Domestic Violence Policies:
Where Did We Go Wrong?
Sotirios Sarantakos
...
Nuance no. 3, December 2001. Sarantakos: Domestic Violence Policies 51(26)
On the contrary, it shows that women—not
men—are in the majority among the perpetrators of family violence. Women are in the
majority among elder abusers, child abusers, and child murderers and commit spouse
abuse as frequently as men do. Below are a few examples.
• women commit a significant proportion of family murders. Data from the USA
show that "A third of family murders involved a female as the killer. In sibling murders,
females were 15 percent of killers, and in murders of parents, 18 percent. (US Bureau
of Crime and Statistics, 1994)
• Wives commit 41% of spousal murders (US Bureau of Crime and Statistics,
1994). The way in which they execute their murderous activities often surpasses that of
the most vicious killers: an Australian woman stabbed her husband 37 times, skinned
him, cooked his head and served it to the children with vegetables and gravy. The
reason for this was his decision to leave her.
• the majority of child abusers (60 percent) are women, except with regard to
sexual abuse (DHHS, 1996).
Nuance no. 3, December 2001. Sarantakos: Domestic Violence Policies 52(26)
• the majority of child murderers are women: according to reports on statistics
from the USA, mothers commit 55 percent of all child murders (US Bureau of Crime
and Statistics, 1994); mothers are also nine times more likely to kill their biological
child than are fathers. And yet they are more likely to be excused than men. (The story
of a mother who killed her eight children between 1949 and 1968 and was discovered in
1999 is an example (Washington Post, 1999). She received a mild sentence (20 years
probation). The case of another mother who threw her child in a pond to die, is another
example. She was not charged for her action.)
• the majority of elder abusers are women. This, as well as their predominance
among child abusers, is justified by feminists by the fact that they are the main carers.
Nevertheless, this does not negate the fact that they do commit these acts, when
opportunity permits.
• women are more likely than men to use weapons in spousal violence (McLeod,
1984).
• women hit the first blow in higher proportions than men (States and Straus,
1990; Farrell, 1994).
• women are violent also in lesbian relationships, where they are reported to
acknowledge DV in higher proportions (54 percent) than in heterosexual relationships
(11 percent) (Farrell, 1994).
Beyond this, as several studies have demonstrated (see Archer, 2000; Brush,
1990; Fiebert, 1998; George, 1992; Sarantakos, 1996; 1997; 1998a; 1999; Scanzoni,
1978; Sorenson and Telles, 1991; Schulman, 1979; Straus, 1993a, 1993b, 1999; Tyree
and Malone, 1991), wives assault their husband at rates that are equal to or even higher
than the rates of the husbands, or at lower but still significant rates (Tjaden and
Toennes, 1997). More specifically, Gelles and Straus produced findings relating to
national surveys conducted in 1975 and 1985 showing that the rate of wife-to-husband
assault was slightly higher than the rate of husband-to-wife assault; when considering
reports of women only, the trend was the same: the overall rate of assaults by wives was
124 per 1000 and by husbands 122 per 1000; this was true for minor and severe assaults
(Gelles, 1974; Gelles and Straus, 1988; Straus, 1993a; Straus and Gelles, 1986, 1990).
Further, the British Crime Survey, published in April 1999, demonstrated that
husbands and wives assault each other in equal proportions (4.2%). This is the outcome
also of an Australian study conducted by Bruce Heady, Dorothy Scott and David de
Vaus just recently (1999). This study included a national sample of 1,643 respondents in
relationships, and found that 4.7% of the respondents had been assaulted by their
partner during the previous year. Moreover, the study reported that exactly the same
percentage of men admitted assault (3.4%) as the number of women who reported being
assaulted (3.7%). But more men claimed to be assaulted (5.7%) than women admitted
assault (3.6%) (Kissane, 1999).
The Canadian study on married couples by Marilyn Kwong and Simor Fraser
(Canadian Journal of Behavioural Sciences) is another example. This study found that
10.8% of men but 12.4% of women pushed, grabbed, threw objects at their spouses;
2.5% of men but 4.7% of women committed more serious acts of violence such as
choking, kicking, or using weapons. Also, 52% of women and 62% of men reported that
both partners were violent; violence was reported to have been initiated in 67% of cases
by women and in 26% by men. Still, 3% of women and only .4% of men suffered an
injury. The National Post (Canada) comments on this by saying that "Our society seems
to harbour an implicit acceptance of women's violence as relatively harmless"; and that
"the failure to acknowledge the possibility of women's violence ... jeopardises the
credibility of all theory and research directed toward ending violence against women".
(Evenson and Milstone, 1999; The Massachusetts News, 1999).
Similar results were reported by another Canadian study including dating couples
conducted by Donald Sharpe and Janelle Taylor, from University of Regina and Wilfrid
Laurier University. This study found that 39% of males and 26% of females surveyed
reported to have suffered violence while on a date (Evenson and Milstone, 1999; The
Massachusetts News, 1999). A final example of recent studies supporting equity in
assaults between husbands and wives is one conducted by Terrie Moffitt, who studied
860 men and women, whom she has been following since their birth. The results
indicate that wives hit their husbands at least as often as husbands hit their wives.
(Young, 1999; Updike, 1999)