Victims Of Domestic Violence example essay topic

... Battered Husband: An Unaddressed Problem Billboards, radio, and TV ads across the country proclaim that "every fifteen seconds a women is beaten by a man". Violence against women is clearly a problem of national importance, but has anyone ever asked how often men are beaten by women? The unfortunate fact is that men are the victims of domestic violence at least as often as women are. While the very idea of men being beaten by their wives runs contrary to many of our deeply ingrained beliefs about men and women, female violence against men is a well-documented phenomenon almost completely ignored by both the media and society. '. .. she started pawing and ripping at him with her fingers, scratching his back and face... ' From Dec. 12, 1990 police report detailing the beating of Stanley G. by his wife '... multiple bruises, abrasions and lacerations... chest wall contusion... psychological trauma...

' From the hospital injury report of the same incident These reports are only a taste of what we believe inconceivable for women to do to men. But believe it or not this does happen. The first reaction upon hearing about the topic of battered men, for many people, is that of incredulity. Battered husbands are almost a topic for jokes - such as the cartoon image of a woman chasing her husband with a rolling pin. One researcher noted that wives were the perpetrators in 73% of the depiction of domestic violence in news paper comics (Gelles).

Battered husbands have historically either been ignored or subjected to ridicule and abuse. Even those of us who like to consider ourselves liberated and open-minded often have a difficult time even imagining that husband battering could take place. Although feminism has opened many of our eyes about the existence of domestic violence, and newspaper reports often include incidents of abuse of wives, the abuse of husbands is a rarely discussed phenomenon. One reason researchers and others had not chosen to investigate husband battering is because it was thought to be a fairly rare occurrence. Police reports seemed to bear this out, with in some cases a ratio of 12 to 14.5 female victims to every one male victim.

But another reason is that because women were seen as weaker and more helpless than men due to sex roles, and men on the other hand were seen as more sturdy and self-reliant, the study of abused husbands seemed relatively unimportant (Steinmetz). In 1974, a study was done which compared male and female domestic violence. In that study, it was found that 47% of husbands had used physical violence on their wives, and 33% of wives had used violence on their husbands (Gelles). Half of the respondents in this study were selected from either cases of domestic violence reported to the police, or those identified by the social service agency. Also in 1974, a study was released showing that the number of murders of women by men (17.5% of total homicides) was about the same as the number of murders of men by women (16.4%of total homicides). This study, however, showed that men were three times as likely to assault women as vice-versa.

These statistics came from police records (Gelles). The murder statistic was no big news, by the way. In 1958, an investigation of spousal homicide between 1948 and 1952 found that 7.8% of murder victims were husbands murdered by wives, and 8% were wives murdered by husbands. More recently, in a study of spousal homicide in the period from 1976 to 1985, it was found that there was an overall ratio of 1.3: 1.0 of murdered wives to murdered husbands, and that 'black husbands were at greater risk of spouse homicide victimization than black wives or white spouses of either sex'. The subject of husband battering had finally been addressed, but not to the great satisfaction of anyone. Although it had finally been shown that there was violence being perpetrated both by wives and husbands, there was no information about relative frequency or severity, or who initiated the abuse and who was acting in self-defense.

Furthermore, some researchers became concerned that the use of police or social services references in choosing subjects to study might be biasing the results. In 1980, a team of researchers, including Steinmetz, attempted to address some concerns about the earlier surveys. They created a nationally representative study of family violence and found that the total violence scores seemed to be about even between husbands and wives, and in fact wives tended to be more abusive in almost all categories except pushing and shoving (Gelles & Steinmetz). Strauss & Gelles did a follow up survey in 1985, comparing their data to a 1975 survey.

They found that in that decade, domestic violence against women dropped from 12.1% of women to 11.3% while domestic violence against men rose from 11.6% to 12.1%. The rate of severely violent incidents dropped for both groups: From 3.8% to 3.0%of women victimized and from 4.6% to 4.4% for men. In 1986, a report appeared in Social Work, the journal of the National Association of Social Workers on violence in adolescent dating relationships, in which it was found that girls were violent more frequently than boys (Steinmetz). Another report on premarital violence found that 34% of the males and 40% of the females reported engaging in some form of physical aggression against their mates in a year.

17% of women and 7% of men reported engaging in severe physical aggression. 35% of the men and 30% of the women reported having been abused. Strauss & Gelles commented in their 1986 report that 'violence by wives has not been an object of public concern... In fact, our 1975 study was criticized for presenting statistics on violence by wives.

' Yet domestic violence is an issue framed in the media and in the political arena as one of male perpetrators and female victims. Violence in gay and lesbian relationships is rarely discussed, and violence against men in heterosexual relationships less so. Legislation about domestic violence is always orientated toward the female victim. For instance, in 1991, Senator Joseph Biden again introduced the 'Violence Against Women Act' which at this writing has passed the senate Judiciary Committee.

It has a section called 'Safe homes for Women' which specifically allocates funds to 'women's's heaters Also note actions like that of Ohio governor Richard F. Celeste who granted clemency to 25 women who were in prison for murdering their husbands. The reason he gave for this was the 'Battered Woman Syndrome' which, obviously, no man can claim as his. There is very little concern shown either for the idea of making spousal abuse a capital crime with the victim as extra-judicial executioner, nor for the idea that perhaps some of the men who murder their spouses might be suffering from an analogous 'Battered Man Syndrome. ' The only shelter for battered men in the entire state of California is run by Community United Against Violence (C UAV) in San Francisco, an organization dealing exclusively with gay men. Even straight men that are brave enough to risk the stigma of admitting victimization are unlikely to turn to a group of gay men for support Men's victimization is a fact.

Nevertheless, a few nagging questions remain: First, if men are so much bigger and stronger, why don't they protect themselves? The answer, when you think about it, makes perfect sense. First of all, at the same time little girls are being taught its OK to slap, little boys are being told 'Never hit a girl. ' And when these little boys grow up, they are told that any man who hits a woman is a bully.

But if a woman hits him, he's supposed to 'take it like a man. ' These reasons explain why most abused men, no matter how capable they are of doing so, offer little or no resistance to their partners' physical violence. And many women, well aware of these fears, may actually continue their abuse, knowing they can get away with it. One man interviewed by Dr. Steinmetz recounted the single time he retaliated against his wife's physical abuse, hitting her in the mouth. 'She went flying across the room... ' After that, because he realized how badly he could hurt her, he continued to take her physical abuse without retaliation.

Some men, though, are simply unable to offer any resistance to their partner's violence. James B., who now helps other men by doing volunteer peer-counseling, told me about one of his clients, a blind man who was regularly abused by his girlfriend. 'She'd just turn the TV up real loud,' he said. 'So he could never tell when she was coming at him. ' Not fighting back is one thing, but why would any sane person stay in an abusive relationship? It may surprise some people to learn that men's reasons differ little from women's: economics and concern for the children.

In fact women are still most likely to get physical custody of children in divorce cases, leading to another reason men are afraid to leave their abusive wives. Myth Fact Women don't batter men. In their Conflict Tactics Scales, Murray Strauss and Richard Gelles found that women initiated violence nearly as much as men overall, actually being more likely to throw something kicking, biting, or hitting assault with an object other than a knife or gun. During heated arguments women could get to the point of doing some of the things mentioned above more easily than a many men would. Being that since the stigma of violence is placed on men so much more than women, a reasonable man would think twice before acting aggressively in any way, while a woman might act purely out of instinct. Women don't batter men except in cases of self-defense.

While this is frequently claimed when people are confronted with the Conflict Tactics Scales studies, this is a rationalization not documented by research. Stop Abuse For Everyone contains no fewer than five men's stories of the abuse their wives inflicted on them that clearly refute this notion. Some men have been brave enough to post their stories to usenet, also giving the lie to this myth. Again and again and again it becomes clear each time the tale is told: Women beat men for the same reasons that men beat women -- and sometimes, self defense is the reason the man is being violent. The complaint about this non-exclusion of self-defense in these studies also works both ways -- they do not exclude cases where a woman initiates violence and a man defends himself.

Worst of all, the prevalence of this myth leaves me wondering just how many women who actually killed their husbands have been getting sympathy and even pardons for their murder by playing on this belief? This leads us to think that it could be possible that many cases of domestic violence against women have been initiated by women and the man can easily get out of hand easily turning the defense into offense. Not to say that it is in anyway justified. Since women are not as large as strong as men, it's not as bad when they batter men.

Husband batterer Karen Gillhespy 'broke her husband's ribs, ripped entire patches of his hair out, scratched him, bit him, beat him with a baseball bat and kicked him,' according to the Detroit News article about her. (Emphasis added) Other men have been stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, and otherwise battered -- there is no form of violence that female violence against men has not included. Violence takes various forms. There is no question that since men are, on average, bigger and stronger than women, they can do more damage in a fistfight.

However, the average man's size and strength are neutralized by guns and knives, boiling water, bricks, fireplace pokers and baseball bats. ' In fact, a 1984 study of 6,200 cases of reported domestic assault found that 86% of female-on-male violence involved weapons, while only 25% of male-on-female violence did. It's just not as big a problem as wife-beating It is the same problem as wife-beating. The one and only problem here is that people are using violence as a means of control of others. To cast the problem as 'male violence against women' is to lie.

Years ago, it could have been excused as misunderstanding based on missing data. However, there is no longer any excuse for anyone to pretend that such a term accurately describes domestic violence. To point out 'female violence against men' is to expose the lie and to allow the truth to be seen. Just because there are less 'reported' occurrences does not diminish the problem. I would not disagree by any means that men do batter women more, however even one case of the opposite is enough to call attention and just as worthy of awareness.

The claim that any significant number of men are battered is not born out by police reports. Men were: 46% of the murder victims 32% of the aggravated assault victims 7% of the rape victims 30% of the robbery victims 18% of the simple assault victims 10% of miscellaneous other offenses in crimes in Domestic Violence incidents reported to the Michigan State Police by individual police departments in 1995. (Source: The Detroit News) Nor is these an isolated statistic, as documented by the appallingly misnamed Nov. 1998 Department of Justice report on the National Violence Against Women Survey', which showed 36% of the victims of domestic violence being men. (all figures are rates per 1000 couples per year, and the CTS figures are based on two national surveys of a representative population sample) Rates per year per 1000 couples of various forms of violence. CTS SURVEY #11975 [N = 2143} SURVEY #21985{N = 3520} Kentucky 1979 Wife Victim Husband Victim Wife Victim Husband Victim Wife Victim Threw something 28 52 28 43 29 Pushed, grabbed, or shoved 107 83 93 89 85 Slapped 51 46 29 41 48 kicked, bit, or hit with fist 24 31 15 24 14 Hit or tried to hit with something 22 30 17 30 22 Beat up 11 6 8 4 18 Threat with gun or knife 4 6 4 6 14 Used gun or knife 3 2 2 2 4 Overall violence (1-8) 121 116 113 121 severe violence (5-8) 39 46 30 44 Note: that the CTS figures (and probably the Kentucky figures as well) show only raw incidents of violence, and do not take into account motivation or 'self defense'. Other data, however indicates that the gender of the striker of the first blow is fairly uniform. Jan. E States and Murray A Straus, 'Gender Differences in Reporting Marital Violence and It's Medical and Psychological Consequences', ch 9 in Straus & Gelles Physical Violence in American Families quote the following: Men claimed they struck the first blow in 44% of the cases, their female partners in 44% of the cases, and 'couldn't remember' in 12% of the cases.

The women claimed men hit them first in 43% of the cases, that they struck the first blow in 53% of the cases, and 'couldn't remember' in 5% of the cases. However, data for injury rates based on these studies shows women seeking treatment for a doctor much more often than men did. In a study of 8145 families 7.3% of 137 women severely assaulted (i.e. 10 out of 137) and 1% of 95 men severely assaulted (i.e. 1 out of 95) men needed a doctor. In conclusion, I think that husband battering is a serious problem, comparable to the problem of wife battering. Even if the statistics collected in the last several years are completely wrong and only one in 14 victims of spousal abuse are men, these are men who are hurting and need services that are currently not available. Continuing to portray spousal violence solely as a women's issue is not only wrong - it's also counterproductive.

And encouraging such unnecessary fragmentation and divisiveness will ultimately do more harm than good. No one has, or should have, a control on pain and suffering. But until society as a whole confronts it's deeply embedded stereotypes and recognizes all the victims of domestic violence, we will never be able to solve the problem. Domestic violence is an either a male or a female issue - it's simply a human issue.

Bibliography

Richard Gelles. (1974). The violent home: a study of physical aggression between husbands and wives. Beverly Hills: Sage No More Silence web Abuse Rates - Stats from UCR and Straus, Gelles web SteintmetzMen: The Secret Victims Of Domestic Violence web.