Sex and Gender class blog: Violence in Society.

5/21/13

Violence in Society.

Posted by Rotcabbage

When we see the word violence, we always think of women being the victims. We automatically assume that men are perpetrators. Throughout my research of violence against men, I discovered that women can be perpetrators too. Women are as likely to initiate violence against men. Statistics show that every fifteen seconds men are battered. This statistic is also the same for women. About 1/4 of domestic violence involves men that do not hit women back. These statistics are scary but they are true.

This issue of violence against men drew my attention because most people do not take violence against men seriously. Why do women commit violence against men? I found a very interesting article by Fiebert and Gonzalez (1997) that listed more profound reasons as to why women are abusive toward their partners. The five leading reasons the women gave were:

I believe that men can readily protect themselves so I don't worry when I become physically aggressive (24%).
I have found that most men have been trained not to hit a woman and therefore I am not fearful of retaliation from my partner (19%).
I believe if women truly are equal to men then women should be able to physically express anger at men (13%).
I learned when growing up that I could be physically aggressive toward my brother and he would not fight back (12%).
I sometimes find when I express my anger physically I become turned on sexually (8%).

Why do we see women's abusive behaviors as less offensive?

Many people believe that men are physically stronger that women. A hit from a women cannot possibly cause any damage to men while a hit from men can potentially hurt women. It is true that men are stronger than women, however men have emotions like women do. They are hurt when women kick, slap, or yell at them. Another reason is that men under-report they are being abuse to the police, family and friends. They do that because they are afraid that they might or will get laugh at. It is not within the norms for men to complain about abuse from female partners. Some people say that men are men and should take abuse like men would. They should either retaliate or should not complain about it. Men are no creatures with no heart. It is not fair to make fun of those abused men. It would be better to try to help them seek the help they need.
I was curious to see curious to see how many resources are available to abused men. I am shock to see that there is not a lot. There are far more resources available to women. There should be more resources available to them because they need the help. If we, as a society, are teaching men to be non violent why are we teaching women to be violent? It is not to teach women that it is all right to hit men. The idea that women should hit and abused men is advertised in the media. We see this in movies and comic shows. What kind of society we are creating for our children? Overall we need to put a stop to domestic violence for both men and women. It is a difficult task to do but we all agree that violence is bad for our society and destroys us as human beings we can slowly and hopefully reduce the likelihood of it occurring in our relationships.