August 21, 2006

A half truth is a whole lie.
Yiddish Proverb

Definition

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control define dating abuse as the physical, sexual, or psychological/emotional violence within a dating relationship.

The 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) documents that, 8.9% of males and 8.8% of females report being a victim of physical dating abuse (CDC 2006). Many of these abusive incidents may be prevented by helping adolescents, both girls and boys, to develop skills for healthy relationships with others (Foshee et al. 2005).

It is important to note that much of the behavior, as defined above, is not confined to physical assaults and often is “abusive or coercive behavior.” The National Domestic Violence Hot Line (NDVH) defines abuse as a pattern of coercive control that one person exercises over another.

The Half Truth

Dating violence studies consistently document that girls and boys equally abuse and/or physically assault each other. Despite those studies advocates routinely dismiss “equal physical assault data.” Advocates claim that the studies and the data do not consider the, “meaning, context, or consequences” of that assaultive behavior (O'Keefe, 2005).

However, the lack of “meaning, context, or consequences” does not prevent the vast majority of dating and domestic violence websites to claim and publish as a “fact” that:

This double standard, that is an attempt to represent girls as docile and passive and boys as assertive and aggressive, is biased gender stereotyping that causes many advocates, researchers, and laypersons to remain ignorant of or to dismiss the victimization of boys.

Minimize, Marginalize and Ignore

A cursory visit to the majority of the dating and domestic violence organization websites documents that they routinely minimize, marginalize and ignore the victimization of boys and young men. In fact, they regularly refer to abusers as “he/him” and victims as “she/her.”

At he heart and core of the feminist movement is the commitment to treat both males and females in an equitable manner. It is time to question why there is little or no attempt, by the vast majority of dating and domestic violence organizations, public policy makers and the electronic and print media to publish data that documents the victimization of boys.

Meaning, Context and Consequence

The majority of domestic and dating violence organizations and many credible research journals publish the ubiquitous “1 in 5” female victimization data that is gleaned from the 1997-1999 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey (MYRBS). However, the MYRBS represents only a small subset of the national Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance (YRBS) survey.

Before further federal funding from the Violence Against Women Act for dating violence prevention, intervention and educational programs are granted to any organization, three questions should be asked:

Conclusion

The myriad of causes and consequences of dating and domestic violence are complex and multifaceted. Dating and domestic violence is not limited to nor do they primarily occur among adult heterosexual females and males.

Advocates will discover that more boys and men will become engaged in prevention and intervention efforts when dating and domestic violence organizations end dismissing male victimization as inconsequential.

It is time for both genders to point their fingers at their own hearts and heads and not at each other. It is time to provide equitable prevention and intervention for girls and boys. And most important, reason and logic dictate that the proper cause must be placed before the consequence to effectively minimize or eliminate that consequence (Straus, 2006).

For the empirical evidence-based paper that documents the dating violence double standard, “Dating Violence: Our Daughters and our Sons” please visit www.Familynonviolence.org.

Richard L. Davis served in the United States Marine Corps from 1960 to 1964. He is a retired lieutenant from the Brockton, Massachusetts police department. He has a graduate degree in liberal arts from Harvard University and a second in criminal justice from Anna Maria College. He is a member of the International Honor Society of Historians and the American Society of Criminology. He is a college instructor for Quincy College at Plymouth, MA in Criminology, Criminal Justice and Domestic Violence. He is the vice president for Family Nonviolence, Inc. in Fairhaven, MA. He is also the vice president for the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women.

He is an independent consultant for criminal justice domestic violence policies, procedures, and programs. He is the author of Domestic Violence: Facts and Fallacies by Praeger publishers and has written numerous articles for newspapers, journals, and magazines concerning the issue of domestic violence. He has columns concerning domestic violence at http://www.policeone.com, and http://www.nycop.com, is a distance learner instructor in Introduction to Criminal Justice and Domestic Violence for the Online Police Academy and has a website. He and Kim Eyer have a domestic violence website The Cop and the Survivor.

He lives in Plymouth, Massachusetts with his wife and the youngest of five children. He experienced domestic violence professionally for 21 years as a police officer and personally as a child and as an adult. In his retirement he continues to use his education, experience, and training to help the children, women, and men who have had to endure violence from those who profess to love them. He may be reached here.

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Mandatory Arrest and No-Drop Prosecution

Primary and Dominant - Aggressor Arrest Policies

Liz Claiborne Inc. (Part 1) A Case Study of Deception

Liz Claiborne Inc. (Part 2) Power, Control and Emotional Abuse

Liz Claiborne Inc. (Part 3) Break The Silence