Aggressive Acts and Assaults – Understanding the Literature
Published as: ‘Aggressive Acts and Assaults in Intimate Relationships: Towards an Understanding of the Literature’ in Behavioral Science and the Law No.17: 285-304 (1999).
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Page 286
"This paper focuses the discussion on violence between intimate partners, providing scientific evidence against the popular feminist stance of man the perpetrator and woman the victim. There is a differentiation between ‘aggressive acts’ and ‘assaults’."
Page 288
"Although there are over 100 epidemiological ‘couple conflict’ studies which find that ‘women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships’, those studies which look at crime statistics find a major gender difference, with men named perpetrators much more frequently than women."
Page 292
"The data support the theory that most men are socialised not to hit women, and many do not retaliate physically even when women attack them. The group who do resort to violence tend to be those with very little social power and resources to cope with stress. Rather than being the response of the powerful male, violence against his spouse is often the reaction of a man who feels socially impotent, and who lashes out as the only way he knows to deal with anger and frustration."
Page 298
"Women’s violence goes unrecognised by judicial and social services
Hamilton, New Zealand, has seen the implementation of the Hamilton Abuse Intervention Pilot Project (HAIPP) which co-ordinates the responses to domestic violence by the Police, Criminal and Family Courts, women’s refuges, Community Corrections and treatment programmes.
In the years 1991 and 1992, approximately 900 men were identified as offenders by HAIPP but only two women (Busch, 1993). A ratio of 450 to one indicates that most women who assault their partners are not identified by the system."
Page 298 – 299
"Conclusions and Recommendations
In professional circles there is a bitter debate about whether we should focus on aggressive acts per se, or the context in which they occur and their outcomes such as injuries. We argue that both types of data are important: focus on harm and injury for determining emergency medical and refuge services; and relate that to data about aggressive acts for determining the population at risk, and their prevention and early treatment requirements.
Far more people are subjected to violent acts than those who sustain injuries; all aggressive acts between partners must be considered if we wish to reduce domestic violence."
"Agencies working in the domestic violence field tend to design their services on data that is based on national crime surveys or official police records, or on clinical populations such as women in therapy or those using the services at women’s refuges. Nevertheless, these are not representative samples, because men are far more likely to be charged with domestic violence than women, and women are much more likely to use support services than men (indeed, very few support services are available for men who are victims of domestic violence), and data derived from these sources must not be generalised to the population at large. It is vital that data from these legal or clinical sources are not misused in decision-making about how to deal with the much more minor violence that is generally occurring within families."
Page 300
"Claiming that violence is a male problem, making men to blame and women inevitably the victims, does not acknowledge that there are many instances where women need to take some responsibility in a violent relationship. Programmes such as ‘Men against Violence’ which presume that men are the primary perpetrators of family violence , and Court Orders directing men to attend such courses without establishing who are the perpetrators and victims in specific cases, cannot address the problem. Where both partners initiate and participate in the violence, directing one party to an Anger Management Course is unlikely to be effective, and interpersonal programmes which look at the behaviours of both people and offer strategies for attitude and behaviour change are more likely to succeed."
