I’m gunna have to say it’s more common then you think. :/ Women have rage issues, too, and not all of us can be delicate flowers. Nor can all our husbands be big strong men who can hold us back. But overwhelmingly, it is men beating women, in the same way that men overwhelmingly out perform women at athletics and such. But do consider that it happens more often than you think–and men are less likely to report, because you know, the whole stigma attached to being beaten up by a girl… So stupid, but sad for those poor guys.

I know of at least a couple men who’ve experienced terrible abuse at the hands of female partners, including physical in one case. as you say, though, it often doesn’t manifest the same way.

So perhaps less likely to actually put the guy in the hospital, you know;

but: throwing things, screaming for hours on end, hitting, biting, that sort of thing.

also what’s not talked about: women abuse kids. Including boychildren. Quite a bit. Sometimes of their own volition (or, well, as much as anyone ever does; but directly instigated by Dad, is the point here; sometimes Dad is the silent enabler).

Important here because:

1) Boychildren grow up into men, and guess what kind of relationships they tend to have with women?

2) a really nasty power move abusive women in a traditional family set-up–or really any one with children i suppose: abuse the kids as a way to get to Dad.

Of course the reverse of that (dad abuses kids to get to mom) happens a fuck of a lot as well.

yeah. people. i dunno.

If you want the truth, hook the interviewees up to brain wave (EEG) devices and watch reaction to images of Woman on Man violence images. Those who turn positive can be interviewd in depth by female only professionals in specifically non clinical environments.

This behaviour is of such ashaming nature that role play may be needed to break the shell. This could be a Female psycologist role playing as an intimate abuser. This IMO is the only way to real truth on the matter.

In addition to this, I have seen a man beating up a woman twice. In both cases I have successfully intervened to stop it, and in both cases, I was not the only one. I have seen a woman hit a man more times than I can count. In most cases, these were slaps, but sometimes, it was punches, or blows with objects. Once a woman intervened. In all other cases, everyone looked the other way.

As far as I am concerned, women engage in more ‘low level’ violence than men. At least for me, losing one’s temper is a weakness more tolerated in women than in men. As for serious beatings, I think the reason that men hurt women a lot more often is very simple - men are, on average, stronger.

The only time where I think that culture is to blame is when it comes to murders. I believe that a woman will kill a man if she feels that she has to get rid of him. A man can kill a woman because he has come to think of her as property, and cannot stand to lose his hold on her. I looked for some statistics, and it seems that the only thing they all agree is that among domestic partners, woman on man murders have fallen sharply with the increase in divorce. Now a woman can escape the man without killing him, so they do not do it as often.

In any case, I think the ratio of women to men that reported being beaten-up is not due to big bad society, but to the difference in strenght, and the unwillingness of men to admit being beaten. And no, that first girlfriend never beat me up. I just let her hit me repeatedly because I could not think of anything better to do. The one time I blocked her blows she went into a seizure, and from then on I just let her wind herself down.

As a male & a feminist, I can see how many of the “privileges” listed in the list can be seen as privileges; however, to me, many of those things are not applicable because I value my sensitivity, not the things society tells me I should (such as high-paying jobs, money, career, et cetera). For me, many things listed on the list feel like oppression. Society tells me I am not entitled to my emotions, to be an abuse survivor, to deal with issues without the use of alcohol/being hypersexual/aggression (none of which work for my personal make-up). This is not to say that the fact that the vast majority of those things on that list are what does happen is right; it isn’t. I hate that any double standard based on gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, ableness, age, or any myraid of identities exists. I wish people were judged on actions, not identities. Just that for me, nearly every item on that list are things I, personally, do not value nor see as a benefit but as an oppressive straitjacket that constrict my ability to display my sensitivity proudly, the reason that nice guys finish last.

Are you *really* suggesting that women never ever get turned down by men, and men can’t ever turn down women? Of course men can choose between willing romantic partners, just like women.

And I’d love to see your statistics supporting the assertion that women choose men based primarily on looks (if that’s what you’re saying; it’s hard to tell). The correlation between testosterone and “attractiveness” is pretty iffy, and has more to do with pheromones than physical appearance, anyway.

Your comment looks an awful lot like “It’s the women’s fault for being shallow and choosing men who just can’t help beating them up because of their high testosterone levels!” How “feminist” of you.

Their choice! Sad, but scientifically true in case of heterosexual women. For lesbians, the rate counts towards women no matter who assaults whom. For gays, I dont know, but if I were to guess its not as high as heterosexual males.

Coming back to heterosexual men and women, the choice factors that women actually consider males as potential factors, the most prominent and prevalent is looks. True for men too, but, men dont have the ability to choose, men can pursue all they want, the choice of men depends on women. Biologically, men with higher testosterone will have more attractive appearance. The testosterone will demonstrate its bad side at some point of time causing the man to assault anyone close given the right circumstances. Most of the times that means it will be the woman and though society discourages such acts, the woman will be hurt.

iirc they found that there wasn’t a statistically significant difference between the results based on the sex of the interviewer.

My mistake - as it turns out, I didn’t “rc.” As Daran writes in the comments of Creative Destruction:

In fact they “found a few small but statistically significant gender effects.” (See footnote 2 to chapter 2 of the full report (PDF).

This is a nitpick, because ’statistically significant’ means that the differences are of a magnitude which is unlikely to be the result of chance. It does not mean that the difference is significant from the point of view of interpretting the results.

My sincere thanks to Daran for the correction.

They published the results somewhere, but I can’t locate it right now; iirc they found that there wasn’t a statistically significant difference between the results based on the sex of the interviewer.