Intimate Partner Victims Ignored At VAWA Hearings - Richard L. Davis

July 22, 2005

by Richard L. Davis

Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.- Francis Bacon

At the U.S. Senate hearings concerning the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act on July 19, 2005 Senator Patrick Leahy stated: “The Violence Against Women Act passed the Senate in 1994. We declared that the United States takes the problem of violence against women seriously.”

The question here is why the United States and the majority of domestic violence advocates testifying at these hearings do not take the problem of violence against men seriously. These hearings support the claim by the National Research Council report, Advancing the Federal Research Agenda on Violence Against Women www.nap.edu/books/0309091098/html/35.html - 74k that research is frequently driven by ideology and not plausible theories and scientific evidence.

At the hearings Senator Biden stated that DOJ data documents 85% of intimate partner offenders are men. Diane Stuart, the director of the office on Violence Against Women, an office located within the Department of Justice, corrected Biden and stated that DOJ data documents the percentage of male offenders is 88%.

However, on page iii, the Department of Justice sponsored report, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/183781.pdf it documents that 51.9% of surveyed women and 66.4% of surveyed men were physically assaulted as a child by an adult caretaker and/or as an adult by any type of attacker. An estimated 1.9 million women and 3.2 million men are physically assaulted annually in the United States.

The report also documents that 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the U.S. While it documents women are more likely than men to be injured it reports that 39.% of female physical assault victims compared to 24.8% of male victims report being injured during their most recent physically assault. Are we to assume Stuart knows nothing of this data or that she, similar to all the female witnesses, want to minimize, marginalize or ignore male victimization?

The United States, for the third time will document its concern about violence against women while minimizing, marginalizing and ignoring violence against men. Not a single one of the women who testified before the committee mentioned male victimization. Not a single male victim was mentioned by these women who claim to be domestic violence advocates. And not a single senator asked why their omission. I can not think of any reason for that exclusion other than the fact that these women and senators simply do not care.

Because we have a Violence Against Women [italics added] Act apparently congress agrees that male victimization is so trivial the senators do not ask any questions concerning why these women ignore male victimization http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=1570.

Deaths Ignored

All of the women who testify recant horror stories about female victimization and murders. Not a single one of them make any mention of a single male murder victim and none of the senators question why this exclusion. Below is DOJ data for intimate partner murders from 1976 to 2002.

Victims Offenders

Male Female Male Female

Intimate partner murder victims 37.2% 62.8% 64.8% 35.2%

The senators do not question the exclusion of male victimization by the witnesses because they also choose to ignore male victimization. Senator Leahy, similar to the female witnesses not only minimizes and marginalizes male victimization he ignores the deaths of men as the result of domestic violence. Leahy notes that tragically, 1,600 women were killed in 1976 and 1,247 women were killed in 2000 by an intimate partner. What is the purpose of these women who testify and of Senator Leahy to purposely and knowingly exclude male victims?

The Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Justice Statistics Factbook study, Violence by Intimateswww.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/vi.htm does documents that there were 1,600 female victims in 1976. However, Leahy chooses to ignore mentioning the fact that there were 1,357 male victims that year.

In 2000, Leahy notes the 1,247 female victims while ignoring the 440 male victims. Is it simply that there are too few male murder victims for the women who are testifying before the committee and Leahy care about?

What the female witnesses and the senators also ignore is that DOJ sponsored studies document that approximately 1 in 3 of domestic violence murders also involves a suicide. While the female witnesses and the senators apparently do not care about male victimization, documented by their exclusion of male victimization, the families of these men who are dead as a result of domestic violence do care.

Data

It appears that both the senators and the female witnesses agree that somewhere between 85 and 88% of the offenders of domestic violence are men not women. This data is derived from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Since both the senators and female witnesses present this data, a reasonable and prudent person must expect they believe the NCVS can be used as a true measuring tool or a factual representation of intimate partner victimization.

One witness, Lynn Rosenthall, claims that violence against women continues to affect our country in epidemic proportions. I assume she agrees with the NCVS data. She, similar to all the female witnesses ignores male victimization.

The fact is, as Rosenthall does or should know, the National Crime Victimization Survey documents that approximately ½ of 1% of people, both men and women, who answered the survey report that they have been a victim of domestic violence. If the 85% offender data is to be believed why is the ½ of 1% data to be ignored?

The Grand Exclusion

Salma Hayek of the Avon Foundation testified that, “We cannot tolerate a world in which one in three women is or will be a victim of domestic violence.” It appears she is willing to tolerate a world in which one in three men is or will be a victims of domestic violence.

Hayek knows or should know that the data she presents to the committee has used the Conflict Tactics Scale, first used by Murray Straus, as the measuring tools to retrieve this data. When the CTS is used as a measuring tool it documents that men and women are victimized at approximately the same rate.

Victims of Crime

Mary Lou Leary is the Executive Director of the National Center for Victims of Crime. Leary

testified that, “Violence against women is a key focus of our work.” The question here is why is violence against women a key focus of their work when males are victims of crime in numbers far greater than women? Should not victimization, regardless of gender be their primary concern?

The National Center for Victims of Crime http://www.ncvc.org/stats/teen.htm at one time noted that concerning dating violence that 45% of females and 43% of males reported being the victim of violence from a dating partner at least once.

However, now this data has been changed and the same home page claims that, “Twenty percent of teenage girls and young women have experienced some form of dating violence.” The victimization of boys as been erased and now political correctness prevails. Ignoring men and now the boys now seems to be a prevailing political agenda.

Demonizing Our Sons to Protect Our Daughters

M.L. Carr is the President & CEO of WARM2Kids. Carr is male, not female. He appeared before the committee on behalf of the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF). Carr, testified that, “As a board member of FVPF he has learned that about the ever-present issue of violence against women.”

Carr works with the FVPF in a program called, “Coaching Boys into Men.” Coaching Boys into Men, similar to all the female witnesses and the senators ignore female offending and male victimization.

Carr, Coaching Boys into Men and the FVPF ignore the data from the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/SS/SS5302.pdf that on page 40, documents boys are often the victims of abuse from girls.

The report documents that nationally 9.8% of girls and 10.4% of boys report they have been hit, slapped, or physically hurt on purpose by a boyfriend or girlfriend in the 12 months preceding the survey. It also documents that11.4% of girls and 5.8% of boys report having been forced to have sexual intercourse.

Advice Ignored

In 1995 Jeffrey Fagan wrote in the National Institute of Justice research report, The Criminalization of Domestic Violence: Promises and Limits, online the report is athttp://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/crimdom.pdf, “Assuming that patriarchy and power relations alone cause domestic violence leads us toward conclusions that do not consider a full array of explanatory variables from other disciplines.” Concerning domestic and dating violence Fagan’s advice has fallen on deaf ears. Fagan’s logic hinders the gender feminist agenda. Gender feminists are people who care more about women’s rights than victims or civil rights.

The Key Question

Mary Lou Leary claims that the National Center for Victims of Crime is one of the leading national advocacy organizations that works to secure the rights and resources for victims of crime. Why then is it then, as these hearings document, that domestic violence agencies, our elected public policymaker, and federal agencies spend so much time minimizing, marginalizing and ignoring the rights and resources for men and boys who are victims of intimate partner violence?