Male Victims of Domestic Violence:

A Substantive and Methodological Research Review

A report to:

The Equality Committee of the Department of Education and Science

by:

Michael S. Kimmel

Professor of Sociology

SUNY at Stony Brook

Stony Brook, NY 11794 USA

2001

At this site:

http://www.xyonline.net/downloads/malevictims.pdf

Here are some excerpts:

For example, Bjorkqvist and Niemela (1992) found that females are as

aggressive as males – but only when they are not in any danger of being recognized, i.e.

when there is no danger of retaliation. When parties know each other, women’s violence

tends to be defensive and men take the initiative (Adams, 1992). Obviously, domestic

violence cannot fit the pattern of women retaining their anonymity.

Data from other studies, however, indicated that women

were far more likely to use violence defensively, fighting back against the aggression of

their partner (DeKeseredy, et al., 1997).

Context. The CTS simply counts acts of violence, but takes no account of the

circumstances under which these acts occur. Who initiates the violence, the relative size

and strength of the people involved, the nature of the relationship all will surely shape the

experience of the violence, but not the scores on the CTS. Thus, if she pushes him back

after being severely beaten, it would be scored one “conflict tactic” for each. And if she

punches him to get him to stop beating their children, or pushes him away after he has

sexually assaulted her, it would count as one for her, none for him.

According to the FBI, female victims represent about 70% of all intimate

murder victims. About one-third of all female murder victims were killed by an intimate

compared with 4% of male murder victims (see, for example, Kellerman and Mercy,

1992; Bachman and Saltzman, 1995).

Claims of gender symmetry are often made by those who do not understand the data,

what the various studies measure and what they omit. Others make claims of gender

symmetry based on disingenuous political motives, attempting to discredit women’s

suffering by offering abstract statistical equivalences that turn out to be chimerical.

Straus and Gelles, themselves, understand the political misuses to which their work has

been put, and strongly disavow those political efforts. In a summary of their work, they

write:

Perhaps the most controversial finding from our 1975 National Family

Violence Survey was the report that a substantial number of women hit

and beat their husbands. Since 1975 at least ten additional investigations

have confirmed the fact that women hit and beat their husbands.

Unfortunately the data on wife-to-husband violence has been misreported,

misinterpreted, and misunderstood. Research uniformly shows that about

as many women hit men as men hit women. However, those who report

that husband abuse is as common as wife abuse overlook two important

facts. First, the greater average size and strength of men and their greater

aggressiveness means that a man’s punch will probably produce more

pain, injury and harm than a punch by a woman. Second, nearly three-

fourths of the violence committed by women is done in self-defense.

While violence by women should not be dismissed, neither should it be

overlooked or hidden. On occasion, legislators and spokespersons...have

used the data on violence by wives to minimize the need for services for

battered women. Such arguments do a great injustice to the victimization

of women (Gelles and Straus, [1988], 1999, p. 424, italics added).

And Gelles underscores this disingenuous political use of their work with this clear and

unequivocal statement that “it is categorically false to imply that there are the same

number of ‘battered’ men as battered women” (Gelles, 2000).

As I noted in the post, the paper was by Michael S. Kimmel, PhD at SUNY Stonybrook.

Which, last time I checked, was not a "clansman" school.

The inspration for "Becoming Jne" is from a biography "Becoming Jane Austen" by Jon Spence. The book lays out a lot of family history and context to explore how and why Jane bacame a writer, and such a good writer. (He served as historical consultant on the movie as well, though he reminds readers in his new edition that the film's "plot and incidents" are fictional).

According to Spence, Jane Austen was made proposals at least twice (once when she was the ripe old age of 30). Since she had no income, no fame (yet), and no lofty connections, she must have been "attractive" enough for her admireres to oerlook her marriage-market deficiencies. Anne Hathaway? Whay not?

Spence also champions the Tom Lefroy romance (though he doesn't make the speculative leaps that the movie does), and discusses at length how "Tom Jones" (A book Austen and Lefroy enjoyed in common, and which, according to Spence, becomes Austen's shorthand symbol for Lefroy) references crept into Jane Austen's own novels.

I suspect that's why the movie Jane is introduced to a novel the real Jane had read and admired. The vast majority of the movie-going public, including many Austen-iphiles, has probably never read "Tom Jones" and we need to get that exposition in somewhere.

I still plan on seeing the movie. But I'm glad I read the book first. Anyone who is disappointed with the film will get a thoughtful, detailed and suported impression of Jane Austen's creative and personal life.