Posted on 07/13/2006 2:10:55 PM PDT by srotaG adirolF
Women more likely to be perpetrators of abuse as well as victims
Filed under Research, Education, Family, Law, Gender on Thursday, July 13, 2006.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Women are more likely than men to stalk, attack and psychologically abuse their partners, according to a University of Florida study that finds college women have a new view of the dating scene.
“We’re seeing women in relationships acting differently nowadays than we have in the past,” said Angela Gover, a UF criminologist who led the research. “The nature of criminality has been changing for females, and this change is reflected in intimate relationships as well.”
In a survey of 2,500 students at UF and the University of South Carolina between August and December 2005, more than a quarter (29 percent) reported physically assaulting their dates and 22 percent reported being the victims of attacks during the past year. Thirty-two percent of women reported being the perpetrators of this violence, compared with 24 percent of men. The students took selected liberal arts and sciences courses. Forty percent were men and 60 percent were women, reflecting the gender composition of these classes.
In a separate survey of 1,490 UF students, one quarter (25 percent) said they had been stalked during the past year and 7 percent reported engaging in stalking, of whom a majority (58 percent) were female.
Although women were the predominant abusers, they still made up the largest number of victims in both surveys, accounting for 70 percent of those being stalked, for example.
The reason more college men weren’t victims may be that women in the study did not exclusively date them, preferring men who had already graduated, not yet enrolled in college or chose not to attend college at all, Gover said. “It shows that students who are perpetrating these attacks aren’t just targeting other students on campus,” she said.
It also is possible that some of the physical attacks women claim they are responsible for are actually acts of self-defense, Gover added. “Maybe some of these women have been abused by their partner for some time and they’re finally fighting back,” she said.
Recent studies on domestic violence suggest that whereas in the past victims might have felt trapped in violent situations, today’s women are more likely to understand they have options instead of putting up with mistreatment, she said.
“I think we may also be seeing sort of a new dynamic in dating relationships in terms of women feeling more empowered,” she said. “They recognize they don’t have to be in a dating relationship forever. They can get out of it.”
Child abuse was the single biggest determining factor for men and women becoming perpetrators or victims of either dating violence or stalking, Gover said. Even if one never personally experienced abuse, witnessing violence between one’s parents as a child increased the likelihood of stalking or being stalked as a young adult and it made girls more susceptible to becoming victims of dating violence when they grew up, she said.
The survey found that men and women who were abused as children were 43 percent more likely than their peers who were not mistreated to perpetrate physical violence and 51 percent more likely to be victims of physical violence in a dating relationship. Violent acts included kicking or slapping, pushing or shoving, punching or hitting with a hand or object, slamming someone against a wall and using force to make a partner have sex, she said.
Sexual risk-taking – the age when survey respondents first had sex and the number of sexual partners in their lifetime – was another important risk factor, but surprisingly, attitudes toward women made no difference, said Gover, who did her research with Catherine Kaukinen, a University of South Carolina criminology professor, and Kathleen Fox, a UF graduate student in criminology. Some of the findings were presented at the American Society of Criminology annual meeting in November in Toronto.
The study also was among the first to look at psychological abuse. Examples included preventing partners from seeing family or friends, shouting at them and using threats to have sex. Fifty-four percent of respondents reported being psychologically abusive, and 52 percent said they were victims of this type of behavior. Women were more likely to be psychologically abusive, with 57 percent saying they were perpetrators versus 50 percent of males.
Shelley Serdahely, executive director of Men Stopping Violence, in Decatur, Ga., questions the validity of studies showing women are more violent. “Women might be more likely to get frustrated because men are not taught how to be active listeners and women feel like they are not being heard,” she said. “Often women are more emotional because the relationship matters a lot to them, and while that may come out in a push or a shove or a grab, all of which are considered dating violence, it doesn’t have the effect of intimidating the man.”
Credits Writer Cathy Keen, ckeen@ufl.edu, 352-392-0186
Source Angela Gover, agover@ufl.edu, 352-219-4977
Women hit men? Get out...that never happens. (Riiight)
And the Arabs are peaceful.
hmmm
No, she just talks about it more. Well, maybe it's the men that talk about it. Honestly, I've known more women that are violent toward men than vice versa. They knew the men wouldn't fight back or tell.
"and using force to make a partner have sex"
I thought this was called RAPE. I guess not under the microscope of political correctness.
I'm so glad we've used our empowerment to become MORE violent in relationships. It would be a shame to waste our newfound empowerment on petty things like ending prostitution, or teaching our daughters to respect themselves by what they wear and how they act.
(okay, my little rant is over)
The author seems to be confusing a new paradigm with what is actually just a new degree of honesty.
Women in abusive relationships who "switch" to the other team are often surprised to find that lesbians can be abusive too.
BRAVO!!!!
What an obvious attempt to rationalize away the results. Even if the man isn't physically intimidated, you'd better believe he's legally and socioculturally intimidated--precisely on account of the anti-male biases we all know exist (and which are quite evident in the article.)
The idea that one gender is somehow "more evil" than the other is pure, unadulterated sexism.
(Gover added. “Maybe some of these women have been abused by their partner for some time and they’re finally fighting back,” she said.)
Without any actual data, she has no problem to basically say that the men were asking for it! Nice!
Just read that title over 3 or 4 times and see if doesn't sound stupid. Does no one study grammar anymore?
Look at TV or movies. It's acceptable for women to respond to an insult with physical violence against a man.
for one thing, women tend to always feel guilty, about everything...I can certainly see women admitting that they did something or thought something even if objectively, it wasn't exactly true...and men are less ready to admit a lot of things....
not to say that today's young women aren't as a group very aggressive, impulsive, promisive, and self-centered, more so I think than 30 yrs ago....
I have a dtr that age and she has lots of friends that age, and believe me, its astounding what some of them are like...thankfully, not my dtr, who is turning out pretty well.....
bump
This study sounds heavily reliant on PC redefinitions of "abuse". "Psychological abuse" is an inherently fuzzy term, but no doubt a lot more minor stuff qualifies in the minds of today's researchers, than in the minds of researchers 50 years ago (remember, hooting at a good-looking girl walking by now counts in the "sexual assault" figures that these folks put out -- little wonder they manage to come up with stats like "4 out of 5 women have been victims of sexual assault", that are routinely repeated as fact at freshman orientation sessions all over the country, without explanation of the criteria used). And a harmless slap delivered by a small woman to a big beefy man now counts as "physical abuse".
It always has been. Throwing a corsage at the guy, yanking on his shoulder as he turns away to get him to face her again during an argument, pulling on his arm to try to prevent him from leaving, etc. All this is "physical abuse" in the minds of current-day researchers with an agenda. But it hardly would have shocked movie-goers 50 or 60 years ago.
for one thing, women tend to always feel guilty, about everything...I can certainly see women admitting that they did something or thought something even if objectively, it wasn't exactly true...and men are less ready to admit a lot of things....
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I got a different impression, my first wife died of cancer when I was 47 and when I started circulating again, most singles I met were divorced at least once. I did not meet a single woman who would admit that the divorce was her fault. In most divorces it is the woman who leaves (or forces her husband out of the house) contrary to what some would have us believe. But even those women who said they walked away all said that it was his fault. On the other hand I met several men who said that they were definitely at fault and their wives should have left them. Believe me most of the divorced women I met made it apparent in short order that they had no business ever being married. When a woman deliberately does things that a man finds very annoying and refuses to stop doing those things, and I am talking about stupid stuff like coming up with an offensive "pet name" which she insists on using even in front of others then that woman is serving notice that she is unfit for a long term relationship of any kind.
I'm remembering a friend, a sort of "gentle giant" of a guy, hard working, succesful, etc. They were in counseling and his wife was just hurling every demeaning expletive laden insult at him. He was quietly saying he couldn't take it anymore and he would have to leave the marriage if she didn't stop. The counselor is telling her, "Do you hear this Joanne, Steve is saying he is going to leave if this continues?" And she screams at the counselor, "I don't blankety blank care what the blankety blank does, he's a no good blankety blank!" So he left her.
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