Originally found at CAFE – Dan
“HALF of domestic violence victims are men, but NO domestic violence shelters are dedicated to us.”
That’s where you come in. Here’s what you can do:
Donate so we can extend this ad beyond 1 month or get these billboard ads up across Canadian cities. Currently we are committed to a single billboard for a 1 month period. Donate through the link top right, then email us if you wish to direct your donation to a particular city.
Tweet or join the conversation on social media using #LetsTalkMen @EqualityCanada
Download our briefing document and share with your friends and colleagues. If you’re a student, do a class presentation on violence against men. CAFE spokespeople are available to assist.
Why are we hosting this campaign?
CAFE is dedicated to advancing evidence-based public policies and bringing services to all those who need support. Policies and services should be built on facts and not beholden to ideologies. Our billboard advertising campaign will highlight a variety of areas where our gender dialogue needs to evolve. When we are concerned with the health and welfare of both men and women, our families are stronger and our communities healthier.
Terms used in this brief:
Domestic Violence (DV),
Family Violence (FV),
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)
Link directly to a topic:
Facts and Figures on Domestic Violence
How Does Canadian Data Compare to Global Findings?
What about Emotional Abuse and Control?
How come so many people think the vast majority of domestic violence victims are women?
What are the resources available to men who are abused by their partners?
Myth: Men are far less likely to be victims of female-perpetrated violence than the reverse
Myth: Men and women abuse their partners for different reasons
Myth: When women do commit violence against men it is always in self-defense
Myth: Violence against men is less severe than violence against women?
Facts and Figures on Domestic Violence
The Basic Facts on Gender and Violence in Canada
- Of the nearly 19 million Canadians who had a current or former spouse in 2009, 6.2% or 1.2 million reported they had been victimized physically or sexually by their partner or spouse during the previous 5 years.
- A similar proportion of men and women reported experiencing spousal violence during the five years prior to the survey. Among men, 6.0% or about 585,000, encountered spousal violence during this period, compared with 6.4% or 601,000 women.
- The latest numbers have changed slightly since the previous General Social Survey with a decrease in the number of women reporting spousal violence and an increase in the number of men reporting spousal violence.
- In Canada more women than men report being pushed, shoved or slapped while more men than women report being kicked, bit, or hit with something.
Excellent sources for basic stats in support of the above:
Statistics about Spousal Violence from Statistics Canada
StatsCan 2005 Family Violence Highlighted
Juristat 2013 Financial impact Highlighted
Emergency room male victims survey Highlighted
Martin Fiebert 2014 Domestic Violence study abstracts
How Does Canadian Data Compare to Global Findings?
- Lifetime rates somewhat higher among women than men. High school student victimization rates somewhat higher for males than females
- The rates of spousal abuse in Canada are consistent with global rates.
- Past year rates somewhat higher among men.
- Higher rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) among younger, dating populations.
Source: The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project (PASK), the world’s largest domestic violence research database, which summarizes 1,700 peer-reviewed studies.
What about Emotional Abuse and Control?
- 80% of individuals have perpetrated emotional abuse.
- Emotional abuse categorized as either expressive (in response to a provocation) or coercive (intended to monitor, control and/or threaten).
- Across studies, 40% of women and 32% of men reported expressive abuse; 41% of women and 43% of men reported coercive abuse.
- Within studies of stalking and obsessive behaviours, gender differences are much less when all types of obsessive pursuit behaviours are considered, but more skewed toward female victims when the focus is on physical stalking.
How come so many people think the vast majority of domestic violence victims are women?
There are many reasons for the misconceptions surrounding domestic violence against men. These reasons include the increased media attention that is given to cases of male on female domestic violence, stereotypical ideas about gender that view men as strong and women as weak, and the views of some gender advocates that see the genders as in conflict with women being in the oppressed position.
What are the resources available to men who are abused by their partners?
Not much. After extensive research we found not a single agency in Toronto dedicated to male victims of domestic violence. Across Canada we found exactly one agency – the Men’s Resource Centre in Winnipeg – which offers four beds for battered men. When it comes to men attempting to escape domestic abuse situations along with their children, we found zero facilities dedicated to these families in trouble.
The most comprehensive study of domestic abuse shelters in Canada was conducted by the Government of Canada’s Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, which concluded in 2006 that as to “Facilities that exclusively serve male victims of spousal violence… only one such facility was known to be in operation.” We attempted to determine the identify of this agency and whether it was still in operation, but the author of this report was unable to provide this information. The Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness, an established authority on the subject, indicated to our researchers that they were aware of zero domestic abuse shelters dedicated to men in the GTA, while acknowledging that this was a serious gap.
While there are shelters for homeless men, these are not equipped with the broad range of social support that women’s domestic abuse shelters often provide.
A small percentage (6-8%) of abuse shelters dedicated to women do accept a small number of male victims. This both proves that such male victims do in fact exist while highlighting the serious gap in services dedicated to men.
The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics had this to say:
The THS asks shelters to indicate whether or not they permit adult males to be admitted to their facility. About 9 out of 10 shelters prohibit the admission of men, while approximately 8% have policies that permit men to be admitted.
However, even within this small number, the majority of these shelters were classified as emergency shelters, which tend not to provide the counselling and psychological services domestic victims require.
Many domestic abuse shelters are publicly funded. Public funds should be assigned based on need and not on gender.
Shelters for abused women in Canada, 2012
Myths and Facts
Myth: Men are far less likely to be victims of female-perpetrated violence than the reverse
Fact: Men are as likely to have been hit by their female partners as women are to have been hit by their male partners.
Source: Sex differences in aggression between heterosexual partners: A meta-analytic review.
Myth: Violence is overwhelmingly uni-directional, that is a stronger partner commits violence against a weaker partner.
Fact: Among large population samples, 57.9% of IPV reported was bi-directional, that is committed mutually by both partners, whereas only 42% was unidirectional. Of the unidirectional violence, 13.8% was male to female (MFPV), 28.3% was female to male (FMPV). In other words, a significant majority of violence in which women are victims is actually mutual violence. Erin Pizzey, a pioneering advocate for women’s domestic abuse shelters, has described her experience in opening the first such safe space for women. “Of the first 100 women who came through our doors, 62 were as violent as the men they had left behind,” she wrote in her memoir, This Way to the Revolution, “I had to face the fact that the males were always going to be blamed for violence within a family and that.. false claims would be made against them and that the women would always be believed.” (p.82) She was ostracized by her community and has received death threats ever since.
Myth: Men and women abuse their partners for different reasons
Fact: The reasons that men and women abuse their partners are the same between the genders. The most common reasons that people of both genders hit their partners are coercion, anger, and attempts to punish a partner for misbehaviour, especially sexual infidelity.
Myth: When women do commit violence against men it is always in self defense
Fact: Self defence is no more common a reason for female violence against a partner than it is for male violence against a partner
Source:
Follingstad, D. R., Wright, S., Lloyd, S., & Sebastian, J. A. (1991). Sex differences in motivations and effects in dating violence. Family Relations, 40(1), 51–57.
Medeiros, R. A., & Straus, M. A. (2006). Risk factors for physical violence between dating partners: Implications for gender-inclusive prevention and treatment of family violence. In J. C. Hamel & T. Nicholls (Eds.), Family approaches to domestic violence: A practitioners guide to gender-inclusive research and treatment (pp. 59–87). New York: Springer (also available at http://pubpages. unh.edu/∼mas2
Myth: Violence against men is less severe than violence against women?
Fact: There is a raging debate on this very question. The Canadian Department of Justice published a study in 2009 on the impact of spousal violence in Canada. They found some studies showing the severity of violence against women was more severe, while others found it was more severe against men. For example, a study by sociologists Richard B. Felson and Alison C. Cares found that male victims sustained worse injuries than did females. The risk of injury to either partner is also highest when both partners are violent so addressing domestic violence perpetrated by women will increase safety for both genders.
Sources:
An Estimation of the Economic Impact of Spousal Violence in Canada, 2009. Department of Justice Canada
Richard B. Felson and Alison C. Cares, Gender and the Seriousness of Assaults on Intimate Partners and Other Victims. Article first published online: 21 NOV 2005. DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00209.x
The psychological effects of domestic violence are severe and similar for both genders.
Source: Physical and mental health effects of intimate partner violence for men and women
Myth: We don’t need to take male victimization seriously because men are stronger and can just leave their female partners
Fact: An important study on male victims of female-perpetrated violence debunks the common sexist excuses for trivializing male victimization. The following is quoted at length.
“One well-noted assumption about women who use IPV against their men partners is that they are acting solely in self-defense or retaliation against their presumably violent men partners. This assumption, held by a few researchers, has been refuted by studies assessing women’s motives for IPV, which show that, although some women report self-defense or retaliation as a motive, most do not.
“Another assumption concerning woman-to-man violence held by some researchers focuses on the relative size difference between most men and women. Because, on average, men are physically bigger and stronger than their women partners, some authors have argued that men would strike back or restrain a woman partner who becomes violent and that men presumably also have the ability to leave the premises without being forcibly restrained by their women partners. Some researchers who forward this assumption conclude that, because men can easily fight back, restrain their partners, and/or leave the premises, women’s violence against men is trivial, humorous, or annoying, and violence by women toward men has no social or psychological effects on the men who sustain it.
“A related assumption is that men who sustain IPV from their women partners can leave their partners. Some researchers argue that men are not economically trapped in marriage or romantic relationships like women, because their incomes and occupational statuses tend to be higher; they are not physically or economically constrained from leaving, nor are they as psychologically invested in the children or household. Researchers who support this line of reasoning focus on concrete resources that are often available to men such as physical strength, employment, and transportation. Nonetheless, case studies show that men who sustain IPV often focus on these and other barriers to leaving an abusive relationship, including a commitment to marriage, lack of financial resources, and concern for their children. In such circumstances, men often worry that their women partners will obtain custody of their children.”
Source: “A Closer Look at Men Who Sustain Intimate Terrorism by Women.” The U.S. Library of Medicine
Myth: The high gender asymmetry in the rates of police-reported or hospital-reported domestic abuse implies that male victimization is a marginal issue
Fact: Domestic violence reported to the police is less than 5% of all domestic violence incidents.
Source: Kaufman Kantor, G., & Straus, M. A. (1990). Response of victims and the police to assaults on wives. In M. A. Straus & R. J. Gelles (Eds.), Physical violence in American families: Risk factors and adaptations to violence in 8,145 families (pp. 473–487). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Men are less likely to view the IPV as a crime or to report it to police. This affects not just the number of domestic assaults reported to the police but also surveys which ask men and women about criminal acts committed against them.
Source: Male Victims of Domestic Violence Donal, D G. Dutton Katherine R. White
Myth: Since all public awareness campaigns tell me that all violence is perpetrated by men against women, this campaign exaggerates male victimization.
Fact: Often older statistics are used in brochures, pamphlets and online resources. These statistics are often taken from studies when men were not the target of data collection efforts. Canadian Juristat Articles that refer to “Intimate Partner Violence” or “Spousal Violence” use the term “Violence against Women” when measuring trends that cover all aspects of these instances in many cases, conflating the meaning of these terms.
Special interest advocacy organizations may use ambiguous language and misleading statistics in an effort to advance their cause. One such example from the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women:
“Violence in lesbian relationships: A small study found that 20% of lesbians had experienced some form of emotional/psychological or physical violence in a relationship with a woman. Eleven percent had experienced physical violence, and 2% had been sexually assaulted in the relationship. The statistics are much lower than in male-female relationships, but it nevertheless remains an important issue, particularly because lesbians may not feel they can seek help from social services, police or the courts because of the stigma and discrimination around sexual orientation.”
This interpretation is patently untrue. 20% is more than 3 times higher than the rate of abuse in heterosexual relationships.
Another example is from the Canadian Women’s Foundation:
“Some self-reported research shows women are almost as likely to use violence against their partner as men.30 Although some people claim that men are too embarrassed to admit a woman has abused them, the reverse is actually true: in self-reported research, men tend to over-estimate their partner’s violence while under-estimating their own. At the same time, women over-estimate their own violence, and under-estimate their partner’s.”
This is false, there is no study that makes this conclusion.
Newspapers also misreport facts, and whether intentional or not will take statistics out of context. An example of this being “Violence against women is a global scourge” from the Whig Standard.
“More specifically, men committed 98% of intimate partner violence and 74% of attacks against women committed by strangers.”
This is quite often misinterpreted as “men commit 98% of ALL intimate partner violence” instead of “men commit 98% of intimate partner violence against women.” This naturally leads the public to believe that women only commit 2% of intimate partner violence.
Whether intentional or not, the wording of many articles on the subject is often ambiguous and allows reasonable people to easily conflate “all Intimate partner violence” with “intimate partner violence against women.” How much Intimate Partner Violence is committed against men by women?, rarely seems to get asked.
Myth: I read somewhere that few if any victims of domestic violence are men so male victimization can be safely dismissed.
Fact: There are a number of ways in which the evidence for gender symmetry in domestic violence is ignored by people who insist on seeing domestic violence as part of a program by society to oppress women. These include just not mentioning the facts on male victimization, not asking questions about male victimization, not citing studies that show male victimization, and citing studies as supporting ideas that women are not violent when the studies in fact contradict that claim. It is important to check for to make sure a study is not using one of the preceding techniques before taking it at face value.
Myth: Violence against men is less of a problem than violence against women because it isn’t part of a patriarchal effort to hold women down.
Fact: The view of domestic violence as part of a societal wide program to hold women down is not supported by the data, especially the fact that violence within same-sex relationships consisting either of two men or two women is at least as severe as violence within heterosexual relationships. “The National Violence Against Women survey found that 21.5 percent of men and 35.4 percent of women living with a same-sex partner experienced intimate-partner physical violence in their lifetimes.”
Sources:
http://www.sascwr.org/files/www/resources_pdfs/abuse/Abuse_in_Same_Sex_Relationships.pdf
http://www.advocate.com/crime/2014/09/04/2-studies-prove-domestic-violence-lgbt-issue
A majority of family violence is in fact mutual in that in these dysfunctional relationships both partners tend to commit violence against each other. We need to accept objective data and allow ourselves to be led by the evidence. This is the only method by which we can formulate solutions that will help keep everyone safe.
