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Foster’s Daily Democrat
Monday, June 19, 2006
UNH research: Young women often the aggressors in domestic abuse
By THOMAS R. KRESSLERDemocrat Staff Writer
DOVER : New research from an acclaimed University of New Hampshire family violence expert suggests what some might call a radical shift in domestic violence trends that young women are responsible for more of it than young men, and that violence among both partners is the most frequent pattern.But a radical shift in how society views domestic violence is what Murray Straus, founder and co-director of UNH's Family Research Laboratory, is aiming for.

"We have a big debt to the women's movement for bringing this to the public's attention but only for men hitting women. Now we have to focus our attention on women hitting men, and make a big deal out of that. Make it just as offensive, just as reprehensible for a woman to slap a man's face as it is for man to hit a woman's face," Straus said.But some involved with domestic violence say the findings do not clarify the nature of the violence. Battery, violence that is ongoing and used to control the victim, is still a man versus woman phenomenon, many say.

Straus' new research, which took five years to compile, samples university aged males and females from 32 countries, querying about each respondent's behaviors and experiences with partner violence. He presented the findings at a conference in New York City last month.The findings indicate that the most common pattern of partner violence is where both are violent toward each other, with the second most common when a woman acts as the primary aggressor, and the least common when a man is the primary aggressor."It's because a lot of men follow the rule, of never hit a woman, but then when she keeps it up that breaks down and eventually they both become violent," Straus said. "And there are cases where you just have some mean son of a [expletive] who's beating her up but those cases are the most rare."

According to Straus' research, with few exceptions, women are hitting men more than the other way around, but he says from the age of 30 and up, men and women perform acts of violence against their partners at roughly the same rate."It's a relationship problem, not as the predominant thinking goes, a male dominance pattern," Straus said. "You can't fix a relationship problem by attending only to half of a relationship. You get men in these batterer treatment programs and they deliberately ignore what the woman is doing in fact it is considered outrageous to even ask."

Straus said the findings can alter how domestic violence is treated by professionals. "We should start with the assumption that they are both doing it," Straus said. "The results of this study suggest that one of the reasons why the treatment methods are not very effective are because they are ignoring half of the problem."

Grace Mattern, Executive Director of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, says the violence measured by Straus is different from what is seen most commonly at shelters in the state situations where a woman is victimized over a long period of time by her male partner.Mattern said there are in fact couples where aggression is mutual and there are no clear batterers."But when you talk about who are the victims of coercive control, reinforced with extensive physical violence, it is primarily women. When our organization talks about domestic violence, we are talking about an ongoing pattern of coercive control," she said.Mattern acknowledges that men are victims of domestic violence, and says the coalition is open to helping whoever needs it.But, "there is a gender aspect to this the primary victim of ongoing violence and coercive control are women."

The findings from Straus indeed fly in the face of national crime statistics, which indicate women are far more often the victims of domestic violence than men, but many presume that men are less likely to report the crimes. Most national movements against domestic violence continue to operate under the assumption the primary victims of domestic violence are women and their children.

But Lee Newman, founder and executive director of Stop Abuse For Everyone's New Hampshire chapter, has been reaching out to heterosexual men affected by domestic violence, as well as other underserved populations, for years.

SAFE-NH provides a 24-hour crisis line, peer advocacy and counseling, and other services."The perspective we have is that it's more of a human issue rather than a gender issue and that's what sort of sets us apart from most of the mainstream domestic violence organizations," Newman said.

He said Straus' conclusion that young women are hitting men more is not surprising, and other research has indicated the same thing. Newman wonders if women who hit men are told it is excusable because they are acting in self-defense or because of built-up anger."Have we sort of created a dynamic by providing one gender with excuses for their violent behavior while on the other hand providing the other gender with all the blame?" he asked.

Newman says the preconceived notions of who hits who in partner relationships is problematic for his organizations in terms of securing funding, since most federal dollars for domestic violence projects are guaranteed by the Violence Against Women Act. He also said women have an easier time receiving restraining orders against men, though there is no legal difference that makes that the case.

Others close to domestic violence are skeptical that Straus' recent findings capture the whole picture. Pam Haggarty, executive director of A Safe Place, a domestic violence shelter and support service based in Portsmouth, Rochester, and Salem, said their shelters see about 6 to 7 percent males each year. But even so, she cannot deny that domestic violence is overwhelmingly a man versus woman issue, particularly when the nature of the violence is ongoing and used as a controlling mechanism. She says Straus' research does not clarify this distinction."The information doesn't necessarily give you the impact of what that violence is on someone. It doesn't really clarify whether it's violence that's being used to control someone, so it would be hard to draw conclusions from it," Haggarty said.Haggarty does acknowledge there could be more men affected by domestic violence that are too ashamed to seek help."Society has set men up in a position where it's hard for them to admit they're being abused. We assume there are certainly more out there," Haggarty said.Even with disagreements on the nature of domestic violence, most who frequently deal with its consequences are happy to serve whoever is in need."The main message to me is we want to try to stop abuse from happening period. It's not so much is it this person or that person," Haggarty said. Educational ventures made by domestic violence groups are typically gender-neutral."What we're trying to do is get out into the schools and help kids understand what is normal and healthy behavior in the relationship and what isn't so they can see the signs of what's happening. From somebody constantly calling another to keep track of them and things far worse than that," Haggarty said.

Though SAFE-NH serves more men than women, it is because they reach out to those underserved populations. The focus is everyone who is affected by abuse, Newman says."We help women just as quickly as we help men," Newman said. "We need to really start looking at this stuff and taking it out of the text of a gender issue and making it a human issue."