Posted on 07/30/2002 4:01:03 PM PDT by chance33_98
By the way, don't you think that the women at a shelter would be a bit biased against men?
Yes, I have kids. And yes I am far more concerned about harm being done to them by males.
But that was never the point. The point(I thought) was women & men initiate domestic violence at more or less the same rate, not which sex is capable of more damage. I have heard these same statistics from several valid sources now, and believe they are correct. Why cannot you accept them?
If you saw the condition of the women who came into these shelters, or worked the hotline for a week, you might understand what is out there in terms of domestic violence.
By the way, the women's shelter also supports men that come in from domestic abuse. They are very much aware that men experience this from women. One of my male friends was domestically abused; I really feel for what he went through. Men do also have a more difficult time stepping forward than women. But no, the shelter is not biased. The police officer we spoke to was very forthcoming about domestic abuse and he seemed to support what we were learning
By the way, I'm not deathly afraid of men, I'm cautious. I actually do have a life and a lot of close male friends.
How do you mean? Initiate arguments? I can see that being equal. Initiating violence must also mean carrying through, right? If you mean violence where the intent is to harm in such a way as to gain control and power over the other, I don't believe that women initiate this at the same rate.
Picking arguments, yes, I can see that being equal. Couples fight all the time.
Physical violence. Accept it or not, the statistics say its true.
Hear, hear!
I think the point was that our society teaches boys that it's not right to hit girls. In other societies, boys are taught that women are 2nd class citizens.
Perhaps social expectations have a lot to do with it. Girls are still encouraged to be lady like, boys to be tough. I was a bit of a tomboy when younger though.
Correlation, not causation, which is what I thought you asked about. Actually, all I posted was also a correlation, just the opposite one. Among randomly tested groups of men, higher testosterone correlated with lower aggression levels.
Of course, people are complex beings, and we're unlikely to reduce anything as broad as "aggression" to a single chemical. If aggression is positively correlated with testosterone, perhaps men with higher levels have become more adept at handling it, and thus score lower on aggression tests. Whatever the reason, the linkage is certainly not direct.
Drew Garrett
First off, it's eunuchs. Secondly, the evidence for them being less aggressive is equivocal. They were, among other things, used as harem guards, and were often highly aggressive in pursuit of their duties (arguably due to high frustration ;-) I haven't seen studies comparing relative aggression levels of castrati with normal men - and wouldn't expect to, due to a hopefully small sample size.
I do not know as much about animal research, although I am aware that castrating horses does result in more domesticated animals. It is, at least, a reasonable inference. But I am highly wary of applying it directly to human psychology.
However, speaking of animal psychology... Primate researchers have been spending a fair amount of time studying female aggression in chimps. Older research claims they are not aggressive, and don't engage in the hierarchical behavior of the males. Newer research finds that they are as competitive as the males, but that they attempt to achieve status in different ways. Their status displays tend to be less physically demostrative than the males, but they are longer lasting, as are their enmities. Again, I don't think we can apply this directly to the current argument either, but it's at least interesting in how new research can change our views of old findings.
Drew Garrett
Actually, I don't see such a role. There may be a correlation, but I think it is quite weak; there's a much stronger correlation, for example, between high amounts of alcohol consumption and agressive behavior (and I sometimes wonder why it takes a scientific study to reveal things like this).
As someone pointed out later in the thread, there are studies that show opposing relationships between testosterone and agression. I couldn't find either assertion in the limited selection of psych books I have. Interestingly, one book I do have pointed out that boys "might" be more agressive as early as age 2, long before testosterone rears its anabolic head.
I'm suspecting that both men and women tend to be agressive (and the definition varies quite widely in the use of this term) but in somewhat different ways. I'd consider agression a human trait that can be applied to both populations of men and women in a similar bell-shaped distribution.
I also beleive the gist of the article, despite the rather non-representative population. Other studies have revealed the same tendencies for violent action, despite the arrest rate being different. I also agree that when violent men and violent women are compared, the men tend to do more damage.
I'm just saying that since the man in my hypothetical is behind the financial 8 ball, I refuse to say whether he would be right or wrong in breaking her jaw. The hypothetical presents a motive...
Mind supporting your statement with some facts. Women over centuries have been killing men either directly or indirectly. What does this have to do with the article?
Go figure...
Unforutnately I find no humor in the above. I left an abusive marriage after 17 yrs.....it only took once!
The unfortunate thing was people didn't believe me because I didn't wait long enough to get "really good photos" or end up in the hospital. My relationship escalated from verbal through the others to physical! When he started to lay a hand on my kids and messed with my head so bad I nearly committed suicide....that was my breaking or pivotal point!
In the state I lived in at the time there was "no-fault divorce", so tell me....why would anyone think a woman "made it up" that her husband was abusing her, to get a divorce then? People just don't get it!! With a no fault divorce, all she had to say is "I want out!" Women don't usually make it up....but others just don't want to believe them. I went through HELL during my divorce, with protection orders. People thought I was making it up because he wore such a good mask in public!! What goes on behind a person's front door is not always what may appear to be so on the outside of their front door.
My thoughts exactly!
She has lived through some of this, if I read her prior posts correctly!!
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