BBC3 - women's violence against men

[Clymene]

My 14 DS told me he'd seen this BBC3 video and how awful it was that people won't intervene when women are assaulting men whereas they will when men assault women

The video ends with a v/o that the number of women convicted of domestic violence went up nearly 4 times between 2006 and 2016.

These are the messages my DS took away from it:
-Men are more likely to be hurt if they're physically assaulted by women in public than the other way round
-Women are getting much more violent and are nearly as violent as men
-As a man, he is probably at as much risk as a woman of being a victim of dv.

Despite the seemingly alarming rise in WVAM (which I haven't fact checked), men are still responsible for 97% of domestic violence. I had to tell my DS that though because the BBC certainly didn't make that clear.

In fact, the video very much gives the impression that women are as bad as men and I don't think my son's dubious conclusions were unfair. In fact, I'd say they were exactly the conclusions the video is encouraging.

Why?

men are still responsible for 97% of domestic violence

Are they? Most recent studies have found growing evidence that it is not exclusively a male perpetrator issue.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260517730563
www.ananiasfoundation.org/domestic-violence-statistics/

On the one hand, I'd wonder if he lives in perpetual fear of real-life girls, eg in school, as my guess would be he knows damn well he could physically overpower them if he wanted to.

On the other, it's probably good to teach any child about respectful relationships and subtle early red flags of problems or dangers. Anyone can be in a bad relationship after all, whether women are physically as dangerous as men or not.

Yes boys do need to be made aware of domestic violence because even though they are half as likely as a girl to become a victim, there still is a real chance it could happen and they need to know how to handle it.

Even the U.K. ONS reports that women are twice as likely as men to experience domestic violence:

“An estimated 2.0 million adults aged 16 to 59 years experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2018, equating to a prevalence rate of approximately 6 in 100 adults (Figure 2). Women were around twice as likely to have experienced domestic abuse than men (7.9% compared with 4.2%). This equates to an estimated 1.3 million female victims and 695,000 male victims (see Appendix Table 1 for more information). The estimates do not take into account the context and impact of the abusive behaviours experienced. Research suggests that when coercive and controlling behaviour is taken into account, the differences between the experiences of male and female victims become more apparent.”
“The most common type of domestic abuse experienced in the last year was partner abuse, with 4.5% of adults reporting this type of abuse. Around twice as many women reported experience of partner abuse in the last year than men (6.3% compared with 2.7%). However, similar proportions of men and women reported experience of family abuse (Figure 3).”

@PlanDeRaccordement

Do you have any idea why the stats refer only to those aged 16 -59? I understand the lower limit but why is the cut off 59 when a huge percentage of the population is aged 60+?

[quote oystercatcher44]@PlanDeRaccordement

Do you have any idea why the stats refer only to those aged 16 -59? I understand the lower limit but why is the cut off 59 when a huge percentage of the population is aged 60+?[/quote]
I can answer that! Because after that age, the government don't (or they didn't) collect data by sex. So they have no idea how many older women were being assaulted by their partners.

I have some ideas of why this might be but none of them put the government or the ONS in a good light.

And, while I'm here, I was really interested in why the bbc decided to frame the conversation on its youth channel around women's violence against men when it forms such a tiny proportion of the problem.

And for my son, it probably is concerning because he has very poor muscle tone and is pathetically weak. So I could take him in a fight easily, despite the fact that he's taller than me. But playing up the risks is bizarre and a bit sinister

And I thought I was being inclusive...

Arent three women being murdered by their male partners or ex partners every single week in this country. And I dont think any men are being murdered by their partners at all. I realise DV is a spectrum, but certainly the most violent and lethal crimes are exclusively perpetrated by males.

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]men are still responsible for 97% of domestic violence

Are they? Most recent studies have found growing evidence that it is not exclusively a male perpetrator issue.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260517730563
www.ananiasfoundation.org/domestic-violence-statistics/[/quote]
Well, your first paper did not look at the sex of the perpetrators, so I'm not sure why you linked to it here.

The other very well known issue among researchers is that many male abusers will report being abused in these surveys. On investigation, this often turns out to have happened when their female partners were defending themselves during an attack by their abuser.

Furthermore, there is limited agreement on methodology. There are obviously various different ways of collecting this data. One way is looking at injuries received, where women are much more affected because of the power differential between men and women. Another approach is to look at acts of violence regardless of outcome, where male respondents report being slapped most often, followed by being kicked. Acts of violence requiring greater force, such as throwing or shaking someone are predominantly suffered by female victims.

So any claims that men are at higher or the same risk of violence from women as women are from men is dubious. I haven't seen any evidence yet that would support such an assertion.

What we do have evidence on, unfortunately, is that women are injured in domestic violence at much greater rates than men. Again, this is due to the power differential between men and women.

PlanDeRaccordment is right though in saying that we should teach boys as well as girls about healthy relationships and abuse. Because even though wonen remain at higher risk, many men do suffer abuse and teaching boys what is and isn't okay will protect not only the boys themselves but also their future partners.

@CharlieParley
Well, your first paper did not look at the sex of the perpetrators, so I'm not sure why you linked to it here.

Yes it did

“IPV typically involves both male and female perpetrators and victims.”

@CharlieParley
So any claims that men are at higher or the same risk of violence from women as women are from men is dubious. I haven't seen any evidence yet that would support such an assertion.

Correct. Evidence shows women are at least twice as likely as men to experience any violence (from mild to extreme, regardless of impact).

What we do have evidence on, unfortunately, is that women are injured in domestic violence at much greater rates than men. Again, this is due to the power differential between men and women.

Exactly. A punch in the face from woman to man will do less damage than a punch in the face from man to woman. So even if it is the exact same violent act, the impact of it physically affects women to a greater extent. Which is why far far more women die from DV than men.

There was a study done too showing that the media disproportionately reports DV done by female perpetrators, this is giving the impression too that men and women are equally violent (they’re not) and the men are equally at risk from a female partner for DV as a woman from a male partner (definitely not).

I can’t help wondering if the apparent rise in women’s violent crime coincides with TW violent crime now being recorded as perpetrated by women. That’s got to skew statistics at some point.

@Clymene if you had a daughter who wasn't as strong as average would you describe her as pathetically weak?

@Ohsugarhoneyicetea

Arent three women being murdered by their male partners or ex partners every single week in this country. And I dont think any men are being murdered by their partners at all. I realise DV is a spectrum, but certainly the most violent and lethal crimes are exclusively perpetrated by males.

No it’s not exclusively male partners killing female partners. A few women do kill their male partners. And of those few, it is estimated that at least half kill in self-defence when attacked by their male partner.

ONS homicide statistics for year ending March 2020
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2020

81 women killed by domestic homicide, and
33 men killed by domestic homicide

Of these
61 women were killed by a partner or ex-partner, and
9 men were killed by partner or ex-partner

ONS doesn’t record sex of perpetrator, so a certain # of the women victims could be killed by a female partner and likewise a certain # of the male victims could be killed by a male partner. But since 2.5% of population identify as gay/bisexual, it is unlikely that all 9 men killed by a partner were gay/bi and were killed by a male partner.

We also know that not all 9 men killed by a partner were killed by a male partner because the media loves to publish articles about the rare women killing their partners. Do any search on woman kills partner or husband and you’ll get plenty of hits.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-56073925

Is most recent one. But again, at least a 50/50 chance she was defending herself. The facts will come out as the investigation goes on.

So, it’s more accurate to say vast majority of perpetrators of domestic homicide are men because it’s not exclusively men.

@AngeloMysterioso

I can’t help wondering if the apparent rise in women’s violent crime coincides with TW violent crime now being recorded as perpetrated by women. That’s got to skew statistics at some point.

Yes it would skew the statistics. Both in terms of victim and perpetrator. As far as I know, TW are far more likely to be a victim than a perpetrator. Same with TM, because interestingly the rate of homicides has increased for men but decreased for women. The rate of homicides of women is at its lowest in ten years. So how many killed “men” were actually TM (biologically female)?

[quote coronaway]@Clymene if you had a daughter who wasn't as strong as average would you describe her as pathetically weak? [/quote]
Yes probably if that was the term she used to describe herself

I'm guessing you don't have a child with a disability.

So how many killed “men” were actually TM (biologically female)?

Isn’t it transphobic to even ask that question, never mind try to collect data on it?

@Warmduscher

So how many killed “men” were actually TM (biologically female)?

Isn’t it transphobic to even ask that question, never mind try to collect data on it?

It’s not “transphobic” to want to collect data by sex as well as by gender. Anyone saying we shouldn’t is being “sexphobic”....because why prevent collecting data by sex? What is there to fear?

It’s like saying collecting race data on convicts in prison is being “racist”....when really not collecting such data would hide and the perpetuate racism within the justice system.

@Clymene sorry, I misinterpreted what you said.

The stats are difficult to interpret. Until recently the number of incidents against a single victim was capped at 5. This obviously gives a misleading impression of high frequency attacks, and who is suffering from them.

[quote coronaway]@Clymene sorry, I misinterpreted what you said.[/quote]
I can completely see why you did in retrospect! My fault for assuming people can read between the lines.

@PlanDeRaccordement

I was being ironic.

DS saw this as well - I wondered where he got it from. The message he took away from it was 'poor men' .

Not sure why he thinks violence against men is a problem when he is already both taller and stronger than I am - not sure which women he'd be worried about.

Violence against men by other men is a much larger problem.

506 men were murdered in the year ending March 2020. Men make up 73% of all murder victims, so are much more likely to be murdered than women. So violence against men is a problem.....but

Only 9 of these 506 were murdered by a partner or ex partner (who could be male or female)

So honestly, boys should worry less about violence from a partner or ex-partner. For they are much more likely to be murdered by a random stranger or acquaintance....