The myth about lesbians and rates of domestic abuse

Another explanation would be that women who are now in relationships with women are more likely to recognise past abuse, which would be very depressing because it would imply a lot of unrecognised heterosexual abuse.

That is a much more likely explanation in my opinion. Most lesbians have had previous relationships with males, due to social pressure etc. Lesbian/bi women who have had previous relationships with men will be able to compare two different types of relationship, which will contain very different power dynamics, and so it is likely they will be able to recognise the abuse more easily in their previous relationships with males. Where as women who have only had relationships with males will not be able to compare the two, and if certain abusive behaviours are considered a ‘normal’ part of het relationships; with the popularity of 50 shades of Grey etc, and males watching extreme p0rn, it does seem to suggest abusive behaviours are becoming accepted as normal parts of het relationships. Then understandably, they will not be able to identify abuse by their male partners as readily, as those who can compare the difference between their relationships with men and women.

Of course academia is male dominated if there is a way they can set up studies etc, in order to get the results they want, so they can claim women (and particularly lesbians) are as abusive or violent as men they will.

I'm not going to try and sort out what I believe or don't believe about this, but I did just try a Google search on violence in same sex relationships and got lots of results. So whether it's true or not, people evidently have a lot to say about it.

I'd be willing to believe that once a man gets to the point of hitting a woman, he's going to do some serious harm, whereas a woman who's angry with her same-sex partner might end up with violence as a result of frustration, but without an intent to cause a bad injury. But that's all speculation.

Now that lesbians can have penises (and associated male pattern abuse) who will be able to collate meaningful statistics?
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Perhaps we could get the authors of the study to have a look at how their results are being used in political arguments and, if they are as surprised and alarmed as I suspect they will be, issue some kind of clarification statement?

(Solidarity, always, Hotrocker)

I absolutely didn’t mean to imply that lesbians are only lesbians because they have been “put off men”: I knew that was a risk in my post and I tried hard to word it to avoid it. Clearly you don’t need an explanation for women being in relationships with women. They just fancy them! But when you’ve got data suggesting that women in relationships with women are more likely than exclusively heterosexual women to have experienced abuse from a man then that does need an explanation and bisexual abuse victims avoiding future relationships with men seems like one plausible hypothesis.

Another explanation would be that women who are now in relationships with women are more likely to recognise past abuse, which would be very depressing because it would imply a lot of unrecognised heterosexual abuse.

All the lesbophobia on these boards depresses me. I’ve never really seen anything that could be called transphobia, but I’ve seen plenty of lesbophobia. Considering all the links HQ are going to to insure transpeople feel safe reading on here, I don’t see the same consideration being extended to people like me, and this is one of the nicer corners of the Internet.

^This

I also find it lesbophobic when people imply bi women only date other women because men are have been abusive to them in the past. The reasoning behind that is that there must be a good reason why a woman would choose another woman over a man, it is very regressive lesbophobic reasoning in my opinion. I notice there is rarely the reasoning that many bi women may end up with men due to not wanting to be subjected to the lesbophobia that comes with being in a relationship with a woman. Instead it always starts from the premise that there must be a good reason for a woman to reject males.

I also think it is worth pointing out that for sometime TA’s have been trying to smear mumsnet as homophobic. I wouldn’t be surprised if TA’s make lesbophobic comments here to try and prove their argument that mumsnet is lesbophobic.

Talking of 'nagging', I've watched my mother belittle and bully my father for most of my life. He is the gentlest man you could imagine and despite always trying to avoid confrontation she will find something to make his life a misery over every single time. I honestly fear for his health in the long run and my sister won't even sprek to my mum now because of it - which is apparently his fault too now.

So yeah, I don't think 'nagging' should be dismissed any more than persistent abusive/critical remarks from a male partner.

And just for the sake of context,AllDayBreakfastis a male poster who has referred to women as "jealous cat ladies" on another thread.

FFS, it was a tongue in cheek comment on a thread where posters were telling the OP to dump her partner who was suffering from depression. Had it been the other way around I feel there would have been much more compassion shown and I was basically telling her to he wary of taking the advice of people who have no personal investment in the situation and may be less than positive about men in general.

Yeah that claim is absolutely ridiculous. And yes, the rates of violence among 'lesbians' will rise now that male people are apparently lesbians.

MRAs love to try and make out women are just as violent (or more violent. Another thing thats regularly posted by them is that ridiculous study where 'nagging' apparently was domestic violence, which they use to claim men suffer more.

Absolutely HotRocker will do. There really should be no place for lesbophobia on a site like Mumsnet

‘jealous cat ladies’

That needs an eye-rolling, laughing, shrugging all in one emoji

HotRocker some for you. Your posts are always very thoughtful and well-considered, and the point you make here is well made.

Executive Summary of that report [I would normally bold all of it but I want to use bold to add emphasis to highlight]:

"Women living with female intimate partners experience less intimate partner violence than women living with male intimate partners. Slightly more than 11 percent of the women who had lived with a woman as part of a couple reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by a female cohabitant, but 30.4 percent of the women who had married or lived with a man as part of a couple reported such violence by a husband or male cohabitant. These findings suggest that lesbian couples experience less intimate partner violence than do heterosexual couples ; however, more research is needed to support or refute this conclusion."

"Men living with male intimate partners experience more intimate partner violence than do men who live with female intimate partners."

I don't think this is even about lesbians, it's about bisexual women, who for some reason are disproportionately affected by domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking: Findings of the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey conducted by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention

And just for the sake of context, AllDayBreakfast is a male poster who has referred to women as "jealous cat ladies" on another thread.

Also sorry to be off topic but another strategy I've seen employed a lot is where a source is disparaged due to a single "weakness" in the source material.

However, when you read the source material you often find that this "weakness" is acknowledged, the authors state how they have tried to ameliorate the weakness and quite often there is other supporting material so the "weakness" isn't the sole proof of the argument.

It often seems to be employed as a tactic to discourage others from reading the source material as "it obviously isn't valid due to xyz reason"

Personally, I now take it as a red flag to look closer.

Anyway off my hobby horse and sorry for the derail.

place marking

Thanks for posting about this. I've seen these kind of statements before which have set off my someone is "misinterpreting" radar but have never been able to pin down a source so I assess it.

I also agree with the post about using sources where the source doesn't actually say what is claimed.

I'm pretty pedantic about checking sources for work reasons but for personal research I'm a bit more lax and just do the occasional spot check. It really infuriates me that when researching "trans gender issues" I'm having to follow up every bloody thing as far too many misrepresentations are being made.

Participants in a survey about domestic violence were asked 'are you a lesbian'; obviously they are going to show high rates for lesbians suffering DV.

To find rates of DV amongst lesbians you would have to ask a significant sample of lesbians 'have you suffered from same sex DV'.

I see this kind of thing all the time on here. Someone makes a statement and then links to a research study as evidence. If you click through to the research report, you find that the conclusions of the study are very different to what has been stated.

I don't know if this means the person posting has misunderstood what they are linking to or if they are assuming most people will not bother clicking through and reading the supposed evidence.

I was also posting in the male violence thread earlier today about a male acquaintance I used to know who had hit four of his previous girlfriends. It's interesting that nobody took issue with that post...

I've not broken any rules. I've just stated my personal experience and clearly noted that it is anecdotal.

Or is it customary on here that you only recount the truth if it fits the agenda? I got on well with both individuals and keep in touch with the housemate from time to time. I just saw the mention of same sex couples being violent and mentioned that my experience attests that it does happen on an individual basis.

Can people just start reporting it please? I used to be of the opinion that we should let it stand so people could see what’s being said, but it’s starting to become depressing, and on reflection, letting it stand gives the impression it’s alright, and it isn’t.

All the lesbophobia on these boards depresses me. I’ve never really seen anything that could be called transphobia, but I’ve seen plenty of lesbophobia. Considering all the links HQ are going to to insure transpeople feel safe reading on here, I don’t see the same consideration being extended to people like me, and this is one of the nicer corners of the Internet.

I don't understand. What does this mean? Are 30.4% of lesbians victimised by their ex male partners?

Me neither. I'm maybe just being thick but I found it a bit garbled.

AllDayBreakfast has been posting since mid August under that name and has a posting history.

Pimms, it's pretty much as you'd expect.

Those stats indicate that a lot of women who are currently in a lesbian relationship have previously been in an abusive heterosexual relationship Neolara, and that they are more likely to have had this experience than exclusively heterosexual women. If I were guessing I’d guess that this suggests that women who are even slightly bisexual and have terrible experience of relationships with men may be more likely to form relationships with women in future.