Martin S. Fiebert
Department of Psychology
California State University, Long Beach

SUMMARY:  This bibliography examines 155 scholarly investigations: 126 empirical studies and 29 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.  The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 116,000.    http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm   I do not however want to play the numbers game other then to show we need to address BOTH sides if we want to solve this problem.  I believe women are more likely to be injured in domestic violence when a man that she is abusing comes "to the end of his rope" and hits back.    2:  Men are subject to the same types of abuse as women.  I strongly agree with this, however, many of the sources for abused women do not recognize this.  I contend that if it is abuse if a man does it to a woman, it should be called abuse if a woman does it to a man.    One problem in addressing this is the misandry that is prevalent in our society.  Although I have seen commercials which devalue women, it is far more common to see men devalued.  Sit coms, movies and many other sources show dad as incompetent. Many show women hitting men and we hear the laugh tracks.  Boys are taught not to hit girls..but I contend that people should be taught not to hit  people.  This being said, the old slap in the face because a man "looked" at a woman should not be tolerated.  Non verbal abuse should not be countered with physical aggression.  Most of the media forms mentioned above include a lot of verbal abuse to men.  How often do we hear women telling men that if they were a real man they would ....   Often this is referred to has having parts of male anatomy.  It IS ABUSE.    Another form of abuse that men face on a regular basis is false accusations of abuse.  In many locations, there are "must arrest" orders essentially stating that it is the man that must be arrested if police are called, even if they are the only ones beaten.   This is a result of the Violence Against Women Act.  Before it's reauthorization,  many spent time and energy trying to explain why this should be the Domestic Violence Act.  The VAWA does not help abused men in any way although we are told it is gender neutral.  This is shown at: The Violence Against Women Act and CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES  http://www.shatterdmen.com/VAWA%20too.htm   Another form of abuse to men and to our children is denied access.  Once a man does leave an abusive relationship, his children are far more likely to be abused.  In reality, 2/3's of all child abuse is by the mother and the next highest incidence is by a live in boyfriend yet "family courts" will often give the mother full custody and the father is given "visitor" status.  One of the most common reasons men do not have contact with their children after a divorce is because they are denied access even if they have court orders.  To compound this problem, there are certain factions of our society that have a "war on fathers" and they often declare that if a man tries to get custody of his children in a divorce, it is because they are abusers and they want to continue the abuse.  Odd is it not that this would  never apply the other way?    There is far more I can say on all of this but on to the next point.   3:   Most abuse shelters state they will help men.  I have had several people that work in these shelters inform me of this.  When some men have tried, they were denied services in many of these shelters.  In reality, these shelters can be denied federal funding if they help men.  The shelter in my own area state they will help men, yet all of their literature focus only on abused women.  If they these shelters do help men, it is a well kept secret.  It would also be more likely a man having a heart attack would go to a women's hospital for treatment then for a man to go to a battered women's shelter for help.    I do feel you are correct that out of all of the abuse shelters, perhaps 21 do offer equal services...but I do think it is not well known except for 4 or 5 of these shelters in which they make it known they help men.    I do wonder what would happen if we had public service announcements for abuse men as we do for women?   I also wonder what would happen if all of our social service agencies were taught how to spot an abused man.  I do believe that any place that screens women for abuse, should also screen men for abuse.   As well as being a registered nurse, I am also an ordained pastor and I do all of this ministry in my spare time on the Internet,  or over the phone.  We have never charged for our services although we are working on becoming a non profit organization.  Early this year we had Jerusalem Daily/Shattered Men  published by  Pleasant Word publishers.   As well as our web site which is below, we would like to point out the following web sites:   http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ssewell38/Family-Violence.htm   http://www.dvmen.org/dv.htm#DVtitlepage   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/abusedguys/   http://desertlightjournal.blog-city.com/index.cfm   Is it not time to value  ALL of our people?

Note for other information on this, please look at 

Gathering Statistics

GENDER PROFILING PREVALENT IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

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