The battered husbands

Domestic violence is more complicated than the stereotyped scene of a victim and a perpetrator. Threats of physical, sexual, psychological, mental or emotional violence are started and finished by men and women equally. The belief that men are the main perpetrators is simply incorrect.

Yet innocent men are routinely removed from their homes by the police merely on the evidence of false allegations against them by their wives or co-habiting partners. Men are not given opportunities to contest these allegations or insist that their accusers provide proof. These men may have no alternative accommodation and some are made homeless. Without a home they can’t get a job, and without a job they can’t meet their financial obligations either to themselves or to their estranged children. In these circumstances women who are prepared to tell lies wield enormous power against the men in their lives.

When such threats are directed at women they are regarded as serious crimes. When the same threats are pointed at men they are not. Even worse, men are often even ridiculed, ignored or simply disbelieved by the police and social services.

In this climate most men don’t report incidents in which they have suffered even serious abuse. If these bashed and whacked men require hospital treatment, they cover up through misplaced loyalty towards their aggressor by claiming to have had an accident. It’s funny how so many men fall down the stairs!

This well-meaning cover-up behaviour is misplaced, particularly because it harms other men too. Domestic violence statistics are based on reported incidents and official figures show that more men attack women. The data will remain skewed until all men report women for their violent behaviour against them.   

In July 2005 the National Crime Council (NCC), in association with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), published the first large-scale study undertaken to give an overview of the nature, extent and impact of domestic abuse against women and men in intimate partner relationships in Ireland.

Among the notable findings are:

• 15 per cent of women and 6 per cent of men suffer severe domestic abuse.
• 29 per cent of women and 26 per cent of men suffer domestic abuse when severe and minor abuse are combined.
• 13 per cent of women and 13 per cent of men suffer physical abuse.
• 29 per cent of women (one in three) and only 5 per cent of men (one in 20) report to the police.
• 49 per cent of admissions to women’s refuges are travellers – according to the 2002 census travellers account for only 0.6 per cent of the entire population.
• Of those turned away from refuges, 46 per cent were for reasons other than
  the refuges being full.

The Irish government departments of health and justice, which have responsibilities in this area, say the NCC study is definitive research on domestic violence in that country.

The study results on gender prevalence broadly reflect the findings of the three other two-sex studies carried out in Ireland, for ACCORD, the Marriage and Relationship Counselling Service (MRCS) and the health department.  

The MRCS report in 2001, based on a survey of 530 clients, found that mutual domestic violence accounts for 33 per cent of cases, female-perpetrated violence 41 per cent, and male-perpetrated violence 26%.

Similarly, the ACCORD research in 2003, based on a survey of 1,500 clients, found women were perpetrators in 30 per cent of domestic violence cases, men were perpetrators in 23 per cent, and mutual violence accounted for 48 per cent. An interesting feature of this study, in which couples attended counselling, was that 84 per cent of women and 74 per cent of men agreed with their partner’s response to this question, suggesting that the self-reported prevalence is quite reliable.

Since the NCC report, a survey of 200 patients attending a Galway city GP practice in August 2005 found that one in three had experienced domestic violence in the past, while 6 per cent reported they were victims at the time. Of the men, 18.2 per cent were victims of domestic violence. Dr Caitriona Waters, who conducted the survey, said: “The figure of 18.2% may be an underestimate. There are probably more men out there experiencing domestic abuse, but it is difficult for them to volunteer this information. In addition, males do not attend GPs as frequently as female patients.”

In 1997 Mary Cleary helped to set up Amen to help male victims of domestic violence. She reports that since then every two-sex study in Ireland and abroad has vindicated Amen’s position that a significant number of men are also victims of domestic abuse.

In the UK adult patients attending the emergency department of Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, were interviewed in randomly allocated time blocks, using validated questions from an American study. Altogether 256 completed interviews were returned out of a possible 307. The incidence of domestic violence was 1.2 per cent. The lifetime prevalence of domestic violence was 22.4 per cent among men and 22.1 per cent among women.

Still in the UK, a poll undertaken by Mori, which interviewed a representative quota sample of 1,978 adults commissioned by the BBC Here and Now programme, had these main findings:

• One in five, or 18 per cent, of men have been victims of domestic violence by a wife or female partner, as opposed to 13 per cent of women by a man.
• One in nine women admit using physical aggression against a husband or male partner, compared with one in ten men.
• 14 per cent of men say they have been slapped by a partner, compared with 9 per cent of women.
• 11 per cent of men have known a partner to threaten to throw something heavy at them, compared with 8 per cent of women.

In the United States doctors reported on domestic violence among male patients attending a hospital emergency department in Philadelphia over 13 weeks. They wanted to establish the prevalence of the violence committed by women against their men. And what did they find? You’ve guessed it – the incidence was staggering.

Of 866 men interviewed 109 or 12.6 per cent had been the victims of domestic violence at the hands of a female intimate partner within the preceding year. The most common assaults were slapping, grabbing and shoving, applying to 60.6 per cent of victims. These were followed by choking, kicking, biting, and punching (48.6 per cent), and the throwing of objects (46.8 per cent). Thirty-seven per cent of cases involved a weapon. Seven per cent of victims, believe it or not, said they were forced to have sex, 19 per cent contacted the police, 14 per cent required medical attention, 11 per cent pressed charges or sought a restraining order, and 6 per cent had follow-up counselling.

The final calculation was that almost 13 per cent of the men in this sample population had had domestic violence visited on them by a female intimate partner within the previous year.

Extracted from “Venus: The Dark Side”. For more information visit www.VenusTheDarkSide.com

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