gender and abuse

[lemur]

Although men can be victims of domestic abuse, typically women become the victims and men the perpetrators. Reaching the point of abuse may be important for many couples as a means of legitimating separation as a need instead of a "mere want" that could be judged as selfish on the part of either or both partners. My question is why do women typically end up as victims and men as perpetrators. Is it merely yet another expression of traditional gender role patters or is there something deeper? Is there maybe something about male/female attitudes toward relationships, commitment, and dealing with challenges that leads to domestic violence and its asymmetries?

 

This is a social science issue, but since it deals with relationships, I thought the lounge might be the appropriate forum. Moderators please feel free to move the thread accordingly.

[John Cuthber]

There's no doubt that men are usually bigger and stronger. There may be some debate about the men being generally more aggressive, but I think that would be widely accepted too.

 

Given those circumstances I think it's entirely expected that women are more likely to be the victims.

 

I'm not, of course, saying it's right, I'm just saying it's no surprise.

[lemur]

There's no doubt that men are usually bigger and stronger. There may be some debate about the men being generally more aggressive, but I think that would be widely accepted too.

 

Given those circumstances I think it's entirely expected that women are more likely to be the victims.

 

I'm not, of course, saying it's right, I'm just saying it's no surprise.

On that level, yes. But I'm sort of looking at another level, which is how people start closing off within a relationship without completely breaking it off. I think that people do this sometimes because they are committed and they don't want to walk away but their feelings have subsided or been hurt in various ways. This may lead one or both to close off toward the other and set more boundaries for their partner to respect and more difficult expectations to live up to. These would be ways of shifting the burden of maintaining the relationship to the other person so that if it fails, they wouldn't have to take responsibility. Then, if someone is trying to meet those expectations and deal with the other person closing off without walking away, that could lead to hurt, anger, and resentment. It's as if people can push each other to be the one to walk away, which is a mean thing to do if you think about it. So I think anyone could become angry and act on their anger with violence in such a situation but I'm thinking that maybe women are less likely to because they would be more afraid of violent retaliation from the man for the reasons you mentioned.

 

I find it almost taboo to say that abuse may be provoked, because that would be like blaming the victim, but I'm also thinking if you looked closely at the situation - how it led up to violence, you might in many cases see that the abuser did feel provoked in some way and that the victim was on equal footing in the conflict before it degraded into violence. Then, I guess the fact that all bets are off once the violence begins obscures the way the conflict was being fought before it started.

 

 

[ewmon]

Although men can be victims of domestic abuse, typically women become the victims and men the perpetrators.

An American study by Straus and Gelles showed that women are as violent as men in frequency and severity, even according to the women themselves. Women have a greater tendency to use weapons, most often knives, as "force equalizers". Unlike women, most men don't report the abuse, and when they do, they are mostly ignored.

[Marat]

Canadian government studies show that domestic abuse by women against men is just as common as domestic abuse by men against women, although since men are stronger, the abuse by men causes more injury and is thus more likely to be reported and lead to prosecution.

 

I also think we have to view our defintion of 'violence' more critically. People can be extremely violent in the things they say to each other, or in making constant demands, nagging, pestering, ridiculing, etc., and it seems arbitrary only to define the person who finally strikes out physically against such abuse as the 'violent' one. Criminal law recognizes provocation as an excuse for some assaults, so verbal or emotional 'violence' should also be recognized as being itself a type of violence perhaps excusing retaliatory physical violence.

 

Of course, none of this is currently permitted to be true in the Brave New World of political correctness, where reality is freely transformed in service of ideology, to an extent that would make the Church officials blush who forbade Galileo to announce his discoveries because they contradicted established dogma.

[JohnB]

AFAIK research has also shown that rates of domestic violence are the same in the gay and lesbian communities as in the general population as well. I think that this is why no nation at the moment can actually have a discussion on the topic. The politically correct "Victimhood" industry won't allow it. You can't keep claiming the people you represent are victims of the nasty wider community if it's shown that they are just as nasty to each other.

 

The other point is that men and women use different weapons when arguing. Verbally men are far inferior to women in an argument as women are far better at the "cutting remark" that goes very deep. Watch groups of males and females ejecting a person from their group, the males will tell the ostracized one to "P*ss off and don't come back" while the women will verbally and psychologically tear strips off the person and make sure that they simply can't face the idea of coming back.

 

As to which is the worse type of violence, pysical or psychological, I really can't say. Both are bad.

[lemur]

AFAIK research has also shown that rates of domestic violence are the same in the gay and lesbian communities as in the general population as well. I think that this is why no nation at the moment can actually have a discussion on the topic. The politically correct "Victimhood" industry won't allow it. You can't keep claiming the people you represent are victims of the nasty wider community if it's shown that they are just as nasty to each other.

I sort of hinted at it in the OP, but maybe I should re-emphasize that one possible cause of violence can be that people evoke or "summon" it, often cooperatively, to bring about resolution, or at least termination/repression, of conflict. People can always quarrel and bicker and as they grow tired of the bickering, they may actually want to bring things to a head, so to speak, because they believe their bargaining position following the fight will be better than before. I'm not saying that victims bring violence on themselves or that perpetrators always premeditate it to achieve a goal. I just think it is something that is in the shadowy underbelly of our cultural scripting that few people want to face up to but many are naturally inclined to do. It's just a lot harder to work things out maturely, so you end up with harassing provocations like, "why don't you just hit me and get it over with," or "bring it on and see what it gets you," etc.

Edited April 26, 2011 by lemur

[Marat]

It is interesting to consider studies of why women stay with men who hit them, and are often surprisingly committed to their relationships with these men. Some studies have suggested that physical violence plays a dynamical role in these relationships, so that the woman deliberately induces the man to hit her, because she then enjoys the emotional bond that reforms around the man's regret and renewed courtship efforts to compensate for having hit her. This then causes incidents of domestic violence to function, perversely and pathologically, as devices to renew emotional bonds in couples who cannot accomplish this in less neurotic ways.

[lemur]

It is interesting to consider studies of why women stay with men who hit them, and are often surprisingly committed to their relationships with these men. Some studies have suggested that physical violence plays a dynamical role in these relationships, so that the woman deliberately induces the man to hit her, because she then enjoys the emotional bond that reforms around the man's regret and renewed courtship efforts to compensate for having hit her. This then causes incidents of domestic violence to function, perversely and pathologically, as devices to renew emotional bonds in couples who cannot accomplish this in less neurotic ways.

What if women consented to and desired sex for the same purpose? Would this make sex a perverse and pathological means of renewing emotional bonds in a relationship?

Edited April 26, 2011 by lemur