Posted on 05/26/2006 9:36:18 AM PDT by neverdem
Many abuse males: survey
Women are as violent as their male companions - and sometimes more so, according to a controversial study presented yesterday at a domestic violence conference in Manhattan. The survey of 13,600 college students came to the surprising conclusion that in the majority of abusive relationships, women are the perpetrators at least as often as they are the victims of violence.
About one-third of students in 32 countries said they assaulted their partner in a survey conducted by the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire.
In 69% of cases, both men and women were violent. But women were the sole perpetrators in 21% of cases, compared with about 10% of relationships in which men were the only batterers.
Author Murray Straus, who presented the study at the Trends in Intimate Violence Intervention conference at NYU, said there was "overwhelming evidence that women assault their partners at about the same rate as men."
"The idea of chivalry is alive. Men genuinely believe 'never hit a woman' - up to a certain point. So when she gets angry at him and slaps him, kicks him, throws something, most men don't retaliate. But if she keeps on doing that, then it moves into the both doing it," Straus said.
"So many women have told me, 'I knew I wouldn't hurt him.' It's for some women a quintessentially feminine thing to do, to slap the cad," he said.
Stony Brook University Prof. Ruth Brandwein criticized Straus' findings.
"If you have two people in a relationship and the guy is 6-foot-2 and weighs 230 pounds and the woman is 5-foot-4 and weighs 130 pounds, just because they're both hitting each other doesn't mean it's equally violent. Her hitting him may be seen as a joke to him and his hitting her may terrorize her," Brandwein said.
Rates of intimate partner violence are higher among college-age students than in older couples, Straus said. Another survey of 1,200 university students found that 41% of women and 31% of men have been hit by their partner, said Katie Gentile, director of the women's center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
But Gentile said men usually become violent as a way of controlling women, while women who are violent often become so to prevent the man from attacking first.
"I don't think [women] are getting more violent," she said. "I think women are admitting it more, probably. They might be fighting back more."
And in a domestic violence situation, even if you are all of those three, it is still not a good idea. Just get out. Heck, she could quit fighting, you let go, you turn your back for a second and she nails you over the head with a bottle. Best just to scoot. And I would offer that advice to any man if a woman tries to hit him. Leave and come back later. Quite a bit later, to give her time to think about it. And tell her that she'd better not try that again if she wants to live in the same house with him. And that it is never a joke and it is never acceptable.
As a universal piece of advice I couldn't agree more - well said.
And I'm saying that if you have never been in a domestic violence situation, it isn't a very good idea to offer advice as to how it should be handled. Especially if you think a guy is wussified, as you insinuated, if he is in that kind of situation.
I never said whether I had or had not.
You know what they say about a good beatin'....
bump for later :)
Yes, I would be forced to intervene (at some point).
Insipid and sophomoric.
Not directed at anyone in particular. Just wanted to chime in with two adjectives.
If you are going to add in adjectives, then you need to keep with the alphabetic progression. "Sweeping and Baseless" progressed to "Vague and Vapid". The next progression needs to start with a Z word and a P word.
Zany and Purile?
I dated a psycho in my younger days... I swear to this day she cracked my rib when she decided to go violent on me. I have never hit a woman... and would expect to be slapped if I acted the way I see some guys treating women....
With all that being said however, there is no doubt there are many women out there who take advantage that men generally won't hit back and resort to physicallity for the slightest excuse.
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