Women commit more than 70% of single-partner DV
Written by: Rob
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Harvard Medical School just announced a national survey by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control that examined 11,000 men and women ages 18-28 and found 24% of heterosexual relationships have had violence in them, half of it reciprocal and half non-reciprocal, and women committed more than 70% of the non-reciprocal violence and were more likely to hit first in the reciprocal violence. Both sexes suffered significant injuries.
Domestic violence: Not Always One Sided
The study was also publicized at:
Men Shouldn’t Be Overlooked as Victims of Partner Violence
I’m afraid statistics like these will be distorted by male batterers to prove that their wives are just as abusive – I don’t know of one male batterer that doesn’t use that argument.
My ex told our counselor (in joint sessions) that he was a victim of violence. She agreed with him that my children and I were equal perpetrators. If you go by answers to questions such as “Have you ever hit?” that will seem the case. But if you lived in our household you would have known the truth – he was the perpetrator, we were the victims. My children acted out their frustration and helplessness. Teenage boys, in particular, will use their physical strength to show their anger. I myself used to strike him in frustration, but stopped when I realized he was using it to discredit me and vilify me to my friends.
Studies that ask questions about hitting, or hitting first can lead to misleading conclusions. Just because the women admit to hitting doesn’t mean that they display patterns of manipulation and control. THAT’S what domestic violence is about, not hitting.
@LL
LL–with all due respect, you’ve lost your mind. I quote you: “Just because the women admit to hitting doesn’t mean that they display patterns of manipulation and control. THAT’S what domestic violence is about, not hitting.”
Really? Hitting isn’t domestic violence? I’ll a few people would disagree.
Manipulation and control is domestic violence. Half true, but if it is, there is way, way more “violence” being committed than is reported. People in intimate relationships constantly struggle with one another for control, and constantly manipulate one another. It’s as much a part of our relations as intimacy itself. Women–why you wearing those uncomfortable high heels and short skirt? Why you showing cleavage when it’s cold outside? Nice boob job! Etc. etc. etc.
You’re not doing it to catch a man’s eye–surely.
If you argue with your spouse over, say, family budget/finances–DV? If you bargain with a salesman over the price you propose to buy a car, violence? Hmmm.
I think perhaps a slightly better way to make your point is that “ongoing or habitual one-sided manipulation and control that causes HARM to your signifcant other is bad for everyone involved and hurts the harmed party and ultimately the relationship, so don’t do it. Even if it’s two-sided (usually is) it’s a bad idea so don’t do it. But “violence”? Hmmm.
I feel it’s important to distinguish “violence”–hitting, throwing objects or otherwise extreme behavior–from “manipulation” or other less extreme behavior. Combining the two concepts unfortunately minimizes the severity of true physical violence. It also characterizes less dangerous situations as severe, which, while bad ideas, are not. It further gives one or the other party a tool to play themselves as a “victim of violence” because he or she feels hurt because he/she is prevented from shopping for whatever they wanted. “He/She said ‘no’–I’m a victim!”
And what about the “true” violence? We’ll I’m just one guy, but I don’t know too many people who would disagree with Harvard University–the author of the study finding physical violence is initiated by women far more frequently than men–but I do know dozens of men who have been attacked by women. Among friends, at restaurants/bars, or just walking down the street I’ve witnessed many, many instances of women attacking men, but not one of a man attacking a woman, and I’ve been attacked myself many times by several women. I think the point of the article is that women _initiate_ violence more frequently, but men, when they become violent (regardless of who initiates it) cause more injury to the woman. Not surprising given our respective physiology.
Why do women apparently initiate violence more frequently? I can only assume that women perceive that the laws and police give such a presemption in favor of women in physical confrontations, they can initiate violence with impunity. If you knew you could shove people around and either make them do what you wanted them to do, and if they shoved back you’d be guaranteed to be able to have them thrown in jail–bad people–regardless of gender–might be tempted to do a lot more shoving.
Bottom line: Don’t hit–ever. Police-recognize that women are at least as likely to initiate violence, if not more so, so be very thorough in any investigation involving allegations of violence. Rid yourselves of the assumption that “it’s always the guy’s fault” and you’ll do much, much more to prevent DV than always throwing the guy in jail. Perhaps, if women know they’re equally at risk for initiating violence they’ll hopefully be less likely to do so.
One-sided, harmful, manipulation/control is a bad idea for a healthy relationship. Don’t do it. But it’s not “violence”–the subject for marital therapy but not, in and of itself, the subject for state intrusion by criminal prosecution.
Mutual attempted manipulation and control causing harm to one or both? Recognize it’s frequently part of the dance of romance, almost always a bad idea leading to a bad relationship but again, should never be subject to state intrusion by criminal prosecution.
Good luck and blessings to all.
LL and One of Thousands,
Having been a target of female on male domestic violence myself, I say that you have to look at the whole picture. When a woman physically attacks a man, he has a right to defend himself with appropriate force. If the woman attacks the man striking him or biting him and he tries to block the attack or get her off of him (restraining, pushing, choking, hitting back, etc.), I don’t think it is fair to characterize him as being violent. The violent party is the original aggressor who resorted to violence, in this case the female. This kind of violence by women is real and happens on an everyday basis. But when a man dares to defend himself even by running away or by using appropriate force, he is likely to be arrested as the police and courts are advocates for violent females and do not believe that men, except for cops, have a right to defend themselves or escape from violent females.
My personal experience is that women are more prone to use violence than men and they are apt to be rewarded for it by the police, courts, and community. A violent woman is a winner in American society and women know this well. That’s a major reason why so many of them are willing to engage in violence.
Even when a woman severely injures or even kills a man who is sleeping and completely defenseless, she will likely be rewarded or at least not be held accountable for her crimes. She can claim to be a “battered wife” and get away with murdering her sleeping husband even when there is no evidence he was ever violent with her. She can shoot him in the head three times as he slept and then murder his mother and still be regarded as a better person and parent than he is despite there being no evidence he was ever violent.
When you see this happening over and over again, it is clear that most American men’s lives are considered of little worth, unless perhaps they are politicians or are wealthy.
Domestic violence will never stop so long as it is commonplace to reward violent abusive women for their crimes. So long as women are rewarded for DV, they will continue to commit it because they understand there is no real penalty and almost a sure reward for their violence so long as they falsely claim the man was violent.
Initiating physical violence in relationships should be wrong for both genders. But responding to physical violence with limited force for self-defense should be protected by law for both genders, too.
Unfortunately, according to the pervasive practices of US courts and law enforcement it is OK for a woman to attack her husband or boyfriend with a fist or a gun or a knife but not OK for him to defend himself. Unless he ends up dead, he is likely to be handcuffed, restrained, and even arrested as punishment for her aggression. That frequently happens even when she has no injuries but he himself is visibly injured. It even happens where there are witnesses to her aggression and his self-defense.
Cops don’t care when a man is injured, so long as he is not a cop. They care so little they won’t even bother to check him for injuries or get medical attention for him, even when they already have paramedics on the scene checking the abusive woman out for injuries and there are none to be found on her.
Women feel so safe being violent against men that they are even willing to assault a husband or boyfriend on TV with witnesses as Kim Kardashian recently did. She physically attacked her soon to be ex-husband Kris Humphries while being video recorded and the TV program producers wrote it off as her “playing”. Yes, that’s right — women being violent against men is just “play” and OK. That is the consistent message from most of American society. Only a few brave souls are willing to call it out as the domestic violence it truly is. And then even some of those few claim that Humphries had no right to stop her attack on him by grabbing her arm to prevent her from continuing to hit him. That’s right, once again men are told they have to tolerate violence from women and they do not have a right to stop the violence against them except perhaps by fleeing.
I agree that physical violence is not acceptable whether it is committed by men or women. But it has been my experience that other forms of violence actually do much worse damage than infrequent minor or mild physical violence.
Being mildly kicked, hit, bitten, or pushed a couple times per year is less harmful than being subjected to daily verbal and emotional abuse for years on end. It is less harmful than even once being falsely accused of crimes such as DV or child abuse and then being kicked out of your home, banned from seeing your children, and having to spend tens of thousands (or more) for many months or years defending yourself in divorce court only to have the false accuser rewarded for filing false police reports and committing perjury in court despite the court clearly acknowledging that her accusations were lies.
Threatening or actually using false allegations to police and CPS to manipulate and control a man is a common abuse tactic used by women. Such actions are violent in every way, potentially even physically violent when the cops show up and assault the falsely accused man. Such lying abusive women should be prosecuted and imprisoned for their crimes. Instead, they are rewarded and emboldened to do it again and again and again. Gender-biased female judges claim they cannot do anything about even clearly evident perjury and how it just has to be ignored, of course only after the male victim is severely harmed and the woman got what she wanted by her illegal aggression.
Not all women are violent and abusive. But those women who are not violent are contributing to the problem, too, when they fail to criticize and take action against violent and abusive women by at least making it clear that violence committed by women will not be tolerated and will not be rewarded. But instead of doing that, many women “empathize” with their violent female friends and aid them at getting away with their harassment and abuse against their current or former boyfriends and husbands.
Another reader wrote a comment about how the only way men can avoid being victimized by women in US society is to avoid having relationships with women. That may seem extreme, but I’d have to say that the way women behave in US society it is a wonder that more men haven’t turned gay and given up on women altogether. Even lesbians and bi-sexual women experience more violence in relationships with other women than relationships with men. Women are highly prone to use violence as a group and to say otherwise ignores the evidence.
Of course there are some violent men, but it looks like there are many more violent women and that these women truly believe that violence against men is acceptable. The reason why this isn’t more apparent has more to do with disparity in strength between genders. Most men are bigger and stronger than most women, so that’s a major reason why women often use weapons when attacking their lovers and even the playing field by attacking them when they are sleeping or otherwise unable to defend themselves.
If you as a man dare to have a romantic relationship with a woman, you’d be better off leaving the US than staying in this sexist country. But it may be hard to find anyplace that is really gender-neutral and fair. Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, etc. are hell holes for sexist discrimination against women. The US is a hell hole for sexist discrimination against men. You might be safer as a man moving to such an anti-female place, but what if you have daughters? Would you really want them to grow up in such an environment? And if you have sons, would you really want them to grow up in anti-male America?
Modern Asian nations seem in general more balanced in their handling of gender issues than Western or Muslim nations. So perhaps the safe places for an American male in love with a female are places such as Japan, China, Taiwan, and Korea.
For the men who stay in the US, many of them would be better off staying away from females and becoming homosexuals if they really want romantic relationships. You can be discriminated against and ridiculed for being gay, but you are at this time not likely to be falsely imprisoned, removed from your home, and hounded by false allegations of being a violent abuser simply because you are gay. But you can expect all of that and worse for just being a heterosexual man.
Rob
Rob makes some excellent points. I’d like to second his opinion and respectfully request your additional attention to my commentary.
Rob: “Having been a target of female on male domestic violence myself, I say that you have to look at the whole picture. When a woman physically attacks a man, he has a right to defend himself with appropriate force. If the woman attacks the man striking him or biting him and he tries to block the attack or get her off of him (restraining, pushing, choking, hitting back, etc.), I don’t think it is fair to characterize him as being violent.
“ The violent party is the original aggressor who resorted to violence, in this case the female. This kind of violence by women is real and happens on an everyday basis. But when a man dares to defend himself even by running away or by using appropriate force, he is likely to be arrested as the police and courts are advocates for violent females and do not believe that men, except for cops, have a right to defend themselves or escape from violent females.”
One of Thousands: Good point, but I’m fearful that we may be getting lost in semantics—semantics that can have serious legal consequences. If you ask me—and I’m just one guy—the issue isn’t who is being “violent.” Girl slaps guy, guy slaps girl, girl chokes guy, guy chokes back—sounds like violence–by anyone’s definition–on both ends to me (and a relationship that needs to end right away).
The more important issue in not whether one or the other party was being “violent.” In most DV cases it’s probably almost always mutual—but guys are bigger and can almost always win, then go to jail. The “she hit me first!” debate is useless–It’s two siblings sitting in the back of the minivan. Two football players shoving each other around after a play. Israelis/Palestinians. By the time mom/ref/UN get to the melee it’s too late to determine the true aggressor, and probably more often than not, if punishment is to be handed out, it’s laid on the head of the non-aggressive party striking back.
If you ask me—and nobody did but I’m writing anyway —moving the debate toward who is “violent” is dangerous. It creates a platform for one or the other to claim “victim” status. Indulge me to provide a personal example. After our separation, my ex moved out. Good. Gone. Bye. But she repeatedly returned, unannounced, to my home to confront me. Sometimes it was to randomly pick up our son, sometimes to move furniture out (she came with a moving van—unannounced—and wanted everything. Wow). Sometimes to wreck the house (she’d slip in, start breaking stuff, and then call the police—not kidding—bizarre). Clearly she was provoking me to attack her, but fortunately I’m pretty calm and had good advice from my attorney not to touch her.
Her tactics to provoke “violence” never worked. I’d call the cops and she’d be asked to leave by the cops. Three times.
But the interesting question is “why would anyone want to instigate violence?” Answer: she knew that if I responded to her provocation I, not her, would go to jail. Almost automatically. I’m certain her attorneys told her this and she, being an aggressive and intelligent (maybe psychopathic) personality anyway, took full advantage. Fortunately it didn’t work, but she kept trying over and over.
So, what’s wrong with this picture? Divorce laywers regularly advise women clients that “If he hits you, he’s guaranteed to go to jail, you’re not.” This is of course entirely unfair to men in general, and it is this bias of police and general ineptitude of divorce/criminal courts that creates incentives for an angry and manipulative woman to provoke. “I start a fight, he goes to jail, I get the house, the kids, and a larger settlement.”
Clearly this is unhealthy-for both parties. She’s told “do the wrong thing and you win.” He’s told “You’re doomed to be a victim of her rage.” Sound fair?
Solution: Clearly police must be diligent in investigations to determine the aggressor, and throw anyone in jail who commits violence. At least for a short period of time. Divorce/criminal judges must abandon the ongoing and outstanding bias in favor of women. If the violence is mutual—both go to jail. My proposition is that if both parents realize that any violence—any violence—even retaliatory violence—will land them a few days in the pokey, the attorneys will give different advice to women: “If you get in a fight, regardless of who starts it, you go to jail.” Compare that to “no matter who starts it, HE goes to jail.” Maybe she’ll hatch a different game plan.
And that’s probably the right answer. Couples argue, of course. Love emotions are powerful. But when that argument escalates into real violence the issue shouldn’t be “who hit who first” or “who hit harder”—the issue, in this one man’s opinion—should be “you’re both responsible for your (likely) petty dispute getting this far, and should’ve used better dispute solving skills. You BOTH deserve some (short) time away from each other courtesy of our County Sheriff. When you get out you both need help dealing with each other. If it happens again the time will be longer. Let’s not go there.
Public resources such as courts and police would be far, far better spent on free “untangling” ang coordination resources (many of which are already available—see uptoparents.com). Yet currently courts, police, CPS, and the army of other public resources are focused on blame. Until that changes, we’ll continue to see lovers pitted against one another to attempt a “win.” There is, of course, no such thing as a “win” in divorce court, but attorneys, judges, GALS, police, etc. perpetuate conflict for selfish reasons.
In short: fight in a divorce and both go to jail, forced to dispute resolution, and if it happens again, more intense treatment (penalties rarely work in these situations) for both.
Rob: “Not all women are violent and abusive. But those women who are not violent are contributing to the problem, too, when they fail to criticize and take action against violent and abusive women by at least making it clear that violence committed by women will not be tolerated and will not be rewarded. But instead of doing that, many women “empathize” with their violent female friends and aid them at getting away with their harassment and abuse against their current or former boyfriends and husbands.
Another reader wrote a comment about how the only way men can avoid being victimized by women in US society is to avoid having relationships with women. That may seem extreme, but I’d have to say that the way women behave in US society it is a wonder that more men haven’t turned gay and given up on women altogether. Even lesbians and bi-sexual women experience more violence in relationships with other women than relationships with men. Women are highly prone to use violence as a group and to say otherwise ignores the evidence.”
One of Thousands: This is a very good point and one I’ve seen repeated. Women respond to the argument that “women are aggressors too” with the reply: “So, women should just accept abuse by men? Are you crazy????” It’s a good point. No one should “accept” violence. In my opinion (I’m a man) the more important question is “how did our relationship get to this point, and how can we keep it from getting here again?” There’s one sure answer: If there exist strong incentives for women to provoke violence, then remove those incentives. See above. If women are advised they’re just as likely to go to jail, less violence period. If public resources are spent not on “blame” arguments, and divorce not based on “better parent” but spent toward parental coordination, therapy, and addressing any specific problem immediately upon filing of a petition for separation or divorce, probably far, far fewer problems.
Oddly, divorce courts in California—and likely across the nation—tell separating couples that the process will be orderly and shared custody/fair support is the rule of law. And as an attorney studied in community property (it’s part of all three bar exams I’ve passed) is fair and reasonable.
It’s a lie.
Public resources could be spent much, much more efficiently. First, prevent divorce by clear rules. See above. Second, many (not all) California courts are tyrannical and easy to manipulate away from shared custody and fair support. The question really isn’t that hard to resolve. 50/50 unless there is a criminal conviction affecting kids. Boot the psychologists/consultants/GALS/etc. etc. etc. who are merely speculating or making value judgments. Early on set up a clear parenting plan.
Result: likely far fewer divorces. Far fewer divorce lawyers. Far fewer divorce judges, psychologists, etc. etc.
Why don’t we have it? Easy: What kind of car do you drive? What kind of car did your divorce lawyer drive?
Rob: “If you as a man dare to have a romantic relationship with a woman, you’d be better off leaving the US than staying in this sexist country. But it may be hard to find anyplace that is really gender-neutral and fair. Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, etc. are hell holes for sexist discrimination against women. The US is a hell hole for sexist discrimination against men. You might be safer as a man moving to such an anti-female place, but what if you have daughters? Would you really want them to grow up in such an environment? And if you have sons, would you really want them to grow up in anti-male America?
Modern Asian nations seem in general more balanced in their handling of gender issues than Western or Muslim nations. So perhaps the safe places for an American male in love with a female are places such as Japan, China, Taiwan, and Korea.”
One Of Thousands: Sadly, very true. Though these other nations may not be “models”, perhaps there are better places with more “traditional” gender roles to raise a family. Personally, I strongly support women’s rights and gender equality. I was raised by a mother in a single parent home, but recognize that the regular presence of my father would have probably resulted in a far more stable, loving environment. Fortunately my father has always been present, though because of the law, distant from me. I’ve been blessed with a very supportive and loving step-father.
Lesson I learned: Dads matter as much as Moms. In perhaps different ways, but they’re important. And it’s not just “any” dad. My biological father and stepfather are equally thoughtful and caring. Yet as a child and adult I have always recognized a far stronger identification to my biological father. His forced absence from my developmental environment was a significant handicap to my maturation.
Solution: Well, maybe moving to Asia or marrying a good old Asian gal is the answer. I’m from the southern US and those women—and men—have more clear understandings of the Yin and Yang of gender roles. Certainly any type of gender oppression is unhealthy. Perhaps the “modern” US’s experiment with erasing or ignoring the clear differences between men and women isn’t working out so well. Maybe we need divorce court reform to establish fairness and stability—which is of course why we’re bothering to read here. Perhaps moving away is the answer. But certainly preventing our public, taxpayer funded courts from becoming a destabilizing force in the healthy development of families and our society must be a key goal. We’re a long way from the end zone.
Rob: “For the men who stay in the US, many of them would be better off staying away from females and becoming homosexuals if they really want romantic relationships. You can be discriminated against and ridiculed for being gay, but you are at this time not likely to be falsely imprisoned, removed from your home, and hounded by false allegations of being a violent abuser simply because you are gay. But you can expect all of that and worse for just being a heterosexual man.”
One Of Thousands: Sorry, but I have to laugh. “Becoming gay” is a popular topic among a bunch of male comedians. YouTube Jimmy Shubert, Greg Giraldo, Chris Rock.
Wish I could become gay, but even so, it wouldn’t help. Case in point: I was in DV court in my case—accused of writing a few “annoying”emails to my ex to set up visitation with my son. Sat next to two women—a couple. They were there because of some of the same B.S.—one of them got pissed and sent an angry text. The other got even more pissed and called the cops. Dynamic escalation. They made up. The “victim” begged to keep the “perpetrator” out of jail. The judge refused. She went to jail and became subject to a TRO. Result: misery, hardship, and waste for everyone.
The sad fact is that the state of California has injected itself into every domestic dispute entering its system. If you’re headed to divorce court, get ready for a screw job. If it’s not the court (which most likely it is) it’s your ex-‘s attorney attempting to bill hours on your tab, your attorney billing hours on your tab, an endless army of useless, fraudulent, and entirely ineffective “service providers” such as psychologists, supervisors, and other leaches on the public (anybody love getting towed from a parking meter?). This poor couple wanted to reconcile. The state of California—government—goons with guns and badges—prevented it.
Wow.
“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.”
H. L. Mencken
Good luck people—Give love, and get out of the cesspool of divorce court as quickly as you can.
One of Thousands,
Your ex should have been arrested for what she was doing as it sounds like criminal breaking and entering and vandalism. But the cops as usual think that crimes committed by women against men are acceptable conduct.
I think I understand what you are arguing regarding mutual DV, and in some cases I’d agree with your reasoning that both parties should be tossed in jail. It’s particularly appropriate when both parties are initiating violence. However, I believe that jail should not be a first option and that it would be better to order these people into counseling with a counselor who understands that many women can be as or even more violent than most men. If you order counseling with a typical feminist witch psychologist, you will only encourage and reward more domestic violence.
Overall you appear really down on psychologists from your comments, but truthfully they can be of great help when they are used appropriately. The problem is not that psychologists are involved, it is more than they are not involved early enough and then they are viewed as somehow being qualified judges as to who is a better parent or partner.
Yet the fact is that sociopathic individuals such as Borderlines and Narcissists can fool a psychologist for years. The odds of them getting away with it is greatly reduced when the psychologist is forced to get input from many other parties and forced to counsel for an extended period of time (multiple years) on a frequent basis rather than to make snap decisions about what is going on. But no psychologist working as a custody evaluator has the time to do the job right and in the case of an extremely skilled sociopathic individual, not even the ones that charge $50,000+ for their quackery are likely to come up with an accurate evaluation.
There really is a big difference between trying to protect yourself versus attacking another person. I don’t believe that a person forced into defending himself or herself from an aggressor through no action of his or her own should be treated as an offender or as criminally violent. I do believe that they should get counseling, however, as in all likelihood they are somehow psychologically predisposed to be attracted to troubled people who are more likely to become violent and abusive. Sometimes it is a “savior tendency” that these people have, frankly they are a danger to themselves because of it but it is because they are well-intentioned and do not abandon relationships easily yet at the same time lack the psychological skills necessary to deal with sociopaths. They need to learn those skills for their own safety.
Perhaps this real example will help explain my position. A husband was at home in the kitchen. He had no contact with his wife for hours and there was no argument recently. The woman arrived home and was behaving angrily over her paranoid worries about money. She burst into the kitchen and surprised him from behind and then pinned him against a counter while biting his arm. What was he supposed to do? Just sit there in pain and let her bite a hole in his arm? Consider that a deep bite injury can lead to significant blood loss not to mention a lot of pain and require stitches and possibly even surgery to repair.
Self-defense using minimal force leaving no injuries is clearly reasonable in this case, and that is what the man did to make her stop. She ran off screaming at the top of her lungs and neighbors called the cops. The police response in this scenario was to handcuff the man who was the surprise target of the violence, come to the aid of the aggressor, and ignore the very visible bite injuries on the man despite there being no visible injuries on the woman. And by doing so, their actions taught the woman that she could lie and attack and her husband would suffer for it and she would not. Being that he thought marriage meant something, he foolishly tried to work at this relationship with this sociopathic woman to his ultimate destruction as she learned more and more about how to work the system with lies and distortion campaigns.
If the situation had been reversed, you can bet the man would have been arrested. But because it was a violent woman, she got away with it and continued her sporadic bizarre displays of physical violence (even at times involving the children) plus far worse tactics including false domestic violence allegations (which even the biased court ruled she lied about) and false child sexual abuse allegations (which she also lied about). Then she was rewarded for all of her criminal conduct with full custody of the children.
She even gets paid by the Federal government, essentially defrauding taxpayers whose money is being used to reward a criminal, as a result of destroying her ex-husband’s health and career via years of harassment and defamation involving the many other people she has lied to and recruited to attack him. Why? Because she got custody of the kids. A female abuser who gets custody of children is often rewarded by the government financially for her criminal conduct. The taxpayers are paying for this further crime, and despite a clear cut case for perjury nobody in government will do a thing to stop this lying woman from continuing her malicious behaviors including each year filing more false reports to law enforcement, engaging in parental alienation child abuse, and more.
As to why a woman would behave this way, many who are familiar with this case agree she probably has some kind of personality disorder. Why would that be? She was abused extensively as a child. Her father is a convicted child sex offender who she reported physical, emotionally, and verbally abused her and her family members for years although she denies being sexually abused by him herself. She doesn’t have much good to say about her mother, either, but it is more emotional neglect than outright abuse. She became an abuser because she was raised in an abusive violent home. Her version of a committed relationship is to falsely accuse her husband of having affairs to get sympathy from others while she herself is the one having affairs. (This is the kind of stuff you expect to see from many people suffering from DSM-IV Axis II Cluster B personality disorders, even if they haven’t been formally diagnosed with one.) So today she is a successful abuser raising more children in a hostile environment. Will the children become abusers too? They are at much greater risk for it and a host and other problems such as depression, suicidality, eating disorders, and personality disorders.
You see this is where I think psychologists should be getting involved earlier. There are ways to save such children from become abusers and harming many other people. But they have to start early on before they develop abusive personalities that are difficult to repair. Maybe the woman herself could even have been saved if as a child there had been some kind of counseling intervention to put a stop to the violence in her family.
Yet it’s difficult for me to advocate more than counseling interventions because the level of perjury and corruption in family law and child protection rackets is so high that often perfectly good parents are having their children taken away based upon false allegations. It’s even happening when the courts acknowledge there was perjury and the allegations were false.
How to balance these competing interests is not easy, but clearly the American government has failed abjectly given the results of its current policies. At this point, I’d say the government is more abusive and destructive than most of the parents who could legitimately be called abusers.
As for the cultural issues, I do think American culture is defective in many ways when it comes to promoting healthy relationships. People seem to have the idea that they have to be “in love” at all times and their mate is supposed to be some kind of perfect person or else it is time to dump them. And when they get to that point, many of them think there are no rules for what you can and cannot do to an ex.
Also many Americans tend to behave like Borderlines or Narcissists even though they don’t technically meet the diagnostic criteria for the disorders. They show way too much black and white thinking and far too much willingness to lie, cheat, and steal and then blame their victims for something to distract from their own criminal conduct. They are not willing to be honest about their mistakes and work to make up for them. This pattern goes all the way to the top, the Rod Blagojeviches and Bill Clintons of the world who are willing to lie to and manipulate everybody for their own benefit.
Societies that value social harmony and put less emphasis on individual happiness over social order generally do not appear to get so far out of line. However, I have heard a few remarks about horrific Japanese women in divorce scenarios that suggest that perhaps Japanese culture is too forgiving of irate females acting destructively. Also the woman in the example above was born and raised in the US and behaves as an American despite having Asian ancestry. Clearly having Asian genetics doesn’t make one immune from being a vicious witch.
I was trying to make a point about the “becoming gay to be safe” to point out how ridiculous the current situation is for men. But scientific evidence points to sexual preference being biologically hardwired based upon hormones influencing brain development in fetuses and children. So it’s probably not really a choice that most people could make any more than they can become a native-level speaker of another language they learned starting in adulthood. The brain simply isn’t set up to rewire like that.
The example you cite about the lesbian couple in court getting in trouble for DV matches up with the studies that show significant violence in lesbian and female bisexual relationships. However, from what you’re explaining it does not sound like there was actual physical violence but one of them involved the cops in a verbal argument — if you can even call angry text messages that. The cops should have known better than to get involved. I mean really, is the angry text message going to jump out of the phone and stab you in the back with a knife or punch your lights out?
I’m not aware of there being many studies of male gay relationships showing the same pattern, but did find one short paper on DV in gay male relationships. (For comparison, a write-up on lesbian DV claims that 17% to 45% of lesbians experience DV by their partners.) Even if that gay male DV paper is right that 20% of gay men experience DV, there is a very real societal bias in favor of women against men that would not play a factor in male-on-male relationship violence. So all things considered, it appears a person would be safer from false DV allegations in a male gay relationship than in a female gay relationship or a heterosexual relationship.
Why are emails and text messages considered to be so violent that they warrant restraining orders? Unless they are death threats or something close, I don’t see how this warrants a restraining order. What you are describing seems to be more of the overreaching by the American government into controlling every aspect of people’s lives. In ten years, I won’t be surprised if it is a criminal offense to offer a candy bar to a child and that Halloween trick-or-treating has been outlawed. The government doesn’t believe that people should have a right to make their own choices but only to follow government orders in excruciating detail.
From what I’ve heard from overseas Asians, their governments do not try to micromanage people’s romantic and familial relationships like American government does so long as they are not political opponents. Piss off the government in a nation like China by speaking out against government corruption and you can expect them to destroy your family much like the US government does using false criminal charges, ordering people out of their homes, baseless raids and seizures of their property, and abusing and mistreating their children. But the average apolitical citizen is not being treated that way in most Asian nations, unlike what is happening in the US.
Rob
@Rob
Excellent comments Sir. I’m again grateful to Angiemedia for allowing us a truly neutral forum to participate in this very healthy discussion. It’s one of the few truly neutral medial forums remaining, but a crucial one for the health of our democracy, society, and community of San Diego and beyond.
If I may respond to your very, very god points.
Rob: “Your ex should have been arrested for what she was doing as it sounds like criminal breaking and entering and vandalism. But the cops as usual think that crimes committed by women against men are acceptable conduct.”
OneOfThousands: Sadly, true. Which, as I’ve mentioned before, encourages violence, strife, misconduct and greatly erodes whatever confidence we have left in government and police.
Rob: “I think I understand what you are arguing regarding mutual DV, and in some cases I’d agree with your reasoning that both parties should be tossed in jail. It’s particularly appropriate when both parties are initiating violence. However, I believe that jail should not be a first option and that it would be better to order these people into counseling with a counselor who understands that many women can be as or even more violent than most men. If you order counseling with a typical feminist witch psychologist, you will only encourage and reward more domestic violence.”
OneOfThousands: I agree in part. Jail shouldn’t be the first option. I’m not sure I agree that “both parties” can “initiate” violence. The “violence” line has been so blurred it’s frankly impossible for a cop to make a rational determination. “He raised his voice”—violence? “She stayed out late” violence? She threw the lamp in the back yard. Violence? “He hit a wall.”—violence?
Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. But I’m certain that the current imbalance in determining who is the “violent” spouse is heavily skewed in favor of women, and that bias results likely in favor of more women initiating violence. I’m certain it did in my case, and I know personally of many others.
“Order people to counseling”: I don’t like the concept of “ordering” people to do anything, but I see your point. Sometimes people can’t help themselves. Perhaps if people understood that DV allegations wouldn’t matter so much in divorce court they’d refrain from making false claims, but then again I’m probably naively optimistic. Perhaps if people were more concerned that false allegations would land you in jail there would be far, far fewer false allegations.
Rob: “Overall you appear really down on psychologists from your comments, but truthfully they can be of great help when they are used appropriately. The problem is not that psychologists are involved, it is more than they are not involved early enough and then they are viewed as somehow being qualified judges as to who is a better parent or partner.
Yet the fact is that sociopathic individuals such as Borderlines and Narcissists can fool a psychologist for years. The odds of them getting away with it is greatly reduced when the psychologist is forced to get input from many other parties and forced to counsel for an extended period of time (multiple years) on a frequent basis rather than to make snap decisions about what is going on. But no psychologist working as a custody evaluator has the time to do the job right and in the case of an extremely skilled sociopathic individual, not even the ones that charge $50,000+ for their quackery are likely to come up with an accurate evaluation.
There really is a big difference between trying to protect yourself versus attacking another person. I don’t believe that a person forced into defending himself or herself from an aggressor through no action of his or her own should be treated as an offender or as criminally violent. I do believe that they should get counseling, however, as in all likelihood they are somehow psychologically predisposed to be attracted to troubled people who are more likely to become violent and abusive. Sometimes it is a “savior tendency” that these people have, frankly they are a danger to themselves because of it but it is because they are well-intentioned and do not abandon relationships easily yet at the same time lack the psychological skills necessary to deal with sociopaths. They need to learn those skills for their own safety.”
OneOfThousands: Excellent points. I agree counselors and psychologists can be of great help when, as you say “used appropriately.” I think we’d both agree that the way that divorce court uses them is entirely inappropriate. When both spouses are “counseling” with someone likely to be a witness for or against them in court there are often irresistible incentives to exaggerate or lie. A truly neutral counselor who can’t be used as a witness (i.e., a real mediator) is invaluable. The problem in divorce court is that “evaluators” and “mediators” become the de facto jury making “recommendations” to a judge. Of course these people become the targets for one or both manipulative spouse/s, simply transferring the spousal struggle to another forum outside of the courtroom.
As the experiment with those such as Stephen Doyne and others has shown, this has been a failure. Psychologists are no better than judges at determining who is the “better” parent—they simply insert their own values into the parental mele. Parents, advised by attorneys seeking to “game the system” know this, and advise clients to make false allegations. At least in court we have protections of evidentiary standards—if you say it, you gotta back it up. With Psychologists, no such protections exist.
Psychs and counselors can be useful to coordinate and help untangle, but when they can be witnesses they are extremely dangerous.
Your example of the “biting woman” is shocking and sad. I only wonder that if the biter would have understood that the police would send her to jail she would have acted this way.
You’re correct that I am “down on” psychologists—at least as “forensic experts.” In my experience, people don’t change unless they want to. Psychologists acting as a personal “mirror” can be quite helpful. “Forensic psychologists” acting as judge and jury are fraught with errors, bias, and bad incentives.
At any rate, having been through extensive marital counseling, I have far less confidence that you do in them. In my humble opinion, the answer is rarely “change him/her”—it’s simply “Give it a shot, but if it doesn’t work out, leave the relationship.” Another reason divorce court is defective: It creates enormous hurdles for doing so, by pitting people who really don’t need to be together against one another.
Rob: ”Why are emails and text messages considered to be so violent that they warrant restraining orders? Unless they are death threats or something close, I don’t see how this warrants a restraining order. What you are describing seems to be more of the overreaching by the American government into controlling every aspect of people’s lives. In ten years, I won’t be surprised if it is a criminal offense to offer a candy bar to a child and that Halloween trick-or-treating has been outlawed. The government doesn’t believe that people should have a right to make their own choices but only to follow government orders in excruciating detail.”
OneOfThousands: Good Point. Exactly why Tom Jefferson started the Bill or Rights with a universal prohibition on government inserting itself into communications—good or bad—between individuals. Our current government has trampled that prohibition on its own power recklessly, and we’re now all suffering the consequences.
Thank you Rob for participating in this healthy and engaging discussion! And thank you again to Angiemedia for providing the forum to improve our democracy.
@ Rob
Rob, key phrase here “APPROPRIATE FORCE”. As a woman who has been choked by a man and suffered the psychological damage of the immediate terror of not being able to breathe (which is a form of torture used in some countries, restriction of airways), I severely resent you casually adding that to the list of acceptable methods of “restraining” a woman. You are off your rocker. Choking someone is not an appropriate way to restrain, and it is NOT self-defense, that’s a blatant attack and I really hope you have never done this to a woman, because if so I hope you were called out on the violence and punished appropriately. Also, please never breed and teach any possible children this – the world doesn’t need anymore men who think it’s okay to put their hands around someone’s neck and cut off airways for ANY REASON – this is obviously with intent to harm and even possibly kill, hence the cutting off airways. Yeah not being able to breathe will surely distract them, good thinking Rob. Do you know how easy it is to damage a windpipe? Particularly if it’s a man doing the choking, because men are generally stronger and use more force than necessary when angry, and woman are typically smaller and yes, more fragile. That’s just how we differ as genders, as a whole. Stop deluding yourself into thinking this is okay before you actually hurt a woman and do some real damage compared to her “striking” and “biting”. Choking someone out only compares to those in your delusional brain. This entire thread is circle jerk of men acting like a certain word for cats. If you need to restrain a woman who is slapping you or pushing you, do it in a way that is respectful to your STRENGTH, and her SIZE.
@ NikkiC
Judging from how you took my example out of context and spun it to mean something that it does not, I have to wonder about how you behave in other scenarios. For instance, what did you do to the man who “choked” you?
It appears to me that you may be yet another violence-prone woman who justifies her abusive actions and denies her victims any right to self-defense because the aggressor is a woman and the victim is a man.
I very clearly stated that the aggressive woman assaulted the man and evidence of this includes very visible bite marks on the man. I also stated that his self-defense was minimal force leaving no injuries on her:
Additionally, I clearly pointed out she was the initiator of violence and that she initiated the attack by surprise without any provocation because of her paranoid worries about money.
Your speculation that he was much larger and stronger is wrong. They were about the same weight. Additionally, she was an athlete and he was sedentary.
Police and military forces have often been taught to use chokeholds and other tactics to disable aggressors without causing serious injury. This example wasn’t even remotely to that level, but perhaps the idea of police and military style chokeholds are what has you confused?
Remember, the female aggressor had her male victim pinned and had sunk her teeth into one of his arms. She refused to let go and was causing great pain with the perception she was going to take a chunk out of his arm. He has no way to get away from her with her teeth sunk into him and being pinned.
The deep teeth marks in his arm hours later confirmed that it was not just his perception, the reality is she was biting really hard. The total absence of any mark on her confirms that his self-defense to force her to stop biting him did not injure her.
The only suggestion I have ever heard that might arguably be an improvement was the idea of closing the attacker’s nostrils by having the victim grip the attacker’s nose with his hand. That would have a lower chance of causing serious injury, but could also break a nose without causing serious injury.
It is easy to debate possible defensive tactics in the comfort of a safe discussion when you are not being physically assaulted. The female aggressor should have never initiated such an attack in the first place. The victim, whether male or female, has a right to self-defense using minimal force, and the results clearly indicate minimal force was used.