Domestic violence; more formally known by men as the ‘my wife hit me, so let me blame this bruise on falling down the stairs’ act, that comes with marriage. Contrary to belief, men are hurt in a relationship just as much as women, and as odd as that sounds – being beat up by your ballerina instructor wife or what not – domestic violence is a serious issue in America that deserves some observation and reflection.
There are two viewpoints on domestic violence-the most common of the two is that women are by far the worst effected by violent behavior from a partner. According to statistics from clarkprosecutor.org, a site to get hold of or research prosecuting attorneys of Clark County in Indiana, a shocking 85% of domestic violence reports are made by women in an abusive relationship, not men.
Women and men have had difficulties communicating for as long as we’ve been attempting to. Countless researches have been made to try and solve why we resort to violence, why there are misunderstandings between men and women so often, and how relationships go wrong or end more in our modern age. Part of the reason men and women clash is because, to put it bluntly, genders are raised very differently, especially in America, no matter how much society would deny it. Men and women have been, and probably always will be, treated differently.
Growing up, boys are expected to like sports and G.I. Joe action figures. Girls are encouraged to dress up with Mom, get excited over the newest Barbie Doll, and worship Hannah Montana. Maybe this isn’t entirely true around the world, but more often then not you will see a little girl with a frilly dress playing it safe and see a little boy making revving sounds, speeding a toy sports car across the ground, in a world of his own.
What I’m getting to, slowly but surely, is that women are likely to report if they have been abused, as the majority were raised (even if just a small amount) gentler then men. Men are abused just as much as women, but growing up being pressured against a feminine life style, most likely view reporting abuse as a shame or weakness. Something ridiculous that could lose them a manly reputation or face.
In fact, according to Mensweb, or batteredmen.com (whose motto is “The Hidden Side of Domestic Abuse”), 38-50% of the time it is really a man who’s victim to abuse in a relationship, and while The National Institute of Justice and the Center for Disease Control estimated 1.3 million women to be victims of DV [domestic abuse] each year, 835,000 men are victimized as well. Quoted, this is a fact from Mensweb:
A survey 0f 1,000 women, perhaps the largest survey of its kind, found that 20% had initiated violence. The most common reasons for women initiating domestic violence were: “My partner wasn’t sensitive to my needs,” (46%), “I wished to gain my partner’s attention,” (44%) and “My partner was not listening to me” (43%). “My partner was being verbally abusive to me” (38%) was a distant fourth.
Not that I’m trying to knock the females of our nation, but being one myself, I know that men and women-although they may act differently, think exactly alike. Men aren’t the only ones capable of hurting people they love, and women aren’t so weak they should always be depicted as damsels in distress or victims in an unsatisfying relationship; yet that’s how society seems to see the male and female genders today. Equality has been accomplished, but there is still a lot to smooth out between men and women.