Sep 8, 2025 06:15 PM
The last taboo: Acknowledging violent behavior in women
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/...0622ebfa37
EXCERPTS: A recent study, however, challenged the assumption that gender violence is a one-way street. Canadian researchers who looked at data involving 35,900 teens found that boys reported “significantly higher rates” of physical violence while dating than girls over a 10-year period.
A single study is not, of course, definitive. But these results are significant because they align with decades of research finding that women are nearly as likely to perpetrate domestic violence toward men as men are toward women. This doesn’t mean the physical harm is the same. As the pioneering researcher Murray Straus put it decades ago, owing to greater male upper body strength, “She may cast the first coffee pot, but he generally casts the last and most damaging blows.”
[...] The public’s misunderstanding of domestic violence was on display during the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial in 2022, when credible evidence emerged that Heard was at least as capable of abusing Depp as the reverse...
[...] “These findings can be difficult to reconcile with criminal justice data and societal expectations that frame girls and women as the primary victims,” Catherine Shaffer-McCuish, lead author of the Canadian study on partner violence, told RealClearInvestigations. “Furthermore, public discourse tends to focus on severe, injurious, or coercive violence, which women are more likely to experience. Adolescent dating violence is often more mutual, less injurious, and complex… The result is that certain groups, like boys or LGBTQ youth, may not be seen, supported, or taken seriously when they experience harm.”
[...] Men, too, play a role in the silence around their victimhood. Even when assaulted, men are less likely to identify themselves as victims, to report their victimization, or to be taken seriously when they do. MacKay added that girls report being less likely to be found out when they engage in domestic violence, and to be punished for the same behaviors when they are found out.
[...] Much of the debate on domestic violence is wrapped up in the gender-focused activism on both the women’s and men’s rights sides. But domestic violence appears to be equally prevalent in gay and lesbian relationships as in heterosexual relationships.
[...] There are signs of progress. In the last few years, greater attention has been paid to male wellness as men and boys fall behind girls and women in school, work, and some measures of mental health. There also appears to be greater awareness that using “toxic masculinity” as a frame for issues like domestic violence may have been counterproductive, stigmatizing, and, arguably, sexist. Still, the idea that men and the society they created are to blame for their own problems isn’t easily toppled, masking our understanding of the roots and perpetrators of domestic violence and how best to help them... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/...0622ebfa37
EXCERPTS: A recent study, however, challenged the assumption that gender violence is a one-way street. Canadian researchers who looked at data involving 35,900 teens found that boys reported “significantly higher rates” of physical violence while dating than girls over a 10-year period.
A single study is not, of course, definitive. But these results are significant because they align with decades of research finding that women are nearly as likely to perpetrate domestic violence toward men as men are toward women. This doesn’t mean the physical harm is the same. As the pioneering researcher Murray Straus put it decades ago, owing to greater male upper body strength, “She may cast the first coffee pot, but he generally casts the last and most damaging blows.”
[...] The public’s misunderstanding of domestic violence was on display during the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial in 2022, when credible evidence emerged that Heard was at least as capable of abusing Depp as the reverse...
[...] “These findings can be difficult to reconcile with criminal justice data and societal expectations that frame girls and women as the primary victims,” Catherine Shaffer-McCuish, lead author of the Canadian study on partner violence, told RealClearInvestigations. “Furthermore, public discourse tends to focus on severe, injurious, or coercive violence, which women are more likely to experience. Adolescent dating violence is often more mutual, less injurious, and complex… The result is that certain groups, like boys or LGBTQ youth, may not be seen, supported, or taken seriously when they experience harm.”
[...] Men, too, play a role in the silence around their victimhood. Even when assaulted, men are less likely to identify themselves as victims, to report their victimization, or to be taken seriously when they do. MacKay added that girls report being less likely to be found out when they engage in domestic violence, and to be punished for the same behaviors when they are found out.
[...] Much of the debate on domestic violence is wrapped up in the gender-focused activism on both the women’s and men’s rights sides. But domestic violence appears to be equally prevalent in gay and lesbian relationships as in heterosexual relationships.
[...] There are signs of progress. In the last few years, greater attention has been paid to male wellness as men and boys fall behind girls and women in school, work, and some measures of mental health. There also appears to be greater awareness that using “toxic masculinity” as a frame for issues like domestic violence may have been counterproductive, stigmatizing, and, arguably, sexist. Still, the idea that men and the society they created are to blame for their own problems isn’t easily toppled, masking our understanding of the roots and perpetrators of domestic violence and how best to help them... (MORE - missing details)