Edwards, K. M., Desai, A. D., Gidycz, C. A., & VanWynsberghe, A. (2009). College women's role in relationships: The role of childhood and adolescent victimization. Psychology of Women Quarterly, (33), 255-264. “Magdol et al. (1997) found that 22% of men and 36% of women reported perpetrating physical aggression in dating relationships during the past 12 months, and 86% of men and 95% of women reported perpetrating verbal aggression in dating relationships during the past 12 months.” “…in a meta-analysis of over 80 studies, Archer (2000) found that women were somewhat more likely to perpetrate physical aggression than men in dating relationships.” “Women also reported alarming rates of perpetration. At [Time 1], 87% of women reported a history of perpetrating verbal abuse and 26% of women reported a history of perpetrating physical abuse. Over the brief 10-week interim, 74% of women reported engaging in verbal perpetration and 11% of women reported engaging in physical perpetration.” “…the majority of women who perpetrate verbal abuse do not receive or perpetrate physical abuse.”

Drijber, B.C., Reijnders, U.J.L., & Ceelen, M. (2013). Male Victims of Domestic Violence. Journal of Family Violence, (28), 173-178. “When men are victims of DV, they are physically as well as psychologically abused with the female (ex)-partners often being their perpetrator. The most important reason for men not to report the abuse is the belief the police would not take any action.” “…there are signs that women are at least as violent as men (Straus 1999) and that men experience similar types of physical abuse as women (Du-Plat Jones 2006; George and Yarwood 2001).” “Some studies have shown that women would be more likely to use physical aggression than men (Archer 2000, 2002).” “… DV against men often goes unrecognized since men are probably less likely than women to report such incidents for fear of embarrassment, fear of ridicule and the lack of available support services (Barber 2008).”

Hall, R.E. (2012). The Feminization of Social Welfare: Implications of Cultural Tradition vis-à-vis Male Victims of Domestic Violence. Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, (3), 727.

(This is a GREAT paper that puts perspective to how social work and researchers continue to feed the myth that women are more often victims of DV. By intentionally avoiding men as victims in research, we continue to have the perception that DV does not happen to them.) “…according to scholarly literature, men in the U.S. are equally as likely to be the victims of domestic violence by women as are women by men. “…the social welfare system in America at federal, state, and local levels has operated within a cultural tradition which sees women as victims and men as perpetrators of domestic violence (Loiacono, 2010).” “By its own policies and actions government then influenced the institutions of social welfare to the extent that services now show less consideration to needy men (Jagannathan, Camasso & Sambamoorthi, 2010).” “Because of feminization, the evidence of men victimized by domestic violence has not been sufficiently addressed in public discourse (Hines & Douglas, 2010).” “…in the Social Work Abstracts database…papers published on men were only 52% of those published on women. Papers published on fathers were only 41% of those published on mothers. Papers published on husbands were only 80% of those published on wives.” “Other studies pertaining to domestic violence include that published by O’Leary, Barling, Rosenbaum and Tyree (1989). It involved 272 couples in a longitudinal study of early marriage. Results indicated that 44% of the women compared to 31% of the men were physically aggressive. After 18 months, 36% of the women and 27% of the men reported being physically aggressive. After 30 months of marriage, investigators found no significant differentiations in physical aggression between men and women. However at each interval women were, in fact, more aggressive than the men to whom they were married. These various forms of aggression included pushing, shoving, and slapping.” “In 2009, a male cheerleader at the University of Missouri was brutally attacked by two players on the women’s basketball team. The incident was preceded by the cheerleader’s decision to conclude a team party being held at his residence. He thus requested that guests vacate the premises. However, as reported by the local Riverfront Times newspaper, the two noted women players, unprovoked, began a violent assault upon the male cheerleader. They beat and punched him about the facial area until they broke his nose and injured his eye. Party-goers attempted to restrain the assailants but were unable to do so.” “…the rationale for women who kill is money 41% of the time. When an abused woman murders her husband or partner, drugs are commonly involved (Prospero & Kim, 2009).” “…according to the Justice Department, of those women who murdered their husbands, 12.9% were acquitted. Of those men who murdered their wives, only 1.4% were acquitted. What’s

more, those women found guilty of murdering their husbands received an average sentence of six years, while their male counterparts received 17 years for murdering their wives (Mann, 1990).” “…Donna Shalala, recent Secretary of Health and Human Services…reported that 4 million women are “battered” in a given year by their significant male other (Shalala, 1994). She does not report the source of her data but her stated statistics are in conflict with official documentation.” “… results indicate that of 94 military couples, 11% of wives and 7% of husbands were engaged in behaviors considered physically aggressive, as reported by the wives (Bohannon, Dosser and Lindley, 1995).” “The self-administered survey results suggested that women were significantly more likely than men to act out violent behaviors toward their male partners (Ellison, Barkowski and Anderson, 1999).” “Kessler, Molnar, Feurer and Appelbaum (2001) investigated mental health patterns relative to domestic violence in the United States. Their sample consisted of 3,537 subjects. Of these, 1,738 were men and 1,799 were women. These data were extracted from the National Co-morbidity Survey, which is a nationally representative survey conducted between the years of 1990 and 1992. All who qualified were married or cohabitating males and females between the ages of 1554 years. The findings suggest that “17.4% of women and 18.4% of men reported being the victims of physical violence at the hands of their current spouses and/or partners” (Kessler et al., 2001, p. 491).” …McCleod (1984) determined vis-à-vis empirical data that men are more often injured and are injured more seriously than women.” “McNeely, Cook and Torres (2001) set out to determine whether domestic violence is a gender issue or a human issue. They contend, based upon empirical evidence, that domestic violence is in fact a human issue and not due to the commonly held belief that it is a gender issue. The confusion may be a result of men’s “legal and social defenselessness” (p. 2).” “…67.3% of [female study volunteers] admitted to at least one event of violent behavior conducted by them personally in the past 12 months (Ridley and Feldman, 2003).” “The recent television hit series “Jersey Shore”promoted violence against men during one of its highly touted episodes. One of the female characters, named J. Woww, smacked “The Situation.” In a later episode, a drunken Angelina struck “Pauly D” in the facial area. What’s more, in response to a previous episode where a male character struck a female character, the administrators of the show featured a public service announcement abhorring domestic violence in response. This show is aired by the MTV cable station. As a consequence of what it broadcasts, violence against men by women is tolerated while violence against women by men results in a public service announcement. Jersey Shore is not the exception (Marcus, 2010).”

“Another MTV series which tolerates violence against men is “Teen Mom.” One of the central characters, Amber, on more than one occasion has acted out violence against Gary, who is the father of her child. Another Teen Mom character, Farrah, was reportedly assaulted by her mother Debra. While the assault was not caught on camera, much of the episode focused on Farrah’s follow-up with an attorney to press charges against her mother and her referral for therapy to cope. In response to Farrah being assaulted, MTV broadcast a number for a domestic violence hotline. When women were victims of domestic violence, as was Farrah, the cable station acted. When men, such as Gary, were assaulted by women, the cable station has yet to respond with a public service announcement objecting (Marcus, 2010).” “The traditional social welfare modus operandi emphasizes values and norms of the patriarch, which establishes women as victims of domestic violence and men as perpetrators of same.” “According to Kosberg (2002), women are disproportionately portrayed as victims, powerless, vulnerable and disadvantaged, due to the sexist and racist efforts of men.” “…much of the available literature on domestic violence has justifiably emphasized the needs, problems, and empowerment of women to the exclusion of equally justifiable male victims (Alaggia & Millington, 2008).”

Hoff, B. H. (2012). US national survey: More men than women victims of intimate partner violence. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 4(3), 155-163. [This is a great article that shows the disparity between research conducted by wonen’s ‘advocacy groups’ and everyone else, such as researchers, government and national polls.] “According to a 2010 national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and US Department of Justice, in the last 12 months more men than women were victims of intimate partner physical violence and over 40 percent of severe physical violence was directed at men. Men were also more often the victim of psychological aggression and control over sexual or reproductive health.” “According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) released in December, 2011, within the last 12 months an estimated 5,365,000 men and 4,741,000 women were victims of intimate partner physical violence. This finding contrasts to the earlier National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000), which estimated that 1.2 million women and 35,000 men were victims of intimate partner physical violence in the preceding 12 months.” [Emphasis by Todd Bottom]

NISVS 2010 Survey-IP Physical Violence Victims

“There are many thousands of support programs, web sites and public-interest media items for female victims of domestic violence (DV), and virtually no programs and only a handful of web sites in the USA for male victims. Perhaps these programs and public education efforts hare resulted in males, but not females, getting the message that DV is wrong.” Well over $1 billion is spent to help female victims at the Federal, state and local level in the USA, with $845.4 million at the Federal level alone for FY 2005 (US Government Accountability Office, 2007), but there are virtually no services available in the country for over 2 million men who are victims of severe physical violence by an intimate partner.

“A large proportion of [men] who sought help from DV agencies (49.9%), DV hotlines (63.9%), or online resources (42.9%) were told, We only help women.’’

“…95.3% of those men…said that they were given the impression that the agency was biased against men.” “Some of the men were accused of being the batterer in the relationship: This happened to men seeking help from DV agencies (40.2%), DV hotlines (32.2%) and online resources (18.9%).” “Over 25% of [men] using an online resource reported that they were given a phone number for help which turned out to be the number for a batterer’s program.” “…16.4% of the men who contacted a hotline reported that the staff made fun them, as did 15.2% of the men who contacted local DV agencies…” “Douglas and Hines’ (2011)…study concludes that informal help, mental health and medical services were the most helpful. The services least helpful were:...those that are the core of the DV service system: DV agencies, DV hotlines, and the police.” “…nearly 67% of men reported that these DV agencies and hotline were not at all helpful. Many reported being turned away.” “…for each additional negative experience with helpseeking, men’s odds of meeting the cut-off for PTSD increased 1.37 times.” “Public service announcements need to be de-gendered. Right now, they focus almost exclusively on IPV against women. There needs to be more public education about violence to men. There are many web sites on IPV against women. These are all woman-centered, or use gender-neutral language. They tend to minimize violence against men. There is only a handful of sites addressing DV against men. None of these (except for the Clark County, IN prosecutor’s site) receive any government, foundation or corporate support.” “Further, IPV is more likely to be mutual or female-initiated than male-initiated.” “Studies with a high percentage of men inflicting injury are, without exception, also studies with a high percentage of women injuring a partner.” “There is other evidence which casts doubt on the idea that IPV by women is primarily in self-defense. Eight studies providing data on who hit first have found that women initiate from 30 to 73 percent…of violent incidents.”   

In the last 12 months 5.4 million men were victims of IPV, 2.3 million victims of serious physical violence, yet there are virtually no programs to serve them. IPV by women increases the chances that they will themselves be victims of IPV. IPV is morally wrong and criminal, but there are few programs for women batterers to show them better ways to resolve conflicts in a relationship.

“States need to offer DV services to men. Many say they do, but none have data on the number of men served.” “In King County (Seattle) when I asked about services for battered men I was referred to a male better program.” [Emphasis by Todd Bottom] “The Snohomish County program north of Seattle says they serve males, but men who have tried to get help inform me they were sent away.” “Courts in California and West Virginia have found that DV programs discriminate on the basis of sex, in violation of equal protection provisions of their constitutions (Woods v. Horton, 2008[9]).