October is domestic violence awareness month. The reason we have a specific month set aside for domestic violence is that fundamental feminists (people who believe women’s rights are more important than victim’s rights) claim violence against women is dramatically distinct and different from other forms of violent behavior. It is not!

It is vital for the agenda of fundamental feminist that domestic violence continues to be perceived as a “crime against women” and that it remain dramatically distinct and different from violence in general. This provides fundamental feminists the support of many progressive feminists and women in general.

Fundamental feminists have melded the issue of domestic violence with their agenda of women’ rights and any attack on one is seen as an attack on the other. Hence they have turned our valid concerns about the issue of domestic violence (child, sibling, spousal, intimate partner, and elder abuse) into a “war between the genders.”

Crowell and Burgess, 1996 p.4, note that “Although there appear to be some similarities and some differences between generally violent behavior and violence directed at women, the extent of the similarities and differences remain unknown.” A principal reason the similarities “remain unknown” is that the Federal Violence Against Women Office act does not fund any research with the intent of “discovering” those similarities.

However, with no funding and only a little effort one will discover that the data document people, regardless of age or gender, use violent behavior for three basic reasons (Felson, 2002):

All data collected clearly documents that if you are going to be killed, male or female, you are going to be killed by someone you know rather than a stranger. The most dangerous place to be is in your own home between Saturday night at six and Sunday night at six (Fletcher, 1996).

The Bureau of Justice Statistics website http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/welcome.html, documents that the difference in victimization rates between males and females for crimes of violence committed against them by relatives or people well know to the victim is only 2.2 percent. The difference in assaults is only 1.3 percent.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics documents that strangers commit 32 percent of the total violent crime against women and 55 percent of the violent crime against men. The Bureau of Justice Statistics Factbook, Violence by Intimates, documents that intimate violence accounts for only about a fifth of all violence against females (Greenfeld, 1998)

It is generally recognized that the issue of unequal power, control and economic resources influences all violence, not only violence against women. There is no question that the issue of unequal power, control and resources effects child, sibling, spousal, intimate partner, and elder abuse, regardless of the age or gender of the offender (Chalk & King, 1998).

The reasons for violence within the family most often reflect the various theories concerning violence in general (Brownstein, 2000). Most stranger and family violent acts involve power, domination, and threats to harm whereby the offender intends to impose predetermined outcomes on strangers or family members (Felson, 2002). Those predetermined outcomes are designed to benefit the offender.

The only distinction between domestic violence and stranger violence is the location and number of offenders and victims; it is not in the dynamics. Men are more physically violent against women in the home than in public. Women are more physically violent against men in the home than in public. Women and men are more physically violent towards children in the home than they are in public.

The vast majority of demographic characteristics of domestic violence are similar to those of stranger crime (Hendricks, McKean & Hendricks, 2003). The majority of criminologists understand that the preeminent variable of all crime are opportunity and ability (Barolw & Kauzlarich, 2002).

When fundamental feminists are confronted with the fact that more women physically assault children than do men, the excuse most often used for that behavior is that more children reside with women than men. That provides women with both opportunity and ability.

The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) at the University of Michigan documents that, by percentage of total crime, men are victims more than women. Criminal justice data from the above site will also document that while women suffer more than men as victims in the home. However, by percentage of total crime by women, women commit more violence in the home than men.

All violence, stranger, family or intimate partner can be expressive, instrumental or it can be a combination of both. Expressive violence rises from feelings of anger, rage or hate. Instrumental violence is when an offender uses force or violence to achieve short or long term goals. Spanking, its proponents claim, is used to achieve a goal, (instrumental.)

However, most studies document that parents are “upset and angry” when they spank a child (expressive.) Domestic violence, regardless of the age or gender of the offender or victim, can be expressive, instrumental, or often a combination of both (Hendricks, McKean & Hendricks, 2003).

Men in general are not violent against women in particular. Men in general are more violent against other men than they are women. Some men are more violent than women in general, and some men are much more violent than others (Ghiglieri, 1999). However, none of this can be used to dispute the reality of violence by women (Pearson, 1997). Fundamental feminists continue to exclude violent behavior by women as a non-event. When female violence can not be excused, fundamental feminists claim, with a complete lack of any data, that it is most often defensive in nature. 

How does the fundamental feminist claim that domestic violence occurs because “the patriarchy makes men do it” account for child, sibling, same sex partner, and elder abuse? How is it that the vast majority of men are unaffected by their patriarchal past and do not beat and batter women? How does the patriarchy account for the fact that more women physically assault children than men. There is not a single scientific study that documents that men in general beat and batter women in particular.  

In the early 1970s Samuel Yochelson and Stanton E. Samenow produced their classic multi-volume work titled The Criminal Personality. They were concerned with determining what behaviors chronic criminals shared. They identified 53 patterns of thought and action, which they said were present in all 255 offenders. "They described criminals as untrustworthy, demanding, and exploitive of others, with little capacity for love. Habitual offenders were said to harbor a persistent anger, which could boil over at any time," (Schmalleger, 1999 p. 113).

Most domestic violence abusers exhibit similar personalities. While some domestic violence abusers may have problems with self-esteem, many others do not. In fact it is often inflated self-esteem and sensitivity to criticism that creates their anger and rage. The majority of men are as appalled by the violent behavior of these men as are fundamental of feminists.

Rather than contemporary “one label fits all victims/offenders” domestic violence policies, procedures, and programs, there should be intervention, sanctions and programs that will educate the criminal justice system and batterer intervention programs about all the diverse forms of family violence and their connection to aberrant criminal violent behavior.

Given these facts intervention for stranger or domestic violence crimes should focus sanctions and programs toward the violent and chronic offenders. And because of limited resources, assistance should be provided first and foremost to victims, regardless of age or gender, who are marginalized by their socioeconomic and educational status and/or their lack of public, private, and familial resources and support.