Young women more prone to violence

[Faithless]

Study: Women more prone to violence than previously thought (http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2005/01/30/news/oregon/state04.txt)

Sunday, January 30, 2005
Last modified Saturday, January 29, 2005 10:19 PM PST

EUGENE (AP) — A study by a group of Eugene scientists shows that young women are much more likely to initiate physical violence toward their significant others than previously thought.


The study, which is slated for publication in the Journal of Family Violence, shows that 18-year-old women are more than four times as likely as men to initiate physical aggression toward their partners.

The gap closes by age 26, when women were only slightly more likely than men to tee off.

Deborah Capaldi, a senior scientist at Eugene's Oregon Social Learning Center, spent hours watching young couples tackle problem-solving exercises in the center's lab assessment rooms. To the surprise of Capaldi and her colleagues, a partner would sometimes lash out in the midst of debating how to solve the problem — and more often than not, the initiator was the woman.

The counterintuitive findings are among a growing body of research suggesting that women may play a larger role in domestic violence than commonly assumed.

But the research is also controversial and subject to interpretation.

Capaldi contends that prevention and treatment programs for battered women often miss the mark because they fail to consider the realities of female aggression.

Women need to know, for example, that if they assault their partner, they run a higher risk of severe injury themselves, she said.

"Women engage in aggression," she said, "and we're not doing them any favors by denying they have any part in it."

Most advocates for female victims of domestic violence acknowledge that some women are aggressors and some men are victims.

But they caution that the dynamics are often very different, the options for escape much narrower, and the risk of physical injury or death far greater for women.

"The most common cause of injury for women between the ages of 15 and 44 is domestic violence — you don't see that for men," said Margo Schaefer, community outreach director at Womenspace, a Eugene shelter and support group for battered women.

According to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, about one in three female murder victims in this country is killed by an "intimate" — a spouse, ex-spouse or boyfriend.

Only 3 percent to 4 percent of male murder victims, meanwhile, are killed by an intimate.

More than 100 academic studies, however, suggest that men and women assault their partners at about equal rates. Male victims typically fail to gain much attention, advocates say, because many men are too embarrassed to admit abuse.

There's also the notion that political correctness in which only women go to shelters, and only men go to treatment programs, may be at play. "People have put a great deal of energy into establishing those shelters and treatment programs — the status quo," said Capaldi. "It's become an industry."

Capaldi's study is different from many others in that it focuses on observed rather than reported acts of aggression. Capaldi said she and her colleagues expected some verbal arguments but were surprised by the extent of slaps, pokes and kicks as partners discussed such assigned topics as planning a party, where to go on a date, or how to deal with such issues as jealousy and lack of money.

If hit or poked, the men and women were about equally as likely to respond in kind. None of the physical aggression was severe, which researchers would have halted, Capaldi said.

Some women may initiate aggression because they see it as a kind of innocent horseplay and as a way to connect in a sexually intimate relationship, Capaldi said.

Younger women, especially, may be less sure of how to relate, and more susceptible to jealousy because they are unsure of the relationship's staying power, she said.

Many partners seemed to engage in the slaps and pokes without even consciously thinking about it, Capaldi said.

"It was almost like a way of communicating," she said.

[kpih]

Couple of questions I immediately came to mind. Perhaps I should look up the article since the journal is rather well-established.

1) Size of the sample, and other characteristics: ethinicity, SES, region, education level, etc.

2) The changing gender roles and socialization. I wonder if the reseachers took that into account.

Perhaps I will go to the library right now...

[asvenus]

Couple of questions I immediately came to mind. Perhaps I should look up the article since the journal is rather well-established.

1) Size of the sample, and other characteristics: ethinicity, SES, region, education level, etc.

2) The changing gender roles and socialization. I wonder if the reseachers took that into account.

Perhaps I will go to the library right now...

i love you *swoon* :biggrin:

[nonamerasian]

I've always thought that domestic violence initiated by woman is higher than recognized.

I don't think a woman slapping her SO during a fight is seen in the same light as the reverse.

It's downplayed.

[nola]

With women's liberation women drink alot more, are getting arrested for drugs alot more and are in prison alot more. It wouldn't surprise me if girls are more violent and presently able to act out more.

[Faithless]

This article focuses a little more on the researcher, Deborah Capaldi, who came to these conclusions.
Fingering the aggressor: A Eugene researcher's observations point to young women who initiate physical fighting (http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/01/29/a1.dvresearch.0129.html)

January 29, 2005
By Jeff Wright
The Register-Guard

It's one thing to ask couples how often their arguments escalate to physical attack. It's another to actually watch them go at it.

Deborah Capaldi has.

A senior scientist at Eugene's Oregon Social Learning Center, Capaldi has spent hours watching young couples tackle problem-solving exercises in the center's lab assessment rooms. To the surprise of Capaldi and her colleagues, a partner would sometimes lash out in the midst of debating how to solve the problem.

Deborah Capaldi researches how young women initiate physical aggression against a partner.

Who were the primary initiators of such slaps, pokes and kicks? "The women," Capaldi says.

Capaldi's and her co-workers' research, slated for publication in the Journal of Family Violence, found that women age 18 were more than four times as likely as men to initiate physical aggression. The gap closed by age 26, when women were only slightly more likely than men to tee off.

The counterintuitive findings are among a growing body of research suggesting that women may play a larger role in domestic violence than commonly assumed. But the research is also controversial and subject to interpretation.

Capaldi contends that prevention and treatment programs for battered women often miss the mark because they fail to consider the realities of female aggression. Women need to know, for example, that if they assault their partner, they run a higher risk of severe injury themselves, she said.

"Women engage in aggression," she said, "and we're not doing them any favors by denying they have any part in it."

Most advocates for female victims of domestic violence acknowledge that some women are aggressors and some men are victims. But they caution that the dynamics are often very different, the options for escape much narrower, and the risk of physical injury or death far greater for women.

"The most common cause of injury for women between the ages of 15 and 44 is domestic violence - you don't see that for men," said Margo Schaefer, community outreach director at Womenspace, a Eugene shelter and support group for battered women.

"What it's like to be a battered man is not well-known, and it's important to reach out to those men," Schaefer said. "But with women, we have an epidemic on our hands."

The most crucial distinction between male and female aggressors, say Schaefer and other advocates for battered women, is this: Women are more likely to use force as a way to focus attention on unmet needs and frustrations, while men are more likely to use it as a fear and control tactic.

Because of the disparity in physical size and strength, women often end up battered by men regardless of whether they resist or comply, Schaefer said. As for the potential of greater injury should they strike first, "no one needs to tell a battered woman that if she mixes it up with a batterer, she's going to get the worst of it."

According to federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, about one in three female murder victims in this country is killed by an "intimate" - a spouse, ex-spouse or boyfriend. The rate is actually down somewhat today compared with the 1980s and '90s.

Only 3 percent to 4 percent of male murder victims, meanwhile, are killed by an intimate. The raw number of men murdered by intimates dropped 71 percent from 1976 to 2002, the bureau reports.

In Oregon, a five-year Intimate Partner Violence Project study completed by the state last year found women were three times more likely than men to be assaulted by a partner, and four times more likely to be killed. One in 10 women in Oregon ages 20 to 55 had experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner in the previous five years, the study found.

More than 100 academic studies, however, suggest that men and women assault their partners at about equal rates. Male victims typically fail to gain much attention, advocates say, because of strong cultural biases that men are expected to take abuse "like a man" and not complain, and because many men are too embarrassed to admit abuse.

There's also the notion that political correctness - in which only women go to shelters, and only men go to treatment programs - may be at play. "People have put a great deal of energy into establishing those shelters and treatment programs - the status quo," Capaldi said. "It's become an industry."

Seeing is believing?

Capaldi, a researcher at Oregon Social Learning Center since 1983, said her work on female aggression came about by accident. She's devoted much of her career to the Oregon Youth Study, a two-decade assessment of more than 200 males from mostly lower-income homes.

The males were first interviewed as fourth-graders and have been visited annually ever since; they are now in their late 20s. As they entered their late teens, most had acquired girlfriends or wives, and Capaldi and associates expanded their research to include a couples study.

A large majority of the couples aren't involved in any physical violence, Capaldi stressed. In most studies on the topic, she said, between one-quarter and one-third of men and women admit to having physically struck a partner at least once in the previous year.

In a 2001 study of her own, Capaldi reported frequent levels of physical aggression by both the male and female in 8 percent of interviewed couples, by just the woman in 5 percent of the couples, and by just the man in 1 percent of the couples. Among 86 percent of the couples, neither the man nor woman committed frequent aggression.

Capaldi's latest study, however, is different in that it focuses on observed rather than reported acts of aggression. Capaldi said she and her colleagues expected some verbal arguments but were surprised by the extent of slaps, pokes and kicks as partners discussed such assigned topics as planning a party, where to go on a date, or how to deal with such issues as jealousy and lack of money.

If hit or poked, the men and women were about equally as likely to respond in kind. None of the physical aggression was severe, which researchers would have halted, Capaldi said.

Some women may initiate aggression because they see it as a kind of innocent horseplay and as a way to connect in a sexually intimate relationship, Capaldi said. Younger women, especially, may be less sure of how to relate, and more susceptible to jealousy because they are unsure of the relationship's staying power, she said.

Depression is another potential factor, with some people choosing to cope aggressively rather than passively, she said.

Many partners seemed to engage in the slaps and pokes without even consciously thinking about it, Capaldi said. "It was almost like a way of communicating," she said.

Two-way aggression

Teri Gutierrez, director of Non-Violent Alternatives, a batterer intervention program in Springfield, has her own theory about why many young women may take the initiative in physical aggression.

"What I see with younger women is, they don't want to be seen as a victim, and so they put on this tough persona," Gutierrez said. "But when it comes down to who's really in control, that's a harder thing to assess. It may look like a woman is being bossy or emotionally abusive, but that does not necessarily mean she's the primary aggressor."

Gutierrez said many male batterers are skilled at manipulating a partner and getting her to hit first in order to blame her. Many men, she said, are also skilled at being on their best behavior when they know they're being observed - in a laboratory setting, for example.

While some women are the sole aggressor, mutual aggression is more common, Gutierrez said. Some women who suffer physical abuse think they "deserve" it because of their own aggressive actions.

Gutierrez recalled two women served by her agency who became agitated whenever it was suggested they might be the victim in their relationships. "They really believed that if they weren't abusive, he wouldn't have been abusive to them," Gutierrez said. "They thought their behavior was so egregious, who wouldn't have hit them back?"

It's not as if Gutierrez's agency, called NOVA for short, hasn't tried to address the problem of female aggression: The agency sponsored a female "primary aggressor" program in 2000 and again last year, but struggled both times to find enough willing participants to justify the effort.

A "female aggression wheel" used in the program lists the various ways some women will abuse a male partner - from spitting, pulling hair and throwing objects to such psychological devices as "crying to make him feel guilty" or "trying to make him jealous."

Many women are reluctant to admit their culpability in a culture that views aggressive females as less acceptable than aggressive males, Gutierrez said.

"You hear of a woman being violent, it's shocking to people and viewed as aberrant behavior that should be punished," she said. "There's maybe less empathy for a woman who's aggressive or mouthy or addicted or cheating."

"Men get battered, too"

When a man tells her he is a victim of domestic violence, Gutierrez said she asks two questions: How does he benefit from staying in the relationship, and what's preventing him from leaving? The point, she said, is that most men have fewer barriers - such as insufficient finances or primary child care duties - blocking them.

Female aggressors differ from male aggressors in several ways. For one, women are more likely to see their aggression as a problem that needs fixing, Gutierrez said.

Schaefer, at Womenspace, identifies another difference: Women who batter men rarely pursue contact after separation, while men are much more likely to stalk or harass a past partner.

Despite the differences, it's important to remember that anyone can be a victim of domestic violence, Schaefer said. The idea that men are somehow immune to physical assault or isolation or ridicule is ludicrous, she said.

"A lot of women abuse men by telling them they're not man enough - `Look, you won't even hit back when I hit you,' " Schaefer said. "If you're a man who's not going to hit back, then a very positive thing about you can be turned into a source of ridicule against you."

Womenspace does not offer support groups for male victims, but otherwise provides the same services, including emergency shelter, to battered men and women. Male victims are directed to hotels or other safe havens, distinct from the confidential emergency shelter made available to women.

When someone reminds her that "men get battered, too," Schaefer said her immediate response is to agree.

"It's an underserved population," she said. "Pretty much everyone is underserved when it comes to domestic violence."

[YuheiCarreau]

With women's liberation women drink alot more, are getting arrested for drugs alot more and are in prison alot more. It wouldn't surprise me if girls are more violent and presently able to act out more.

I believe the article is saying that women (under the age of 24, anyway) are more violent than men, not more violent than the women of 50 years ago.

Drawing on my own experiences, I'd say it's pretty true. Despite the fact that I never punched or hit any of my sisters (even in a playful way), my younger sister punches me in the arm as hard as she can just about every time I piss her off. Since I am literally twice her size, I can't really reciprocate without breaking a few bones.

But I think it's important to note that even though it may be true that female aggression plays a role in domestic violence, there's still a lot more women in the ER that tell the doctor they "just fell down a flight of stairs"... Women may be more likely to express anger with violence, but men cause a lot more damage with theirs.

I wonder, does this study differentiate between women who are in relationships with men that are prone to violence, and women who know for a fact that their partner won't hit back? Because it seems to me that one of the reasons that my little sister punches me so much is that she's never learned to fear retribution... Sort of like that bit Chris Rock does, about how a man knows not to cross a certain line when arguing with a bigger man, but women don't worry about it.

[nola]

Thank you, YC.

[nonamerasian]

I wonder, does this study differentiate between women who are in relationships with men that are prone to violence, and women who know for a fact that their partner won't hit back? Because it seems to me that one of the reasons that my little sister punches me so much is that she's never learned to fear retribution... Sort of like that bit Chris Rock does, about how a man knows not to cross a certain line when arguing with a bigger man, but women don't worry about it.

Might be the lack of fear.

But there is a degree of acceptability, too.

Like how many times in soaps and movies have men been slapped by their partners for being deceptive or cheating compared to women?

And when women are shown being slapped soaps or movies, it's usually in scenes where the guy is clearly the bad guy. He lost his temper. He's an abuser. She's an innocent victim. But the guys tend to be depicted as deserving of the hit and the woman as the victim of whatever he did to deserve that.

[kasia]

although i would hate for anyone to use this article to ever justify domestic violence or abuse against women, my experience in this field shows that it isn't that far from the truth either. many of the women that i've interviewed - hundreds - have initiated the violence by not allowing their partners to have "cooling off" period or by being confrontational themselves. being a woman does not give you a license to hit first, but many women learn from their soap operas that it is okay to slap their partner upon finding out that he has cheated or spent the welfare money on booze.

while this is true, though, i will also say that most women are less clever than their counterparts. they will slap out of anger without thinking ahead, whereas many male batterers will punch and bruise deliberately in areas that can be covered from the public eye. most male batterers, as opposed to women, furthermore, have learned how to use the judicial system to their advantage - waiting for their partners to hit them, then calling the cops at that time and claiming domestic violence. this is even more true in immigrant communities, where men more often than women can speak English and give their side of the story first.

the bottom line is still that men can do a lot cause a lot more harm than most women - most women will act out of anger and slap. most male batterers, however, are calculating and beat not only out of anger but for the sake of control.

finally, if i were to compare my api clients with my latina or black clients, i would say that api women are less prone to violence and are more submissive. those who are in d.v. situations are afraid of their partners, especially so b/c they are the only ones they can turn to in this new country. in interracial marriages, where the api women are immigrants, i would say that i haven't seen a single incident where the api women were violent - they're much too terrified of their partners. it varies with black and latina women. some are extremely submissive while some are responsible for being confrontational. i have seen maybe a handful - if even that - of situations where black women were the aggressors, but even in those cases, the acts consisted of slashing tires and breaking personal belongings, not physically assaulting their partners. with latina women, it is usually a matter of being confrontational - and it usually results from their partners cheating. i don't have very many white clients, so i guess that should tell you something about how much race and class are intertwined in our society (i'm a public interest attorney.)

i'd recommmend anger management for both men and women.

[Faithless]

Yeah, I can see where focusing on this aspect on the "domestic violence" issue might take away from the overall facts of who perpetrates domestic violence by-and-large.

(I'm hoping there is always that qualifier whenever this issue is discussed.)

But I think there is still an interesting issue in these observations about a lot of young women in relationships.

I think the fact that it is this young group and maybe not consistent across age groups speaks towards the maturity of women, in general, as they grow older. At least I'm hoping that it is that way.