I’ve noticed that young women are quite frightened of men, because they are taught that men are dangerous. I’m concerned that these beliefs will deter women from choosing men wisely, and marrying them. One way to counter these fears about “domestic violence” is to take a look at the studies, and see who is really doing the violence. Is it always men, or is there a balance?

The study was published in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma.

Here’s the abstract:

Recent debates surrounding intimate partner violence (IPV) have focused on its gender symmetry and gender-oriented nature. These debates center on findings from various data sources, like victimization or self-reported surveys and police-based reports. Data by Statistics Canada, from 1999 to 2014, has shown that the prevalence of IPV is similar for male and female victims, except for sexual assaults. However, there has been a paucity of studies on the severity and risk factors of IPV against men by female partners. Thus, this paper examines the severity of and risk factors for physical IPV against heterosexual men in Canada using the General Social Survey (Victimization) data of 2014. This study revealed that there is a symmetry in the experiences of physical violence between male and female victims. This study also revealed that male victims experience more severe violence than female victims. Using binary logistic regression analysis, years of dwelling together, the victim’s age, childhood victimization, and marijuana use were found to predict physical IPV against heterosexual men. This paper concludes with suggestions about how these predicting factors can be used to identify male victims and the need for a more inclusive approach toward addressing IPV, which should include male victims.

The key points for us:

• scholars typically ignore violence against men committed by women: “However, there has been a paucity of studies on the severity and risk factors of IPV against men by female partners.”
• men and women commit domestic violence at roughly equal rates: “This study revealed that there is a symmetry in the experiences of physical violence between male and female victims.”
• Men are the victims of more severe violence than women: “This study also revealed that male victims experience more severe violence than female victims.”

This confirms data from a blog post I wrote a long time ago (2011) about this issue.

I found that:

Data from Home Office statistical bulletins and the British Crime Survey show that men made up about 40% of domestic violence victims each year between 2004-05 and 2008-09, the last year for which figures are available. In 2006-07 men made up 43.4% of all those who had suffered partner abuse in the previous year, which rose to 45.5% in 2007-08 but fell to 37.7% in 2008-09.

That’s the UK.

And:

An estimated 7% of women and 6% of men in a current or previous spousal relationship encountered spousal violence during the five years up to and including 2004, according to a comprehensive new report on family violence.

That’s Canada.

It’s interesting to note that the police and the courts do not acknowledge that women commit domestic violence. Whenever there is a report of domestic violence, the man is ALWAYS assumed to be the attacker, and ALWAYS arrested and removed from his home. That is the way that domestic violence works, according to the famous “Duluth model”. The Duluth model actually discourages men from getting into relationships that lead to marriage. Men don’t want to be attacked by women, and then treated as the aggressors by police.

Another factor also deters men from relationships and marriage: courts that are biased against men. When there is domestic violence, women are treated far more leniently than men. I blogged about a study about this recently, and found:

The estimated gender disparities are strikingly large, conditional on observables. Most notably, treatment as male is associated with a 63% average increase in sentence length, with substantial unexplained gaps throughout the sentence distribution.

I see stories all the time where women are violent, and get no jail time. Here is one story from January 2024 and here is another from March 2024.

Men do look at these studies, and they decide on their life goals accordingly. Don’t blame men for aligning their goals and decisions with the way that the world really is. If women want men to engage the way that men used to, they should stop being so defensive and fix the problems that are deterring men from relationships.