Original post by DanB1991Now you're deluded. I've researched domestic violence for around 3 years, helped in a shelter and spoken with men and women on both sides of the violence. By large the vast majority of domestic violence is not one sided, however yes, the worst injuries generally speaking occur against women but that is usually in more cultures or societies with less gender equality (and has a massive problem in regards to how domestic violence against men is recorded).
It's long been known, since the 70's infact, that most violence was reciprocal... that wasn't due to studies questioning men.... that was studies asking the women themselves.
Findings regarding bidirectional violence are particularly controversial because, if accepted, they can serve to undermine one of the most commonly cited reasons for female perpetrated IPV; self-defense against an aggressive male partner. Despite this, many studies have found evidence of high levels of bidirectionality in cases where women have reported IPV. For example, social activist Erin Pizzey, who established the first women's shelter in the U.K. in 1971, found that 62 of the first 100 women admitted to the centre were "violence-prone," and just as violent as the men they were leaving. The 1975 National Family Violence Survey found that 27.7% of IPV cases were perpetrated by men alone, 22.7% by women alone and 49.5% were bidirectional. In order to counteract claims that the reporting data was skewed, female-only surveys were conducted, asking females to self-report, resulting in almost identical data. The 1985 National Family Violence Survey found 25.9% of IPV cases perpetrated by men alone, 25.5% by women alone, and 48.6% were bidirectional.
In 1997, Philip W. Cook conducted a study of 55,000 members of the United States Armed Forces, finding bidirectionality in 60-64% of IPV cases, as reported by both men and women. The 2001 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health found that 49.7% of IPV cases were reciprocal and 50.3% were non-reciprocal. When data provided by men only was analyzed, 46.9% of cases were reported as reciprocal and 53.1% as non-reciprocal. When data provided by women only was analyzed, 51.3% of cases were reported as reciprocal and 49.7% as non-reciprocal. The overall data showed 70.7% of non-reciprocal IPV cases were perpetrated by women only (74.9% when reported by men; 67.7% when reported by women) and 29.3% were perpetrated by men only (25.1% when reported by men; 32.3% when reported by women). The 2006 thirty-two nation International Dating Violence Study "revealed an overwhelming body of evidence that bidirectional violence is the predominant pattern of perpetration; and this [...] indicates that the etiology of IPV is mostly parallel for men and women." The survey found for "any physical violence," a rate of 31.2%, of which 68.6% was bidirectional, 9.9% was perpetrated by men only, and 21.4% by women only. For severe assault, a rate of 10.8% was found, of which 54.8% was bidirectional, 15.7% perpetrated by men only, and 29.4% by women only.
It's an incredibly common claim that women mostly commit violence in self defence.... but it's not backed up by 'any' data. Several studies have found evidence that only a small proportion of female perpetrated IPV is prompted by self-defense. For example, in a 1996 study of 1,978 people in England, 21% of women who admitted to committing IPV gave self-defense as a reason. More prevalent reasons were "Get through to" (53%), "Something said" (52%) and "Make do something" (26%). In a 1997 survey of college students in Canada, Walter DeKeseredy and Martin D. Schwartz found that 62.3% of women who had committed IPV did not cite self-defense as a factor at all, whereas only 6.9% cited it as the primary factor. In a five-year study of 978 college students from California, concluded in 1997, Martin S. Fiebert and Denise M. Gonzalez found an IPV rate amongst women of 20%. Within this group, perpetrators were asked to select reasons as to why they assaulted their partner, with the option to choose multiple reasons. The breakdown of reasons had "my partner wasn't sensitive to my needs" as the most prevalent (46%). Also found more frequently than self-defense were "I wished to gain my partner's attention" (44%) and "My partner was not listening to me" (43%).
Hell what about the claim that female on male violence is caused by discrimination of women in a patriarchal society? In 1992, a random sample of 1,257 Canadians found that 39% of female participants reported committing minor IPV and 16.2% reported committing severe IPV. Their main reasons were confidence that their male partner would not hit back, psychological disturbance and alcohol abuse. In 2006, Rose A. Medeiros and Murray A. Straus conducted a study using a sample of 854 students (312 men and 542 women) from two American universities. They identified fourteen specific risk factors common amongst both males and females who had committed IPV; poor anger management, antisocial personality disorders, borderline personality disorders, tendency to dominate relationships, substance abuse, criminal history, posttraumatic stress disorders, depression, communication problems, jealousy, sexual abuse as a child, stress, and a general attitudinal approval of partner violence. In 2014, a study involving 1,104 male and female students in their late teens and early twenties found that women are more likely than men to be controlling and aggressive towards their partners, more likely to demonstrate a desire to control their partners, and more likely to use physical aggression in ensuring that control. The main author of the study, Elizabeth Bates, wrote "this suggests that intimate partner violence may not be motivated by patriarchal values and needs to be studied within the context of other forms of aggression, which has potential implications for interventions."
Sorry for the wall of text, but statistics do not agree with your claims. TLDR version is as follows:
Point 1) Stats show Men and women both state roughly similar amounts of blame of actions and
Point 2) Stats also show Self defence and a Patriarchal mind set is not the main cause of female on male violence.
Point 3) CBA to search for more text seeing I doubt it will sink in, but no reliable data is available in regards to same-sex domestic violence stats due to generally small convenience samples. Generally speaking those in lesbian relationships have a similar chance, if not slightly higher, to be victims of domestic abuse. Gay men by comparison generally have a lower chance, albeit bi-sexual men have a higher chance. From what I have learned in my time researching domestic violence the closest scale in terms of risk of being a victim of domestic violence is Bisexual>Homosexual>Heterosexual.