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The Department of Justice's highly publicized new findings
on domestic violence are good news. Domestic violence appears to have declined
by more than half from 1993 to 2004. Unfortunately, misleading press reports and
the study's limited methodology have served to further minimize the
often-ignored problems faced by male victims of domestic violence.
The department's National Crime Victimization Survey was
conducted by interviewing members of a representative sample of households
regarding crime, including domestic violence. Respondents were asked, "Has
anyone attacked or threatened you?" "Did you call the police to report something
that happened to you which you thought was a crime?" and "Did anything which you
thought was a crime happen to you, but you did not report to the police?"
Although these are reasonable questions, male victims of domestic violence are
far more likely to answer "no" to them than female victims, thus skewing the
survey's results.
Research shows that male victims are far less likely than
female victims to report such attacks to the police. Many men feel, with some
justification, that officers will not take their claims seriously, or that once
they report violence in their families, their female abusers will claim abuse,
and the women will be believed. Perhaps most important, fathers trapped in
abusive relationships do not want to report abuse because it may create a
divorce or separation, and they fear losing custody of their children to the
abuser.
Survey respondents were told that they were being asked
"crime questions," yet research demonstrates that men are less likely to see the
abuse they suffer as a "crime" or a matter for public intervention, and often
don't mention domestic violence in crime surveys. Also, seeking outside help
because of a spouse's violence - or even complaining privately about it - is
seen as unmanly and cowardly. And men tend to see a female partner's attacks or
threats of violence as isolated examples of her being "angry," "hormonal" or
"moody," instead of as part of a pattern of violence.
That women are frequently the
aggressors in domestic combat cannot be reasonably denied. The National
Institute of Mental Health funded and oversaw two of the largest studies of
domestic violence ever conducted, both of which found equal rates of abuse
between husbands and wives. Professor Martin S. Fiebert of California State
University, Long Beach maintains an online bibliography summarizing nearly 200
academic studies that conclude that women are as physically aggressive in their
intimate relationships as men.
Women often employ the element of surprise and weapons to
compensate for men's greater strength. An analysis of 552 domestic violence
studies published in the Psychological Bulletin found that 38 percent of the
physical injuries in heterosexual domestic assaults are suffered by men.
Last year, more than 50 domestic violence researchers and
treatment providers signed a letter urging the California legislature to stop
the state's policy of excluding male victims and their children from domestic
violence services. Signatory John Hamel, author of the book Gender-Inclusive
Treatment of Intimate Partner Abuse: A Comprehensive Approach, told legislators:
"Men account for half of all DV [domestic violence] victims and incur a third of
DV-related injuries. Ignoring female-on-male violence inhibits our efforts to
combat domestic violence."
The Justice Department survey has also been the subject of
misleading reporting. For example, the most widely published news article on the
report states that in intimate relationships, "women are far more likely than
men to be battered or assaulted. While crimes at the hands of an intimate
partner represented nearly one-quarter of violent assaults against women in the
period of the study, they accounted for 3 percent of such incidents against
men."
This is misleading. According to the Justice Department,
the survey found that "males experienced higher victimization rates than females
for all types of violent crime except rape/sexual assault." Domestic violence
inevitably constitutes a much smaller percentage of the overall violence men
experience. The survey found only a 3-to-1 ratio of abused women to abused men,
not 8-to-1, as the article implies.
Press reports have also focused on the legitimate
possibility that women in the survey have significantly underreported the
domestic violence committed against them. Yet no major press report has even
mentioned what is not simply possible but instead very likely: The survey
undercounted male victims.
This article appeared in the
Baltimore Sun (1/12/07), the Salt Lake Tribune
(1/18/07), the Sacramento Bee (1/19/07) and others.
Mike
McCormick is the Executive Director of the American Coalition for Fathers and
Children, the world’s largest shared parenting organization.
Their
website
is
www.acfc.org.
Glenn Sacks serves on the advisory board of Stop Abuse for
Everyone, an international domestic violence organization. His
columns have appeared in dozens of the largest newspapers in the
United States. His website is
www.GlennSacks.com.
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