To truly understand the dynamics of domestic/dating violence one must recognize that it is a complex, multifaceted, and often misunderstood dilemma that must be viewed through an unbiased lens. All impartial academics and researchers agree domestic violence or dating violence has no single cause nor is there a single cure.
In 1995 Jeffrey Fagan wrote in the National Institute of Justice research report, The Criminalization of Domestic Violence: Promises and Limits, “Assuming that patriarchy and power relations alone cause domestic violence leads us toward conclusions that do not consider a full array of explanatory variables from other disciplines.” Concerning the White Ribbon Campaign Fagan’s advice has fallen on deaf ears. His logic interferes with their agenda.
The issue of high school domestic/dating violence, the specific focus of the White Ribbon Campaign needs to be presented in a more unbiased fashion. I have three daughters and two sons. I understand my daughters, as data document, are at greater risk to experience more serious, injurious and sexual domestic/dating violence assaults than their brothers.
As a retired police officer I know full well that those who suffer black eyes, bruises, broken teeth, cracked ribs, busted noses, and fractured jaws at the hands of those who profess to love them, are much more often women, not men. However, I do not view my three daughters as always being innocent and angelic victims and their two brothers as destined to be demonic abusive perpetrators. If only the enigma that is domestic/dating violence were that simple.
The White Ribbon Campaign proclaims that many men, their website excludes all women from any blame, have come to believe that violence against a woman, child or another man is an acceptable way to control another person. Do they believe that women or girls never use violence as a dating or familial controlling tactic? They claim that female dating violence against males is a rare event. This documents quite clearly that they spend all their time preaching to high school students and no time listening to them.
Why is it that the White Ribbon Campaign and others who moralize about dating violence in schools to our children seem to be only concerned with violence against males by females? Can it be possible that no one in their organization has ever read a single dating violence study? This is supposed to be their area of expertise and their website documents they don’t have a clue. Or worse still, they know the truth and simply hide it.
An article in the August 1, 2001 Journal of the American Medical Association, “Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy, and Suicidality,” begins by quoting from a National Institute of Justice study that reports 1.5 million women are physically and/or sexually abused each year in the United States. For the next seven pages this biased article documents only the problems adolescent girls face concerning dating violence. Would it not make sense to at least mention that while they have been paid only to research girls, they could at least have a couple of lines about how boys can have similar problems. I suppose that also interferes with the agenda.
The same JAMA article would be headlined in a Boston Globe article, “One in five teen girls abused.” No mention of boys here either. Using the same focus as the White Ribbon Campaign, the JAMA article concludes that, “Parents and peers appear to play a role in supporting adolescent males’ [emphasis added] violence toward dating partners…” As long as female violence is painted invisible I suppose girls do not need any parental or peer support about their violence as we are told there is not any.
The article does contain important information concerning the plight of my three daughters; but, what about my sons? Why does not the JAMA article address boys as victims? Why do the authors of the article choose to ignore the plight of boys? Is it because the Violence Against Women Act is more concerned with males as perpetrators and not victims? Perhaps the name, Violence Against Women Act,” might be a clue.
Another similar, yet unbiased, report, Date Violence and Date Rape Among Adolescents: Associations With Disordered Eating Behaviors and Psychological Health, concerning the same type of adolescent abuse was administered in the Minnesota public schools and it reports that nearly 9 percent of girls and 6 percent of boys report some type of abusive date-related experience. Why is it that the JAMA article never once mentioned the problems faced by adolescent boys?
The information in the JAMA article was from the 1999 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The survey documents that 18 percent of females and 7 percent of males report they were hurt physically or sexually by a date or someone they were going out with. Also 16 percent of females and 6 percent of males report that someone had sexual contact with them against their will.
While the JAMA article, notes that 1.5 million women are physically and/or sexually abused each year by an intimate partner the authors had to cut a sentence in half so that they could hide the complete fact. The sentence purposely cut in half by the authors, reports that 834,732 males suffer abuse. Perhaps 834,732 victims is not quite a rate event.
What purpose do the authors believe is being served by hiding the plight of boys and men? Should not all of us regardless of age or gender deserve to be free from abuse? What is the real agenda of the White Ribbon Campaign?
The findings from the National Violence Against Women (NVAW) survey in the report, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, documents that 40.0 percent of surveyed women and 53.8 percent of surveyed men report being physically assaulted by a parent, stepparent, or other adult caretaker as a child.
Another National Institute of Justice sponsored study, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, from the same NVAW survey estimates that annually, 4.8 million women and 2.9 million men will suffer from intimate partner assaults. Is not a victim of abuse a victim of abuse?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau report, Child Maltreatment 1996: Reports From the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, documents that 17,590 children were physically abused by men and 21,757 children were physically abused by women. Do not expect to find this “rare event” data on the White Ribbon website.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics special report, Intimate Partner Violence and Age of Victim, 1993-99, documents that concerning violence between person of the same gender reports that on an annual basis 13,740 males are victims and 16,900 females are the victims of same sex abuse. Does this mean that women are more violent than men when they can be?
The Bureau of Justice Statistics special report, Murder in Families, documents that “in murders of their offspring, women predominated, accounting for 55 percent of the killers.”
If domestic/dating violence is caused by gender inequity, what accounts for the fact that the majority of males do not abuse women? What is the cause of same sex violence? Why the high number of assaults on males as adults and/or children by females?
Why don’t those who insist on reducing the exploration of domestic/dating violence to a gender battle between men and women understand that they are performing a disservice to many victims of abuse, regardless of age or gender?
Why do so many domestic violence advocates continue to argue about what is or is not “abuse?” Why does the White Ribbon Campaign proclaim that we should ask only male students to take a pledge not to hit female students? Do they really expect us to believe that female students only hit male students in self defense? Have they never spoken to a female student who hit her boyfriend because she was jealous?
After 4,000 years of written human history that ignored the issue of domestic violence, why not present the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to our children? The message to our children should be that no one deserves to be hit, regardless of age or gender.
Is it possible that the gender blame game is keeping many people away from the issue of domestic/dating violence? Unbiased data document that being a domestic/dating violence abuser or victim, can be a problem for any of us regardless of age or gender. Perhaps once the White Ribbon Campaign decides to end their gender blame game, more people, both male and female, will get involved in seeking solutions and providing resolution.
