundation for future adult violence. (Karr-Morse & Wiley, 1997)
Researchers use different methods to study a phenomena. The two most used for studying domestic violence are Archival Research and Survey Research. Both have advantages and limitations.
Archival advantages are that the data is easy to obtain, usually investigated by a third party, and is generally low cost.
Archival limitations are that the data usually comes from specialized or clinical sources that may not represent the total population under study, may have system collecting biases, and only records that which has been reported.
Survey advantages are that the data is collected from a randomized sample of the entire population, gathers information that is often not reported in archival reports, and is typically anonymous.
Survey limitations are that the sample size may not be large enough, may not resemble that kind of population that is being studied, may not ask specific enough questions, and the respondent may not be telling the complete truth.
Let's start our investigation by looking at what archival data tells us about domestic violence.
The following statistical information is not meant to stop giving attention to female victims of domestic violence. I support the honest and real efforts of those who have helped thousands of women who have been assaulted by their partners. The data are meant to complete the picture of domestic abuse. It will suggest that domestic violence is far from a gender-specific event, and represents a family system collapse that needs our full awareness.
Today when one reads a domestic violence flier or listens to a presentation from a woman's shelter, and the topic of male victims is mentioned, the figure of 5 percent is commonly used with reference to male abuse. Archival data presented by McLeod (1984, p. 172-173) in the 70's did suggest this figure as shown in Table 6.
The average is about 5% male victims. Yet, the research is over 15 years old. What does current archival data tell us about domestic violence?
The data in Table 7 taken from Bennett (1997, p. 5) indicates that there has been a steady rise in female arrests for domestic violence, from 7% in 1987 to 14% in 1995. While the number of men arrested for domestic violence increased 1.6 × between 1987 and 1995, the number of women arrested for the same reason increased nearly fourfold (3.7 × ) in the same time period.
1. Archival data comes from specialized and clinical sources, such as police, hospital, agency records, and domestic violence centers. Men may be less likely than women to report to such agencies. Lenore Walker, who has written extensively about battered women, shares the limitations of her own studies when she writes, "These women were not randomly selected, and they cannot be considered a legitimate data base from which to make specific generalizations." (Walker, 1979, p. xiii) Few advocates have taken her warning or advice.
2. Archival data can be compromised by reporting or system biases. In a study by the Kentucky Commission on Women, Straus writes that researchers "intentionally suppressed" information that "38% of attacks were by women on men who, as reported by women themselves, had not attacked them." (Straus, 1997, p. 212) In the latest Alberta, Ontario study, only the statistics which pertained to female victims of domestic violence were presented to the Ontario government. They showed that 12.9% of the men in the study behaved violently toward their spouse. It has recently been noted that the study also showed that 12.5% of the women behaved violently toward their spouses. The study indicated that women were almost twice as likely to "hit or try to hit" their spouses, 9.0% of the wives compared to 5.4% of the husbands. The government officials never saw these statistics, but nonetheless authorized $858,000 for an "advertising campaign featuring the slogan: Wife assault is a crime. There's no excuse." (Laframboise, 1999)
3. Archival data only records that which has been reported. If a segment of the general population is less likely to report the data to archival centers, the results are likely to be incomplete.
2. The U.S. Uniform Crime Reports do not collect the number of male and female domestic violence arrests. The California Department of Justice does collect domestic violence arrests cases. The above data was calculated by using the California percentages and the U.S. Census numbers for married couples to get an approximation of domestic violence arrests in the U.S.
1973-1975 averages: 3.9 per 1,000 women reported being assaulted by their partners, and 0.3 per 1,000 men reported being assaulted by their partners. This means that 94% of reported victims were female and 6% of reported victims were male. (Gaquin, 1978, p. 636)
1987-1991 averages: 5.4 per 1,000 women reported being assaulted by their partners, and 0.5 per 1,000 men reported being assaulted by their partners. This means that 91% of reported victims were female and 9% of reported victims were male. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ-154348)
1992-1993 averages: The NCVS was redesigned in 1992 to better capture more domestic violence data. The 1992-1993 NCVS shows that 9.4 per 1,000 (0.94%) (less than 1%) of women reported being assaulted by their partners, and that 1.4 per 1,000 (or 0.14%) of men reported being assaulted by their partners. This means that 87% of reported victims were female and 13% of reported victims were male. The NCVS shows the same increase in male victims of domestic violence from 6% in 1975 to 13% in 1993, as is found in archival data. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ-154348)
The latest NCVS (1996) indicates that 7.5 per 1,000 (0.75%) of women were assaulted (still less than 1%), and that 1.4 per 1,000 (0.14%) of men were assaulted, slightly greater than one tenth of one percent. Although this survey shows an increase in the percentage rates for both women and men, the projected numbers for men triples (from 48,983 to 147,896), while for women the rate less than doubled (from 572,032 to 837,899). These numbers are loaded by formula. To unload these numbers, dividing them by 1,500 will give the actual number of survey cases. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ-167237) This means that 85% of reported victims were female and 15% of reported victims were male. The U.S. Bureau of the Census estimated that in 1996 there were 54 million married couples in the U.S. Using the percentages in the NCVS for 1996 would translate into 405,000 wives (84%) and 75,600 husbands (16%) being abused by their spouses in the U.S.
The National Crime Victimization Survey indicates that there has been a steady rise in the percentage of male victims of domestic violence, from 6% in 1975 to 15% in 1996. This is what the U.S. Department of Justice says:
"More than 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend occur each year, and about 85% of the victims are female." (Bureau of Justice Statistics Factbook, 1998, NCJ-167237)
The rest of the victims are males (15%).
1. The NCVS interviewed the couples together, which may make a wife or husband reluctant to respond honestly about his/her abuse.
2. The NCVS is presented to respondents as a "Crime Survey." People may only report domestic violence if it is very severe or chronic, and thereby consider it more of a crime to report on the NCVS.
This may explain why the percentage of reported domestic violence in the NCVS is so small, less than 1% for women and 0.2% for men who report being victims of domestic violence. These percentages project to about 840,000 women and 150,000 men in the U.S. who reported being assaulted by their spouse. Although the percentage difference between men and women (85% female victims and 15% male victims) is much like the archival data, it also shows a much smaller number of female victims than most advocates report. This may be why most projected numbers used in domestic violence literature come from survey data other than the NCVS, often from research that uses the Conflict Tactic Scale (CTS) developed at the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire.
"But I've heard that there are 2 million women, not 840,000 women, who are assaulted every year by their husbands, and that the FBI reports that every 15 seconds a wife is assaulted in our country. Where do these figures come from?"
They come from the Family Research Laboratory (FRL) at the University of New Hampshire, founded in 1975, Dr. Murray Straus, codirector. FRL developed the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), a 7-point, 19-item questionnaire designed to assess individual responses to specific situations within the family involving conflict. (Touliatos, Perlmutter, & Straus, 1990) It is "a widely used instrument with good reliability and validity." (Plichta, 1996, p.240)
In its first national study, National Family Violence Survey (NFVS), as expected, showed a significant number of women, 12.1%, who reported some level of physical assault against them by their husbands or girlfriends, twelve times greater than the 0.75% of women who reported being physically abused in the NCVS. What was unexpected was that the physical abuse rate against husbands by their wives was nearly the same, 11.6%. Straus readily acknowledges that NFVS captures percentage rates of assaults, not the level of injury the victim sustains, nor instances where the assault was done in self-defense.
Based on this study Straus (1997) applied the percentage rate of reported attacks for "severe" abuse against wives, 3.8% (levels N-R), to the estimated population of couples at the time of the report, 47 million in 1975. He states (p. 445): "Applying this incidence rate to approximately 47 million couples in the United States means that, in any one year, approximately 1.8 million wives are beaten by their husbands." He includes kicking, biting, and hitting with something in the category of "beaten." This is where the 2 million figure comes from.
The FBI derived this estimate from the book Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family, by Richard Gelles, Murray Straus and Suzanne Steinmetz. (Gelles, 1995, p. 1)
Actually the figure is every 18 seconds a woman is severely assaulted (Straus, 1978, p. 446).
3.8% severe assault rate against the wife by her husband.
47 million couples in the U.S. in 1975.
3.8% (0.038) × 47 million = 1,786,000 women assaulted in 1975.
31,536,000 divided by 1,786,000 = 17.7 seconds
4.6% severe assault rate against the husband by the wife.
47 million couples in the U.S. in 1975.
4.6% (0.046) × 47 million = 2,162,000 men assaulted in 1975.
Two million men severely assaulted every year.
31,536,000 divided by 2,162,000 = 14.6 seconds
Based on the same research survey a man is assaulted by his wife every 15 seconds as shown above.
If you count all assaultive behavior, which includes minor assaults, 12.1% for women and 11.6% for men, a woman is assaulted every 6 seconds in this country, but a man is also assaulted every 6 seconds in this country.
This is what the National Family Violence Survey data really showed:
• Every 18 seconds a woman is severely assaulted by her husband.
• Every 6 seconds a woman is assaulted by her husband in some manner.
• Every 15 seconds a man is severely assaulted by his wife.
• Every 6 seconds a man is assaulted by his wife in some manner.
• Every 20 seconds a woman is severely assaulted by her husband.
• Every 5 seconds a woman is assaulted by her husband in some manner.
• Every 15 seconds a man is severely assaulted by his wife.
• Every 5 seconds a man is assaulted by his wife in some manner.
"The Commonwealth Fund states a woman is beaten every 9 seconds." This comes from a 1993 National Survey of Women's Health. 8% of the women reported that they were assaulted by their partners in some manner. Unlike the National Family Violence Survey from the University of New Hampshire, that only used severe abuse to come up with the 2 million wife abuse figure, the Women's Health Survey's calculation also included minor assaults, such as pushing and shoving and grabbing. Based on this percentage, the survey estimated that 4.4 million women were assaulted in this country. When calculated, this comes to nearly one woman physically abused every nine seconds by her spouse. (Plichta, 1996, p. 244)
The Commonwealth Study is compared with the two National Family Violence Surveys in Table 8:
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Note: Although the Commonwealth Fund interviewed 1,000 men for its study on women's health, it chose not to ask these men the questions that pertained to domestic violence. One can only wonder why? |
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|---|---|---|---|
It is not only the studies by Straus or Gelles or Steinmetz that suggest that men and women are physically abusing each other at nearly the same rate, a range of 35% to 65% male assault victims depending on the study, as shown in Table 9.
In Table 9 we the see the range of female physical abuse against heterosexual partners ranging from 37% to 64% in the survey by the Commonwealth Fund: Commission on Women's Health (1994, p. 20). This is far greater than the 5% rate that archival sources or domestic violence presentations tell us. The overall average for these particular surveys shows that 51% of the assaults come from women and 49% of the assaults from men, which supports the statement that men and women are assaulting each other at the same rate. The National Probability Samples indicate that about 7% of men assaulted their female partners and 9% of women assaulted their male partners.
In a recent U.S. study, 39% of the men studied reported being physically assaulted by an intimate partner. (Tjaden and Thoennes, 1998) A comprehensive longitudinal study from New Zealand of 539 males and 498 females found that 34% of the males and 27% of the females reported intimate partner assault against them. This study suggests that of the partner assaults 58% were female against men and 42% were female against male (Peterson, 1999). This all supports what most survey research has suggested, namely that men and women are physically abusing each other at nearly or approaching the same rate (35-50 percent male victims) or more.
Straus (1997, p. 211) found the same equal percentages in his analysis of the research.
"...every study among the more than thirty describing some type of sample that is not self-selected (such as community random samples and samples of college student dating couples) has found a rate of assault by women on male partners that is about the same as the rate of assault by men on female partners."
Steinmetz (1978, p. 502-503) writes that she
"...found only small differences in the percentage of husband and wives who reported to throwing things, pushing or shoving, hitting with a hand, or hitting with an object. In fact the total violence scores, for these three studies, were very similar. The data from the nationally representative sample (Straus et al., 1977), based on reports of violence that occurred during 1975, found wives to be slightly higher in almost all categories except pushing and shoving. The total violence scores, however, were identical."
"...because any discussion of the problem of 'battered men' has been considered 'politically incorrect', there are few, if any, available and effective programs that have been developed for male victims of intimate violence. Thus, even if physicians are successful in identifying male victims, there are few agencies or programs that can be used for referral."
Some criticize the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) often used in these studies. What I find interesting about those who find fault with the CTS is that when it comes to estimating the "projected" number of female victims of domestic violence, the critics often use data that comes directly from the CTS, namely:
• 2 million women are assaulted by their husbands each year (Straus, 1977).
• The FBI reports that a woman is assaulted every 15 seconds in this country by her husband (Calif. Dept. of Justice, 1997).
• 4 million women are assaulted by their male partners each year (Family Violence Prevention Fund, 1997).
• A woman is assaulted every 9 seconds in this country by her male partner (Family Violence Prevention Fund, 1997).
All of these statements are based on the data which comes from the CTS. Without the CTS none of these statements could be made. Today data from the 1994 Commonwealth Fund Survey of Women's Health (1994, p. 20) shown in Table 10 are often used in domestic violence literature which states that: "8.4 percent of women between 18 and 65 and living with a man (4.4 million women) were physically abused by their domestic partners in the past year."
These statistics come from the research of Dr. Stacey Plichta who considers herself a feminist researcher. This is what she says about the CTS:
"Spouse abuse is only measured for those women currently living with or married to a man (both are referred to as her spouse). These questions are from the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), a widely used instrument with good reliability and validity" (Plichta, 1996, p.240).
What is interesting about the Commonwealth Fund Study on Women's Health is that, even though researchers also interviewed 1,000 men to compare their responses to the 2,500 women who participated in the study, they chose not to ask the men the questions in the survey that related to domestic violence. Had they asked the men, it may have been discovered that a man is assaulted by his spouse every 10 seconds or even every 5 seconds. Because researchers did not ask the men about their victimization we cannot know how at what rate another man becomes a victim of domestic violence in our country as an estimate from their survey. This was an opportunity missed. Also notice that although many women's advocates use this data to say 4 million women are beaten every year in this country (one every nine seconds), the data shows that virtually none of the women actually reported having been beaten (0%).
The latest U.S. study on domestic violence by the Center for Policy Research (Tjaden, P. & Thoennes, K., 1998) does suggest a significant difference between men and women who reported being beaten up in their lifetime by their intimate partner (a ratio of 14:1). The actual percentage of women who were beaten up compared to all intimate assaults against them was less than 10% (8.5%). This study also suggests that there was no statistical difference between the number of men and women who sought medical treatment for their injuries. What is interesting about this study is that it suggests that 39% (two out of five victims) of intimate physical assaults and injuries were still against men. Even though this study does not appear to support equal assault rate between men and women, neither does it suggest that male victims make up only 5 to 10 percent, but more like 40 percent of victims of domestic violence who were assaulted by their partners. Whether male assault victims are shown to be 35%, 40%, or 50%, it still is a significant number that warrants social concern.
In Sacramento the arrest rate for male batterers has decreased from 3,147 arrests in 1991 to 2,922 arrests in 1996. The rate has actually increased for female offenders, almost doubling from 245 in 1991 to 469 in 1996. In 1991, 7% of the arrests for domestic violence were of women. In 1996 this figure rose to 14%. Mareva Brown writes that, according to Sacramento's lead domestic abuse prosecutor, Kate Killeen, "few women are arrested in error." (Brown, Dec. 7, 1997)
The data in Table 11 from California Dept. of Justice (1997, special run plus additional data for 1998) indicates that the arrest rate in California for female batterers has again nearly doubled in five years, with a steady rise in percentage rates of female arrests for domestic violence from 7% (1991) to 13% (1995) [to a little over 16% for 1998].
The research shows that the arrest rates for female perpetrators of domestic violence has doubled in the past 5 to 8 years, a fact which one rarely hears from shelters or the domestic violence centers. The Detroit News, April 20, 1997, reported that "...analysis of crime data collected by the Michigan State Police shows that men were victims in nearly 20 percent of all domestic abuse cases reported in 1995 in Michigan." The latest Petaluma City, California police department statistics show that 33% of the arrests for domestic violence in a twelve month period where of women (Manthey, 1999). Today's "archival data" suggests that the number of male victims who report domestic violence is closer to 15%, or as high as 30%-35%, not 5% as some still report in the domestic violence literature and presentations.
A 1995 U.S. Department of Justice report suggests that males still make up a much greater percentage of aggravated assaults overall in crime: 83% for men and 17% for women. What is interesting is that the percentage increase for women has grown faster than for men (FBI: Uniform Crime Reports, 1995, Table 35) reproduced here as Table 12.
The U.S. Department of Justice's Uniform Crime Reports do not collect specific information on how many of the total number of arrests for aggravated assaults were for domestic violence. We only know that a total of 360,522 men were arrested for some type of aggravated assault, and 77,635 women were also arrested for some type of aggravated assault in 1995 in the U.S. (FBI: Uniform Crime Reports, 1995, Table 42).
The repetitive frequency of assaults per year between men and women is nearly the same as shown in Table 13 (Straus, 1977, p. 446). In fact, the "mean" totals show that wives are at a slightly higher assault rate than husbands, with overall violence at 10.1 assaults for female batterers per year vs. 8.8 assaults for male batterers per year. Even for "Severe Violence" the data show an average of 8.8 assaults by wives and 8.0 assaults by husbands per year. The "median" totals show even less difference between wives and husbands when it comes to repetitive assault frequency per year. Straus (1977, p. 445) writes: "...the mean frequency of occurrence overstates the case because there are a few cases in which violence was almost a daily or weekly event. For this reason, the median gives a more realistic picture of the typical frequency of violence in violent families."
In analyzing the 1985 National Family Violence Survey of women who reported being assaulted, Straus (1997, p. 215) writes:
"According to these 495 women, their partners averaged 7.2 assaults during the year, and they themselves averaged 6 assaults. Although the frequency of assault by men is greater than the frequency of assault by women, the difference is just short of being statistically significant...the fact that the average number of assaults by male partners is higher should not obscure the fact that the violent women carried out an average of 6 minor and 5 severe assaults per year, indicating a repetitive pattern by women as well as by men."
The projected number of assault victims calculates to nearly the same between males and females as shown in Table 14 (Straus & Gelles, 1986, p. 470).
When you ask domestic violence presenters what percentage of female victims there are compared to male victims of domestic violence, they usually will go to "Archival" data and say "87%" female and "13%" male victims, if they use current data. But when you ask them what the projected number of female victims of domestic violence there are in the general population, they go to "Survey" data and say "4 to 6 million" women are assaulted every year. This mix-and-matching of data is highly irresponsible and misleading when presenting data on domestic violence.
What is not said is that the survey data that indicate 85% of domestic violence victims are women come from research that also suggests that 840,000 men may be assaulted every year — a significant number — and far more than most domestic violence researchers quote. Nor is it said that survey data indicating 4 to 6 million women are assaulted in our country every year come from research that also suggests that men and women are assaulting each other at nearly the same rate.
When archival data (473,000) are compared to survey data (6 million), the result suggests what domestic violent workers have been saying for years, that domestic violence is under reported for women.
The data suggest that only 8% of domestic violence against women is reported.
But it also suggests that only 1% of domestic violence against men is reported. This is why using archival data to indicate the percentage differences between male and female victims of domestic violence is misleading. If women are 8 times more likely to report being abused than men, they are more likely to have law enforcement intervention, which will then be reflected in arrest reports (archival data) of male offenders.
Although survey data suggest a more realistic picture of domestic assaults in the general population than archival data, which come from specialized and clinical sources, there are also differences in survey studies themselves. It appears that, with survey data, the greater the projected number of spousal assault victims the smaller the percentage difference there is between men and women.
The data suggest that the greater the percentage difference between female and male partner assault victims the smaller the projected number of victims; while, on-the-other-hand the greater the projected number of partner assault victims the smaller the percentage difference between males and females, if not nearly the same. This may be due to the fact that some surveys collect more severe cases of spousal assault, showing a smaller projected number but a greater percentage difference between the sexes, while the surveys which show a small sex percent difference many be collecting a greater scope of assault cases that include more minor assaults and injuries. This may be why the NCVS shows a greater sex percent difference at 85% female victims compared to 15% male victims, while the NFVS, which shows about 50% female victims and 50% male victims, also has a higher level of partner assault victims cases. The NVAWS is somewhere in the middle.
Courtship violence is similar in percentage rate to adult domestic violence. Clifton Flynn (1990, p. 165) found that 12% of high school students reported courtship violence. The students also reported that 72% was "mutual assault," that 1.4% was male abuser only, and 5.7% was female abuser only, the remaining percentage being unsure.
In another study of college students, Cate et al. (1982) researchers found that nearly 70% of courtship violence was mutual assault, 10% was male abuser only and 22% was female abuser only. (Flynn,1990, p. 195)
As given in a U.S. Department of Justice report, a New Zealand study (Moffitt, 1997, p. 1) done in 1993 of 961 twenty-one year old adults found the following:
"Three times more women than men (18.6 percent and 5.7 percent respectively) said they kicked, bit, hit with a fist, or hit with an object. When less severe forms of violence are included — such as throwing something, pushing, grabbing, shoving, and slapping — the rates were 37 percent for women and 22 percent for men."
Table 15, using the data of Straus & Gelles (1986, p. 471), compares the types of physical abuse used on partners as derived from the 1975 and 1985 National Family Violence Surveys. These studies, although tragic, show that 11/1,000 of the women in 1975 and 8/1,000 of the women in 1985 reported that they were "beaten up" by their partners, as compared to 6/1,000 men in 1975 and 1985, suggesting that only 1.1% of the women and 0.6% of the men were beaten up by their intimate partners, not 26% or 36% or even 50% of women in our country who have been victims of a "wife beater."
Table 16 shows the difference between the types of male and female assaults toward their intimate partner based on the two NFVS studies.
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Women were more likely to use the following type of assault: |
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