Breaking the Silence: Mothers Can Be Abusers
November 9, 2005
No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. - Elie Wiesel
There is not a single reference any where in the documentary Breaking The Silence: Children’s Stories (BTS) that some children are at risk of suffering harm at the hands of their mothers. The producers, Lasseur and Tatge, also claim that the introduction of one father as a victim of domestic violence would overstate the problems fathers face.
Bureau of Justice (BJS) statistics crime data does document women are five to eight times more likely to be the victims of intimate partner abuse than men. Hence Lasseur and Tatge claim, that this single stand alone “crime data collection” documents that any representation of fathers would overstate the problem of male victimization.
It is recognized that males commit more crimes than females. However, it is also a fact that most domestic violence incidents are not viewed nor reported as crimes. When domestic violence is reported as a crime, the National Violence Against Women Survey documents women are approximately twice as likely as men to report domestic violence incidents (26.7% vs. 13.5%) and the police are approximately three times more likely to arrest or detain men than women for a domestic violence physical assault (36.4% vs. 12.3%) .
Do Lasseur and Tatge really think that BJS “crime data” standing alone presents an objective and accurate cross section of the behavior of all mothers and fathers in the general population?
Rape is an even more startling example of the “crime data” vs. “community survey” gender differential. The National Crime Victimization Survey 2002 reports that 96.3% of the victims of rape and sexual assaults are females. However, the findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey reports that 302,091 women and 92,748 men are forcibly raped each year in the United States.
Domestic violence advocates who work in shelters that address themselves as shelter for women, claim that only 5% of men are victims. The National Crime Victimization Survey reports that 15% of domestic violence victims are men. The National Violence Against Women Survey (a community survey with crime implications) reports that approximately 33.3% of victims are men. The vast majority of Community Surveys without crime implications report that physical abuse rates are approximately equal between males and females.
A fairly objective presentation of the distribution of victimization between male and female victims of domestic violence victimization is available at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) Intimate Partner Violence: Fact Sheet.
It seems apparent that the only reason Lasseur and Tatge think that “crime data” should be used as the “single stand alone factual presentation” of domestic violence victimization is because “crime data” is the only data collection process that fits what they believe and it is what they want others to believe.
The Media
Apparently the ABC Nightly News believes it. On November 6, 2005 ABC News presented a special about “violence in the workplace.” It was noted that one in three women have been abused. ABC News did not mention that the methodology of that particular survey would document that approximately the same number of men are abused. Is ABC News simply ignorant of that fact, or similar to Lasseur and Tatge, for reasons ABC does not to reveal, ABC apparently has also decided to ignore any reporting of male domestic violence victimization.
The ABC program contains not a single word about male victimization in the workplace. Male victimization was completely ignored despite a recent CDC and NCIPC study that documents the high cost of domestic violence health care for both men and women. The study found that health care costs associated with each incident were $948 where women were victims and $387 where men were victims.
Equality is Measured by Sympathy and Empathy, not Mathematical Equations .
Michael S. Kimmel is a Professor of Sociology for SUNY at Stony Brook, NY and a feminist. Kimmell understands and has written more than once that male victims do not have to constitute any magic or specific percentage of victimization in order to deserve either sympathy, attention or access to services.
No where else in America Society does the mainstream media and our political policy makers take the victimization of (Group A) serious and provide them with research, services and empathy while taking another group of victims of the same phenomenon (Group B) and consistently minimize, marginalize, and ignore them.
Over the last few decades feminism has played an important role in redefining domestic violence from wife beating to incidents that occurs when one person repeatedly uses physical force, economic and material coercion or emotional manipulation to alter or change the behavior of another family member/intimate partner to achieve a real or perceived individual need.
If mathematical differentials alone decide who deserves our sympathy and empathy then Lasseur, Tatge and the media should understand that by statute law in all fifty states, domestic violence is child, sibling, spousal, intimate partner regardless of sexual orientation, and elder abuse.
Thus, using Federal and State standards, the highest mathematical numbers of domestic violence victims are people who are not adult heterosexual females. As long as domestic violence is considered only or primarily violence against women the argument of percentage differentials between victims will preclude solution. The enigma of domestic violence is not exclusive to any one gender, any specific sexual orientation or age bracket. And to end it we need to become more inclusive not exclusive concerning victimization and perpetration.
