Can we talk about female violence? I need to get my response straight

[GrassIsSinging]

I know this is celeb rubbish, but am finding my blood boiling over comments from FB friends and the like over the Solange Knowles -punching-Jay Z debacle.

Lots of seemingly conscious, smart, reasonable people condemning violence of any sort (great, agreed), but then saying things like 'the double standards in society sicken me...Chris brown beats Rihanna and he is a monster...Solange attacks Jay Z and people dont respond in the same way'. Others (people I thought were decent) saying 'You couldnt have blamed him for hitting back...people have a right to defend themselves' etc.

This riles me massively. Am I a freak for thinking that male violence against women IS often (not always, but very often) much more devastating than vice versa? Because men are usually physically stronger...because male violence against women is a huge problem in this world...? And that a decent man will not hit a woman, even if provoked. Is this an 'old fashioned ' view now?

Feminism doesnt mean we now have to accept men punching us, ffs!

Depressed...

And that a decent man will not hit a woman, even if provoked. Is this an 'old fashioned ' view now?

A decent man should not hit anyone. If there is a valid excuse for hitting another man then it must also be valid to hit a woman in the same circumstances.

Outs, your posts have been particularly informative, thank you.

Outs, it's interesting that you use the word "reproduce". My mother's parenting was very consciously founded on the desire to do the job differently (and 'better') than her own mother. As well as the micrological power struggles between her and me over things like food and appearance, she was also fighting an internal battle to establish her own right to set the rules, to legitimise her authority as a parent — as I think many young mothers do. But often, the alternative 'norms' to the ones she grew up with, the discourses she sought to "reproduce", were rigid religious or 'common sense' ones.

At root, she was anxious about the very idea of women exercising power. The authority that a mother is given (or burdened with) over her children, in industrial-era patriarchy, is a bit of an outlier, given how women (of her class and era) have been socialised to be passive and deferential. She was unprepared for it, and overwhelmed by the depth of the guilt and anguish that followed. Much of what I experienced as symbolic or deferred violence stemmed from that — and the lack of support she got from my dad.

I'd never even thought about the role that anxiety must have played for my mum. I just sort of thought she liked the path of least resistance, so was happy to go along with societal norms. Having an "aha!" moment - this is where the personal is political, right? It's actually a bit embarrassing in that I see social construction everywhere but have just assumed she has a psychology and that's it.

I'm only being a bit facetious when I say: beauticians have a line in systemic violence, don't they? All that hair ripping and plucking, those vile and poisonous chemicals they apply to female bodies... obviously deeply patriarchal in values. Though once we're at the level of surgery it's probably back to the men to administer, though don't have any figures on that. Having said that, plastic surgeons, not the facial-disfigurement/ Great Ormond street type but the California, actually-made-of-plastic type have always 'felt' vaguely effeminate to me, with the unreconstructed part of my brain. I have an intermittent defiance and compliance cycle with this stuff, I'm not saying ditch your grooming routine or anything, whatever gets you through the day.

Anyway, I'm being vague and rambly to get to the point of saying, while it's true that individual women are violent, I can't think of a parallel phenomenon of "female violence" in the way that we have a massive problem of male violence, male cultural violence. Clearly I'm talking about acts of direct physical aggression; the symbolic violences that ezinma is describing are of a different order of violence. And I can't help wondering if this is a fact or one of the mythologies of patriarchy? I recognise that posters even on this thread have encountered violent females but they are not connected to a system of regulation or order (so I'm thinking of DV here) and because they apparently subvert that order then they aren't even treated as meaningful or actually dangerous. Or is it that we can't recognise female violence as a social phenomenon because of that order? Is this an example of 'the distribution of the sensible:' things that can only be seen and discussed because for political reasons we regulate and control what can be seen and discussed in any given context? So in this case female.violence isn't made sensible to us because to recognise it would be too subversive?

Arf RonaldMcD my comments were about risagburst.

Outsself I agree with DoctrineofSnatch, your posts are really interesting and thought provoking.

I can only think of one instance where female violence is supported and backed by culture and institution and that is in the parenting sphere, where mothers are allowed to inflict violence on their children. However, even that is an off-shoot of patriarchy as it were, because fathers are also allowed to inflict violence on their children and the growing challenge to the assumption that deliberately inflicting violence or physical pain on your child is OK, will dismantle the structure around mothers as well as around fathers because it was raised in order to support male assertion of the right to inflict violence, not in order to support female assertion of the right to inflict violence IYSWIM.

(maybe missing the point) but isn't mother against child violence always going to be more skewed against women because they do the bulk of the child care? In my home my dh sees the children about 10% of their waking day. In theory I'm the one who has to deal with them the most, so I'm the most likely to snap? Also when women do the majority of household chores and cooking on top of trying to keep their children in check they're under more pressure and more likely to react inappropriately (or even violently).

Not excusing it at all.. just saying that I'd expect it to be more likely to come from women than men because of actual time spent with children (which is patriarchy)

You would think that but there are plenty of stats to show that fathers are far more likely to commit violence to a child than a mother.

Think about the stereotype if 'wait until your father gets home'.

There are some societies where rape and violence against women are close to zero. These societies may have some strict gender expectations but they are also typified by equal respect throughout the community. In fact there is a very strong correlation between objectification of women and violence against them. There's also a lot of respect research and work looking at whether one causes the other. DeKeseredy and Schwartz with Make Peer Support Theory is a good place to start on this topic.

I've found this a really interesting discussion too thanks all. I remember first reading about consciousness raising groups of the seventies when I was an undergrad in the late 90s and really longing for that kind of thing; the FWR boards really feel like that to me.

I'd be interested to know whether or not child abuse of this kind was more perpetrated by women or men, I did a quick Google search but didn't find anything in the few minutes I had. There was a lot of discussion of 'parental violence' but couldn't help wondering if this was masking a form of gendered violence.

One thing I did find interesting was discussions of what used to be called 'Munchausen by Proxy' though that label apparently is contentious now. In 75ish per cent of cases it is perpetrated by the mother, in 6 per cent by the father, presumably the remaining cases are perpetrated by caregivers, though I couldn't find gender breakdowns of this. A couple of things I thought were interesting in this context were the possibility that this were a systemic form of female violence; I couldn't get incidence figures but don't know comparator figures in any case, but I'd bet it was relatively rare; it's interesting because it's both actual violence but operates symbolically in that its primary target is the status of the caregiver, the victim is collateral damage (though I wonder if you might say this about "straight forward" DV, yet there must be an element of directed damage insofar as the perpetrator wishes direct harm on the victim? Not sure about the relative psychology here); and also, what a convoluted and indirect way to perpetrate violence. Which is, probably not coincidentally, a brilliant way of describing historical forms of female agency and access to power in general; convoluted and indirect.

Ooo, thanks kinckassangel I see you do have some familiarity with those figures. Which societies are you naming when you talk about low incidence of gendered violence?

Buffy - don't know the answer to that. I just did a course on domestic violence and the instructor said that there isn't a clear cause and effect demonstrated yet, but there is this high level of correlation. Ofcourse, it could be that having too much fast food causes both violence and gender imbalance.

Oops - can't name specific tribes as the course was about US/European, and not meant to be anthropological. Mainly African and S American tribes. there are quite a few where there appears to be equal respect (although fairly fixed gender roles) and almost non-existent gender violence. So there ARE non-rape cultures out there. It was mentioned in the DeKeseredy & Schwartz book, and briefly by Lundy Bancroft.

Slightly different from the opening point - but if we can see greater equality (ie non-patriarchal) = less violence (not just male to female, but male to male) then we should be open to the argument that patriarchy is part of the cause, if not the sole reason, for a lot of violence.

wrt mental health, about 10% of domestic abuse or stranger attacks/rape etc is attributable to mental health problems. Most people with mental health problems are likely to be violent to themselves IF they are violent.

That's interesting and useful Kickass though I'd love to know on what basis that assessment of those tribes or cultures is made. After all, a culture with no conception of consent WRT sex can report no rape, for example.

The mental health issue is interesting in that I'd regard any individual engaged in acts of violence (like DV or getting into pub brawls) or whatever, as pathological in their capacity to manage their own dissatisfactions. Is losing your temper and hitting someone itself a symptom of a kind of mental illness.

When talking about criminology, then Mh would be assessed by a team of health care experts. My SIL does assessments and gets called in if someone is arrested for a violent crime, then gives a report. there would also be people who had a medical history so there's background. It can get very complex when someone does have a medical issue and displays controlling or violent behaviour. Alcohol or drugs cause similar issues. The current thinking is that anyone who is convicted of domestic violence has to get clean of drugs/alcohol and have any medical situations under control before they enroll in an abusers intervention program. I live near a center that runs one of the best programs in the country (US) and have visited. Obviously I can't speak about that as I signed a confidentiality clause. However, it is clear that men who clean up from drink/drugs etc or who get the right med. support for MH, can still then display some clearly abusive and violent tendencies. So although there can be factors which make behaviour more outrageous/violent etc. it doesn't cause the behaviour, it just gives an excuse. The center near me does have groups for women, but rarely has to run them as there are so few women who are convicted of domestic abuse (and let's just assume, although I could dig up stats. that incidents to conviction ratios are equal whether male or female perpetrator). When women are convicted it tends to be from a female/female relationship.

Don't know much about anthropological studies - from what I've read, many of them are done by 'embedding' and using qualitative data. So someone goes and lives there for a year or two and records information. That way they do have a pretty good idea of social mores. That would also be how they would find out about any no consensual sex.

Oh, and there's a difference between someone who 'loses it' and gets angry in individual situations and someone with mental health problems. e.g. a person who gets angry and hits their partner, however often, isn't mentally ill if they can hold it together at work/out with friends/out in public. A person who is mentally ill could lose it at a quite random moment as they can't control their behaviour, whereas an abusive person is very much in control and only displays that behaviour when they have something to gain from it.

In my view, whether or not one party is bodily "stronger" is irrelevant in itself, the matter of importance for criminal liability being infliction of physical harm, or residue of past harm, as measurable by medical triage at the time of or shortly after reporting.

Aside from the issue of criminal liability, no one should have to put up with an abusive relationship, regardless of gender. Sheer offensive or defensive capacity should never pressure anyone into believing that they must "take it" or "put up with it".

Surely it's that straightforward. If not, why not?

Finally, what do we make of findings that domestic violence is in the majority of cases mutual? In such cases, gendered results should not obscure the fact of a broad cultural template, a faulty and unhealthy one, for the resolution of "private" or "personal" conflicts.

On that page, I wouldn't be surprised if adults who spank their children were largely the same adults who believe in the old "one-two" for getting their way in other relationships.

"Finally, what do we make of findings that domestic violence is in the majority of cases mutual?"

Which findings are these, and is there mutuality in the level of physical harm, which you cited as your measure in the previous paragraph?

what findings do you have of mutual abuse?

I've just finished an MA course about domestic violence, and the message was very clear: men physically abuse/attack women far more than other types of intimate partner abuse (f/m, m/m or f/f).

this is true whether you use police stats based on reports and evidence of physical harm (your definition) OR self-reporting collected by national crime rate data collection.

Depending which year/method of collecting data used, the figures are unequivocal. Around 85 - 90 % of victims are female.

Some stats www.statisticbrain.com/domestic-violence-abuse-stats

there is also a huge amount of evidence that where there is 'mutual' abuse, it is in fact a man who is controlling a woman and she is fighting back out of desperation. Also, many male abusers often report themselves as being a victim before their partner goes to the police, but on investigation the woman has injuries which reflect being attacked, but the man has injuries that reflect a person defending themselves. (e.g. she has bruises from being throttled, he has scratch marks on his face as she tries to fight him off). In addition, the mis-reporting of abuse by women is actually very low. Most crimes have a rate of around 4% (higher for insurance related crimes), but women falsely accusing men is lower than average. Again, the stats vary according to which reporting methods are used, but possibly as low as 0.5% of abuse/rape reports are false.

Sources:

Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Jennifer, et al. "Rates of Bidirectional Versus Unidirectional Intimate Partner Violence Across Samples, Sexual Orientations, and Race/Ethnicities: A Comprehensive Review." Partner Abuse 3.2 (2012): 199-230. ProQuest. Web. 19 May 2014.

Straus, M. A. and Ramirez, I. L. (2007), Gender symmetry in prevalence, severity, and chronicity of physical aggression against dating partners by university students in Mexico and USA. Aggr. Behav., 33: 281–290. doi: 10.1002/ab.20199

The uploaded image pertains to the first, while this uploaded .pdf pertains to the second.

As for suggestions that female-to-male violence in bidrectionally-violent relationships is in self-defence, or is less severe than male-to-female violence in the same, well, this possibility has been accounted for and ruled out. At any rate, such an explanation does not account for the relatively-high proportion of violence that is unidirectionally female-to-male.

mont - I'm at work so don't have time to read all the way through both papers, but thanks for linking.

I did just look at the results section which has this to say: " the men in the sample were more likely to use
severe violence, less likely to be injured, and they were less fearful of their spouses. "

You suggested that the empirical effects, ie damage, done to a person should be taken into account. This paper suggests that even where there is bidirectional violence then the women sustain more damage both physically and emotionally.

I would argue strongly that how much physical strength a person has does influence the impact, not just physically, of violence. I would never use physical violence against my daughter as she has so little strength against me. It's a situation of unequal reciprocity and to use it to my advantage would be wrong. If she tries to hit me then it doesn't cause me any fear or disturbance at all, even if she managed to physically hurt me (My aunt once had her nose broken by her 3 month old daughter, for example). So, the two different levels of strength are really important to the outcome - not just the physical hurt inflicted, but the emotional impact.

It's not just me that thinks that. The law can take into account the potential threat of violence from one partner to another. So, my friend whose ex-H leans over her, shouting in her face and screaming abuse can get a restraining order against him, even though he hasn't actually hit her. When she has physically pushed him out of her house and shut the door in his face, he hasn't got a legal right to get a restraining order against her, because there is no credible threat of violence there. In fact, it could be argued that this is an example of unidirectional female to male violence as she pushed him out the door, and all he did was shout. Was she being abusive? I would say she's acting in self defense. Was he being abusive? I would say he is deliberately intending to intimidate and scare her.

And again, other aspects have to be considered. My friend who pushed her ex out the house did so after years of not being allowed to go out, have friends, work and even being sulked at for having a dog. Now the ex is withholding funds, damaging her property and threatening their son. But he hasn't actually hit her. If she lost her temper and hit him, would that be her abusing him, or just desperate to make him see her as a human being, not some object?

Just to get it out of the way: It's disingenuous to analogize men and women to adults and children, as the disparity is much wider in the latter case. For that reason, it's also rather demeaning, and carries terrible implications: if women were indeed so vulnerable a subgroup of the population, as vulnerable as young children, then suddenly the patriarchy would be substantially justified, not just historically but in immediately reverting to circumscribed female rights across the board, male-relative conservatorship over "the weaker sex", and so on...

The second study study I cited shows that "the rates of severe
assault are almost identical for men and women", though "when severe assaults were considered separately, men hit their partner more
than twice as frequently as women", indicating that men are only over-represented in the most severe and chronic violence. I mentioned in my first post that gendered results (i.e. injuries) should not obscure the fact that aggression, violence, and manipulative behavior are just as commonly resorted-to by women as by men. Note moreover that bidirectional aggression increases the likelihood of one or more parties sustaining an injury. Clearly, a gender-specific approach to domestic violence/abuse must go much deeper than simply targeting or relying upon gender stereotypes.

To sum up, when discussing inter-partner violence we must avoid infantilizing women and must recognize that if men are responsible for the worst violence, it does not diminish the fact that women are significantly-responsible for 'lesser' violence. Approaches to ameliorating the impact and prevalence of such violence in society can not marginalize or emphasize the experiences of one sex relative to another if they hope to have a maximal effect.

How many men are killed by their partners or ex partners each week, mont?

Nice copy and paste!

the rates of severe
assault are almost identical for men and women", though "when severe assaults were considered separately, men hit their partner more
than twice as frequently as women", indicating that men are only over-represented in the most severe and chronic violence

I'm not following your interpretation here. So when men perpetrate a severe assault on a woman, they strike six blows rather than three, say - is that what this means?

"So, my friend whose ex-H leans over her, shouting in her face and screaming abuse can get a restraining order against him, even though he hasn't actually hit her. When she has physically pushed him out of her house and shut the door in his face, he hasn't got a legal right to get a restraining order against her, because there is no credible threat of violence there. "

Care to comment on this nuance of kickass's post?