Talk:Domestic violence/Archive 4

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Public opinion and perception

I'm not sure this section is suitable for the article, and these references the best ones for public opinion. We might find other sources that are even more reliable and worth including instead. And, to include mention of public opinion in the victimization section. --Aude (talk) 21:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

A survey [1] in July and August 2006 of 2500 adults, males and females, 18 years of age or older, in the continental United States produced finding as per below. This survey was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation and Ruder Finn and funded by Redbook Magazine and Liz Claiborne

"When asked to define what actions comprise domestic violence and abuse, 2 in 5 Americans (40%) did not even mention hitting, slapping and punching. Over 90% of Americans failed to define repeated emotional, verbal, sexual abuse and controlling behaviors as patterns of domestic violence and abuse. The survey concluded: "When they can identify domestic abuse, Americans will act".

Reference - IPV factsheet from centres for disease control - page has moved

The link which is today reference 23 (cited multiple times in the article) as "Intimate partners violence factsheet" from Centres for disease control leads to a "page not found" at http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm. Digging around the site, there's a factsheet "Understanding Intimate Partner Violence", 2006, at http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/dvp/ipv_factsheet.pdf but I don't know whether it's the same document or not. Someone more familiar with the article, or the previous incarnation of the factsheet, might like to confirm whether it's the same doc and amend the ref, or do whatever else is needed. PamD (talk) 23:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Ref unco-operative people

Do you know something, I won't even bother editing this article anymore - not is it just pro-feminist - but getting threats from Andrew C, makes me non willing to contribute to this article further, if this is how this person treats people trying to help then it's appalling i'm sorry. It appears to me that Wikipedia is not a very friendly place after all.--88.108.100.139 (talk) 17:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Problems with Gender Paragraph

The studies cited in this paragraph have been manipulated into a POV:

Martin S. Fiebert of the Department of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach, provides an analysis of 195 scholarly investigations: 152 empirical studies and 43 analyses, which he believes demonstrate women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men. Fiebert also argues that women are more likely to be injured, but not a lot more. Also Dutton, and Nicholls (2005) state that Results show that the gender disparity in injuries from domestic violence is less than originally portrayed by feminist theory. Studies are also reviewed indicating high levels of unilateral intimate violence by females to both males and females. Males appear to report their own victimization less than females do and to not view female violence against them as a crime. Hence, they differentially under-report being victimized by partners on crime victim surveys. It is concluded that feminist theory is contradicted by these findings and that the call for bqualitativeQ studies by feminists is really a means of avoiding this conclusion. Archer's (2000, 2002) meta-analysis of 82 couple-conflict studies found that women were more likely to use physical aggression than men, and to resort to violence more often than men.In the most serious violence the men do dominate for example in 1999 in the US, 1,218 women and 424 men were killed by an intimate partner, regardless of which partner started the violence and of the gender of the partner. On the other hand, Michael Kimmel of the State University of New York at Stony Brook found that men are more violent inside and outside of the home than women. Theories that women are as violent as men have been dubbed "Gender Symmetry" theories.

Let's work on cleaning this up.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 22:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Surely you could have 'cleaned' this up yourself? it seems unreasonable to remove multiple paragraphs that collectively contain 9 references. I'll have a look at it soon and see if I can reword it but, the research and sources are definitely sound. Kurushi (talk) 23:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Article is POV

This article is suffering from a severe POV problem. Citations from admitted pro-feminist researchers such as Dr. Michael Kimmel are being treated as gospel truth, and other citations from researchers looking into violence against men are being deleted and ignored. Domestic Violence against men is NOT a minority viewpoint. There are hundreds of peer-reviewed empirical studies which demonstrate that this is a very real problem. Wikipedia policy is violated when one side attempts to frame an article into an advocacy piece for their side. Here are the facts, Domestic Violence is wrong. Whether it is perpetrated by women or men, it is wrong. Studies have shown that women are just as aggressive, if not more aggressive then men in their relationships. That is a documented fact. Whitewashing it will not make it go away. This article needs to be presented from a neutral POV. BOTH SIDES need to quite attempting to make this an advocacy piece for their POV. We should re-work the article to mention both violence by men and women, and remove the POV slant that is currently very pro-feminist. Ghostmonkey57 (talk) 18:45, 21 December 2007 (UTC)Ghostmonkey57

"Pro-feminist" is a "weasel word" in this context. Please stop inserting it into the article. And, I completely agree that there is good, peer reviewed information from academic journals about male vicitims of domestic violence that needs to be part of this article. However, that good, peer reviewed information is not being cited in this article at present. There needs to be a massive cleanup of the information presented with regards to male victims of violence so that the information is accurate and scientifically sound (that means that the source of the information is sound, we should not accept blogs as sources).

Also, we ought to be careful to clearly lay out what these academic studies actually say. It is probably best if we quote directly from the studies, and do not impose our own points of view.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 19:33, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Pro-feminist IS NOT a "weasel word" as Michael Kimmel Identifies himself as such. In fact, Kimmel is identified in that manner on his Wikipedia page. The entire article needs a re-write, and we are going to take it one step at a time. Do not remove sourced paragraphs or material until we develop a consensus as to how we can NPOV the article to accurately present information on this issue. The entire article is a POV mess as individuals from both sides have attempted to use it to as an advocacy piece either for feminist or anti-feminist ideology. That cannot and will not be tolerated at Wikipedia. Ghostmonkey57 (talk) 19:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)Ghostmonkey57

I forgot to point out that Kimmel has written several books identifying himself as a pro-feminist, including Against the Tide: Pro-Feminist Men in the United States. Ghostmonkey57 (talk) 20:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)Ghostmonkey57

I have removed the qualifier "pro-feminist" from before the name "Richard J. Gelles". There is no source given to label him as such, and even if it were true, the purpose of that phrase seems clearly placed there to color the reader's judgement. I can understand adding qualifiers to explain who a person is so we aren't just introducing random names into the article (i.e. "University of Pennsylvania dean" or "Child Welfare and Family Violence scholar" or something like that). I could even understand balancing his views with other views that are in opposition to him, or even citing published criticism (if such criticism exists, and comes from reliable sources). But an unattributed label of "pro-feminist" when there are much more notable aspects to Dr. Gelles is entirely biased. -Andrew c ^[talk] 20:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is important to show the manipulation of 'spousal abuse', relative to time. Yes this is some original research, but it should be able to be verified by some other source.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 18:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting concerned this article is getting pro-feminist, ignoring the male victims of Domestic Violence

I notice this article is slowing becoming extremely POV and we have a group of feminists intent to wipe out all mention of male victims of Domestic Violence by Women. Not just that - but the constant vandalism by feminists that has to be reverted is ridiculous. Also, the constant down-sizing of the "Violence against men" part and trying to remove any reference of women beating men, a widely growing problem and accounted for more than 60% of assault reports filed last year - is wrong.

Your views? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.21.242 (talk) 23:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I added some info to the Violence Against Men subsection along with a reference. Hope this helps! I would also recommend that you create a user account and sign with four tildes (i.e., ~) before your user name. Sallicio (talk) 05:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Sallicio

Here is the recent addition:

There has been an increase in the cases of male victims of domestic violence in recent years. Advocates have theorized that the increase could be due, in part, to the profession of the male victim. For example, many men work for the federal government, police agencies, military, or other jobs that may require some kind of security clearance. Due to the sensitive nature of the jobs, perhaps they are afraid that protecting themselves physical or legally could cause the loss of their jobs. Male victims are often ashamed that others will perceive them as weak or less of a man. There is also a belief that the police will not take the allegation seriously or that they (the man) will be arrested because "only men" are the abusers. In male/male relationshis there may be some shame because of the nature of the relationship (i.e., homosexual).[2]

Could you please work on sourcing this information to a WP:RS. The provided link also doesn't support many of the assertion in the new paragraph. Let's bring it up to wikipedia standards! -Andrew c ^[talk] 13:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Wife beating in Islam

What are your views on Wife beating in Islam? Is it allowed at any time, forbidden or allowed only as the last resort? What is the definition of "beat" in the Quran in relations to husbands over their wives? --121.217.128.171 (talk) 03:34, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

“Narrated Abdullah ibn AbuDhubab: Iyas ibn Abdullah ibn AbuDhubab reported the Apostle of Allah as saying: Do not beat Allah's handmaidens, but when Umar came to the Apostle of Allah and said: Women have become emboldened towards their husbands, he (the Prophet) gave permission to beat them. Then many women came round the family of the Apostle of Allah complaining against their husbands. So the Apostle of Allah said: Many women have gone round Muhammad's family complaining against their husbands. They are not the best among you. Narrated Umar ibn al-Khattab: The Prophet said: A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife.” (Abu Dawud Book 11, Number 2141-2142) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.188.37.184 (talk) 00:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Article Title

Does anyone else think that article title "Domestic violence" might not be the most percise name considering that the article deals with non-violent forms of abuse such as economic and emotional abuse? I think the title "Domestic abuse" would fit better.Danny (talk) 19:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I see logic in that. :)--Thecurran (talk) 15:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Lack of logical consistency.

Just to point out and to suggest that there is a lack of logical consistencey in the definition of abuse, spousal abuse, relative to elder abuse, and I am certain child abuse.

Take a look at elder abuse in wikipedia.

---

Physical: e.g. hitting, punching, slapping, burning, pushing, kicking, restraining, false imprisonment/confinement, or giving too much medication or the wrong medication;

Psychological: e.g. shouting, swearing, frightening, blaming, ridiculing, constantly criticizing, ignoring or humiliating a person. A common theme is a perpetrator who identifies something that matters to an older person and then uses it to coerce an older person into a particular action;

Financial: e.g. illegal or unauthorized use of a person’s property, money, pension book or other valuables (including changing the person's will to name the abuser as heir), often fraudulently obtaining power of attorney, followed by deprivation of money or other property, or by eviction from own home;

Sexual: e.g. forcing a person to take part in any sexual activity without his or her consent, including forcing them to participate in conversations of a sexual nature against their will; Neglect: e.g. depriving a person of food, heat, clothing or comfort or essential medication. In addition some countries also recognise the following as elder abuse:

Rights abuse: denying the civil and constitutional rights of a person who is old, but not declared by court to be mentally incapacitated. This is an aspect of elder abuse that is increasingly being recognised and adopted by nations

Self-neglect: elderly persons neglecting themselves by not caring about their own health or safety.

---

The same types of abuses, or abuse forms should apply to all groupings...?

Have a great day !

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 20:57, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Grammar (Resource Theory)

"Women who are most dependent on the spouse for economic well being." That's not a sentence. It's most likely something that happened when someone tried to rephrase things. I'd change it myself, but the intended meaning is unclear to me. Is it just a statement (without citation!) that "it is women who are most dependent"? Did some study, no longer mentioned, find that it is? Was it originally part of some larger statement? It seems like it's getting at a valid point, but one that needs to be cited and clearly stated. --SoloGecko (talk) 01:11, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Statistics and recent edits by anon

Anon has mischaracterized the Bureau of Justice study and the Feibert study. The former was not simply a collection of crime statistics (the NCVS was a revised questionnaire). The latter was an evaluation of 209 studies and the findings do not necessarily stand in contrast to the BoJ findings. We go into this topic in much more detail elsewhere in the article. I'm not sure we need to try to include the Feibert study into the statistic section because it is discussed is fuller detail elsewhere. I'd like to hear why anon wants to include the information, and perhaps we can work together here on talk to reach a compromise wording that we all can agree with. -Andrew c ^[talk] 14:17, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Why data about controversy around ratio of male and female violence is removed

I wish to know why data about ratio of female and male experiencing violence is frequently removed? I mean this part of article:

"Another controversy is the ratio of man and woman experiencing intimate partner violence. For example majority of 418 surveys collected by Martin S. Fiebert shows no differences between violence against man and woman ."

Does only some surveys deserve to be known? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.54.242.170 (talk) 12:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct. This shows how 'politics' has manipulated 'the truth' of the matter by selecting specific truths, and ignoring others.

I think this should be added to show how social programs dealing with the topic of abuse, have 'paradoxically' contributed to the problem, which to SOME people is okay ! Expecially those who hate the family, or men, or something else.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 20:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Why no inclusion of child abuse in "Domestic Violence", and little or no reference to female-perpetrated abuse?

I believe that a significant percentage of child abuse (including physical abuse) is committed by women/mothers, but reviewing this article, and following links to both "Child Abuse" and "Complex PTSD" there is no mention of female-perpetrated child abuse, let alone any statistics or references.

As most funding for "Domestic Violence" infers that it covers all aspects of familial violence, it would be helpful to:

- document the occurrence of female perpetrated abuse, and
- specifically address the inclusion/exclusion of child/elder abuse in this category.

~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.12.66.37 (talk) 21:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

One must be careful in coming to a conclusion based on the stats. Mothers and women are more in contact with children, so the possiblity of 'abuse' will increase. Then again the 'definition' of abuse is so far expanded that even 'discipline' can be concidered abuse, by those who have a financial ingterfest in manipulating its defintion.

Anonymous, do you have a citation for mothers and women being more in contact with children? You should also note that some consider abuse to be discipline. JCDenton2052 (talk) 21:54, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Let history show the manipulation of this concept.

For decades 'spousal abuse' and 'spousal violence' was exploited by 'some' to promote a 'black and white' philosophy about violence.

To be specific, 'women were victims' and 'men were abusers'. The false logic used, was that 'most' victims were women, therefor all victims were women.

This model ignored all the complexities of human interreactions and abuse, ignoring such things as drug abuse, mental illness and other factors.

While true is some cases, this stereotyping of the situation should be recorded and not ignored, so that others may learn from the errors. Other countries are falling victim to this corruption of logic to polarize the sexes and the family; creating a paradoxical effect.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 14:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The polarization, the black and white thinking associated with this subject shows how legitimate sources can be corrupted.

Case in point.

We have in spousal relationships, many truths we ignore. There is not only on sided abuse, but also mutual abuse. Since the term abuse is far ranging, the term can be applied to most all behavior.

It is hoped history will show, (once someone prints this matter in a 'recognized source' something that i have learned most companies don't want to print, then we can correct this listing.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 15:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

As a general observation, perhaps some of the entries in the encyclopedia, can show 'the truth' of the subject matter relative to the point in time, or year. It is important to show the progression on 'philosophy' concerning a subject, as in the earth being flat, and then round, and then someday, it will be round in a rotating universe.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 20:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

"Hope I am not repeating myself. But the 'idealistic' nature of the current listing, should also include a place and time-relative section. Ie in the last part of the 20th century in North America spousal abuse, was noted as 'men who abuse, and women and children victims.' The model was polarized."

"It should also note that while the model dealt with abuse, most models focused merely on violence."

The purpose is to show truths relative to time and space and to ensure that the errors, (we are all human) are not repeated again, somewhere else on in some other time frame.

I hope I have made my suggestion clear.

Thanks.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 19:27, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

External links

I've trimmed the external links section and added two DMOZ sites. There was a curious imbalance towards a majority of ELs discussing abuse against men - that should be reflected on the page of course, but not 75% of the links discussing exclusively abuse against males. Per WP:CSB, WP:ELNO and WP:SOAP, advocacy sites, web forums and links to very geographically specific agencies (i.e. the oregon association against domestic violence; Brighton's anti-family violence alliance) were removed. I left the helpguide link in - it gives a reasonable bit of information, and has its own pretty extensive list of links in terms of number and coverage. WLU (talk) 17:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

It would be appreciated if this article could list the laws about domestic violence. If there is already such a list, please do tell me where it's at. Glorthac (talk) 01:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Like, world-wide? Wikipedia is international. WLU (talk) 01:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Time relative.

There was a time, where women in North America could not vote, (the radical feminists don't want us to forget that, even though today, many people even the majority don't vote) and then there was a time in North America where violence against men (and children) was tolerated by the simple half-truth statement, "Stop violence against women' that implied that violence against men and children was okay, especially when the slogan, "STop violence." would included all groups, at least saving us ink.

The encyclopedia should show this.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 22:27, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions...

Suggestions.

While I do not have time at the present, let me give you some suggetions.

1. Violence to abuse, includes also passive violence.

2. According to Dr. Berne's "Games People Play', there is a game called Rapo. Where the actual abuser is in fact the victim. The Victim's game is to entice the other participant to become the perpetrator of some act of violence. The victim is actually the abuser, and the perpetrator of the abuse is actually the victim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis#Intimacy

3. What are the underlying cuases of abuse, or violence. In some cases there are issues, some might be related to gambling, drugs, unknown mental disease, some of which cause frustration and create conditions of 'conflict.'

4. In some cases the abuser is outside the relationship.

When I have time I will hopefully fill these in, if someone else has the time, please find appropriate sources.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 22:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Time-relative nature of domestic violence.

Given the noted discripencies into what 'domestic violence' is or was, I hope that wikipedia implements a time relative definition of the term.

What domestic violence is and was are two different things.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 15:23, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Same gender abuse.

"In same gender relationships, the abuser as well as victim is always a woman. "

It appears that the information provided is trying to 'weigh' the statistical evidence in favour of one group over another...

Tried to input an obvious fact that in 'same gendered' relationships, the abuser, relative to 'women abuse' the abuser is always a woman.

Do you want to call this 'original research' or mere common sense ?

Why ?

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 15:12, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Personally I call it bullshit. Nar Matteru (talk) 20:54, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. That statement implies that no abuse ever takes place in male-male relationships. JCDenton2052 (talk) 21:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

You are correct, excuse me for not claifying....the section related to 'violence against women'....

"Violence against women Main article: Violence against women In the United States, 20 percent of all violent crime experienced by women are cases of intimate partner violence, compared to 3 percent of violent crime experienced by men. "

You will note that there is no mention of violence against women, by women...and in same gender relationships (concerning women) the abuser (and the victim) is always a woman.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 05:01, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Instead of saying something as the text you proposed, why not find a reliable source that perhaps has statistical information on female same sex abuse? It would be more helpful for the reader than the text you proposed. -Andrew c ^[talk] 13:49, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks....I was trying to give some advise, I do not have the time to spend on these, however it is important as these whole issues of 'abuse' have been corrupted and need correction.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 03:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Cycle of abuse missing "mental illness".

Just a lead for now.

It appears that the subject of mental illness is not viewed as a possible component of the 'cycle of abuse' in this heading.

That is the 'stress' of an illness, including mental illness should be part of this, as should other 'stresses' on the domestic couple.

When I have time I will search for that source.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 15:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

• It is also important to the complexity of human interrelationships to include a section to 'other elements' that may contribute to 'abuse'...

It is also important to this topic to understand the paradoxical effects of some sedative drugs..Serious complications can occur in conjunction with the use of sedatives creating the opposite effect as to that intended. Malcolm Lader at the Institute of Psychiatry in London estimates the incidence of these adverse reactions at about 5%, even in short-term use of the drugs. The paradoxical reactions may consist of depression, with or without suicidal tendencies, phobias, aggressiveness, violent behavior and symptoms sometimes misdiagnosed as psychosis.

--Caesar J.B. Squitti: Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti (talk) 14:23, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Do sentimental objects affect incidence?

Just out of curiosity, do workers in cases of domestic violence observe a greater or lesser usage of sentimental objects (rings, tattoos, etc.) relative to people of the same socioeconomic status? Wnt (talk) 04:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I've worked in the Domestic Violence Unit of my Police Department for three years. Can you rephrase your question; I don't understand what you're asking.--Sallicio^{$\color {Red}\oplus$} 01:59, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry - I was just curious whether, psychologically, the tendency of people to use sentimental objects in relationships tended to make them more or less prone to domestic violence. In theory, someone might throw a ring instead of a punch, tear up a picture instead of making an attack. Or it might just be one more thing to argue over... Wnt (talk) 19:20, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

International statistics

The article needs to list the statistics of wife-beating and other forms of domestic violence in more nations than the random sample given.--jeanne (talk) 06:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

what about this ?

i know this paragraph is little difficult to publish , but if someone is good at language please modify this so that it fits appropriately in wikipedia. i am sorry for my poor language skills

some old cultures such as some in india , pakistan and some african nations where the husband is considered as "owner" of his wife. man and woman who are grown up in those cultures would not consider many things as violence in these societies general violence is considerd normal whereas they only consider conventional crimes such as killing , raping , stealing etc as crime psychological violences of all kind that may lead to another are allowed

great problem arises when young peoples of the society who are educated under influnce of english and other cultures such as of developed nations , they realize that how they live or what they do is error ful such as example of common violences.

few examples- 1. dowri in india 2. wife as a assets in african and south asian nations

the proofs of these are hard to get because only new societies use written and legal sytems, but some proofs that can be given are goernment statistics of crimes of thiese.

please link articles from here if somebody can find any that i have typed here. please help to improve this post

59.95.175.58 (talk) 09:33, 16 November 2008 (UTC) piyush

There are various things like this recorded at different places and times. For example, Blackstone's Commentaries referred to a right to lock up one’s wife (certainly now considered abuse) and historically to strike her by way of control in line with the principle that a couple acted as one under the control of the husband. Welsh law apparently allowed it as retaliation in some circumstances. Islamic law notoriously does, and I’ve read an account by a British colonialist that it was permitted under traditional (non-Islamic) law there: [3] "A law is even made to direct the mode in which she is beaten". Billwilson5060 (talk) 17:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Please put a link of the following to the See also section

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An-Nisa,_34 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.228.190.54 (talk) 02:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Severe Gender Bias

This article frequently states "women" when it means to say "people." I am unable to correct this severe and blatant gender bias, due to protections placed on this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maidix (talk • contribs) 06:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Examples please? In any case, the article appears to be move-protected, which would not stop text changes by a registered user.Billwilson5060 (talk) 13:51, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The source of my primary objection can be found under the section for "Emotional Abuse." There is a paragraph that reads: "Women who are being emotionally abused often feel as if they do not own themselves; rather, they may feel that their significant other has nearly total control over them. Women undergoing emotional abuse often suffer from depression, which puts them at increased risk for suicide, eating disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse." While technically this is not incorrect, it is incorrect by glaring omission. Perhaps it is some problem with my account, but even logged-in, I can only view the source of the article. I am unable to correct this flaw. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.92.10 (talk) 19:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

If this is a fault at all, it is the fault of our source, which is titled "The Physical and Psychological Effects of Domestic Violence on Women". We can't simply change women to people without saying something that our source clearly is not saying. We'd need a source that specifically describes the emotional abuse resulting in men (and who is to say that men have the exact same reaction to abuse as the women in this study?). We also need to acknowledge that not only does domestic violence effect women more than men, the media (and our sources) also focus more on women than men. Wikipedia is not here to try to right those wrongs (if they are wrongs at all) or the place to create the illusion of parity. We MUST follow our sources, and represent things in the same manner as the mainstream media. If that means we focus more on women, then so be it.-Andrew c ^[talk] 19:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

There are various sources that have led to various conclusions relating the numbers of men and women in different roles; this is reflected to some extent on the current page. I searched the article and found most of the references to women were describing male and female involvement or, as in this case, related speficially to one sex. But it is a weakness of the article that "forms of abuse" does not mention anything about forms of abuse towards men when the rest of the article (more or less) tries to deal with the existence of various situations. This raises the question of whether the types of abuse towards each sex and the responses of victims in these cases are similar or whether they should be described separately. In any case, the source given in support of the statement quoted is very much from the perspective that DV is a women's issue and a huge, underestimated problem - "it should be apparent to everyone that domestic violence is one of the leading killers of women in our society". Billwilson5060 (talk) 21:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You must find 'reliable' sources to expose the blatant gender bias. I might suggest that the 'definitions' be time dated including relative to country.

I agree that my observations is that the whole arean of 'abuse' relative to child or spouse has been corrupted. As if someone changed the books to fit their own bias, and got away with it.

--Caesar J.B. Squitti: Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti (talk) 23:15, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to highlight the false conclusions of the research.

A person, male or female can be the focus of an attack of violence (this not include all other forms of abuse) but even so, as in acts of self defence, the actual person who was 'violated' could be the abuser, and the 'abuser' is a victim responding.

It is clear to me that this entire topic has been corrupted by people and sources who have corrupted research findings to pursue a biased agenda.

Call it a criticism, like others on this thread, there are 'some' here who would censor this as well.

--Caesar J.B. Squitti: Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti (talk) 16:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Good balance in opening.

I must congratulate the 'balance' of the intro, as well as a time line on the discussion on the definition of the label.

--Caesar J.B. Squitti: Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti (talk) 17:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Sibling abuse is the most common form of domestic violence

As various forms of interpersonal family violence receive more attention in the literature, sibling abuse is still in the background. Sibling abuse symptoms continue to go unrecognized and its demoralizing effects continue to be ignored (Wiehe, 1990). Minimization and denial of sibling abuse have also contributed to constraining the extent of knowledge related to this phenomenon. (McLaurin, 2005)

Sibling abuse can be devastating. Adult survivors may develop Complex PTSD, as a result of living with their abuser with no escape for many years. Emergency room doctors, who are in the best position to intervene, are not trained to look for trouble signs of sibling abuse. Many survivors are unaware of the source of their "problems in living," which include low self-esteem, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, self-mutilation, interpersonal problems, disassociation, and suicide. (Wiehe, 1990) —Preceding unsigned comment added by GaryPrus (talk • contribs) 07:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Image?

"Tameing a Shrew; or, Petruchio's Patent Family Bedstead, Gags & Thumscrews", an 1815 cartoon showing exaggerated sexual and physical violence. The sign above the bed reads: "Love, Honour, and OBEY".

This rather horrific cartoon might do well to point out the problem, but my one worry is that someone might actually like it, and see it as the right way to treat someone. Thoughts? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 08:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

ABUSE????

INDIVISUALS IN SPORTS SEEM TO BE MORE VIOLENT TORWARDS THEIR PARTNERS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.165.44.122 (talk) 12:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC) SHALL I FURTHER INVOLE MYSELF BY STATING THAT I AM AL NOGAS WIFE AND MYSELF AS WELL AS MY CHILDREN HAVE BEEN HIS VICTIM THE STATE OF HAWAII AND IT OFFICIALS PLACING MORE IMPROTANCE ON THE PLAYER THAN THE PEOPLE WHOM HE AFFECTS. MY LIFE HAS BEEN HELD IN LIMBO AS WELL AS MY CHILDREN. IM TOLD TO LEAVE THE ISLAND AND CHANGE MY IDENITY/' NICE FOR A FEMALE WHO HAS NO ONE TO TURN TO. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.165.44.122 (talk) 12:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Biased Article

I personally find this article to be very biased---it suggests at many points that violence against men is as large a problem as violence against women, and at times seems to criticize and diminish the efforts of women's groups and other activists who have fought hard to bring to light such a pandemic problem. The "Gender Roles" section in particular seems statistically inaccurate. Although there exists violence against men by heterosexual women, this articular at many points makes it seems like these two phenomenon have the same frequency. This is simply false. Furthermore, for such a "gendered" article, the psychosocial theories behind violence against an intimate partner are poorly explored. Tantillog (talk) 06:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)tantillogTantillog (talk)April 29, 2009

The gender roles section has a warning box claiming that the citations do not support the claims in the text. One way to reduce the bias in this article would be to check those citations against the text to make sure they actually support it. Another way would be to search the literature to see if the studies cited are representative of the science thats been done. If not, new statements could be added with citations to back them up. I suspect that the article has a western world bias on this gender issue. Whilst it is the case that victimization of men is higher (1/6 to 1/3) in the Western world this might be due to the sexual equality laws and practice there. A truly unbiased article would include large sections on domestic violence in the developing world.

A good starting point would be checking out this meta analysis of Martin S. Fiebert. Firstly making sure its being interpreted correctly in this article and secondly finding out what criticisms there have been of it that have been published. Barnaby dawson (talk) 09:23, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Its an annotated bibliography. He's basically searched the literature and collected together all the papers that support his claim. So its a biased collection (although its notable that there are a significant number of papers in it). For balance we need examples of studies that came to different conclusions. Indeed what we really need are a few independent meta analyses. Barnaby dawson (talk) 09:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

annulments

The Catholic Church deems domestic violence to be one of those qualifying factors that would make for a valid case of annulment. This is properly discussed and referenced in the article Ten Commandments in Roman Catholicism under the sixth commandment here [4]. I hope someone can add this to this page and provide a link and reference. I think it is an important point to bring out on the page somewhere. Thanks, NancyHeise ^talk 16:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Sounding board

I undid this edit by User:ETony68. The edit is unsourced and while the information seems true (I googled this and the info is accurate) there are no sources I can find restating this or showing its notability (and therefore letting us ascertain how much weight it should be given). Please provide sources for all information added to wikipedia--Cailil ^talk 00:27, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Domestic Violence and Men

There are numerous references and statistics showing that intimate partner violence affects more women as victims than men in our society, but this does not mean that domestic violence does not exist in the male gender. Proper screening includes asking anyone over 14 years of age about whether or not they are being subjected to violence with their partner. Men should be screened routinely for this same issue.(Mollybygolly (talk) 01:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC))

Few would deny that some men are victims of domestic violence, but there are claims in the article that women are equally violent or even more violent. This is counter intuitive and I suspect that this is based on dubious statistics, arrived at by treating pushing away or defensive slapping as equal to offensive acts. There is also the problem that manipulative abusers often manage to pass the blame to the victim by switching off their aggression when police arrive, while the victim is still wound up.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 18:32, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Dr. Michael Kimmel of the State University of New York examines these claims and the studies on which they are based. He found them to be without merit. His article is linked at: [5]

Maybe this will help to clarify this issue. DaKine (talk) 19:52, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

97% Indian wives have been beaten

This was added by User:Tobby72 in the following edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Domestic_violence&diff=prev&oldid=323104942

I'm removing this as it's rife with issues. First of all, what caught my eye is it can't possibly be a reliable statistic, since you never get this level of accuracy in self-reporting concerning domestic abuse. If a statistic of this nature reports an accuracy range better than +/-10% absolute I'm thinking that's an ambitious, well-funded, multi-agency study.

Secondly, it presumes the violence commences at incredible levels, on or prior to the date of marriage, as 3% of wives in India would encompass almost every marriage less than a year old (to a first approximation). The statistic practically screams "will eventually" or some other form of colouring between the lines.

Third, it purports a level of male conformity I find hard to believe, in any society, anywhere. If the moral code is that overwhelming, men are lying about what they've done to conform to social norms, like gay hockey players with trophy wives. "Hands up, all you Indian men out there who don't wear the pants in your marriage?" No hands rise.

That's my opinion, next the facts. First I checked out the citation. Nasty. This is a secondary source, from 15 years ago, which itself cites nothing. Secondly, after 15m on google, I didn't come up with a shred of the original study, or anything like it. Instead, I see this number going round and round in the echo chamber, with little to back it up, doing more to distort, IMO, than to correctly portray a serious issue in modern India. MaxEnt (talk) 22:48, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Check the source in the edit I just made (in the intro, reference for the ____ out of 1000 statement). It's from 2000 and has data on racial disparities in DV rate. Mokele (talk) 20:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Definitions

The "Definitions" section said that certain terms "have lost popularity recently for at least two reasons:", but didn't give the reasons. I've trawled through the history to find the original text and reference and reinstated them. Wardog (talk) 13:44, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Can We Cull Wild Guesses? please?

""""Estimates are that only about a third of cases of domestic violence are actually reported in the United States and the United Kingdom."""" (Could we just delete stuff like this?) Most reasonable folks understand that this is truly a "made up statistic." Quite honestly, I would hope that social science would reject gross over-emphasis of a real and painful topic. I don't want public reports to be filed every time a woman slams a door, spanks a child or raises her voice in frustration. Homebuilding (talk) 02:49, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

It might be appropriate to mention that, however, one should also mention that the term 'abuse' has been stretched so far that even breathing heavy or looking at someone is abusive...

I have to agree with you that the whole topic has been polarized and politicized in the last 25 years. Again, perhaps there should be a time relative factor to this topic.

--Caesar J. B. Squitti  : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 22:20, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

This is a late response to these comments...but I can't resist. I've worked in domestic violence, as a counselor, for many years. In all due respect to your opinions, I must say that it never ceases to amaze me how the general public minimizes the issue of domestic abuse. There are multiple studies that indicate that DV is a huge problem for women in the U.S. Men can be victims as well, but you're going to be hard-pressed to find evidence that abuse of men occurs with the frequency and intensity of occurs in women's lives. Yes, the topic has become more visible in the last 25 years, because there were virtually no laws against DV or services for victims prior to that time...it took a huge social movement to create the consciousness we have now. There was a great deal of belief that abusing your partner was socially acceptable (and still is, to some extent)prior to that time. Chimaria (talk) 23:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Chimaria. The extraordinary levels of denial and minimization I have seen in abuse victims make it inevitable that abuse is hugely under-reported. Estimates based on experience of professionals are not the same as wild guesses.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 13:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the simple fact that many people have not caught up to the fact that abuse takes many forms does not make the statistics irrelevant. I encourage to keep. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.238.2.106 (talk) 14:11, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Statistics POV

I have added the POV-tag to the section on statistics: The section gives undue weight to DV against women, and a reader who does not read the more detailed article can get the wrong impression.

While this issue may seem unimportant at first glance, we must bear in mind that there are long standing prejudices in the area, and that some less intellectually honest feminists are in the habit to deliberately distort statistics on DV. For this reason, it is especially important that we be perfectly "kosher". 88.77.140.207 (talk) 12:20, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

What changes are you suggesting? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:11, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Statistics on DV is a difficult area because of under reporting by scared victims, Stockholm Syndrome on the part of victims and the extremely manipulative nature of abusers who often pass blame for violence onto the victim. My impression of the overall article is that violence against men is overstated, not understated, and I suspect that many of the references used to support the supposed prevalence of female initiated violence are POV work. There are not many refuges for battered men or many husband burnings in India. As the second sentence of the statistics section equates male and female violence I do not see how it can be called unbalanced.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 13:46, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I have seen both. Usually the women get hurt more do to the fact that females are generally smaller. WRT frequency the better evidence says rates of violence by each are equal. Men report it less than women due to the greater degree of social stigma attached. See page 5 and 6 of this book [6] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Strauss 2005?

Lots and lots of references to "Strauss, 2005" but can't find the actual title of that paper. [citation needed]. ciphergoth (talk) 14:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

We have a problem. This person wrote 5 books that year [7] And the name is Straus, Murray A. (2005). Would whoever added it please let us know which book it is?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Changes

Have made major organizational changes to the article. Much more needs to be done. The section on nursing reads like a how to guide. Wondering if we should just remove it?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:28, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Victim / Patient

Neither or these terms are particularly recommended for use. Person who has experienced domestic violence may be better?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:35, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Medical response

This should be a section on what can be done to help people who have suffered domestic violence and all it seems to do to comment on what a bad job physicians do with out discussing what they should do. This article need serious work. Have started.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:41, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

This article should really be called Domestic Abuse

Most of this article covers abuse in general with physical abuse just being one of several types of abuse. "Domestic Violence" is a misnomer. There may be plenty of very unpleasant nasty abusive domestic environments that dont actually involve violence and depend more on emotional blackmail. --Penbat (talk) 14:32, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The three sources I have added as part of the info box refer to it as domestic violence.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:19, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Feminists insist on calling things like "economic abuse" and "verbal abuse" domestic violence so that the over-arching, anti-male laws governing domestic violence can be applied in almost any situation. A more accurate term would be "domestic abuse" or "domestic not-very-niceness" regardless of what misnomer feminists and the mainstream media insist on using.Jayhammers (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:15, 7 February 2010 (UTC).

Yes thats what I thought, although DV has more Google hits than DA. Another angle is that IMHO there are probably more verbally and emotionally abusive women than men (although more physically abusive men than women) so the existence of non-violent DA is conveniently downplayed to support the feminist perspective. --Penbat (talk) 22:24, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Penbat, et al...if you can't keep your uninformed "IMHOs" and other reactionary hunches separate from the editing process, then you should NOT be editing this article96.25.84.50 (talk) 01:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Not an appropriate place for sexism against men

The Wikipedia entry for domestic violence is not an appropriate venue for thinly veiled sexism against men - also called misandry. Please do not remove my well-cited sources which run counter to the lie that only men commit domestic violence. Perpetuating hatred for men is a dying cause.Jayhammers (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC).

Reverting cited sources of women's greater likelihood to commit domestic violence

I have provided two studies demonstrating women's greater likelihood to commit domestic violence, fully appropriate to the gender abuse differences section of this article. It is not a minority held view in the scientific literature that men and women's abuse rates are at a minimum comparable. Studies which claim to contradict this study tend to look only at crime data, not sociological data which is more accurate due to a) men's unwillingness to admit domestic abuse from women and b) law enforcement's unwillingness to prosecute women for it.Jayhammers (talk) 22:36, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

You cannot simply cite two articles and claim "studies show..." Most research does not show this. This is WP:UNDUE, and the section already discusses in detail violence against men. And to start the section with this is severe POV pushing.Skydeepblue (talk) 22:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Then move it somewhere else. The next two paragraphs are poorly-substantiated and one isn't even a study, just a declaration by a government that women are abused, nothing based on FACTS. You can continue to hide the truth of domestic violence but that doesn't change the fact that awareness of the men's movement is increasing. That you must hide the truth says a lot.Jayhammers (talk) 22:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm Feminist organizations typically over-represent the proportion of male assaults often quoting that women represent 90% of abuse victims. These distortions are broadcast mostly for political advantage and for increased funding opportunities. The fact is these numbers, like those in McLaughlin’s OA News article, come from battered women shelters and from crime statistics, like the National Crime Victimization Survey. Most cases of partner assault, however, are not considered a crime. So they don’t show up in crime statistics. And most assaults against men, in particular, go unreported. Some may argue that domestic violence by women is usually done in self-defense. No. Even when researchers ask women themselves, women admit they initiate the partner assault at least half the time. One study of dating relationships asked, "Who struck the first blow without retaliation?" Answer: Women in 26% of the cases, men in just 13% (O’Leary DK et al. Prevalence and stability of physical aggression between spouses. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1989; 57:263-265). And, what about the most severe forms of partner battering? One study examined FBI statistics on 16,595 spousal homicides committed in the United States over a 10-year period. They found that 56.6% (9,393) of the murder victims were wives, and 43.4% (7,202) were husbands. Black males were at greatest risk of being killed by their partner (Mercy JA, Saltzman LE. Fatal violence among spouses in the United States, 1975-85. American Journal of Public Health 1989; 79:595-599). The real danger of domestic violence bias targeted at men, irresponsibly reinforced by the media, is that it is has now become all too easy to vilify men. Already, many innocent men have been issued restraining orders, barred from seeing their children, kicked out of their homes and even imprisoned, all on allegations of abuse later proven to be false. This is a flagrant violation of due process and our constitutional rights. The destructive myth that domestic violence is perpetrated predominantly by men against women has to stop. Domestic violence is a tragic social problem equally of men and women. The agenda of the local battered women’s task force is obvious. The OA News, however, has a public responsibility to report facts without bias. Responsible journalism demands it. Studies of spousal and dating violence indicate that women are as likely as men to assault their partners physically. This investigation examined the issue of the initiation of physical assaults by women on their male partners and the reasons offered for such behavior. Responses from 978 female college women indicate that, within a 5-year period, 20% (n=285) admitted to physical aggression against their male partners. Younger women in their 20s were significantly more likely to aggress physically than women who were 30 years and above. Women stated that they expressed aggression toward their male partners because they wished to engage their partner's attention, particularly emotionally. Also, assaultive women did not believe that their male victims would be seriously injured or would retaliate.

Relevant parts: Mercy, J. A., & Saltzman, L. E. (1989). Fatal violence among spouses in the United States, 1975-85. American Journal of Public Health, 79, 595-599. (Examined FBI figures regarding spousal homicides. During the 10 year period from 1975 to 1985 found higher murder rates of wives than husbands <43.4% vs 56.6%>. Black husbands were at the greatest risk of victimization. Spousal homicide among blacks was 8.4 times higher than that of whites. Spouse homicide rates were 7.7 times higher in interracial marriages and the risk of victimization for both whites and blacks increased as age differences between spouses increased. Wives and husbands were equally likely to be killed by firearms <approximately 72% of the time> while husbands were more likely to be stabbed and wives more likely to bludgeoned to death. Arguments apparently escalated to murder in 67% of spouse homicides.) Rosenfeld, R. (1997). Changing relationships between men and women. A note on the decline in intimate partner violence. Homicide Studies, 1, 72-83. (Author reports on homicide rates in ST. Louis from 1968-1992. Findings indicate that while men and women were equally likely to be victims of partner violence in 1970, in subsequent years men, primarily black men, were more likely to be murdered by their intimate partners.) Jayhammers (talk) 00:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks to both of you for your additions to the article. However, due to disruptive behaviour from both of you I'm issuing you both a warning. I have already blocked Skydeepblue, and Jayhammers has been warned, for edit warring. Additionally I am warning Jayhammers that wikipedia is not a forum and while you are welcome to add well sourced and verifiable information to articles it is not acceptable to use talk pages a soapbox[8]. Both Skydeepblue and Jayhammers are also warned to stop using wikipedia as a battleground. These behaviours are disruptive and further disruption will be prevented. I would also point out that Skydeepblue was correct to point out WP:UNDUE in regard to Jayhammers' addition - please read WP:NPOV in full--Cailil ^talk 17:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Having read the sources given for Jayhammers' edits they are fundamentally flawed. The article from clinical and research news is a report on a study of relationships between young single people, of limited relevance to spousal abuse. There is no reporting of method, such as whether any distinction was made between aggressive violence and self defence, i.e. a slap to the face of an over-amorous boy may be given similar weight to coersive violence by a boy bent on having his way. The study by Renee McDonald et al. interviewed people IN THEIR OWN HOMES, with other family members potentially listening. Not many abuse victims would admit the truth under such conditions. Abuse victims are often in denial or blame themselves for abuse which is in no way their own fault. Again no distinction seems to have been made for force used in self defence. Because of these shortcomings these references do not carry sufficient weight to justify the claims made and I am removing them.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 23:07, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Protection

This article should be semi-protected. Skydeepblue (talk) 22:00, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Why? There's not a lot of vandalism. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:14, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

"Domestic violence" v "domestic abuse" v "spousal abuse"

It would be a good idea to have a short section explaining the origins of the use of the expression "domestic violence". According to http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=domestic it was 1st attested in its current meaning in 1977 as "spouse abuse, violence in the home". Strictly speaking, "domestic abuse" or "spousal abuse" would be better. I suspect the expression "domestic violence" has its origins in feminism and conveniently glosses over the fact that women are probably responsible for more non-violent abuse than men, that most domestic abuse is not violent and that psychological abuse can be as or more damaging than physical abuse. In fact, you could say that the whole article is POV because of its disproportionate emphasis on violence when "domestic abuse" and "spousal abuse" both redirect here. I see that "Spousal abuse" used to be a separate article http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spousal_abuse&oldid=158989405 IMHO http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spousal_abuse&oldid=158989405 should not have been changed to a redirect although quite a lot of work needed doing to it as it is incomplete. The initial statement in domestic violence - "Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse" - is obviously wrong. The other point is that "spousal abuse" has a broader scope than "domestic violence" so you could easily argue that "domestic violence ought to redirect into "spousal abuse" rether than the other way round. Anybody fancy undoing the "spousal abuse" redirect and reverting it back to an article ?. Actually "domestic abuse" is probably a better phrase than "spousal abuse".--Penbat (talk) 09:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I take your point Penbat, and agree if the distinction can be sourced properly we should unmerge spousal abuse from here. And perhaps reverse the redirect (merging domestic violence to spousal abuse) which seems like a sensible suggestion. However please bear in mind this is not a forum so what you 'suspect' isn't relevant or helpful. Also on a related matter is 'factual accuracy' the correct template? Are you disputing the validity of sources, or are you disputing article neutrality, or are you suggesting we reorganize the page and alter the redirects? These are 3 distinct issues and it'd be helpful for people who want to address the issues to have a bit more clarity--Cailil ^talk 15:47, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

That said perhaps you missed the bit where the article Spousal abuse had serious issues with WP:NOR and WP:NOV? Talk:Spousal_abuse#Totallydisputed_and_rewrite_template. Your recent edit lifts a lot of information the was "totally disputed" and much of which requires serious sourcing. If this can't be sourced it must be removed--Cailil ^talk 15:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

yes the spousal abuse text needs quite a lot if work but it is far from worthless and there are quite a few citations used. I thought it should be merged for now so it can be considered as part of the mix. Personally i prefer "domestic abuse" to "spousal abuse" and is more commonly used. Whatever, this article is a mess. But there is no doubt that the expression "domestic violence" is much more common in the media than "domestic abuse" or "spousal abuse" but its name is counterintuitive and confusing in the wider scheme of things. Do we have a POV banner? Yes i think it is mainly POV but some factual errors as well. It might be an idea to have a "criticisms" section here as well as a separate domestic abuse or spousal abuse article, although i personally like the idea of redirecting "domestic violence" to "domestic abuse".--Penbat (talk) 16:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm ok. Can you be more specific about the POV issues (ie what sentences/sources)? We do have a few POV banners (see Category:Neutrality_templates) but personal I don't see an over-all POV problem. More likely this article just needs expansion. A few issues need to be kept in balance WP:DUE, WP:V and WP:NOR so it might be best if you label specific sections/sentences you have issues with with Template:POV-section or Template:Disputed-inline--Cailil ^talk 17:04, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem is the emphasis on the expression "domestic violence" - it is intrinsically confusing and IMHO lends itself to distorted POV perspectives of one sort or another. The current article about 50% of the time refers to "domestic violence" and another 50% of the time refers to "domestic abuse" - the 2 expressions are used quite interchangeably and nowhere does it say how one is any different to the other. It would be a lot better IMHO if the article was renamed "domestic abuse" (with "domestic violence" as a redirect to "domestic abuse") and then "domestic violence" can be defined and described in terms of domestic abuse. Obviously there needs to be a Criticisms or Controversies section covering differences in opinion amongst academics. "Spousal abuse" can also be defined in terms of "domestic abuse".--Penbat (talk) 20:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I have seen some definitions of "domestic violence" where it just means physical violence and other definitions where it means any kind of abuse similar to domestic abuse but it is unclear if physical abuse has to be 1 of the package of abuses or not. So that gives 3 basic variations and obvious grounds for confusion. That leads to the question - is domestic abuse domestic violence if there is no physical abuse ? Are any forms of abuse never considered to be domestic violence such as neglect, psychological manipulation, psychological abuse, economic abuse, stalking or passive-aggressive abuse ? --Penbat (talk) 20:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think domestic abuse/violence is much of an issue really. Just show us sources that differentiate the two and we can discuss them. To my knowledge and from my own reading "domestic violence" is a significantly covered and reliably sourced subject. But i do see your point. The terms "intimate partner abuse" or "spousal abuse" tend to cover the same territory.
But even if the definition of domstic violence/abuse varies that doesn't matter as long as we incorporate the sources.
Also I am absolutely not in favour of a criticism section (see WP:CRITS and WP:NPOV). In tersm of structure, maintenance and writing it is better to incorporate critical information within the article where it is relevant. Criticism sections tend to become coatracks and pov-sections and for this reason it is better to avoid them.
So in short show us the reliable sources that explain how domestic violence is a subset of domestic abuse and then we can make a decision. Another option would be to create another article (Domestic abuse/spousal abuse) in which Domestic violence is summarized (see WP:SUMMARY)--Cailil ^talk 23:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to redirect "Domestic violence" to new article "Domestic abuse"

The background to this has already been discussed in the previous section. Please cast your vote here and/or discuss further. --Penbat (talk) 22:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Has any researcher done ....

festival domestic violence...???

• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=festival+domestic+violence&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

--58.38.42.115 (talk) 08:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Messy and contradictory

This page is all over the place. In some places, there are statistics that show women are victims more than men. In other places there are statistics that show it's equal. It can't be both, yet the article has no problem arguing both and referencing both claims without attempting to reconcile them. We need editors to critically evaluate the references being used by both sets of claims and to examine the overall consensus in the literature (eg. if 90% of papers on a subject favour one view, more weight should be given to that view). I don't have the topic knowledge, and a lot of the people who have knowledge on this topic have heavy POV bias one way or the other as it is an understandably sensitive subject. What we need is to step back from opinions and agendas, systematically make the article more consistent and coherent, and reduce the emphasis given to minority opinions that are not substantiated by the literature. (I am making no claims about which sets of opinions are which.) 203.217.150.69 (talk) 01:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Well the POV and experts needed banners are in place at the start of the article, all we need now are some experts (like many other Wiki articles). At least the diverging opinions in this article probably do reflect real diverse opinions and i suspect the experts dont entirely agree with each other either. As i mentioned before, IMHO the usage of the phrase "domestic violence" tends to lead to distortion and propogate POV opinions. There needs to be a Controversies or Criticism section where the differences are thrashed out.--Penbat (talk) 12:04, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Women are more often perpetrators of domestic violence. But feminists don't want you to hear that and wikipedia is not good at stopping censorship by majority groups such as feminists and misandrists.Jayhammers (talk) 02:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Showing feminism's true colors

Removing verified statistics showing women commit domestic violence more often than men while retaining the information claiming men commit murder more often remain. This article is supposed to be about domestic violence, isn't it? Then why are the statistics of domestic violence displayed for the public? Why is the truth suppressed? Jayhammers (talk) 02:35, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Updated truths

Updates some truths about domestic violence - that women commit it 33% more often and that women initiate domestic violence at least as often as men (probably more). Watch as the feminist misandrist man-haters remove the truths in hatred of men.Jayhammers (talk) 02:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

This is WP:UNDUE. This has been previously discussed here and it has been declared WP:UNDUE (archive 4). Please stop your aggressive POV-pushing and take your anger and frustration to another place. Wikipedia articles and talk pages are not a place for you to vent. Other editors, please be aware at Jayhammers, who on his user page says that Wikipedia pages are "run by feminist liars" and uses language such as "feminist misandrist man-haters" and "corrected lies by feminists" and "censorship by feminist sexists" in his edits on talk pages and in summaries. Some of his posts have been archived on this talk page; he has repeatedly used this talk page as a soapbox and as a place to express his hatred for feminist organizations, for "anti-male laws" and so on, (see archive 4). Either this user abides by wikipedia rules (WP:SOAP, WP:NPOV, WP:CONS, WP:UNDUE, WP:RS, WP:CIVIL) or otherwise he should be blocked. Skydeepblue (talk) 03:38, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I note that the article's neutrality is disputed. Perhaps it could be improved, but reading over it, it's the most balanced account that I've come across so far, as far as the role of gender in domestic abuse is concerned. Most other sources I've seen focus only on men abusing women and take the "you don't hit girls but it's alright for girls to hit boys" sort of line, while a few others focus entirely on the issue of female-on-male abuse being considered relatively acceptable leading to sexism against men in these situations. I think this article does a good job of covering both with fair proportions. Tws45 (talk) 00:48, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Based entirely on what you wrote, then we are in violation of Wikipedia policy. WP:WEIGHT. If the majority of our sources give more weight to one type of abuse, then we likewise must present it in the same manner. If we are presenting two unequal views as if they were equal, as you seem to suggest, then we are violating Wikipedia core policies. -Andrew c ^[talk] 01:43, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

We are absolutely in violation of Wikipedia policy because the vast majority of media outlets and research focus on violence perpetrated by men against women. TheLuca (talk) 23:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, on the research front it's not that simple- a look through the links reveals that a lot of research looks at female-on-male violence as well, and while most of it concludes that male-on-female abuse occurs at higher rates, it is not as one-sided as the focus of media outlets is.Tws45 (talk) 01:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

This would be true if I was talking about only reliable sources, but perhaps I wasn't clear enough on what I meant by "most other sources"- by that I was including the numerous emotionally-charged pieces that we regularly get from the UK media. WP:WEIGHT says "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject" (WP:IRS) and I don't think many of these media sources would be deemed particularly reliable. Quite often the mainstream view on a subject in the British media strongly differs from that among experts and academic researchers- I have a lot of experience with this regarding climate science for example. Tws45 (talk) 16:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Since it is only CTS-based studies which report a "gender symmetry" of violence and even the National Institute of Justice acknowledges that CTS is an unreliable scientific tool (see: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/crime/intimate-partner-violence/measuring.htm), the studies which report "gender symmetry" are unreliable whereas the studies which report that the majority of perpetrators are men are based on methods which has not raised any objections by the scientific community. TheLuca (talk) 23:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

You are unfairly conflating Tws45's comments on this article having a fair balance of gender initiated forms of domestic violence with claims of "gender symmetry." Do you always misconstrue the statements of others in an effort to discredit them? Unfortunately gender warriors on both sides of the spectrum continually talk around each other like this and it never leads to any meaningful consensus. I'm sure you have a closet full of sound-bites and talking points but please try to limit their use to applicable discussions.--Cybermud (talk) 19:49, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Your comment is both uncivil and disruptive. The talk pages are not meant to serve as a place where you can opine on "gender warriors" and attack other editors without even addressing the article's content. If you have something meaningful to contribute, please do. TheLuca (talk) 22:07, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I said nothing at all about "gender symmetry", and did not for one moment suggest that the article implied that domestic abuse was equally perpetuated by both sexes (I would, in fact, be highly surprised if women perpetuated DV as much as men). All I suggested was that it was refreshing to see coverage of studies and viewpoints that didn't follow the "DV is perpetuated by men against women" stance. Btw, I've looked at the NIJ article (and its relevant links). It does cast serious doubts on the "gender symmetry" theories, with the implication that the article previously gave them too much weight. However, I think the article has now gone too far the other way- others have discussed the main issues in the section below. Tws45 (talk) 01:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Recent edit reversals

I'd like to suggest that both Saveservices and Charlesdrakew discuss their edits on this talk page. In particular I think the edits of both have validity to them even though neither is discussing them here. On the one hand a fair amount of what SS is adding is already in the article in some form, on the other hand some of it is not. In particular I think there is a paucity (or no) coverage of the fact that domestic violence has taken on political undertones and become a vehicle for promoting some radical strands of feminist political ideals (ie the exclusive promotion of women's interests without an evenhanded consideration of equal justice or substantive equality.) Not to diverge too broadly from the subject but what I refer to is the pushing of the universality of woman as victim and man as oppressor and the tendency to view claims that women can also be violent (equality doesn't just mean equally capable of good things) with hostility and arbitrarily reject evidence that suggests as much as politically inconvenient for feminists viewing the issue through the prism of identity and gender politics. (I apologize if I'm rehashing a previous discussion here.. this article just has way too much history to be sure)--Cybermud (talk) 21:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Saveservices's edits are problematic, not only because of the redundant content issue, but for other issues as well. What basically happened is an argumentative essay, that partially synthesizes specialized primary sources, was placed in this article to try to argue a position, which is not the prevalent position in the field. The phrasing and presentation of "fact" was done in a manner which was more about The Truth than about NPOV and avoiding OR. We should all avoid advocacy, and arguing specific points, especially if they are outside of normal WEIGHT considerations. That said, I'd encourage Saveservices to try to update, adjust, and add to existing text in the article, or perhaps even working to overhaul the article, or merge section, or other major proposals that work with existing article content, while also considering multiple sides to the issue, and not trying to play advocacy for just one side of a debate. -Andrew c ^[talk] 21:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Outdent:

So I thought my previous comment may have been to abstract to easily follow, to make it more concrete I was referring to the below "Data Sets Ignored by the Gender Paradigm" he added which, granted, contains reptitions:

The gender paradigm is essentially an ideological view and, as such, ignores or attempts to explain away the data sets that are more dis-confirming and embarrassing. These include the following:

a) Gay violence—IPV -( all forms- physical, sexual and psychological) is more common in gay and lesbian relationships. Clearly, if dv is male perpetration of patriarchy over females, this is hard to explain. However, psychological theories of IPV that emphasize disturbances in intimacy are capable of explaining such data.

b) Developmental trajectories - Longitudinal studies of women’s development show that aggressive girls develop into aggressive wives and mothers . Aggressive girls seek out aggressive men in what is called “assortative mating’ which is why bilateral violence is the most common form of IPV. However, when the men do not use IPV, aggressive girls use it anyway .

c) Female IPV - Aggressive girls are more likely to have children with visits to the ER for physical injuries. According to Health and Human Services, biological mothers are the most common perpetrator of child physical abuse and child homicide .

d) Homicide rates – gender paradigm advocates like to point out that males kill intimate females more frequently than females kill males. However, all intimate homicides are computed in rates per million couples . In the highest rates recorded, in Chicago 1965-1990, 98 men and 56 women killed their mate per million couples. This was described as a gender issue by paradigm advocates

e) Control in intimate relationships - Large sample studies find that men and women use control tactics equally by gender not in the one sided, male perpetrated way described by the gender paradigm.

The gender paradigm is a simplified and often wrong lens that distorts the more complex and systemic nature of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). It ignores psychological factors that contribute to IPV perpetration, such as personality disorders attachment disorders and impulse disorders . It misleads family court judges in their assessments of risk to children and police in their determinations of who is a primary offender on a domestic violence call

In North America, the gender paradigm is so pervasive that experimental studies reveal that both the general public and professionals see the same action performed by a male as more “abusive” and requiring of police arrest ( as opposed to when it is performed by a female). A more inclusive and psychologically informed model for IPV would re-institute fairness in criminal justice proceedings and pave the way to more effective policy directed toward the cessation of IPV.

--Cybermud (talk) 22:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I actually placed a "POV" banner at the start of this article earlier this year but somebody removed it. This article basically stinks and it doesnt help that it is called "domestic violence". Although they are much less commonly used than DV, i think "domestic abuse" or "spousal abuse" would be better names for this article. The problem with the DV name is that it neatly taps into the feminist perspective. In my view women are significantly less likely to be violent to a man but make up for it by being more likely to be abusive in other ways such as verbal and psychological - but that is discounted by referring to DV not spousal abuse. It is anyway wrong just to focus on physical abuse when there may well be bad abuse in either direction between a man and a woman that doesnt actually include violence. So simply calling this article DV is POV and other POV themes develop on from that.--Penbat (talk) 22:10, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to add that in my view no type of abuse is a gender-specific issue and in the case of DV, the feminist emphasis on gender is seriously distorting and POV. Yes men and women tend to use different styles of abuse but in my view are just as bad as each other and abuse roughly equally. --Penbat (talk) 22:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Further, the feminist perspective downplays the relevance of personality disorders in DV (which both men and women have in roughly equal measures) and play up the supposed societal male macho influence and testosterone.--Penbat (talk) 09:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Giving two whole sections to this topic, and high on the page, is giving it grossly undue weight. If some aspects are not covered elsewhere they should be written in at appropriate places. There is already a section on gender aspects of abuse. I see that an article on the gender paradigm has been started and is proposed for deletion. If it is cleaned up and kept that will solve this issue as it can be linked to. If it is not deemed worthy of being a separate article then it certainly does not warrant a whole long section here. The sections should be removed or transferred to this page pending the outcome of this discussion.

From a comment on my talk page in which he/she refers to reverting "our edits" it appears that Saveservices is editing on behalf of a group or organisation and has a conflict of interest, as well as a strong POV.--Charles (talk) 09:41, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Im partly sympathetic to the idea of incorporating the contentious material into the "Gender aspects of abuse" section although i think it better if it was positioned at an earlier point in the article. But on the otherhand i think "Gender aspects of abuse" and the "gender paradigm" does deserve the prominence given, as, as i said, i think even the title of this article (domestic violence) is POV and needs prominent countering.--Penbat (talk) 10:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, inspite of seeing some value to the edits his comments on your page and editwarring certainly leave something to be desired. Might try taking a look at WP:Civil--Cybermud (talk) 22:09, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Recapping on the "In North America, the gender paradigm is so pervasive that experimental studies reveal that both the general public and professionals see the same action performed by a male as more “abusive” and requiring of police arrest ( as opposed to when it is performed by a female)" comment. I've come across American chat shows where male-on-female abuse is taken very seriously, but when females are accused of abusing males, the audience actually laugh. Those of us who question the gender paradigm are routinely accused of downplaying the incidence and seriousness of male-on-female domestic abuse, even those who recognise and accept that it is a very serious problem but see both sides of the argument. It's going to prove very tricky addressing the conflict areas between NPOV and WP:WEIGHT, and I agree with the suggestion that changing the article to "domestic abuse" rather than violence may help. Tws45 (talk) 17:01, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Religion as a cause?

This doesn't seem to have been covered in the reasons for spousal abuse. The Koran specifically states men can beat their wives for instance (see here for weasily excuses for this). The Bible also encourages some devout Christian men to dominate over their wives too. This should be covered surely. Malick78 (talk) 15:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

"Diagnosis" section

Recent edits called my attention to this section. First the whole first part of it has copyright issues. It is completely lifted verbatim from its cited source which can be easily verified by searching it on Google books. Secondly the additional sections don't make sense as subsections. It's a section on "diagnosis" but why does it have a "financial" subsection? Is there a medical field that diagnoses financial issues and needs a list of symptoms to look for?! Furthermore, while the start of the section begins with a description of "Marital Conflict Disorder With Violence" -- a proposed addition to the upcoming DSM edition. The rest of the subsections have nothing to do with that proposed disorder and seem like a violation of WP:Syn as they are all added as subsections of it but aren't mentioned in the actual source for the proposed disorder. Additionally "diagnosis" itself is a major section of the article and this section conflates diagnosis of "marital conflict disorder" as synonymous with DV which is silly. At most it is a subset of it, if the rest of the article is accurate.--Cybermud (talk) 03:24, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I changed "Victim Responses" to be its own standalone section rather than a subsection of "diagnosis." Makes much more sense like that and I expect that's what the original editor probably intended. The other issues above: copyright, and conflation of diagnosing "Marital Conflict Disorder With Violence" with diagnosing DV still exist.--Cybermud (talk) 03:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Reliable sources, Abuse Industry advocacy sites and weasel words

The section Sexual abuse cites only one source which points to http://helpguide.org/ It also makes a textual reference to the "National Coalition for Women Against Violence" but has no actual inline reference to it. With the mountains of scholarly books, studies and peer reviewed literature on this topic I don't think these sources are up to par.

Additionally the section itself uses imprecise language that amounts to weasel words -- making the absence of strong references particularly egregious. For instance, it says "one-half of all battered women are raped by their partners at least once during their relationship." Unfortunately battered women and raped are ambiguously defined as the result of the their perpetual domain expansion and the efforts of advocates to use as broad a definition as possible. Is a "battered woman" a victim of physical abuse or was it limited to psychological, emotional or financial abuse?

For example, the above referenced helpguide.org says:

Economic or financial abuse: A subtle form of emotional abuse

Remember, an abuser's (sic) goal is to control you, and he or she will frequently use money to do so. Economic or financial abuse includes:

• Withholding money or credit cards.
• Making you account for every penny you spend.
• Withholding basic necessities (food, clothes, medications, shelter).
• Restricting you to an allowance.
• Preventing you from working or choosing your own career.
• Sabotaging your job (making you miss work, calling constantly)
• Stealing from you or taking your money.

When we say "battered women" I think it needs to be clear whether we mean a victim of a broad spectrum of abuse that included physical battery or merely someone "restricted to an allowance" or subject to the "withholding credit cards."

Also advocacy studies tend to combine "rape" and "attempted rape" together as "victims of rape" and with rape even having been defined as essentially "being talked into consenting to sex after initially disagreeing" I shudder to think what an "attempted rape" may have been defined as.

Encyclopedia's are not the place for such emotive and imprecise terms sourced to advocacy sites pandering to political ideologies or rent-seeking government grants. I understand that to some degree it is difficult to address this issue as the very phrase domestic violence itself is increasingly becoming something of a weasel word but the least we can do is avoid the use of ill-defined weasel words to describe a weasel word that are tied to advocacy organizations with a financial, if not political, incentive to overestimate the problem they are trying to address.--Cybermud (talk) 01:19, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

"Sex of assailant" vs "Gender aspects of abuse"

Why the two different overlapping sections? I appreciate the difference between gender and sex but both these sections overlap significantly and tend to focus on sex (aside from a subsection on same-sex couples.)--Cybermud (talk) 05:11, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Early in the article it states that "Research has also shown women commit severe domestic violence twice as often as men.[30][31]" But it later states that "some studies show that men's violence may be more serious. Men's violence may do more damage than women's;[41] women are much more likely to be injured and/or hospitalized, wives are much more likely to be killed by their husbands than the reverse (59%-41% Dept of Justice study), and women in general are more likely to be killed by their spouse than by all other types of assailants combined.[42]" This is confusing, especially because at the beginning, it's not presented as being at all doubted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.82.132.73 (talk) 19:04, 4 December 2010 (UTC) Link 31 doesn't support the argument that violence by women is more "severe" at all. Link 30 defines "severe" seemingly arbitrarily. Hospitalization, injury or death isn't what constitutes severe. Rather, everything from "trying to hit with an object" to "using a knife or weapon", "beating up", etc. is defined as "severe". The trying to hit with an object is what makes "severe" violence lean so much towards women as "twice" as severe, but I think sustaining injuries is a better indicator of severity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.82.132.73 (talk) 19:15, 4 December 2010 (UTC) [[

This article seems to suffer from schizophrenia. Not only is there the section pair above on sex/gender aspects, there is another for the Duluth Model. The entire article lacks good organization and readability with duplicate sections and some sections contradicting others.--Cybermud (talk) 19:24, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Lead, "passive abuse," "Alcohol consumption and mental illness."

The article's lead says:

Domestic violence has many forms including physical aggression (hitting, kicking, biting, shoving, restraining, slapping, throwing objects), or threats thereof; sexual abuse; emotional abuse; controlling or domineering; intimidation; stalking; passive/covert abuse (e.g., neglect); and economic deprivation.[1] Alcohol consumption[2] and mental illness.[3]

I have a couple of issues with this.

First there's the claim that "passive/covert abuse (e.g., neglect)" is a form of DV. This is problematic for two reasons. First it's completely unreferenced and uncited. With the overwhelming amount of tax-payer dollars, studies and research in this area there is no justification for any aspect of this topic to not have some citation. A number of scholarly journals are completely devoted to DV related issues. Secondly, per WP:Manual of Style (lead section) the lead is a summary of the article, and there's no mention of "passive/covert abuse (e.g., neglect)" in the article's body. I removed this once, thinking it uncontroversial, but was reverted (hence the present comments.)

Secondly there's the incomplete sentence "Alcohol consumption and mental illness." I'm not even sure what that means in this context. Call me a cynic but it sounds to me like it implies that drinking (not abusing) any alcohol and being depressed are also forms of DV. Not only have we broadened DV to be anything someone (ie a male) does to someone else (ie a female) but now, via "neglect/passive abuse" anything they fail to do is also DV. Can we possibly make DV any more of a weasel word than it already is?--Cybermud (talk) 19:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Bias viewpoint and contradictions?

The article tends to side with the bias view point of mainly male perpetrators and mainly female victims as if it were peer-reviewed fact while other parts lightly touches on the possibility of this being untrue.... it seems kinda bias —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.21.122.24 (talk) 02:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Perpetrators are mainly male and victims mainly female. There are published works that refute this but they are based on dodgy use of statitics such as failing to separate agressive violence from self defence.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 08:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

False. Women initiative domestic violence far more often than men. Men, of course, are arrested for it far more often, due to societal bias (which you demonstrate quite well). In fact, men are arrested most of the time even when they are the victims. Studies that use unbiased research methods find the truth of it. Wondergay (talk) 22:42, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

This looks like a personal opinion- it was under dispute on Page 4 of the talk archive, unfortunately it's no longer being discussed "up front". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Domestic_violence/Archive_4 I remember reading through the sources for the "domestic violence is overwhelmingly male on female" point of view expressed in the POV-tagged paragraph and finding that the conclusions listed in the Wikipedia article were in fact stronger than the sources suggested, plus the sources relied heavily upon one person (Michael Flood), a well-established feminist campaigner- he's a valid source, but to quote him as the absolute authority on the subject, in itself, raises POV suspicions. Tws45 (talk) 15:28, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Michael Flood is a massive pro-feminist performer running a very successful business selling anti-father and anti-male advocacy "studies" published under the color of his degree. He certainly meets WP reliable source guidelines but he's about as NPOV as Valerie Solanas on the shooting of Andy Warhol. Flood always takes a radical feminist standpoint and should never be quoted in the absence of mainstream/countervailing views.--Cybermud (talk) 00:48, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Dr. Michael Flood is an internationally respected academic researcher and educator. There is considerable evidence that he is opposed to violence, crime, misogyny and abuse. He is definitely pro-women, while still being pro-father and pro-male. To say otherwise is slanderous. His carefully researched writings and studies are certainly pro-feminist, and is an excellent resource for Wikipedia, in particular The Men's Bibliography, his massive collection of articles on men, masculinities, and gender. I agree that other sources need to be presented and plan to put some in soon.DaKine (talk) 09:15, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Opposed to violence, crime, hatred and abuse of women, yes. Flood is as much, or more, a feminist activist as he is an academic, and he is absolutely not pro-father. When he says "father's rights" it's always in quotes. Try a google search of "anti-father Michael Flood" and you'll see plenty of hits. He does not support, nor is he supported by, any group advocating for fathers. Having Flood prognosticate on men and masculinities is like having Bill O'Reilly explain liberal and democrats. His views on men and masculinities combined with feminist views on feminism are analogous to the Faux News notion of Fair and Balanced. In any case, I'm not saying he should be excluded as a source. He clearly meets WP:RS and presents the feminist side of issues. At least we do agree that other sources are needed for balance.--Cybermud (talk) 14:09, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Copypaste of "Marital conflict disorder"

Copypaste from where? Need further information to substantiate this tag.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

It should be removed. I put that tag there, but I don't remember the page I found that it appeared to be copy/pasted from or how I found it the first time. With all the sites that mirror this article it's hard to google it and, admittedly, I'm not entirely sure I didn't mistake a page copying WP for WP copying another page.--Cybermud (talk) 06:39, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Classification

The leading sentence says, "All forms of domestic abuse have one purpose: to gain and maintain total control over the victim."

My dispute is with 'total'. This sentence says that if a person's purpose is not total control of a partner then that person is not an abuser. For example, it says that if a person does not constrain a partner's activity away from home, and only uses abusive tactics when the partner is at home, then that person is not an abuser. I disagree, based partly on personal experience as a victim and based on the cited source.

The cited source does indeed say, "Domestic violence and abuse are used for one purpose and one purpose only: to gain and maintain total control over you."

However, the article itself precedes that statement with, "Domestic abuse, also known asspousal abuse, occurs when one person in an intimate relationship or marriage tries to dominate and control the other person."

The article's leading sentence says, "tries to dominate and control the other person" while the following paragraph says "to gain and maintain total control over you." The article contradicts itself concerning 'total'.

For these reasons I am going to remove 'total' from that sentence in the article. DavidForthoffer (talk) 16:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Confusing and repetitious paragraph

The first paragraph under the heading "Gender of assailant" is identical to a paragraph contained under the heading "Gender aspects of abuse". In addition, the paragraph makes little sense in regard to the gender of the assailant, as it deals entirely with the gender of the victim. I suggest the paragraph be removed under the "Gender of assailant" heading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.38.29.206 (talk) 22:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

History section

The first point in the history section about the introduction of the term is certainly wrong - it was being used in the British Parliament in 1973 [9]. The options would be either to say "cited as first used...but", to describe the 1973 use as early without reference to the incorrect dictionary (which would be unsupported as it might be earlier), to cut the claim entirely (on the basis it adds little to understanding), or to check with a better dictionary. Billwilson5060 (talk) 20:03, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Kaldari (talk) 04:32, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Domestic Violence and Pregnancy

I’m interested in bringing in more information on Domestic Violence and Pregnancy to Wikipedia. My contribution would cover both pregnancy as a form of domestic violence and the changes of domestic violence caused by pregnancy. Domestic violence may increase or start during pregnancy and the pattern of violence often changes. Domestic violence can also cease during pregnancy because of the abuser’s fear of harming his own child. Pregnancy-related violence is a serious public health issue and although there are a plethora of scholarly articles and resources on the interrelationship between pregnancy and domestic violence, there is currently no Wikipedia page on it. The Birth control sabotage article covers part of the topic but is by no means all-inclusive. The incidence rates of domestic violence in pregnancies are also discussed in the Epidemiology of domestic violence article. However, there is currently no page synthesizing this information or bringing in the copious amounts of outside research. In fact, pregnancy is only mentioned once in this article. There is a growing body of research on this topic and it would be important to have a separate article to highlight the importance of this issue.

I was wondering if there were any suggestions on which part of the article would be best to add in a section about Domestic Violence's relationship with pregnancy (I plan to discuss the risk factors for IPV during pregnancy, the causes of violence during pregnancy, the effects of the violence on the mother and child, its epidemiology, and pregnancy as a form of domestic violence.) Thank You! Cshaase (talk) 03:14, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest creating a new top-level section, perhaps before Prognosis. If it's a lot of material, you may want to put it up in a personal sandbox first, like User:Cshaase/Domestic violence and pregnancy. That way we can help you tidy it up before it goes into the article (or help you format it into a stand-alone article if that seems more logical). Kaldari (talk) 04:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree. This is much needed.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 21:20, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I uploaded my proposed entry to my personal sandbox. Any comments or suggestions?Cshaase (talk) 17:30, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

It looks like a great start. It's definitely too much material to fit within this article so I guess we should go back to the idea of having a separate dedicated article for Domestic violence and pregnancy. One thing that you're going to need for the article is a lead section. This is basically a concise summary/overview of the entire article. You can also use this lead section as the basis for a summary within this article that links to your full article. Take a look at WP:LEAD and let me know if you have any questions about it. Kaldari (talk) 20:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Prognosis

The discussion here focuses on the effects of domestic violence on health. While the information here is interesting, prognosis would indicate, at least to me, what is the prognosis of domestic violence? In other words, what is the outlook of this problem, will it get better or worse? I would be interested in knowing what has been effective at reducing domestic violence. What programs work? Which ones do not? Are there any studies?Nurseebol (talk) 14:00, 12 May 2011 (UTC)Nurseebol

Statistics within the European Union

The article needs to list the incidence of domestic violence for each nation within the EU. At the moment the article is very American-centric.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:00, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Mental Illness

No citation has been given for ADHD as a causal factor in domestic violence. From what I understand of ADHD, I am sure that this unsubstanciated assertion is offensive to those with the condition, and for that reason I am going to remove it. DrSparticle (talk) 20:34, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Psychological abuse etc as "violence"? POV?

At the top of our article violence we have this passage:

Violence is the use of physical force to cause injury, damage or death.<ref>[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/violence merriam-webster.com], Merriam-Webster Dictionary Retrieved January 8, 2009.</ref><ref>[http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/violence?view=uk askoxford.com], Oxford English Dictionary Retrieved January 8, 2009.</ref><ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/61/0/V0110000.html bartleby.com], American Heritage Dictionary, Violence, Retrieved January 8, 2009.</ref>

I have not read this article very thoroughly but there appears to me to be a discrepancy.James500 (talk) 05:21, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Hey, James, and I promise I'm not following you. It's pretty obvious by now that we are interested in some of the same topics. This is one article I have occasionally checked in on.

Now that said, moving on to your concern: Well, if you look at the alternate names for "domestic violence," there's domestic abuse, spousal abuse, family violence, and intimate partner violence. Notice the word "abuse" in two of the alternate names? I believe the point is that psychological abuse counts as abuse, and can be violent due to threats of violence or the person (such as a child) witnessing the violence. I'm surprised this article is not titled Domestic abuse, though, given how narrowly some define "violence." It clearly was named such before. Flyer22 (talk) 06:24, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I also believe "Domestic abuse" is the common name, per WP:COMMONNAME. Flyer22 (talk) 06:32, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I have checked this a bit further. The definition does indeed seem to be endorsed by the US Department of Justice (footnote 12). That said, that is their POV, and the US Goverment does not have a monopoly on the meaning of the word "violence" (except in the context of their own laws).

I am unable to comment on whether "domestic abuse" is the common name, though I was under the impression that it was.James500 (talk) 07:10, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I cannot find any reference in the logs of either page to a page move. Why do you think this page was move from Domestic abuse?James500 (talk) 07:18, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Oops. I figured that it had once been titled Domestic abuse, since the name links here. It's apparent that someone simply created the link so that it would link to the Abuse article, and it was then redirected here. Flyer22 (talk) 07:29, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I would say your small tweaks to the issue are sufficient enough.[10][11] The only other step would be to alter the disputed line (not the initial first line) to say: Domestic violence, so defined, has many forms, including physical aggression (such as sexual abuse, hitting, kicking, biting, shoving, restraining, slapping and throwing objects). Under United States law, this includes threats, emotional abuse; controlling or domineering, intimidation, stalking, passive/covert abuse (e.g., neglect); and economic deprivation. Flyer22 (talk) 07:49, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I am happy with the alterations I have made for the moment. I am not sure which United States law you are referring to. I don't recall the page that I looked at, for the Office on Violence Against Women, saying that their definition was a legal one.James500 (talk) 09:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I have done some more searching.

Section 3(a) of the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 substitutes the following definition into the Violence Against Women Act of 1994:

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.—The term ‘domestic violence’ includes felony or misdemeanor crimes of violence committed by a current or former spouse of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabitating with or has cohabitated with the victim as a spouse, by a person similarly situated to a spouse of the victim under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction receiving grant monies, or by any other person against an adult or youth victim who is protected from that person’s acts under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction.

See here:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:h3402enr.txt.pdf

And see the page Violence Against Women Act.

By "Under United States law," I was referring to the current definition in the lead (which includes psychological abuse) being endorsed by the US Department of Justice. If it's not legally endorsed, then we'd just substitute "Under United States law" for "By the US Department of Justice." We also wouldn't need "so defined" anymore...if going by the alternate wording. As for your new source, see that it says "under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction"? We don't know how every jurisdiction defines "domestic violence," but since "domestic violence" is synonymous with "domestic abuse," I believe psychological abuse would be included every time. Is there any way to check?

What I'm trying to say, James, is that "domestic violence" is just another term for "domestic abuse." They are not distinguished, as far as I have seen, no matter how one personally defines "violence." And seeing as psychological abuse counts as abuse, there's no doubt that that's why it's mentioned in the lead. It would be there if this article were titled Domestic abuse, and it's there now with this article going by the alternate name of Domestic violence. You could seek a page move to have this article retitled Domestic abuse if having threats/psychological abuse grouped under "violence" bothers you that much and you feel that it is less accurate, since the latter title is also a common name for it. Either way, though, "domestic violence" would be bolded in the lead, considering that important alternate names should be listed there as well. Flyer22 (talk) 18:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Economic abuse section

I edited the economic abuse section. I could not locate the (only) citation that was there after searching for a while. Instead, I rewrote this section according to the relevant references I found. Esery (talk) 13:57, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Legal Ramifications

I am not an attorney but am the alleged "victim" in a domestic violence incident and experienced the legal ramifications first hand. There really needs to be a discussion section on this part. There are extremely serious legal ramifications for both the accused and the alleged victim.

A few important issues within legal ramifications:

1) Once you call the police, there is no way to "un-do" the process and the alleged abuser will probably be charged with more than he or she really did.

a) The police will make an arrest and manipulate the testimony to justify the most severe charges possible, often felony charges in the case of domestic violence. If convicted of felony charges the alleged abuser would have to spend a minimum of 1 year in a state prison, but possibly much longer.

b) The alleged victim does not have the right to decide not to press charges. Only the DA's office can decide whether or not to press charges.

c) The DA's job is to get the strongest conviction possible for every arrest. The DA does not care about misleading police reports, innocence of the accused, overcharging the accused, or the alleged victim's desires for leniency. The DA will press for the maximum possible punishment.

2) The victim's life will be turned upside down by calling the police.

a) The courts will file a 3 year restraining order against the alleged abuser on the alleged victim's "behalf", even without the consent of the alleged victim, which will make it a crime for the alleged abuser to talk with, relay any messages through 3rd parties, or come within 300 feet of the alleged victim. This includes important financial matters.

b) In the state of California, the 3 year restraining order can only be modified after the alleged victim has taken 30 hours of domestic violence awareness classes over a 10 week period. The alleged abuser and alleged victim must remain completely apart for a minimum of 3 months even if they want to reconcile, even if there was no prior history of abuse, and even if the alleged victim does not want the protective order.

c) The alleged victim will need her or his own attorney which can cost over $10,000.

d) The alleged victim will be forced to testify against her or his spouse. While normally you don't have to testify against your spouse in the US, there is an exception in domestic violence cases. If the alleged victim refuses to testify or lies under oath to protect her or his spouse, the alleged victim can face substantial penalties, jail time, and even criminal charges.

3) The legal system has no respect for the alleged victim. Many studies on domestic violence state that victims are weak "co-dependent" people with no self esteem or confidence. The legal system takes the position that alleged victims are like children who are incapable of knowing what is best for her or his self. The victim's option is considered only at the very end of the process, after a guilty verdict has been made, when considering sentencing.

Domestic violence is a serious issue. Victims of domestic violence should educate themselves about domestic violence and end the pattern of abuse, either by leaving the abuser or getting the abuser to seek counseling and stop using drugs and/or alcohol.

Involving the legal system, however, should be a last resort and only in response to serious threats from the abuser. A decision to call the police should not be taken lightly, as it is the equivalent of using a deadly weapon in self defense.

A DV defense attorney would be best suited to write a legal ramifications section on this article, but have included what I learned from my own experience as an alleged victim in the discussion area to point out an important piece missing from the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xanderale15 (talk • contribs) 18:53, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Definition

"Amartya Sen calculated that more than 100 million females and follow up studies showed that between 60 million and 107 million women are missing worldwide.[18]"

Althought this might be true, this fact seems to be trowed there for no reason.

What does this have to do with domestic violence? This seems more like a fact for a kidnapping/abduction page.Meatsgains (talk) 21:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

United Kingdom

I have not found a statutory definition of the expression "domestic violence", but it appears in the short titles of the Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1976 and the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 and in the title of the Family Homes and Domestic Violence (Northern Ireland) Order 1998. James500 (talk) 00:21, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Picture should be removed

The lead picture should be removed for two reasons.

1. It is not representative. As I established above, with the definition we use for domestic violence, it is mostly minor and gender symmetrical.
   1. This picture is some ridiculous stereotype of an ultra-religious guy wailing on his wife with stick which must obviously be a non-typical case of DV
2. The subject is so varied that an illustration is not useful anyways. See how Violence, Assault, murder, theft, etc. are all un-illustrated.

The rationale that my attempt to remove the image was reverted with, that it was important because it was "tragic", is obviously a very poor one. extransit (talk) 10:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

• Agree In addition to what extransit said, the subject is too serious to have a 19th century cartoon picture in the lede. The picture is a caricature. Forget the fact it's not representative of the topic, it's silly. Mystylplx (talk) 20:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

  According to the World Health Organization, the Bureau of Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and dozens of peer-reviewed studies, the picture is an accurate illustration of domestic violence. I'll know you'll start with your usual "but the majority of peer-reviewed research say this and that..." but you'll excuse me if I choose to believe the WHO's summary of research rather than yours. But I'm a kind fellow who has better things to do than hog this talk page, so I'll let you have the last word as usual.--Sonicyouth86 (talk) 01:57, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Agree This picture is in no way a depiction of what this article is about. There are better options out there and we should explore them.Meatsgains (talk) 21:06, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• Move picture to History section. I don't think it's really appropriate for the lead, but it would make a good illustration for the History section as it reflects the acceptance of domestic violence prior to the 20th century. Kaldari (talk) 22:16, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• Agree I agree with Kaldari and others. The picture does not enhance the discussion and is a cartoon in a serious topic.Coaster92 (talk) 02:18, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose The studies that extransit found copied from Fiebert do not measure domestic violence, not do they pretend to measure domestic violence as defined in our article. Instead, they measure a certain type of "situational partner violence" which excludes sexual violence and a host of other important elements, see this National Institute of Justice statement. As soon as someone bothers to write the article Situational partner violence excluding sexual violence and a host of other factors, you can add all the claims of gender symmetry and all the random CTS studies you want. Since gender symmetry is only found in the context of "situational partner violence" rather than studies of domestic violence in a criminal context (see NIJ source), gender symmetry has clearly no relevance for this article and the picture is perfectly appropriate. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually they do measure domestic violence as defined by our article. Situational partner violence is the most common form of domestic violence. And the CTS does measure other kinds of domestic violence too--It just doesn't leave out the most common type. Mystylplx (talk) 08:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh Mystylplx, when will you learn that your opinion does not matter as long as the National Institute of Justice and peer-review research agree that the Conflict Tactics Scale does not measure important aspects of domestic violence and is thus inappropriate for domestic violence research? And *sigh*, yes, in the CTS context, "situational partner violence" is the most common kind of violence since "situational partner violence" is what the CTS measures. What we have here is you saying "look, I found these individual studies of 'situational partner violence'" and my reply "look, I found this joint statement by the World Health Organization, the Bureau of Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and peer-reviewed research, all of which repudiate your individual studies and their methodology". Your interpretation of WP:V is frightening indeed. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 01:57, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

You are just repeating yourself. You keep dropping the NIJ name like they are some sort of ultimate authority, and as I've pointed out they are one source against hundreds. I challenged you to name 5 non-crime peer-reviewed studies that support your case to balance the hundreds that contradict it, and all we've heard is crickets chirping. Just 5. Instead you try and dismiss those hundreds of peer-reviewed studies because you don't like what they say. That's called POV pushing. Mystylplx (talk) 08:26, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Again you are saying "Look at these journal articles from 1990 and this list of CTS studies" and I say "here's a 2010 consensus statement from the National Institute of Justice, the World Health Organization, the Bureau of Statistics, and dozens of studies that criticize your sources". How about you stop forcing your primary sources that don't even measure domestic violence on other editors, and deal with some consensus statements? "Non-crime"? What does that even mean? Domestic violence is a crime, so that point is moot. The NIJ source alone mentions more than 5 studies. And "hundreds of studies"? Really, Mystylplx? According to Extransit, the Fiebert list includes 12 studies that are not based on the CTS and which, according to Fiebert, find something akin to "gender symmetry". "POV pushing", my ass. Put that mirror down, Mystylplx, and go edit some articles for a change. That is, if you remember how. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 12:22, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Sonicyouth86, the 'get a life' kind of incivility is particularly pernicious on a project like Wikipedia. I suggest you refrain from it.

Several points, I think about everything you just said is wrong.

1. Your characterization of peer reviewed journal articles and reviews as "primary sources" is complete illegitimate. In fact, peer reviewed literature reviews are probably the most reliable of sources.
2. I don't know where you got that twelve number that you attribute to me. I remember saying something much higher.
3. Your repeated characterization of the CTS as discredited, or not measuring domestic violence is strange for an instrument that is still the most widely used tool to measure domestic violence. But regardless, as I said before. It is not just the CTS.
4. Your characterization of the criticism as one-sided is also disingenuous, the arguments for non-gender symmetry have been criticized just as much in the lively domestic violence debate.

^ That is what I have time for right now. extransit (talk) 12:52, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

WHO only studied female victims, and the BJS is part of the NIJ, so all you've got is the NIJ. The NIJ only expresses the consensus of the NIJ NOT the consensus of the family violence research community. Their report wasn't even published in a peer-reviewed journal. Furthermore they only measured a subset of domestic violence (rape, physical assault, and stalking) By your own arguments above this should then be thrown out since it only measures some kinds of domestic violence (fewer kinds than the CTS)

"situational partner violence" is what the CTS measures." -- You misunderstand Johnsons argument. The CTS measures all kinds of domestic violence except non-violent sexual assault (if there's violence involved in the sexual assault, it measures that). Johnson admitted that situational partner violence is the most common form of IPV. He pointed out though, that in more severe cases (the minority of cases) women were more often the victims. Where did he get that information? He got it from Archer who said the same thing.

"peer-review research agree that the Conflict Tactics Scale does not measure important aspects of domestic violence and is thus inappropriate for domestic violence research?" -- There is no such research. There are a small handful of articles criticizing the CTS. These are not studies. They are not meta-analysis of studies. They are essentially scholarly op-ed's that seek to explain away data that they don't like.

As for crime studies, they only measure who gets arrested--not how frequent the acts actually take place. We don't use crime studies to measure any other type of thing like this. If we want to know what percentage of 14 year old's have smoked pot we certainly don't use a crime study. We use a survey. If we want to know what percentage of women have been sexually assaulted in their lifetimes we certainly don't use a crime study. We use surveys. It is idiotic to use crime studies to attempt to measure real rates of domestic violence for quite obvious reasons. Mystylplx (talk) 23:23, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually the WHO reviewed research and came to the conclusion: "Although women can be violent in relationships with men, and violence is also sometimes found in same-sex partnerships, the overwhelming burden of partner violence is borne by women at the hands of men (6, 7)". Is there a policy that I'm not aware of that says that several reliable sources by different researchers count only once of they are published by the same organization? Like how about we count studies published in the Psychological Bulletin only once? The NIJ and BLS are reliable, secondary sources, which is not the true for the majority of the "hundreds of actually peer-reviewed" but primary studies in Fiebert's list. The BLS measures rape, physical assault, and stalking whereas the CTS only measures physical assault period.

Look, please spare me your interpretation of the CTS, Johnson's study, and crime statistics, alright? If you have something to say, let reliable, secondary sources say it for you. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate you sharing your opinion and all, but if you want to criticize BLS statistics I'm gonna need more than your word.

I still don't get what it is you want. The CDS stats were removed by Kaldari almost a month ago. User:Dualus inserted the extransit's proposal into the article despite the fact that the same five studies are already described in the section "Gender aspects of abuse". So now Archer and Straus are mentioned three times and Fiebert two times, and in two different sections. What more do you want? --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 17:18, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Gender aspects section

That whole section reads like spaghetti. It also appears to imply that gender symmetry is a sort of fringe theory when the truth is the great majority of published, peer-reviewed studies support it. I think it should be stated that the majority of studies support gender symmetry but that it is controversial. Give a succinct summary of the arguments and counter-arguments, and then end it. We don't want to get into quoting and counter-quoting every single researcher that has weighed in on this. The section needs to clearly and concisely state the facts as they exist without POV pushing, attempting to draw conclusions, or interpreting the data ourselves. Mystylplx (talk) 21:02, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the section probably needs to be rewritten from scratch as it is a complete mess. However, I think your conclusion that "the great majority of published, peer-reviewed studies support [gender symmetry]" is "interpreting the data ourselves" which you argue we should not be doing. Neither the academic nor medical consensus support gender symmetry in domestic abuse (and if you look at domestic abuse within criminology, gender symmetry is very fringe). If you can find a sociology textbook or any book published by a respected medical association that states otherwise, I will be open to a heavier weight for gender symmetry. Results from individual academic studies are all over the map, and as you say, we shouldn't be interpreting the data ourselves. Also, we should be careful about what we are framing as controversial. The relative rates of domestic violence are controversial, but regarding the severity of domestic violence, there is clear consensus against gender symmetry, even in studies based on the conflict tactics scale. Kaldari (talk) 22:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

There is hyperbole and then there is misinformation, Mystylplx. Your assertion that the "majority of studies" support gender symmetry is the latter. How do you know that the studies collected by Fiebert constitute a "majority of studies? You don't and you know it. There are 19,300 studies in English which deal specifically with domestic violence [12]. The United States Department of Justice has hundreds of studies and reports on the subject [13] and none of those studies and reports find support for the CTS generated gender symmetry theory.

And let us look again at the studies compiled by Fiebert. Most of those studies are based on the Conflict tactics scale, which does not measure domestic violence as our domestic violence definition includes sexual violence. That the CTS may be inappropriate for domestic violence research has been pointed out by reliable sources. So that is it for the majority of the studies compiled by Fiebert. Now let us look at the studies in his list that do not use CTS like this: Allen-Collinson, J. (2009). A marked man: Female perpetrated intimate partner abuse. International Journal of Men's Health, 8, (1), 22-40. (A case study of an abused heterosexual man. Article examines themes obtained from interviews and personal diary material.) This is a one case study which doesn't even say anything about gender symmetry. Are you kidding, Mystyplx?

Let us looks what the Bureau of Justice Statistics says about domestic violence as defined in our article:

An intimate partner is a current or former spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or same-sex partner. Violence between intimates includes homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults committed by partners. During 2004 there were approximately 627,400 nonfatal intimate partner victimizations –– 475,900 against females and 151,500 against males. Approximately one-third of these offenses were serious violent crimes –– rapes, sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated assaults –– and involved either serious injuries, weapons or sexual offenses.[14]

The theory of gender symmetry is based largely on CTS studies, which themselves constitute a minority. The theory of gender symmetry is a stricly US-centric theory. Peer-reviewed studies as well as organizations like the National Institute of Justice all caution that CTS does not measure domestic violence. Now let me check if I understand you correctly: You want to give as much weight to the US-centric fringe theory of gender symmetry as to the government studies and reports from over 200 countries around the world and the studies from those 200 countries which to not find support for gender symmetry? You want to give the theory of gender symmetry equal weight although the survey tool that helped generate this theory does not measure domestic violence and has been rejected as inappropriate? It is funny you should mention POV pushing, Mystylplx. It really is. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

"...and none of those studies and reports find support for the CTS generated gender symmetry theory." Uh, that simply isn't true. And you are conflating studies that examine prevalence by gender with those that don't. I agree that most studies don't support gender symmetry... because most studies don't even ask the question, they are looking only at woman, or are studying other aspects of domestic violence. And the Bureau of Justice Statistics is a government agency headed by a political appointee. They are notable but they aren't extra special notable. Mystylplx (talk) 18:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to show me one study by the United States Bureau of Statistics that found support for gender symmetry. There is no such study because they examine domestic violence in a criminal context as opposed to "situation partner violence minus sexual violence and many other thing". I said elsewhere that you either did not read my comment or did not understand it, and I'm afraid I must repeat it again. Your assertion was that the "majority of studies support gender symmetry". How do you know that it is a "majority"? Did you read those 19,300 studies of domestic violence, pick out the ones that "ask the question" and then calculate if those that support gender symmetry constitute a majority. No, you did not. You looked at Fiebert's list, told yourself, "My, oh my, how many studies! That'll shut them up" and started repeating "majority of studies", "majority of studies", "majority of studies". You already said that the NIJ is "biased". Do you have anything other than your opinion as evidence? It's interesting that you you reject criticisms of the CTS by reliable sources, yet you are so quick to call sources to disagree with you "biased". --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

And crime studies don't work for this. Isn't it odd that this is the only question of this type that people seriously try to answer with crime studies without getting laughed out of the room? If the question were, "What percentage of teens have smoked marijuana?" and someone tried to answer it with a crime study no one would take it seriously for obvious reasons. Crime studies only look at that small subset of instances that were reported as crimes. No, everyone understands that surveys are the most accurate way to measure stuff like that, and domestic violence is no different. But the irony here is those crime studies are precisely what everyone points to in DV because the great majority of the survey based studies tell them something they don't want to hear. So instead of listening to the data they throw it out because they don't like it and rely on inferior methods instead. Mystylplx (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd say meta-analysis of studies should trump textbooks. And the idea that gender symmetry exists in "situational couple violence" I'd say is also pretty non controversial. This is why people like Dobosh, Kimmel, Michael Johnson, etc., take pains to distinguish between that kind of domestic violence and "intimate terrorism." Perhaps those distinctions should be simply explained. Plenty of reliable sources to support that. Mystylplx (talk) 23:37, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Christ Almighty, there are just different motivations for and different outcomes of domestic violence. "Intimate terrorism", as defined by Johnson, is not a different "kind" of domestic violence. It's domestic violence with the aim to control your partner, as opposed to "violent resistance" which is domestic violence with the aim to protect oneself from physical abuse. The motivation and outcomes are different, but the violent acts can be very similar.

What all definitions of domestic violence have in common is that sexual violence is part of domestic violence. The CTS does not measure sexual violence nor does it pretend to. Therefore, all the studies that you so persistently claim found gender symmetry of domestic violence, actually found gender symmetry of "situational partner violence". "Situational partner violence" =/= domestic violence/intimate partner violence. So the majority of the studies listed by Fiebert automatically go out the window. WP:V is not a suicide pact. Just because something was published does not mean we must include it. If a study does not measure intimate partner violence as defined in our article and most reliable sources, then we do not include tat study. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

It's your assertion that "Situational partner violence" =/= domestic violence/intimate partner violence." is where you go off the deep end. In fact Michael Johnson, who coined those terms you are using, says it's the most common form of IPV. Mystylplx (talk) 18:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

You mean the terms you are (conf)using. What does this have to do with the criticisms of the CTS that it does not measure sexual violence (and many other aspects)? Our definition of domestic violence includes sexual violence, stalking etc. The CTS does not measure any of those aspects. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... you claimed situational partner violence =/= domestic violence/IPV. I pointed out the person who coined the term "situational partner violence" says it's the most common form of IPV. And that's how you respond. You seem to have a problem with logic and with sticking to the thread of the conversation. Mystylplx (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Kildari. Gender symmetry is discredited misogyny.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 23:05, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Ridiculous. Gender symmetry within the broad definition of domestic violence we use is support by nearly 300 studies, see Fiebert (2011). See also Cook (2009) who who has a list of nearly 200 studies (with much overlap). extransit (talk) 23:07, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, interesting. "Within the broad definition of domestic violence", you say. What definition of domestic violence would that be, extransit? Please point me to a reliable secondary source which says that domestic violence excludes sexual violence, and then we can talk. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Fiebert is not even notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. He just pulls together all the statistically dodgy studies he can find to support his POV. His work carries little weight.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 23:18, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Neither are Dobash and Dobash, whom you cited previously as having debunked Fiebert. And I don't think it's helpful to start accusing people of misogyny when you disagree with them. Mystylplx (talk) 23:44, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

The National Institute of Justice is certainly notable enough. Also, Expsychobabbler did not accuse you or anyone of misogyny, please stop projecting. S/He wrote that the theory of gender symmetry which is artificially generated by the survey tool Conflict tactics scale is misogynistic. You already know that CTS does not measure sexual violence. Consider the following example: Person B raped person A but since the CTS does not measure sexual violence person B get 0 points on the scale. After being raped, person A throws a pillow at person B and gets a "situational violence" point. You may check the gender stats for sexual abuse and then decide if the CTS has misogynistic elements. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The NIJ is notable, but just because they are a Government organization doesn't make them extra special notable in the science world. If anything they are slightly less reliable because their Violence against Women survey was not published in a peer reviewed journal, and because being headed by a political appointee they are arguably more likely to err on the side of political correctness. And CTS2 does indeed measure sexual violence. As for your example, that is only true if it was an ironically non-violent rape, (no hitting, punching, grabbing, restraining, etc.) and only under the old CTS. Mystylplx (talk) 18:01, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Academic citations supporting gender symmetry in domestic violence

Because we really need the perspective, here we go:

Citations

Ackard, D. M., & Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2002). Date violence and date rape among adolescents: associations with disordered eating behaviors and psychological health. Child Abuse & Neglect, 26, 455-473. Aizenman, M., & Kelley, G. (1988). The incidence of violence and acquaintance rape in dating relationships among college men and women. Journal of College Student Development, 29, 305-311. Allen-Collinson, J. (2009). A marked man: Female perpetrated intimate partner abuse. International Journal of Men's Health, 8, (1), 22-40. Amendt, G. (2008). I didn’t divorce my kids!: How fathers deal with family break-ups. Campus Verlag Publishers. Anderson, K. L. (2002). Perpetrator or victim? Relationships between intimate partner violence and well-being. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64, 851-863. Archer, J. (2000). Sex differences in aggression between heterosexual partners: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 651-680. Archer, J. (2002). 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Contrast that with lifetime domestic violence advocates and feminists hacks like Kimmel shouting "nuh uh!" and surveys like "THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN SURVEY", oh so surprisingly focusing on violence against women. Even a lot of feminists have given up arguing for nonsymmetry in domestic violence over all because the evidence is just to overwhelming and have instead tried to recalim the "men only as aggressors, women only as victims" model by breaking DV down into two categories, common couples violence and intimiate terrorism (see Graham-Kevan (2004)), which has some validity, however recently has fallen out of favor because when you break it down like that, the percent of "domestic violence" that is also "intimate terrorism", violence as part of a system of control, is too small for their liking. extransit (talk) 00:00, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I think there are enough sources to state (in the article) that for "situational couples violence" or "common couples violence" (they all use different terms) that there is gender symmetry, but for the more rare and more serious aspects of domestic violence that women are disproportionately the victims. That's pretty much what you said in your proposed lead change, which I initially supported, but on second thought I decided the lead shouldn't even get into any of that.

I admit, that the data is overwhelmingly in favor of symmetry, but even a lot of the CTS studies show that symmetry disappears in the more extreme (and more rare) cases. And even a lot of the "feminist" researchers state the exact same thing--that symmetry exists in the less extreme cases but not in the more extreme. This, I think, is a reasonable area of compromise widely supported by reliable sources on both sides of the debate. Mention could still be given that yet more researchers disagree. Thoughts? Mystylplx (talk) 04:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

@extransit: You could have just linked to Fiebert's bibliography. Anyway, here are the problems with your list above:

1. It is skewed heavily to studies of young couples.
2. Virtually all of the studies are from the U.S.
3. It is skewed heavily to studies relying on the Conflict Tactics Scale, which is a controversial methodology for assessing rates of domestic violence.
4. It includes lots of review and meta articles that are merely repeating statistics from other studies, for example, West 2008.
5. The gender symmetry shown in some of these papers is limited to a particular area, demographic, or type of aggression. For example Wilson & Daley found gender symmetry in some of the cities they studied, yet the over-all rates showed men were more violent.

If gender symmetry is the academic consensus, it should be easy to find a sociology textbook, medical reference, or NGO report that says so. Kaldari (talk) 05:01, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Kaldari, I'll just say this and say it with respect--what you just posted is a wonderful example of your opinion. And while you are entitled to your opinion I think it's important as wikipedia editors to stick to discussion of what's best for the article based on published peer reviewed sources. If we really want to get into this I could take your points apart one by one and show how they are just your opinion.But I don't think that's what we are supposed to be doing on the talk page.

As for your last sentence--no one is saying it is consensus. Quite the opposite. It is controversial. On the one hand the vast bulk of the published peer reviewed data points one way. On the other hand a powerful and persistent stereotype points the other. As wikipedia editors this leaves conflicting imperatives. On the one hand we are supposed to reflect what is published in reliable sources. In this case the reliable, published, peer reviewed sources overwhelmingly point in one direction. On the other hand we are also supposed to reflect the mainstream and not be controversial (I know that's a synthesis of wikipedia policies, but it's an accurate one), so what to do in this case? How about what I suggested above? Mystylplx (talk) 06:57, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

That the CTS does not measure domestic violence? No, it's not controversial. On the one hand we have a US-centric fringe theory about gender symmetry in "situational partner violence" (minus sexual violence, initiation, motivation etc.) and on the other hands we have large scale studies from many countries around the world which find no support for gender symmetry in domestic violence. As Wikipedia editors we do not believe that WP:V is a suicide pact and we keep WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV in mind. Your assertion that the "reliable, published, peer reviewed sources overwhelmingly point on one direction" - and you obviously believe that that direction is the theory of gender symmetry - is obviously a lie, unless you can find reliable, secondary sources which state that around the world, the majority of reliable, published, peer reviewed sources overwhelmingly point in the direction of gender symmetry. The World Health Organization, UNICEF et al. sure need a good laugh. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

This article is about domestic violence in general, not simply intimate terrorism which even Michael Johnson admits is the relatively less prevalent form of domestic violence.

First, although estimates of prevalence are never straightforward, the evidence suggests that situational couple violence is by far the most common form of intimate partner violence. ref

If you want to write a subarticle specifically on intimate terrorism then please feel free to do so. Mystylplx (talk) 15:59, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

You either did not read my comment or did not understand it. Yes, this article is about domestic violence in general. This is why I am so surprised that you want to add studies that do not measure domestic violence in general. The CTS does not measure sexual violence, for example, which is part of "domestic violence in general". No, this is not my opinion. Even the National Institute of Justice says that the CTS does not measure sexual violence [15]. If you want to write a sub-article specifically on "situational partner violence excluding sexual violence and many other aspects" feel free to do it. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 16:41, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

So by your logic no studies should be included unless they measure every single aspect of domestic violence? That would be fascinating. I wonder if we could find even one. Mystylplx (talk) 17:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

And BTW, the CTS2 came out in 1996 and does measure sexual violence. A quick perusal of the above published studies looks like a great many if not most of them are more recent than '96. Mystylplx (talk) 17:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Deduction is not everyone's forte, I suppose. It's the "logic" of the NIJ and many reliable sources, not mine. But the solution is right here. If you insist on US data - which clearly you do - the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports [16][17] have never been criticized for excluding any major, relevant aspect of domestic violence. The same goes for many other large scale reports and studies.

An intimate partner is a current or former spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or same-sex partner. Violence between intimates includes homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults committed by partners. During 2004 there were approximately 627,400 nonfatal intimate partner victimizations –– 475,900 against females and 151,500 against males. Approximately one-third of these offenses were serious violent crimes –– rapes, sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated assaults –– and involved either serious injuries, weapons or sexual offenses.[18]

If want global data, the World Health Organization sums it up pretty nicely:

Intimate partner and sexual violence are mostly perpetrated by men against girls and women. However, sexual violence against boys is also common. International studies reveal that approximately 20% of women and 5–10% of men report being victims of sexual violence as children. [19]

There is also global data available from the United Nations, UNICEF, et al. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 18:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The WHO survey only asked women about violence directed against them. They didn't survey men and didn't even ask women about their own acts of violence. The NIJ survey is an outlier. They did survey both men and women about both mens and womens violence and found asymmetry in DV. But it stands against a far larger number of similar surveys that came back with different results. Mystylplx (talk) 21:19, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

19 studies which have used the CTS2 have found gender symmetry. extransit (talk) 17:47, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Yawn, extransit. You just copied and pasted everything from Fiebert's list. Does that qualify as WP:COPYVIO, I wonder? Too bad the majority of those studies do not measure domestic violence/intimate partner violence since they leave out sexual violence. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

First of all, many of those studies are not CTS studies. Second, the claim that the CTS doesn't measure sexual violence as a reason to discount it entirely is one of the stranger of the many strange arguments put forth by deniers. Even if the CTS didn't measure sexual violence that would still be no reason to simply throw out all the data from the most widely used instrument for studying domestic violence. All that would mean is that a caveat should be added that sexual violence wasn't measured. But the CTS does count sexual violence as violent acts--it simply doesn't count them separately from other violent acts. The main point is that as Wikipedia editors it isn't our place to blanketly discount published peer-reviewed sources on the basis of our own weird criticisms. Instead, we include the information and then find reliable secondary sources that have criticized those studies and state what their criticisms are. Mystylplx (talk) 15:59, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh yes, the handful of "studies" that are not based on CTS include such gems as "A marked man: Female perpetrated intimate partner abuse." by Allen-Collinson (2009), a case study which included exactly one man. Second, reliable sources, including the NIJ, state that the CTS is not appropriate for violence research because the CTS does not measure sexual violence (and many other aspects). It's what I've been doing all along: State what their criticisms are rather than mine. It's not like I present my opinion and expect you to accept it. The NIJ and peer-reviewed published studies say that the CTS is an inappropriate research tool which does not measure domestic violence because it excludes important aspects of violence (e.g., sexual violence). You are misinterpreting WP:V if you believe that we must include and give undue weight to absolutely everything that was published. Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily object to including CTS studies. I object to your demands that we give undue weight the the CTS generated theory of gender symmetry because reliable sources reject the CTS and its theory of gender symmetry. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 16:41, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting it should be given undue weight. I'm suggesting that it should be given due weight, which is not currently the case. And yes, some reliable sources reject the CTS as an instrument for studying domestic violence while others defend it. I'm suggesting that simply because a relative few reliable sources reject the CTS as an instrument is no reason to throw out the bulk of, and the largest of, the studies on gender prevalence in domestic violence. Mystylplx (talk) 17:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Currently the theory of gender symmetry is given undue weight, undue as in too much weight. You want to give it more weight thereby compounding the WP:NPOV problems. What we have here is basically you saying "But I found these studies... the most important one from 1990... they don't really measure domestic violence... or sexual violence... but, uh, I like em" and me replying "But the WHO, NIJ, and many other reliable source don't support the findings and reject the research tool as inappropriate". Yes, Straus, who invented the CTS, defends the CTS. Not exactly surprising. Does the NIJ defend the CTS? No. Does anyone who doesn't use the CTS defend it? No. Now I'll let you go back to your mantra "the majority of reliable, published studies support gender symmetry". Perhaps if mention that imaginary "majority" many, many more times and repeat how "biased" and "politically correct" the National Institute of Justice and the WHO is, you'll manage to persuade someone. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 18:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

If the CTS was not considered a reasonable method for studying domestic violence it would not have been used in 120 different academic studies of domestic violence. Besides there are plenty of other studies that have not used the CTS which come to the same conclusion.

extransit (talk) 17:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Seriously? Many moons ago homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in the DSM and Freudian psychoanalysis was not only considered a "reasonable" method to treat patients, but the best method to do it. And some continue to do so despite considerable criticism. The argument "If it's so bad, why doesn't anyone put a stop to it" is weak. So, so weak. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 18:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly you are arguing against yourself and don't seem to know it. Many moons ago popular belief was that homosexuality was an illness but there were no studies to support that notion. It was merely a prejudice. Now days popular belief is that domestic violence is something almost exclusively perpetrated by men on women. But the studies don't support that. It is merely a prejudice. This excludes crime studies which are obviously a ridiculous way to measure something like this. Nothing else of this sort is measured by crime studies. I'm sure you've heard the statistic that 1 in 4 women are raped at some point in their lives... are you under the impression that came from a crime study? If we relied on crime studies to report the prevalence of rape the numbers would be far lower and inaccurate. Or how about prevalence of drug use among children? Do we only count the one's who get arrested and assume that they are the only one's using drugs? No, we use surveys, because that's the most accurate way to measure stuff like that. Mystylplx (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

"Yawn?" That sounds like a logical fallacy if I ever heard one. As for sexual violence, the CTS2 scale measures that and >19 studies using that method have founder gender symmetry. See Callahan, Tolman and Saunders (2003), Jankey, Próspero and Fawson (2009), Fergusson, Horwood and Ridder (2005), O'Leary and Slep (2006), and Sugihara and Warner (2002) for a selection. extransit (talk) 17:50, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

For logical fallacy, see here. 19 studies! Did you count, again? Consider me convinced. Now be so nice, and find those CTS studies that do not have the other problems mentioned by the NIJ. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 18:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I did count. Your clueless snark is not appreciated.

1. Callahan, M. R., Tolman, R. M., & Saunders, D. G. (2003). Adolescent dating violence victimization and psychological well-being. Journal of Adolescent Research, 18(6), 664-681.
2. Cercone, J. J., Beach, S. R. H., & Arias, I. (2005). Gender Symmetry in Dating Intimate Partner Violence: Does Behavior Imply Similar Constructs? Violence and Victims, 20 (2) 207-218.
3. Fergusson, D. M., Horwood, L. J., & Ridder, E. M. (2005). Partner violence and mental health outcomes in a New Zealand birth cohort. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 1103-1119.
4. Hines, D. A. & Douglas, E. M. (2010). Intimate terrorism by women towards men: does it exist? Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 2, (3), 36-56.
5. Jankey, O., Prospero, M., & Fawson, P. (2011). Mutually violent attitudes: effects on intimate partner violence and mental health symptoms among couples in Botswana, Africa. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 3, (1) 4-11.
6. Katz, J., Carino, A., & Hilton, A. (2002). Perceived verbal conflict behaviors associated with physical aggression and sexual coercion in dating relationships: a gender-sensitive analysis. Violence & Victims, 17, 93-109.
7. Kirschner, M., & Fiebert, M. (2008, April). Interracial dating and partner abuse: A pilot study.
8. McCarthy, A. (2001.) Gender differences in the incidences of, motives for, and consequences of, dating violence among college students. California State University, Long Beach.
9. Monson, C. M., & Langhinrichsen-Rohling, J. (2002). Sexual and nonsexual dating violence perpetration: testing an integrated perpetrator typology. Violence and Victims, 17, 403-428.
10. 'Leary, S. G., & Slep, A. M. S. (2006). Precipitants of Partner Aggression. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 344-347.
11. Pekarek, C. (2008). Intimate partner violence and interracial relationships: Prevalence, perceived social support and gender.
12. Prospero, M. (2007). Mental health symptoms among female and male victims of partner violence. American Journal of Men's Health, 1, 269-277.
13. Straus, M. A. (2008). Dominance and symmetry in partner violence by male and female university students in 32 nations. Children and Youth Services Review, 30, 252-275.
14. Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., Boney-McCoy, S., & Sugarman, D. B. (1996). The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2).
15. Straus, M. A., & Mouradian, V. E. (1999, November). Preliminary psychometric data for the Personal Relationships Profile (PRP): A multi-scale tool for clinical screening and research on partner violence.
16. Sugihara, Y., & Warner, J. A. (2002). Dominance and domestic abuse among Mexican Americans: gender differences in the etiology of violence in intimate relationships. Journal of Family Violence, 17 (4), 315-340.
17. Swart, L. A., Stevens, M. S. G., & Ricardo, I. (2002). Violence in adolescents' romantic relationships: findings from a survey amongst school-going youth in a South African community. Journal of Adolescence, 25, 385-395.
18. Williams, S. L., & Frieze, I. (2005a). Courtship behaviors, relationship violence, and breakup persistence in college men and women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 29, 248-257.

Although, yes, I did miscount by one the first time. I find your moving goal posts amusing. First you object because "THE CTS DOES NOT INCLUDE SEXUAL VIOLENCE!", then when it is pointed out that 19 studies that used a version of the CTS that includes sexual violence found the same thing you drop the point as quickly as your brought it up and jump onward to the next specious objection. extransit (talk) 20:32, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly, that list also blows the claim that this is "only in the U.S." out of the water. Mystylplx (talk) 21:26, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I would challenge you to come up with even as many as 19 survey studies that support asymmetry. Even as many as 19. And you keep pointing to the NIJ as if it is somehow the final arbiter on this. They are only one voice and just because they are a Gov. organization with an impressive sounding name doesn't mean their voice counts more than the voices of other notable researchers in this field. CTS is the most widely used instrument for these types of studies and no one started criticizing it until they didn't like the data it was providing. And even with the criticism (which is far from universal) it's still the most widely used instrument. Mystylplx (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

@Mystylplx: The criticisms of Fiebert that I listed are not simply my opinions. They are criticisms that have been raised by other academics. Of the 79 empirical articles that Fiebert reviews (i.e. excluding the review and meta articles), 55 used the Conflict Tactics Scale as the sole measure of domestic violence. In addition, 28 of those studies used samples composed entirely of young dating couples. So that leaves a couple dozen studies that might legitimately show gender symmetry. I don't think this can accurately be described as the "vast majority" of studies on domestic violence rates. Especially when you consider that we are only looking at data from the United States. We can argue about individual studies and methods forever, but this is all original research in my opinion. I wonder what the Encyclopedia Britannica says. Kaldari (talk) 19:00, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I know. But the criticisms have also been "criticized." That's no excuse for throwing them out. Mystylplx (talk) 20:33, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Your last two sentences are exactly it. It's imply ridiculous to push 19 studies which have a sample of less than 30 subjects respectively when we have a multi-national study by the World Health Organization which had a sample size on n>1000 as well as national crime surveys. It's best to rely on sources like the WHO, NIJ, and BLS which summarize the research and provide an overview so that we can decide on that basis which points are due and undue. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

If you are referring to the Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence against Women they only surveyed women. And only asked about womens victimization. It has no bearing on this question. I'd challenge to find as many as 5 surveys that asked both genders. You know, not crime studies but the type of study that is normally relied on for questions like this. Just 5. To balance out those 19 that you dislike so much. Mystylplx (talk) 20:33, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Just checked Encyclopedia Britannica. Their entire article on domestic violence is about violence against women. The only exception is a single sentence: "In a few cases men are beaten by women, although rarely do men suffer serious physical injury." Sounds like they aren't convinced that gender symmetry theories are important enough to mention. At least here we devote several paragraphs to the idea, which seems proper per WP:NPOV. Kaldari (talk) 19:19, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Britannica is only one of many reputable sources that summarize the latest state of the art and conclude that within the immensity of research available on domestic violence, the CTS (and its by-product theory) is a fringe theory at best. Also a question to you: As you can see extransit copied and pasted Fiebert's list here rather than linking to it. Does that constitute copyvio? --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:28, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not a copyright violation because citations are standard form and contain no original authorship. extransit (talk) 20:49, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

You missed at least one non-CTS study. This was also not CTS, (neither 1 nor 2) Here. Mystylplx (talk) 00:15, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Apparently that study used a questionnaire even more limited than the CTS: "The 3 questions included in the Add Health study do not capture all forms of violence that occur between relationship partners, including many of the more severe forms of partner violence on the Conflict Tactics Scale (e.g., used a knife or gun, choked, or burned). Questions about emotional, verbal, psychological, or sexual aggression were also not included." The study was also limited to "young US adults". This is just another example of why Fiebert's bibliography is rather useless. What we need are respected third party sources, not academics pushing (or debunking) a particular theory, or limited individual studies that are not representative of the worldwide issue. Kaldari (talk) 19:05, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The NVAWS also didn't include many of those things. I'm afraid there aren't any single studies out there that include every aspect of what is considered IPV. Mystylplx (talk) 00:38, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Gender Aspects Section

When reading this section, I found it to bring the neutrality of this article into disrepute. Domestic abuse is domestic abuse, regardless of who commits it, or is victimized by it. This section is badly flawed in that it perpetuates a gender bias towards this issue...that is, that women are always the victims. This is simply not true. Could whoever contributed to this section please explain why there is not an adequate weight given towards men being abused in heterosexual relationships? I would advocate for this section of this article to be deleted. Otherwise, should we as editors take a step towards improving this article's neutrality. Thank you.

The gender imbalance of domestic violence is prominently discussed by reliable sources on the topic, including both popular and academic sources. Thus, per WP:WEIGHT, it is important that this article mentions the issue and presents what the sources have to say on the topic. If you read through the entire section, you'll find that violence against both men and women is discussed, although the material is not well organized at present. Kaldari (talk) 16:40, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

If this is the case, then it should be reorganized to reflect this fact. Meatsgains (talk) 21:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The pretense that domestic violence is somehow equally distributed among genders fails to take into account the fact that it happens within a male-dominated, male-controlled system that deprives women of the resources they need to live independently. It's called a patriarchy. Everything we do either supports the patriarchal status quo, or challenges it. There is no way to be neutral, because we're not dealing with a theoretical construct in some other universe - we are playing on a real field which is nowhere near level. Either this is the best of all possible worlds, or it isn't. If it isn't, it needs to change. If it needs to change, the refusal to acknowledge the situation won't lead to change and is therefore support of the status quo. Men have privilege over women. Violence is one of the ways in which men enforce their privilege. When women attempt to defend themselves, it only gets them labeled violent and men point to it as some kind of evidence that women are equally as violent as men - though no studies whatsoever support this idea. The article throughout shows signs of being edited by so-called "mens' rights activists"; the word "misandry" is a clue. There's no such thing as misandry. Misogyny is the systematic oppression of women by men, experienced by the women as hatred; it is not possible for a less privileged group to oppress a more privileged group, therefore it is not possible for men to be oppressed by women. "Men's rights activists" pretend to be an oppressed group, even though they are the dominant group. These wolves put on sheep's clothing and attempt to mimic a genuinely oppressed group in order to distract from, obfuscate, and neutralize attempts to combat women's oppression, because men benefit from women's oppression and therefore have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. 90.157.234.124 (talk) 15:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

That theory of domestic violence has been almost completely discredited and is really only clung to by some (not all) feminist groups. Not even the NIJ study or Kimmel and Johnson (leading asymmetry advocates) put it those terms any more. And the fact you think there's no such thing as misandry shows where you are coming from on this. Here's a recent article from a respected publication that deals with some of the history of this. Mystylplx (talk) 18:29, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriateness of redirecting searches for Domestic Discipline to Domestic Violence article

Any person searching Wikipedia for information about domestic discipline is redirected to the article on domestic violence. The two are not synonymous. Domestic violence is, by definition, non-consensual. Information obtained about domestic discipline from sources other than Wikipedia show that domestic discipline is consistently defined as consensual corporal punishment between adults who are married or living as a married couple. Consensual corporal punishment between adults is not domestic violence. A search for domestic discipline on Wikipedia should either lead to an article on the subject, or reveal that there is no such article currently available. It is erroneous, biased, and entirely prejudicial to automatically redirect a search for domestic discipline to the article about domestic violence. Lunarmovements (talk) 05:34, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

The terminology here is tricky. Historically, "domestic discipline" was used as a euphemism for domestic violence. Nowadays it seems to be a euphemism for adult spanking (especially by Christian couples). Which course would be the most appropriate:

1. Leaving it as a redirect to domestic violence
2. Changing it to a redirect to spanking, which mentions "domestic discipline" in the Adult spanking section.
3. Making it a redlink

Kaldari (talk) 06:12, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest a disambig if Kaldari is correct. extransit (talk) 06:25, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. Kaldari (talk) 07:00, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

A google search turns up page after page of "Christian domestic discipline." If it was once used as a euphemism for domestic violence I don't think it is any more. I would say just redirect to Erotic spanking. Mystylplx (talk) 07:46, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... looks like there was an AfD Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Domestic_discipline on it and the decision was to delete but somehow it was redirected instead? I guess it should be deleted then. Mystylplx (talk) 08:06, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Also there are no backlinks, so no redlinks to worry about. Mystylplx (talk) 08:24, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Someone put the redirect back so I went ahead an put up an RfD. Here. Mystylplx (talk) 12:26, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree about the points about domestic discipline not being clear-cut domestic violence. I think that domestic discipline can be taken one of two ways

1) In Christianity and domestic violence I added the following: "There are some Christians who believe that it is the man's duty and right to discipline his wife, ususally by spanking, such as the consensual Christian Domestic Discipline (CDD).[23][24][25]

2) In both Islam and domestic violence and Christianity and domestic violence, there are people who take verses from the Quran and the Bible to validate their right to discipline their wife.--CaroleHenson (talk) 13:53, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd recommend a disamb page, calling out the difference between consensual discipline (Christian Domestic Discipline) and non-consensual discipline. Erotic spanking probably a third.--CaroleHenson (talk) 13:57, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Here's the current disambiguation page: Domestic discipline. It could definitely use some elaboration. Kaldari (talk) 00:06, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

That looks really good! Sure, I'd be happy to elaborate on some of the items.--00:15, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I just realized I had forgotten to add the piece about Christian domestic discipline - and took care of it. Do you think the Domestic discipline page is good to go now?--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:49, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

It looks good to me. Mystylplx (talk) 22:05, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Someone removed the bit about Christian domestic discipline, which I edited and returned along with Christianity and domestic violence. I'm not hearing any issues with the disambig page Kaldari created, so I'm going to remove the discussion template on that page.--CaroleHenson (talk) 14:32, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I like it. I added a note at the RfD entry suggesting it be closed. Mystylplx (talk) 22:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Great! Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Recent edits to Domestic violence article

I see that there have been several recent edits made to the article, with reversions of the edits.

A couple of things to bear in mind are: 1. If you're going to add new content you need to use a source. 2. You cannot add new material under an existing source.

From an edit summary comment: (Please see the research well explained at the site below. It is impossible for a relationship to have 2 abusers as in order to be an abuser, that person has power over the other. http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/svaw/domestic/link/theories.htm). That would be a great opportunity to summarize the information and look to see where it's best to insert it.

Regarding whether domestic violence means that one or more of the people involved are abusers, that's not necessarily the case. See the inforamation about "situational couple violence".

Can I help you work in the points that you're trying to make - with appropriate sourcing?--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Reworking lead

I am reworking some of the lead. I have replaced the laughable citation to the activist brochure with information from the meta analysis by Archer (2000), probably the most authoritative work ever done, which has been cited more than one thousand times, also tacking on two published comments of the paper that endorse the work. I also cited a bibliography by Martin which is less methodical, authoritative or neutral than Archer but is very informative, and with 59 citations itself is still better than the brochure.

The prevalence of aggression which is part of a system of control will be important to note however I have yet to find a good source. I found one study that put it at 11% of domestic violence in representative samples but it was less than authoritative so any help will be appreciated. extransit (talk) 05:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I am also going to remove the trite talking point about 'only 1% of DV being reported to police'. Given that things like slapping and pushing count as DV in most surveys the fact that no one is bothering to report it is both unsurprising and non-notable. I will be amenable to a note about of the percent of non common couples violence that goes unreported to police, if we can find one. extransit (talk)

Archer is not a good source for the lead. His study is primarily on dating couples in the United States. Domestic violence is violence between people who share a household. Most people who are dating do not actually live together. Kaldari (talk) 05:48, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Our very own definition reads "abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, friends or cohabitation".... We include friends... and yet now you want to disqualify my source because it does not only cover marriages? Also, his study did not only contain dating couples as you assert. It is not even a study. It is a meta analysis of 82 separate studies of which 33 were exclusively married or cohabiting subjects. extransit (talk) 05:52, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say that his study was limited to dating couples. Yes, it includes married couples, but the data is skewed towards:

1. Young people
2. People who do not cohabitate
3. People in the United States

Archer acknowledges this in his paper. There are several studies that are broader in their sampling and give very different statistics. Regardless, I think specific statistics should be saved for the article body as they are virtually all disputed in some way or another. Regarding the definition of domestic violence, I think our definition is a bit too broad. Clearly violence between friends is not normally considered "domestic violence". I also think we should clarify that domestic violence and IPV are not the same thing (for example domestic violence includes violence against children). Kaldari (talk) 06:08, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I will address your concerns in order,

1. If you look at table 8 in the study, the variable mean age is indeed associated with rates of agression, but equally for males and females (0.1 and 0.1) so the statement I used it to cite is still accurate.
2. I would hardly say that having a large number of non-married is skewing the results, the majority of the US in not married. Considering table 8 again, the conclusion stands.
3. I suppose you are right in that it is skewed to the US, so shall we change it to "in the us.."? That is what we had before.

I agree that including "friends" in the definition is wack, I don't know why that is there, I will remove it. And, I also agree that numbers in the lead are not fantastic. I originally was just going to say majority, but that is kind of unclear as 'majority' can be 51-100%. Do you have better verbiage where we could drop the stats but still give a general idea? extransit (talk) 06:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

How about 'approximately two thirds'? That is a little less numberwang while still giving a good feel for the issue. extransit (talk) 06:42, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

'Approximately two thirds' is fine with me. Regarding the study in general, it's worth pointing out that 76 of the 82 studies looked at by Archer (i.e. almost all of them) used the Conflict Tactics Scale, which has been criticized by other authors for a variety of reasons (it is subject to reporting bias, doesn't include sexual assault, shows poor correlation between partners, etc). See "Male Victims of Domestic Violence: A Substantive and Methodological Research Review" for a fuller discussion of this issue. I really don't mind discussing Archer in the article, as it is an important study, but I think it should be moved out of the lead, and probably presented alongside the studies that have criticized its methodology. Kaldari (talk) 06:57, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The long history of this page shows that people want some information on prevalence in the lead, and a meta-analysis of many studies is obviously the best source for such information. Yes, Archer has recived some criticism, but obviously much of it must be idealogically motivated and he has responded adequately, see "Sex Differences in Physical Aggression to Partners: A Reply to Frieze (2000), O'Leary (2000), and White, Smith, Koss, and Figueredo (2000)". I mean, what do you expect from Kimmel who has spent his life campaigning against 'the patriarchy'. Do you really think there is any research that could convince him? We need some info on prevalnce for the lead, do you have a better source? A better source would to be another review, not some book published by a DV victims advocate. Note that in the Kimmel article you linked me, he even admits that in the last 20 year 16 reviews have found results similar to Archer's. extransit (talk) 07:21, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's a lot more criticism than just Kimmel. "The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence" (1992) is probably the most heavily cited, although it's criticizing CTS-based studies in general rather than Archer's meta-analysis specifically. There are two long-standing opposing camps on this issue, each hinging on whether the CTS is a valid methodology for measuring domestic violence or not. To present only one side in the lead is not neutral. As there is so little agreement on rates of prevalence (even within the few countries that have data), I really don't think we can give any definitive statistics in the lead. Kaldari (talk) 07:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

You don't think we can give any definative statistics in the lead, yet you have been editing this article for the last few months with statistics in the lead sourced to a much inferior citation and not bothered to remove them? Aside from the criticisms of the CTS which have been addressed; I did also cite Martin's bibliography of over 300 studies and investigations and have now added a third source, Straus (1999). Its pretty clear that given the broad defenition of DV this article uses what I have written is a fact. extransit (talk) 07:59, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, Kimmel goes on and on about how there are no men in hospitals. That seems to be his primary evidence. And, that is true. Note how I said that if we can find a good source for the prevalence of "intimate terrorism", as it has been ridiculously named, that should be included the lead as well. It is clear that the prevalence of all physical aggression and injuries are approximately the numbers I put up there. extransit (talk) 07:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how that is clear at all. See my reply above. Kaldari (talk) 07:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I have added a citation to "The controversy over domestic violence by women: A methodological, theoretical, and sociology of science analysis" which is also very through and comes to the same conclusions. The table on page 23 is very informative, we should include that information as well. extransit (talk) 07:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

That paper is just dismissing studies based on crime reports, which is fine, but there is lots of more recent data that isn't from crime reports that shows huge disparities between prevalence rates. For example the large scale surveys done by the U.S. and U.K. governments showed 3:1 and 2:1 disparity respectively. Since those are the largest single surveys conducted on the issue, and they don't suffer from the CTS problems, and they are relatively recent, I think they are more reliable than the studies you have pointed out so far. Kaldari (talk) 08:02, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Links? this book says that by 2004 there were allready 165 studies showing equal rates for the genders and agrees with the prevalence rate I put. extransit (talk) 08:09, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles1/nij/183781.txt, which was a survey of 16,000 Americans showing 22.1 percent of women and 7.4 percent of men reported being physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, boyfriend or girlfriend, or date in their lifetime. That's a pretty huge difference from the CTS studies. Kaldari (talk) 17:09, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Interestly enough that is data from the NVAWS which the review by Strauss that I cited discusses, because its results were an outlier. He concluded that was because the NVAWS was phrased in terms of crime and so people who did not consider they experinces criminal did not respond. extransit (talk) 18:46, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

ref burn

Requesting outside comment because the regulars here have their POV and it seems to run pretty thick.

What kinds of sources shall we use to represent the scale of domestic violence in this article? 17:18, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I sought to replace randomly specific numberwang sourced to a activist brochure (with no named author) with a good quality explination sourced to three items:

• One meta-analytic review of 83 studies that has itself been cited over 1000 times.
• One review of over 100 studies.
• One bibliography of allmost 300 studies.

My version	Their version
In the United States 10-35% of the population will be physically aggressive towards a partner at some point in their lives where in heterosexual couplings women are slightly more likely to have ever been physically aggressive towards a partner and commit such acts more frequently than men although they also sustain the majority of injuries, approximately two thirds. As abuse becomes more severe women become increasingly overrepresented as victims.. References	According to the Centers for Disease Control, domestic violence is a serious, preventable public health problem. Each year in the United States, 4.8 million women suffer intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes and 2.9 million men are victims of physical assault from their partners. References
Most recent revert

NOTE:

• 1) The CDC stats were removed from the lead on October 18, 2011 by User:Kaldari. There is no longer a "their version".
• 2) The five studies proposed are already mentioned and quoted extensively in the section "Gender aspects of abuse": Straus (ref no. 117 and ref no. 125), Archer (ref no. 120 and ref no. 134), O'Leary (ref no. 121), Frieze (ref no. 122), and Fiebert (ref no. 128). This proposal seeks to put content which is already mentioned elsewhere in the lead - this time without any counterbalancing points.
• 3) The above proposal was already inserted into the article on November 6, 2011, by (now indefinitely blocked) User:Dualus who cited a non-existent consensus of an RfC on this here talk page [20]. So the exact same studies are already described in two sections, "Gender aspects of abuse" and "Epidemiology". Why does this RfC continue?
• 4) The three studies (and the two replies to Archer) were selected for the reason that they use the Conflict tactics scale (CTS), a survey tool which frequently finds gender symmetry in "situational partner violence". Reliable secondary sources such as the WHO and NIJ, systematic reviews, and crime data contradict the theory of gender symmetry and/or reject the survey tool as invalid and unreliable.

• World Health Organization, Violence by Intimate Partners: "Although women can be violent in relationships with men, and violence is also sometimes found in same-sex partnerships, the overwhelming burden of partner violence is borne by women at the hands of men (6, 7)."
• National Institute of Justice. Measuring Intimate Partner (Domestic) Violence: "NIJ researchers have found, however, that collecting various types of counts from men and women does not yield an accurate understanding of battering and serious injury occurring from intimate partner violence. National surveys supported by NIJ, CDC, and BJS that examine more serious assaults do not support the conclusion of similar rates of male and female spousal assaults. These surveys are conducted within a safety or crime context and clearly find more partner abuse by men against women (...) The studies that find that women abuse men equally or even more than men abuse women are based on data compiled through the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), a survey tool developed in the 1970s. CTS may not be appropriate for intimate partner violence research because it does not measure control, coercion, or the motives for conflict tactics; it also leaves out sexual assault and violence by ex-spouses or partners and does not determine who initiated the violence."
• United States Bureau of Justice Statistics: Intimate Partner Violence Declined Between 1993 and 2004: "During 2004 there were approximately 627,400 nonfatal intimate partner victimizations –– 475,900 against females and 151,500 against males. Approximately one-third of these offenses were serious violent crimes –– rapes, sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated assaults –– and involved either serious injuries, weapons or sexual offenses."
• Kimmel, Michael (2002). 'Gender Symmetry' in Domestic Violence: A Substantive and Methodological Research Review.
• Dobash, Russel P. et al. (1992 and 2004). The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Domestic Violence and Women's Violence to Men in Intimate Relationships
• Saunders, Daniel (2002) Are Physical Assaults by Wives and Girlfriends a Major Social Problem? A Review of the Literature

• 5) The current proposal is simplistic and does not mention that there are different types of domestic violence and that women's violence usually occurs in the context of men's violence and is motivated by self-defense, a finding emphasized by the WHO (see source above) as well as systematic reviews such as Swan, Suzanne C. et al. (2010) A Review of Research on Women’s Use of Violence With Male Intimate Partners and Johnson, Michael P. & Ferraro, Kathleen J. (2000) Research on domestic violence in the 1990s: Making distinctions --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 17:18, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

But all I am getting seems like "Your studies are wrong! All 300 of them! Trust the activists they know The Truth!". I mean really, getting Kimmel thrown at you like he is neutral authority....

Anyways, the history of this article shows that we want to have some informaton on prevalence in the lead, their prefered version is poorly sourced and contradicted by the better sources I use in my version. extransit (talk) 08:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

All of those studies are based on the Conflict Tactics Scale, which is not an accurate measure of domestic violence. Most specifically, it does not include sexual assault, and thus massively under-represents women victims. Since our article rightly includes sexual assault, it is quite misleading if the only statistic we offer in the lead omits it. Use of the CTS for domestic violence statistics has been criticized for 2 decades now (see discussion in article and above), and more recent studies which do not rely on the CTS show very different numbers. In particular, both the Fiebert and Archer papers cited above have been criticized by experts in the field. Since the CTS numbers are considered controversial and dubious, presenting them alone without any context of criticism as our only statistics for the lead is a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. Regarding "neutral authorities", I believe the Centers for Disease Control, the United States Department of Justice, and the UK Home Office should all qualify as "neutral". All of them have published numbers which strongly contradict the CTS figures. See the discussion section above for more information. Kaldari (talk) 16:59, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

"All of those studies"... all of them? All three hundred? No, they don't. There are many different methodologies and metrics used. The CTS is the most common metric, true, but that is because it is the most respected. All the criticisms of the CTS archer discusses ad nausem. The fact is that if the CTS had been determined to not be a valid measurment of conflict it would not be so widely used. If Archer's conclusion actually was flawd it would not be cited over one thousand times. extransit (talk) 18:25, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

"The most respected..." Source please.

Most premises of Freudian psychoanalysis are considered "invalid" today but psychoanalytical approaches persist... On a serious aside: From a statistical perspective CTS is objective, reliable, and also valid. It measures a specific form of domestic violence but unlike large-scale studies it excludes many important aspects of domestic violence such as sexual violence, initiation, motivation, control, violence after separation etc. CTS measures a very narrow definition of violence. "Your" studies deserve a place in the article and they already have their place. What you did is you've basically just copied the studies in the "Gender aspects of abuse" section and proposed them for lead, ignoring the hundreds of criticisms of CTS and large-scale studies that do not find gender symmetry once they control for motivation, sexual violence, stalking etc.

The Straus study is also cited many times. Of the ten first google scholar results 6 are criticisms of his study, two only mention it in passing, and one is by Archer and the other is by Starus himself. It's not different for Archer. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 18:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, who is doing the criticism is important. If other family researchers were then that might be relevant, but really the only objections are comming from Kimmel and other feminists. Really, what do you expect? They just dump out any criticism they can come up with without regard for if that criticism is reasonable. Again, Archer, like a good sociologist considered his metric in his paper:

It has often been claimed that the reason CTS studies have found as many women as men to be physically aggressive is because women are defending themselves against attack. A number of studies have addressed this issue and found that when asked, more women than men report initiating an attack (Bland & Orn, 1986; DeMaris, 1992; Gryl & Bird, 1989, cited in Straus, 1997) or that the proportions are equivalent in the two sexes (Straus, 1997). Two large-scale studies found that a substantial proportion of both women and men reported using physical aggression when the partner did not (Brush, 1990; Straus & Gelles, 1988b). This evidence does not support the view that the CTS is only measuring women's self-defense.

extransit (talk) 19:02, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

You've just copied and pasted that quote for the second time... LOL. I haven't mentioned Kimmel what what are you on about? If you believe that the National Institute of Justice and peer-reviewed research do not qualify as reliable sources please take it it to the reliable sources noticeboard. Now if you'll excuse me, I will go work on the encyclopedia. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:18, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Because it is a good quote. I find it very strange you are directing me to the reliable sources noticeboard when my version relies on an academic study cited over one thousand times and your version rests on a DV awareness brochure probably hacked togther by some communications intern (who knows, it has no by line). extransit (talk) 19:23, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The NIJ and CDC are both organizations headed by political appointees and as such tend to stay on the politically correct side of anything controversial. It's not that they aren't reliable sources, it's just that they aren't more reliable than actual studies conducted by actual researchers. Mystylplx (talk) 19:40, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• AgreeAssuming you are right that people want this kind of thing in the lead, your version is considerably better. Actual studies and meta-analysis of studies trumps a pamphlet by the CDC. As for the CTS, it is the most widely used instrument for study of family violence. If it has been criticized it might be worth noting the criticisms (and the sources of those criticisms), but that's no excuse to throw out published peer-reviewed studies that use it. Attempting to do that amounts to POV pushing. As an encyclopedia we should present what has been published in reliable sources, not just the ones we agree with. Mystylplx (talk) 18:05, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Very strong oppose. The National Institute of Justice has examined claims of gender symmetry of domestic violence with the result:

  NIJ researchers have found, however, that collecting various types of counts from men and women does not yield an accurate understanding of battering and serious injury occurring from intimate partner violence. National surveys supported by NIJ, CDC, and BJS that examine more serious assaults do not support the conclusion of similar rates of male and female spousal assaults. These surveys are conducted within a safety or crime context and clearly find more partner abuse by men against women. For example, NVAWS found that women are significantly more likely than men to report being victims of intimate partner violence whether it is rape, physical assault, or stalking and whether the timeframe is the person's lifetime or the previous 12 months. NCVS found that about 85 percent of victimizations by intimate partners in 1998 were against women. The studies that find that women abuse men equally or even more than men abuse women are based on data compiled through the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), a survey tool developed in the 1970s. CTS may not be appropriate for intimate partner violence research because it does not measure control, coercion, or the motives for conflict tactics; it also leaves out sexual assault and violence by ex-spouses or partners and does not determine who initiated the violence.[21] [I added italics for emphasis]

Also please see the first ten studies that cite Straus (1990) [22]. If we exclude one study by Straus and one by Archer as well as two studies that mention Straus only in passing (Walker, 2001; Maxwell, 2010), you'll see that the remaining 6 studies are criticisms of the CTS, Straus/Fiebert/Archer or reviews of claims about gender symmetry. Here are some examples.

• ”The most longstanding and acrimonious debate in the family literature involves the issue of gender symmetry of partner violence (Archer, 2000; Dobash & Dobash, 1992; Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly, 1992; Johnson, 1995; Kurz, 1989, 1993; Straus, 1990a, 1993). Although papers continue to appear regularly that Although papers continue to appear regularly that claim to demonstrate that women are as violent as men in intimate relationships of one kind or another, or in one country or another, a careful assessment of the literature and a look at the few studies that do distinguish among types of violence both indicate that IT [Intimate Terrorism] is almost entirely a male pattern (97% male in Johnson, 2000a). The evidence seems to indicate that VR [Violent Resistance, i.e., self-defense] is primarily perpetrated by women (Browne, Williams, et al., 1999; Cascardi & Vivian, 1995; Dobash & Dobash, 1992; Johnson, 2000a; Ogle, Maier-Katkin, & Bernard, 1995; Saunders 1988).1. Johnson, Michael P.; Ferraro, Kathleen J. (2000). “Research on Domestic Violence in the 1990s: making Distinctions”, Journal of Marriage and the Family 62 (4): 948-963. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00948.x2. Johnson, Michael P. (2006). “Gender Symmetry and Asymmetry in Domestic Violence” Violence against Women 12 (1): 1003-1018. doi: 10.1177/10778012062933283. Johnson, Michael P.; Leone, Janel M. (2005). “The Differential Effects of Intmate Terrorism and Situational Couple Violence. Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey”. Journal of Family Issues 26 (3): 322-349. doi: 10.1177/0192513X04270345
• Saunders notes that CTS did not include sexual coercion items until 1996 and that CTS excludes violence that occurs among separated and divorced couples. He also writes: ”Many studies, including the majority of studies in the Fiebert (1997, 1998) bibliographies, simply count the rates of violence by men and women. They fail to include three important variables: the motives of each partner, the rates of initiation of violence by each partner in the relationship and in particular episodes, and the physical and psychological consequences of the violence to each partner (Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly, 1992). Murray Straus, a researcher frequently cited by those claiming that women’s violence is a major social problem, makes the same point: “The number of assaults by itself . . . ignores the contexts, meanings, and consequences of these assaults” (Straus, 1997, p. 216). Among the studies that analyze motive, initiation, and consequence, summarized below, women are generally shown to be more victimized than men. For example, reviews by Straus (1993, 1995, 1997) describe many qualifications of prior research that preclude firm conclusions about the extent of men’s victimization. Straus (1995) also concludes that women are the primary victims of partner abuse because they are “physically injured to the point of needing medical attention seven times as often as husbands, they suffer psychological injury at much higher rates, and they are locked into violent marriages because of the economic inequalities of American society” (p. 33). He concludes one review by stating that the “first priority in services for victims and in prevention and control must continue to be directed toward assaults by men” (Straus, 1997, p. 219).”Saunders, Daniel G. (2002). “Are physical Assaults by Wives and Girlfriends a Major Societal Problem? A Review of the Literature” Violence Against Women 8 (12): 1424-1448. doi: 10.1177/107780102237964
• ”The author concludes that research clearly shows that women who assault their heterosexual partners are distinct from men who engage in battering behaviors, since most of the women are victims of ongoing abuse from their male partners. Furthermore, the research suggests that men's and women's violence toward their heterosexual partners is historically, culturally, motivationally, and situationally dissimilar. The consequences of these actions differ as well. Women tend to recognize such behavior as a violation of their socially prescribed gender role and readily confess to their transgression of the norm for their behavior; men, on the other hand, tend to minimize their violence against female partners and/or blame the victim, which reflects a greater sense of entitlement to such behavior compared with women. Although both genders use violence to achieve control, women attempt to secure short-term command over immediate situations; whereas, men tend to establish comprehensive authority over a much longer period. The majority of research findings indicate that women who use violence are themselves battered by male partners and use physical aggression to escape or stop this abuse. Studies indicate, however, that generally women are unsuccessful in achieving their objectives through violence.”Dasgupta, Shamita Das. (2002). “A Framework for Understanding Women's Use of Nonlethal Violence in Intimate Heterosexual Relationships”. Violence Against Women 8 (11): 1564-1389.

CTS does not measure who initiated violence and who reacts in self-defense; it excluded sexual coercion items until 1996; it leaves out violence that occurs among separated couples; it does not control for motivation etc. There are hundreds of studies that criticize CTS or one of the researchers. The intro as proposed by extransit would have to include such criticisms to meet WP:NPOV. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 18:08, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Archer addressed those concerns in his analysis:

It has often been claimed that the reason CTS studies have found as many women as men to be physically aggressive is because women are defending themselves against attack. A number of studies have addressed this issue and found that when asked, more women than men report initiating an attack (Bland & Orn, 1986; DeMaris, 1992; Gryl & Bird, 1989, cited in Straus, 1997) or that the proportions are equivalent in the two sexes (Straus, 1997). Two large-scale studies found that a substantial proportion of both women and men reported using physical aggression when the partner did not (Brush, 1990; Straus & Gelles, 1988b). This evidence does not support the view that the CTS is only measuring women's self-defense.

The fact is that the CTS is considered a valid metric, if it wasn't it would not have been used by over 200 researchers. As for your last three sources, they only back up my version as they all admit that women perform equal levels of violence but then argue that violence by men is more serious. Something that my version acknowledges! Also, the review by Strauss covers the NVAWS data and why it is an outlier. extransit (talk) 18:22, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

For the third time, yes, the CTS is valid as in Validity (statistics) for a certain form of domestic violence. Unlike large-scale studies that don't rely on CTS it excludes many important aspects of domestic violence, like motivation, control, sexual violence...

Those are just some of the ten first google scholar results that pop up if you search the studies that cited Straus (1990). Researchers cite Straus but do so to criticize him so it doesn't really matter how many people cite his study. The studies all found "Intimate Terrorism" is almost exclusively perpetrated by men while "Violent Resistance" (self-defense) is almost exclusively perpetrated by women. And even "situation violence" is not gender symmetrical: 56% men and 44% women.

Look, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to achieve. The Archer, Fiebert, and Straus studies are covered extensively and disproportionately in the "Gender aspects of abuse" section. A lead that is based entirely on studies that don't measure motivation, control, sexual violence etc. while ignoring criticisms of those studies and research that directly contradicts claims of gender symmetry will not improve the article. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:09, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Um, I was trying to replace a ridiculously poor citation in the lead and thought, you know, maybe, the largest, most methodical and most cited review of the literature, Archer (2000), would be a good source. As for your citations about "intimate terrorism", this articles is about "domestic violence" not intimate terrorism. extransit (talk) 19:16, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Not understanding your objection, Sonicyouth86, extransits versions states that women receive the majority of injuries and are increasingly over-represented as abuse becomes more severe. Mystylplx (talk) 19:32, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

@Sonicyouth86, the NIJ is a political organization and as such tends to be biased towards political correctness. In any case they are not more reliable than actual studies conducted by actual researchers. Mystylplx (talk) 18:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I've cited actual studies by actual researchers in the discussion above. Their numbers don't agree with the 'symmetrical' hypothesis. The difference between them and the studies used by Archer, Fiebert, etc. is that they don't rely on the CTS, which only measures certain types of intimate partner violence. We're comparing apples and oranges here. What kind of numbers you get depends on what kind of domestic violence you're looking for. You can't just have one simple number and say "There, that's it!" Domestic violence is a complicated, multifaceted problem. Kaldari (talk) 19:53, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

That's a good reason to leave stuff like that out of the lead entirely, which is really my preference. If statistics by gender are in the lead at all it should be the largest most cited studies. If not then it shouldn't be mentioned at all. The current version has one simple number and says "There! That's it! Mystylplx (talk) 20:03, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

We are not going "There! Thats it." here, except perhaps the people defending the current lead. Notice how broad my range was ("10-35%") and I gave approixmate propotions. The part that really is the problem here for you all, the equal rates bit, has been studied enough for us to give a conclusive statement. Fiebert's bibliography has 282 entries. 147 use the CTS, 19 use the CTS2, 126 use other methodologies. Aside from the fact that criticism of the CTS is mostly just smoke it is not just the CTS. It is the few representative studies that show very disparate rates that are the ones with duvious methodologies. Like the Violence Against Women survey, which you can tell is going to be skewed just from its title, where Strauss (1999) says the questions were phrased in terms of crime and men are much less likely to see violence against them as a crime. extransit (talk) 20:09, 17 October 2011 (UTC) [edit conflict edited]

I wouldn't object to having no statistics in the lead at all. Of all the statistics we could cite, none of them present a world-wide view of the issue, as they are mostly limited to the United States. Kaldari (talk) 20:15, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

According to the UNFPA (2005) the percentage of women who have reported being physically abused by an intimate partner vary from 69% to 10% depending on the country (no figures are given for men). Given this huge disparity I don't see how it's even helpful for us to cite disputed stats from a single country in the lead. If we cite any stats in the lead, they should be global stats (although since global stats tend to only focus on women, I doubt that would be acceptable to the symmetry advocates). Kaldari (talk) 20:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I find the moving goalposts here amusing. We have had very specific, poorly cited numbers for just the United States in the lead for ages as you have been busy at work. Now, when an overwheling number of sources are marshalled for a description that is acutally accurate.. 'statistics have no place in the lead' or 'they need to be global stats which only focus on women, HAH'? extransit (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not moving the goal-posts, I'm just listing more reasons why your proposed addition to the lead isn't a good idea:

1. NPOV: The methodology of those studies is disputed by other scholars, thus they should be presented alongside appropriate criticism.
2. Accuracy: Those numbers aren't a good indication of actual domestic violence rates since CTS studies leave out sexual violence and other forms as defined in the lead.
3. Global view: Those studies are mostly limited to the United States.

It just happens that some of those reasons apply to the current wording as well, which I'm certainly not attached to. Kaldari (talk) 21:27, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

BTW, it also looks like the American Psychiatric Association disagrees with your stats. Their Clinical Manual of Prevention in Mental Health (2010) states that "Women are more often the victims of domestic violence than men". If gender symmetry is such an accepted truth, why do so few secondary sources agree with it? Kaldari (talk) 20:35, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

"If gender symmetry is such an accepted truth, why do so few secondary sources agree with it?" I have got you on this one bro. Quoting from the Kimmel you threw at me earlier in an attempt to shut me up: "Reports of gender symmetry have come to dominate the public and media discussions of domestic violence" (p. 2). Check and mate. extransit (talk) 20:59, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

So, lets review (this is a little snarky, I'm sorry). The idea that in terms of all aggressive acts women equal men is

Accepted by the media. (sez ur bro, Kimmel)

Supported by 282 scholarly investigations. (sez my bro, Fiebert)

Disputed by feminists.

Go figure. extransit (talk) 21:09, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I was referring to academic secondary sources like sociology textbooks and medical literature, not the mainstream media. Kaldari (talk) 21:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

And regarding your "feminists", the most cited study (600+ citations) debunking gender symmetry is by Russell Dobash and 3 co-authors ("The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence"). Dobash is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Manchester and "an internationally recognised expert in the area of domestic violence". He is also co-winner of the American Society of Criminology's August Vollmer Award for significant contribution to research and policy. He's written 3 books about domestic violence and contributed to 14 others. I don't see anything in his CV related to feminism whatsoever. Kaldari (talk) 21:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Hold up. From "Understanding the Complexities of Feminist Perspectives on Woman Abuse: A Commentary on Donald G. Dutton's Rethinking Domestic Violence:"

"Dobash and Dobash published their path-breaking feminist analysis of wife beating in 1979"

From "Criminology at the Crossroads: Feminist Readings in Crime and Justice":

Feminist explanations of men's violence did not come from criminological theories or vocabularies, but rather from activists and ideas that had been developing outside academic criminology (Dobash and Dobash 1992)

From "Patriarchal Ideology and Wife Beating: A Test of a Feminist Hypothesis":

Some feminist scholars (eg, Breines & Gordon, 1983; Dobash & Dobash, 1979) have contended that quantitative methods are inappropriate in feminist research

Yes, so Dobash would appear to be a feminist, and even better yet, the work you would like to present as a neutral reliable source has just been cited as a 'feminist explination developed outside of academic criminology'! My contention, that the only people who fight this fact are feminists, stands. extransit (talk) 01:20, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Dobash is a feminist. Or at least the bulk of what he writes and speaks about is either mens violence or womens victimization. With the occasional mention of violence against children. In any case he seems to have a very consistent focus. That doesn't make him wrong though, but it does need to be put into perspective--he did one study of 95 couples which attempts to refute 100's of studies totaling tens of thousands of couples. I think that's the main point--not that he's a feminist, but that the overwhelming bulk of the data supports gender symmetry while only a relative few studies contradict it.

I looked again and see I was wrong. In the study with the 95 couples he selected couples with violent men. His "debunking" of gender symmetry is not that study but just an argument which basically amounts to "I don't like the results so they must be wrong." Mystylplx (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad to see the questionable statistics have been removed from the lead (Thanks Kaldari). I really think it should stay as it is currently. I don't see any need to mention these kind of contested statistics in the lead. The Gender aspects section still needs a lot of work though--it's a complete mess. I keep looking at it and trying to start and going into brain freeze. I think the section needs to state that the great majority of studies support gender symmetry but that there are contradictory studies, that the CTS has been criticized, and that symmetry is not widely accepted by the mainstream. And do so in a way that is clear, concise, and understandable. Mystylplx (talk) 04:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Just take the statistics out of the lead altogether. It seems pretty clear that the great majority of studies support gender symmetry, but I don't think it's widely accepted by the media (regardless of what Kimmel says) and there are enough contradictory studies to conclude it's an open question. As Kaldari put it, "You can't just have one simple number and say "There, that's it!" Domestic violence is a complicated, multifaceted problem." This particularly applies to the lead. Plus the problems caused to the victims (of either gender) by domestic violence don't change according to whether more women are victims or not. Women victims aren't any less victimized if they are told that there are more woman victims of domestic violence than men, and male victims aren't going to be consoled if they are told the opposite. The best that we can conclude is that it's a disputed question and therefor baldly putting up any particular numbers and stating them as fact is not appropriate. Having said that I'll add that if we must have these kinds of statistics in the lead then it should be what the majority of studies say. Mystylplx (talk) 21:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• I have looked through Fiebert's work in the past. Most of the statistics he uses have been obtained by telephone surveys of people in their own homes. These are highly unreliable because; abusers claim to be victims, victims are often in denial and blame themselves, victims are unlikely to talk freely when an abuser may be present or there is a possibility of their conversation being secretly recorded. It is just very difficult to obtain good statistics on such a complex problem and trying to put a claim of greater female violence into the lead section on the basis of dubious statistics is untenable.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 22:57, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

See WP:OR. Also note that the current statistics in the lead come from a CDC pamphlet which in turn references a study which was conducted by... a telephone survey. Mystylplx (talk) 23:29, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Dobash et al. have covered this in their debunking of Fiebert, which is not original research. Fiebert is not a reliable source.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 09:06, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Dobash is not a reliable source. He merely dismisses data that he doesn't like. He presents no evidence. He is notable enough that his criticisms should be mentioned, but certainly not notable enough to simply dismiss the great bulk of the research on this question. Mystylplx (talk) 15:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support proposed change. Jeffmcneill (talk) 15:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose, at least for now. Try coming up with a version that doesn't sound like you forgot to breathe, and that cites each of its claims, and then we can see. I'm also concerned that you seem to be dismissing the widespread criticism of the studies in question because the critics support women's rights. Are you saying that the only valid criticism would be from advocates of domestic violence? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:29, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support proposed change, although the grammar and sentence structure could be cleaned up a bit. It's been years since I looked at this subject matter but I recall that feminism has distorted the discussion rather severely. Male-against-female violence gets nearly all the attention; men who attack women get nearly all of the punishment from the courts; women who are abused by men get nearly all of the social support mechanisms such as public discussion, shelters, social workers, and funding for these. Men who are abused by women, as well as gays and lesbians who are abused by their partners, get very little support from the courts or social mechanisms and they often feel isolated and helpless. This effect is compounded by the fact that victims are often ashamed to speak out or even report the violence. Studies have shown that women who commit domestic violence are more likely to use a weapon, more likely to use the element of surprise, and therefore more likely to inflict serious injuries. I am already very busy with other projects and really can't afford the time to invest in another one. But extransit is the one who's going in the right direction on this. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 13:37, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
• Merge both points of view should be included per WP:NPOV. I recommend, based on the column headings above, "Their version" followed by "My version". Dualus (talk) 20:18, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
• Support proposed change - The newer version just seems more nuanced and better referenced. I understand that there may be a debate about the statistics here, which I haven't really read into in much depth, but at face value, this seems to be a fairly cautious and neutrally worded proposal. NickCT (talk) 15:24, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

• Perhaps you should have read in more depth before rushing to judgement. More references does not mean better. It has been pointed out in the above discussion why the proposed version is supported by references that are US-centric, out of date and generally unreliable. There are plenty more reliable sources that could be added for the original version.--Expsychobabbler (talk) 19:06, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

• Perhaps I should. But glancing over the references, many appear to be from Psychological Bulletin, which at face value seems like a respectable peer reviewed publication. Do you dispute that? And re the "US-centric" charge; isn't the CDC reference also US-centric? So how is one version better than the other in that regard. NickCT (talk) 15:57, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course none of that's true though. The references are from all over the world, not out of date, and published in peer-reviewed journals. There's some serious denial going on here. Mystylplx (talk) 03:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose changing to extransit's version, endorse keeping the so-called "their version" with the statistic "4.8 million women suffer intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes and 2.9 million men are victims of physical assault from their partners". The cited studies have been criticized by subsequent researchers. Binksternet (talk) 05:18, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

  If the mere fact that a study has "been criticized" is sufficient reason to ignore it then we would have to ignore every study that's ever been done as all of them have "been criticized" by somebody, somewhere. Those studies have "been criticized" but those criticisms have also "been criticized." So where does that leave us? Mystylplx (talk) 08:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

a) We do not "ignore it"; more than half of the section "Gender aspects of abuse" is devoted to describing the theory of "gender symmetry", large chunks of quotes from Mr. Straus, Mr. Fiebert, and Mr. Archer. b) The primary sources provided by Mr. Fiebert and copied by User:extransit have not just been "criticized", they have been rejected as invalid since the survey tool used by those studies, the Conflict Tactics Scale, does not even measure domestic violence. I suggest we refrain from using any primary sources, and instead, only use meta-analyses such as Kimmel, Johnson, Dobash, and Archer, and statements by sources such as the NIJ and WHO. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 12:22, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Again you reply ignoring the context. I was responding to Binksternet who wants to put back stats into the lede from a single non-peer reviewed study while ignoring hundreds of actually peer reviewed studies. And your continual repetition that the CTS "does not measure domestic violence" has a bit of a head buried in the sand quality. It's been criticized by a relative few researchers yet is still the most widely used instrument in studying IPV. As for the WHO study--this has been pointed out to you before, so why you keep ignoring it I don't know--they only studied violence women.

I would not be against limiting this to meta-analyses, but you should be aware that of the four names you mentioned only one has done a meta-analysis. The other three have written articles, which is not the same as a meta-analysis. Mystylplx (talk) 22:03, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

a) Who needs "hundreds" of primary sources? b) Please present evidence that in the field of domestic violence research "hundreds of (CTS) studies" = "a lot" because actual secondary and tertiary sources like the WHO and the Encyclopedia Britannica seem to think that the theory of "gender symmetry" is so negligible that they don't even deign to mention it. Kimmel, Dobash, and Johnson have all published systematic reviews: Kimmel, Dobash, and Johnson. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 17:18, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The "single non-peer reviewed study" is accepted as fact by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their approval means more to me than a number of researchers feeling blindly around the elephant to identify different parts of it. The CDC is tasked to deal with the public health problem at ground level where theories fall apart and reality must be dealt with. I would characterize the CDC position as mainstream and any other contradictory viewpoint as minor or fringe, depending on the breadth of agreement about the minor/fringe viewpoint. Gender symmetry is not the subject of this article, and it is not proven in mainstream studies. Women take the brunt of domestic violence. Binksternet (talk) 19:54, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I just re-read WP:RS and I don't see anything in there about a government agency headed by a political appointee being considered a reliable source. I do see that articles and meta-analysis published in peer reviewed journals get high marks as reliable sources. I don't know what you mean by "mainstream studies." Gender symmetry has been proven in tons of studies published in respected peer-reviewed journals and has been mentioned in recent articles written in respected peer-reviewed publications like The Psychiatric Times, or American Journal of Orthopsychiatry where the author states "However, recent findings indicate that gender differences in aggressive behaviors disappear when assessments are broadened to include relational aggression" Among government agencies and mainstream media gender symmetry is little known, but among family violence researchers it is hardly fringe. Even those who disagree with it like Kimmel, Dobash, and Johnson don't think it's fringe because if they did they wouldn't have bothered to write articles arguing against it.. As a general rule respected researchers don't spend a lot of time arguing against theories they consider to be fringe. Mystylplx (talk) 01:28, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

The policy you should read and the re-read and perhaps re-re-read (just to make sure) is WP:NPOV and WP:PRIMARY. The theory of gender symmetry is already given undue weight in the section "Gender aspects of abuse" and now in the section "Epidemiology" after undefed User:Dualus inserted it [23]. Not too bad for a theory that has been mentioned in many primary sources but is not picked up by secondary and tertiary sources, i.e., the kind of sources that we are supposed to use when writing an article. The most vocal researchers who promote the theory of gender symmetry are mentioned three times and quoted extensively. Care to explain why you, Mystyplx, complain that Kimmel is mentioned twice and remove referenced content but ignore the fact that Straus and Archer are mentioned three times and quoted extensively? WP:PRIMARY tells editors to use secondary and to a lesser degree tertiary sources to write articles. Despite this, you and Extransit keep pushing Fiebert's list of primary sources. In scientific literature, a primary source is the original publication of a scientist's new data, results, and theories. Your hyperbolic and emotive rhetoric ("tons of of studies", "peer-reviewed journals", "hundreds of studies") continues even after I asked you to read our policy about primary sources. There are plenty of reliable sources which claim that vaccines cause autism. But what we need to do is consult secondary and tertiary sources to ascertain if these theories and "tons" of studies are notable and how much weight they deserve. And please answer my question: Extransit's proposal was already inserted by blocked User:Dualus. Straus, Archer, and Fiebert are mentioned and quoted more times than any other source in the article. All this already indicates that WP:NPOV is a problem and yet here you are arguing that we need more quotes from Straus, Archer, Fiebert & Co., more emphasis on the theory of gender symmetry, and less secondary and tertiary sources (because they don't support the theory of gender symmetry). So the question is: Why do you continue your campaign for greater inclusion of a theory that is already given too much weight? --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you've been paying attention. Extransit listed 5 sources, Fiebert's bibliography was only one them. You seem to be the one obsessing over Fiebert. the other four are all secondary. And I've shown a couple more in the course of the discussion. Whether Fieberts bibliography is primary or secondary is a matter of definition. Certainly each individual study is primary, just as individual studies cited in a review article or meta-analysis is primary. Yet the review article or meta-analysis themselves are secondary. Admittedly, there's not a ton of analysis in Fieberts bibliography, but there are 61 entries in Fieberts bibliography which are themselves secondary sources. And the bibliography itself is a secondary source as long as we only report the conclusions Fiebert draws and not try to draw conclusions ourselves. But even if we throw Fieberts bibliography out in general there are still 61 secondary sources in it that could still be separately included. As for mentions in the article, Archer, who's meta-analysis encompassed 83 studies, is mentioned twice. Johnson, who merely wrote an article, is mentioned three times. Straus, who wrote an article, is mentioned three times. Kimmel, who wrote an article, is mentioned twice. And Fiebert (214 studies and 61 secondary sources in the bibliography) is mentioned five times, but two of those times are in the context of Kimmel rebutting him. So he's really only mentioned three times in a positive way. Mystylplx (talk) 02:33, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Those five sources are already mentioned multiple times (Archer and Straus three times, Fiebert five times) in the section "Gender aspects of abuse" and once in the section "Epidemiology"; they are mentioned more often than any other source, i.e., the theory of gender symmetry as promoted by its three most vocal advocates is given too much weight. You demand that we give it more weight, completely ignoring our WP:NPOV policy. Glad to see that you finally understand how misleading your emotive rhetoric ("hundreds of peer-reviewed studies" and "tons of actually peer-reviewed studies") is considering the fact that you're talking about a bunch of primary sources, many of which are unpublished master's theses. Interesting, so it's now down to 61... I very much question that figure. Of the few review articles in the list many are by the same researcher (8 by Straus, 6 by or with Dutton, 2 by Archer alone!) and many investigate other aspects of male victimization (e.g., the effects of domestic violence on men, why men remain in an abusive relationship, why men allegedly under-report, arrests of women etc.) or the reasons for female violence rather than arguing in favor of the theory of gender symmetry. But let's assume that there are about 50 review articles in the list and let's further assume that about 20 of those (most of them by Straus himself) explicitly state that the consensus (=/= "some studies found...") is that women are as likely as men to be perpetrators of domestic violence. Do you have any evidence that in the field of domestic violence research 20 studies is considered a lot or how much weight these 20 reviews deserve? Secondary and tertiary sources ignore the theory of gender symmetry which means that it is considered a fringe theory at best.

You have not answered my question: Why do you insist on repeating the same quotes by the same CTS researchers although their findings are already given undue weight? Why do you continue to demand something which has already been granted (blocked User:Dualus already added Extransit's proposal)? What is the long-term goal? To remove all secondary and tertiary sources and all criticisms of the CTS and present Straus, Archer and Fiebert as da truth? You've certainly already started to delete the Kimmel review [24] and to non-neutrally rephrase the findings of secondary sources [25]. Please do tell, what's next? --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 12:53, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you even read my comment before replying. Many straw men and non sequiturs in your comment. What do you mean it's "down to" 61? I said 61 secondary sources in Fieberts bibliography alone! You then suggested that (in your guestimate) 20 of those support gender symmetry. You then bizarrely go on to say that secondary sources ignore gender symmetry!?!? Even if it's only 20 that's still more than the number of secondary sources that oppose it. Here's an article from just last year. Psychiatric Times is an open access, peer reviewed journal that is not exactly fringe. To read it you may have to sign up for an account (not sure) but it's free.

And as I already pointed out (which you ignored) Archer, Straus, and Fiebert are hardly given undue weight. They are given roughly equal weight with Kimmel and Johnson, which is undue weight since Kimmel and Johnson are only two researchers who merely wrote a couple articles compared to numerous articles and meta-analysis for Straus and Archer. Mystylplx (talk) 18:08, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

--- End of vote --- This is WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. Represent both views per WP:DUE. /thread --Anders Feder (talk) 16:47, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

No shit. I can't understand why the RfC continues even after User:Dualus inserted Extransit's proposal in the article [26]. WP:DUE is the operative policy here. The subject is too complex for individual editors to decide which studies are due or undue. We need to consult secondary and tertiary sources to decide how much weight competing theories deserve. Secondary and tertiary sources ignore (WHO, Encyclopedia Britannica) or criticize (NIJ) the theory of gender symmetry. Yet half of the section "Gender aspects of abuse" and part of the section "Epidemiology" describes this theory. Advocates of this theory are mentioned and quoted more than any other source that discusses perpetration by gender. WP:DUE is a problem. Despite this several editors argue that this article needs even more emphasis on that theory and that editors who reject their proposal have "their POV" which "seems to run pretty thick". What is going on here? --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

• Mu From the RFC - I don't intend to participate in this proxy war. It is clear that the underlying problem is advocacy from Mens Rights activists. It is clear this article is being used to support their advocacy. Since I previously involved myself with said advocates, I am not uninvolved. However, I find extransit's behavior reprehensible. Hipocrite (talk) 17:25, 13 December 2011 (UTC)