Community columnist Stewart
Shaw’s recent article “Working to end abuse”
is based on patently false information,
lacks even the pretense of objectivity and
violates the very concept of journalistic
integrity. This article amounts to nothing
more than ideological propaganda.
The article states, “Recognize that abuse is
a male problem, not a female problem.
Generally, women don’t attack their partners
— men do. Female-perpetrated violence
against other people constitutes a tiny
fraction of the total. And men and boys
physically, mentally, verbally and sexually
assault other men and boys, as well as
women.”
This comment defies long-established facts
as reported by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, more than 150
scholarly studies spanning two decades and
countless science-based studies. Moreover,
the complete reverse is the truth.
The CDC’s “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly
Report” from May 19, 2006, reported that
high school girls physically attacked their
boyfriends at an almost nearly identical
rate as high school boys have attacked their
girlfriends. The girl’s attack rate,
however, was the slightly higher rate. The
nationally representative survey was
conducted in 2003 on almost 15,000 students
in grades 7 through 12.
The survey defines dating violence as
hitting, slapping or physically hurting the
partner on purpose. This report also
confirmed that more than 100 previous
studies have found females are equally
likely as males to engage in domestic
violence and again, the female rate was
slightly higher in most of these studies:
(www. csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault).
The most comprehensive research into dating
violence worldwide is the University of New
Hampshire’s Family Research Laboratory’s
ongoing International Dating Violence study
— covering 19 countries at first, then
expanded to 32 — which finds that the median
rate of female-on-male dating violence (29.2
percent) is actually higher than the rate of
male-on-female dating violence (24.7
percent).
Even when limiting the investigation to
severe violence, female perpetrators
predominated at 9.4 percent as compared to 9
percent male perpetrators. (See:
www.nh.gov/csm/dv_straus.html and
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~
mas2/ID41E2.pdf).
The Trends in Intimate Violence Intervention
conference was held in New York City from
May 22-25. Several scientists presented
studies and papers that show it is males who
comprise the largest victim’s group where
intimate partner violence and dating
violence is concerned, and women are the
largest perpetrator group.
Recently, Murray Straus, co-director of the
Family Research Lab at the University of New
Hampshire, completed an international study
on partner violence among university
students. His queries of more than 13,600
students revealed that the most common
instance of partner violence is mutual
abuse.
The second most common situation of partner
violence is when the female is the
perpetrator against the male, he said. This
leaves the reverse — when males abuse
females — to be the least common in
practice, although the most common in
publicity.
However, despite the overwhelming evidence
that men represent the largest victims
group, there is no funding for support or
services for male victims of abuse or their
children. All they get is a piece of paper.
This has resulted in discrimination suits in
California, with suits pending in several
other states.
To further complicate matters, the Violence
Against Women Act states, “Nothing in this
title shall be construed to prohibit male
victims of domestic violence, dating
violence, sexual assault and stalking from
receiving benefits and services under this
title.” VAWA 2005, Section 40002(b)(8).
The current appropriations bills that fund
the Violence Against Women Act programs and
regulate the Victims of Crime Act, which are
going before the House Appropriations
Committee Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and
Human Services and Education, request not
one cent be allocated for the majority of
abuse victims, who are males.
Even given overwhelming facts that men
comprise the majority group of abuse
victims, that the Constitution requires they
receive equal protection under the law, and
VAWA itself mandates support and services be
provided to male victims of abuse, one has
to question the wisdom and motives behind
the construct of the appropriations
legislation.
Aside from the process basing its
justifications on patently false or outdated
statistics, it will create a legislative
system that discriminates against a subject
class who comprise the majority of abuse
victims.
Moreover, our “anti-abuse” programs are
clearly dangerous to safety and well-being
of their children.
Intimate partner violence, also known as
domestic violence, and dating violence are
the two areas where the most false and/or
misleading information is produced and
disseminated into our daily lives. The major
result of this is the most widespread,
systemic abuses of human and civil rights
since the abolition of slavery.
The Winona Daily News is now among those
causing serious harm to more than half the
victims of intimate partner violence and
dating violence in our society by ignoring
established facts and publishing false
information.
Terri Lynn Tersak is president and CEO
of the True Equality Network, which is
concerned about respecting accuracy in
domestic abuse reporting.