Becoming a Part of the Solution
the wit to win. We drew a circle that took him in.
The CDC, on its National Center for Injury Prevention and Control website sectionhttp://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm , has a new [not sure just how new] Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) fact sheet posted. This CDC fact sheet provides a welcome change from past presentations that minimized and trivialized male victimization.
Anyone who thinks there is something positive to be accomplished in arguing about the percentage differences between male and female victimization can continue to argue until the cows come home. It is clearly an exercise in futility as domestic violence, because of both personal and professional experiences, is viewed differently, defined differently and different methodologies are used in study after study.
The front page of the CDC posting notes that there is going to be an interactive national seminar concerning “A Call to Men: Ending Domestic Violence, Becoming Part of the Solution” on October 19th.
There is no better or quicker way to engage men in ending domestic violence than to end minimizing, marginalizing or ignoring male victimization. In the past the ideological feminist solution has been to ask men to stop abusing women. In all societies men are acculturated to be more aggressive than women. However, it can not be empirically demonstrated that women are exclusively or primarily passive victims of intimate partner violence.
If anyone doubts that the majority of domestic violence organization websites do not minimize, marginalize or ignore male victimization I suggest that they visit almost any domestic violence website to discover that the position of that organization is that women are the victims of domestic violence 85% to 95% of the time.
The following appeared on page B1 of the October 28, 2002, Boston Globe and is representative of the beliefs held by the majority of domestic violence organizations.
Yet, male victims pose a delicate problem for battered women’s groups who say they are too rare a phenomenon [emphasis added] to warrant drastic change in the core beliefs of the movement against domestic abuse .
“Men are sometimes victims of domestic violence,” said Nancy Scannell, legislative director of Jane Doe Inc., a Massachusetts-based domestic violence coalition. “But the attempt to be inclusive [of male victims] should never be interpreted to mean that the issue is gender-neutral. It does not change our mind about why [domestic violence] happens. It happens because of sexism and power and control of men over women in our society [emphasis added].”
Another example of excluding male victimization is the fact that almost all of those domestic violence sites document that 1 in 10 [the numbers vary] of high school girls suffer from IPV while they ignore that the same studies document that 1 in 20 [the numbers vary] boys are the victims of IPV.
There has been a patented and purposeful exclusion of male victimization by the federal government. Not a single president of the U.S. has ever mentioned male victimization during their October address concerning domestic violence awareness month.
In the hearings before the Senate for the 2005 re-authorization for the Violence Against Women Act the vast majority of those testifying ignored any mention of male victimization. In fact the very title of the act documents its exclusionary nature.
Most professional sites, similar to MedicineNet.com document female victimization while ignoring maleshttp://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=41728 . This site notes 5.3 million women are victims and ignores the 3.2 million male victims.
This recent CDC fact sheet still has an ideological feminist edge. It notes the IPV can cause suicide attempts for women while ignoring the fact that in 1 of 4 IPV homicides the male perpetrator will actually commit suicide.
It notes that for women having a verbally abusive, jealous, or possessive partner is a risk factor. All data clearly documents verbally abusive, jealous, or possessive behavior is a risk factor for both males and females.
As difficult as it may be to believe, the CDC fact sheet also notes that simply being female is a risk factor. Using this same broad methodology as a measuring tool, simply being born could be considered a risk factor.
The fact sheet does acknowledges that some researchers document that women are more than twice as likely to report IPV as men and that male victimization is greatly underestimated. However, this fact sheet can not resist presenting misleading criminal justice data that documents, 85% female vs. 15% of males report their abuse to the National Crime Victimization Survey.
Progress is Progress
Never the less this most recent CDC fact sheet should be recognized as progress by the federal government concerning the recognition of male victimization. The CDC often works with the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) concerning domestic violence issues. The NIJ is the central agency in setting the direction of research and coordinating criminal justice intervention through the dispersal of grants.
The fact sheet acknowledges that increased social support has significantly reduced IPV but ignores the fact that there continues to be very little support for or recognition of male victimization. And reams of data on domestic violence organizations clearly document that when male victimization can not be ignored, it is often minimized and the victims marginalized.
The CDC fact sheet acknowledges that:
Even fewer IPV incidents against men are reported. Thus, it is believed that available data greatly underestimates the true magnitude of the problem [of male victimization].
In the U.S. every year 5.3 million incidents of IPV occur each year among U.S. women ages 18 and older, and 3.2 million occur among men.
About 1.5 million women and more than 800,000 men are raped or physically assaulted by an intimate partner.
More than 1 million women and 371,000 men are stalked by intimate partners each year
29% of women and 22% of men has experienced physical, sexual, or psychological IPV during their lifetime.
In 2002 76% of women and 24% of men were murdered by an intimate partner
At least 42% of women and 20% of men sustained injuries during their most recent victimization.
While there is no question that men are the offenders of IPV homicides more often than women it is also important to note that the Bureau of Justice Statistics documents that men are the victims of the total number of homicides far more often than women and that males and youths have historically been the most vulnerable victims of the total number of violent victimizations.
IPV homicides account for less than ½ of 1% (0.3) of all family violence between 1998 and 2002. From 1993 to 2002 females were 58% of family homicide victims and males 42% http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/fvs.htm.
It is the ideological feminists blame and shame game that keeps men from being part of the solution. The ideological feminist philosophy is designed to keep as many men as possible out as victims and in as offenders. Ideological feminism claims that domestic violence is caused by men who beat and batter women because of sexism and the power and control men have over women in society. This carries the implicit message, believed by men, that men must be the offenders and women their victims.
If domestic violence advocates expect men to become part of the domestic violence solution, those advocates, agencies and the federal government that spends billions to end domestic violence, must recognize that male victimization is not the “rare event” that the National Conference of State Legislatures report, “When Violence Hits Home, and many other ideological feminist claim it is.
This CDC fact sheet is a welcomed and important step but only the first step on the journey to bring about equitable treatment for all victims of domestic violence regardless of age, gender, or sexual orientation.