Men are victims, too

The column by Jenee Osterheldt about domestic violence left male victims invisible and assumed the problem is primarily male-on-female when it is not (10/5, FYI, “Don’t keep violence in the dark”). That was unfair to male victims, both gay and straight.

The latest fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control states: “In the United States every year, about 1.5 million women and more than 800,000 men are raped or physically assaulted by an intimate partner.” It also states that one-fourth of intimate partner homicide victims are men (www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm).

In May 2007 the Centers for Disease Control found half of heterosexual domestic violence was reciprocal and that women committed more than 70 percent of the reciprocal violence.

In fact, although men are less likely to report the violence, virtually all sociological research worldwide shows women initiate domestic violence as often as men and men suffer one third of the injuries. California State University Professor Martin Fiebert summarizes over 200 studies of these studies in an online bibliography (www.csulb.edu/˜mfiebert/assault.htm).

How much longer will male victims and their children remain hidden like this?

Marc E. Angelucci
President, Los Angeles chapter, National Coalition of Free Men (www.ncfmla.org)
Los Angeles

Comments

[solomon]

When you break down violence to male on female, female on male, man on child, female on child, step-parent against children, gay against straight, straight against bi-sexual, black against white, white against black, black male gay against midget female asian homophobe.....I could go on forever with scenarios. Mankind is violent, period.

Somewhere an Irish-Eskimo is punching his stepdaughters transexual high school gym teacher in the nose right now.

[Mark K]

I'm guessing the numbers for female on male violence are underreported. What man wants to call the police and say he got beat up by a girl? ;)