Mark Twain is famously quoted as saying , “There are
lies, damn lies and statistics,” but he, in fact, attributed the saying to
Benjamin Disraeli. It highlights the difficulty
about using statistics because the figures can be distorted to provide evidence
for the point of order being argued.
When it comes to the victims of Domestic Violence, you will encounter various
statistics: 1 in 4 women will be a victim, 1 in 6 men will be a victim, even 95
% of all victims will be female ( I STRONGLY dispute this as you shall see).
The problem is that all statistics are based on samples,
and some of the samples used were already quite restrictive in the profile of
people interviewed and the questions or options given. In other words, the results had already been
determined and the questionnaires had been designed to provide the required outcomes.
The figures I present come from the latest statistics available
complied from the UK’s Office for National Statistics: Crime Survey (Focus on
Violent Crime and Sexual Offences, 2011/12
This is perhaps the most conclusive set of data available
but is conveniently ignored by Misandrists to want to promote a different message. The sample used for the following figures
comprised of 5,129 men and 5,991 women.
The Survey
shows that
- 40%
of domestic abuse victims are male: for every five victims, three will be female,
two will be male.
- 7% of women and 5% of men were estimated
to have experienced any domestic abuse in the last year, equivalent to an
estimated 1.2 million female and 800,000 male victims.
- 31%
(one in four – not quite one in three) of women and 18% (one in six) of
men had experienced any domestic abuse since the age of 16. These figures
were equivalent to an estimated 5.0 million female victims of domestic
abuse and 2.9 million male victims.
So, to recap, based on the latest data set available and
taken from a pool of 11,220 people (46 % male 54 % female), 1 in 4 women and 1
in 6 men will experience Domestic Violence in their lifetime and 40% of
domestic abuse victims are male therefore 60% are female.
I felt led to write this because I came across an article
which made the following claims:
“The reality, however, as indicated by Women’s Aid statistics, is that
a quarter of British women suffer domestic abuse; many of them experience
repeated violence. According to the charity, on average a woman has been
assaulted 35 times before she is able to seek help. A perpetrator doesn’t
necessarily only cause physical or sexual harm, but may also be
psychologically, spiritually, emotionally or financially abusive.
And what about abuse directed against men?
Although this does occur in the UK, Women’s Aid says that 95% of the victims of
domestic abuse are female.”
I did contact the author to challenge the claims reportedly made by Women’s
Aid. From the information I presented,
there is a clear discrepancy. …can both set of figures be correct?
Perhaps the biggest clue is in the name of the charity. It’s not Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse, it’s
WOMEN’S aid. It is not in the charity’s
aims or best interests to acknowledge male victims in any shape or form.
Looking at the Women’s Aid website is most enlightening about
the misinformation against Men that they are spreading. The sad thing is that many who accept at face
value that Women’s Aid must be the leading
voice on all domestic abuse matters fail to see the true motive of
the charity .
…1 in 4 women will be a victim of domestic violence in
their lifetime – many of these on a number of occasions.
On average, 2 women a week are killed by a current or former male
partner.
One misleading statistic, which is often repeated, is that - while one
in four women experience domestic violence - so do one in six men. These
figures are, however, based on single incidents, of a criminal
nature, and without regard to:
·
severity of violence
·
whether or not it was
repeated - and if so, how often
·
the complex pattern
of overlapping abuse of various kinds
·
the context in which
it took place.,,,,
The Bold words
are as they appear on the webpage. I’ve
unlined the text clearly designed to send out a Misandry message which is false
and gender discriminatory.
According to Office for National Statistics: Crime Survey
(Focus on Violent Crime and Sexual Offences, 2011/12
In 2011/12 – 17
men (one every 21 days) died at the hands of their partner or ex partner
compared with 88 women (one every four days)
In other words, 1 man every 3 weeks and 1 woman every 4
days (not quite 2 women a week) as Women’s Aid claim are killed by their
partner or ex-partner. Irrespective of
Gender, these figures are far too high and any murder is immoral.
However, Women’s Aid clearly claim that all the murderers
of female partners are male. As far as I
can ascertain, the gender of the suspects have not been recorded. Although it would be commonly accepted that
most suspects would indeed be male, it is likely that there would be some same-sex
relationships included in the fatalities.
By slightly manipulating the crime statistics, Women’s
Aid attempt to make male mistreatment of females look worse than it is without
acknowledging women can also behave in such an evil manner.
Women’s Aid accept the 1 in 4 women statistic, but challenge the 1 in 6 men statistic although
they both come from the same source! How
bizarre!
How can it be misleading ? Hmmmmmm? Does that make the 1 in 4 women misleading by the same token?
They claim that it’s not reliable because it refers to a
single incident but the same criteria is used to measure both genders. The real truth is that it promotes a reality that Women’s
Aid doesn’t want to admit to!
There is over 30 years of academic research available that offers confirmation that a similar proportion of men and women are domestic violence victims. I've said it before and I will say it again, Domestic Violence affects everyone irrespective of Gender - it is never a gender issue alone. This message has been silenced because it doesn't match the misandrist agenda of many feminists.
A
lot of Misandrists love to claim that 95% of domestic violence victims are
woman.
This
originated from the USA back in November 1994, nearly 20 years ago and came
from the following:
90-95%
of domestic violence victims are women. (Bureau of Justice Statistics Selected
Findings: Violence between Intimates (NCJ-. 149259), November 1994.)
Strange how the sampling or method
used to arrive at this extortionate percentage has been lost over the period of
time! Also strange is that fact that
academic reports which challenged this bias have been ignored, although accepted at the time as addressing an inaccuracy.
Professor Murray Straus’ epic and
ground-breaking paper, ‘The Controversy Over
Domestic Violence by Women 1999 ‘ can still be found online if you look hard
enough:
In this paper Professor Straus writes
of the attacks against him and his team because of their findings:
In the mid-1970s my
colleagues and I made the disturbing discovery
that
women physically
assaulted partners in marital,
cohabiting, and dating relationships as often
as men assaulted their partners
(Steinmetz, 1978; Straus, 1997; Straus, Gelles, & Steinnietz, 1980). This finding caused me
and my former colleague, Suzanne Steinmetz, to
be excommunicated as feminists. Neither of us has
accepted that sentence, but it remains in
force. So when Salman Rushdie
was condemned to death
for his heresy, we may
have felt even more empathy than most people because we had also
experienced many threats, including a bomb threat.
As a
result of the women's movement, the traditional
reluctance of the police to become
involved in "domestics" (Kaufman
Kantor & Straus, 1990; Straus, 1977) has changed. In most
jurisdictions in the United
States, state laws or police regulations now require or recommend
arrest. However, consistent with the greater injury rate for women, these laws
and regulations may state or imply a male offender. Although on average, when
there is an injury, this is correct, it denies male victims equal protection
under the law. In fact, there are a
growing number of
complaints that attempts
by men to obtain police
protection may result in the man being arrested (Cook, 1997). That ironic situation is an
additional reason that men are reluctant to call for police protection. The
main reason is
one already discussed in
explaining gender differences in
police statistics: The
injury rate is
much lower when the offender
is a woman and there
is therefore less
perceived need to
call for protection. The
fact that assault
is a legal and
moral crime, regardless of whether there is injury, is lost from
view.
Men are also
less likely to call the
police, even when
there is injury, because, like women, they feel shame
about disclosing family violence. But for many men, the shame is
compounded by the shame of not being
able to keep their wives under control. Among this group, a "real
man" would be able to keep her under control. Moreover, many police share
these same traditional gender role expectations. This adds to the legal and
regulatory presumption That is,
they know they are likely to be able to get away with it. As
in the case of other crimes, the probability of a woman assaulting her partner
is strongly influenced by what she
thinks she can get away with (Gelles & Straus, 1988).
In the last paragraph, Straus touches
on how the ‘90-95% of domestic violence
victims are women’ statement was arrived at. He expounds it further explaining how the figure
is derived .
.. “Crime
studies, without exception, show much
higher rates of assault by men, often 90% by men. Crime studies also find a
prevalence rate (for both men and women) that is a small fraction of the rate of
assaults found by family conflict studies. The difference in prevalence rates and in
gender differences between the
two types of studies probably
occur because crime studies deal with only the small part of all
domestic assaults that the participants experience as a crime, such as assaults
which result in an injury serious enough to need medical attention, or assaults
by a former partner. These occur
relatively rarely and tend to be assaults by men. “
….Other
reasons why assaults by women are
rare in
police statistics probably include the reluctance of men to admit that
they cannot "handle their wives." In
addition, although police in some
jurisdictions are now arresting female offenders more than
previously, analogous to their former reluctance to make arrests of
husbands, they remain reluctant to
make arrests in such cases
(Cook, 1997).”
Circa 1994, the 90-95% was the given gender
split which reported serious Crime assaults resulting in injury caused by an
ex- partner. Back in 1994, men just didn’t
report similar assaults where they had been victims and even today, 20 years
later, there is a reluctance by men to do so.
The truth is out there – sometimes you just
have to dig a little deeper to find it!
