It has been a while since I had a rant on domestic violence, but it has come up again at Dalrock’s where this comment was made…

Somehow, “Don’t hit your wife,” which was perhaps needed four decades ago turned into “Never defend yourself, accept all abuse from your wife at all times.” To the point now where when I talk to young girls fresh out of college, they all just assume that even self-defense from a man is unacceptable violence.

It’s ridiculous. So many women seem to forget that there’s actually more variation in size and strength BETWEEN MEN than between men and women. In a mans world, we don’t go around randomly punching, kicking, shoving men who are twice our size and could easily hurt us. We don’t do this, we would never do this. We don’t do this because ITS STUPID. The bigger guy obviously has a right to self-defense and because he’s larger, he can do more damage to us than we do to him. That’s just a natural physical reality. So now women’s rights groups have created this completely alternate reality where even when physical size/strength isn’t possessed by a man, he is unable to defend himself from an abusive wife… just ridiculous.

Now, there is absolutely nothing new about this. Terry Moffitt reported this in 1997 — fifteen years ago. The journal is behind a paywall, but the abstract gives the gist.

This study describes partner violence in a representative sample of young adults. Physical violence perpetration was reported by 37.2% of women and 21.8% of men. Correlates of involvement in severe physical violence differed by gender. Severe physical violence was more strongly associated with unemployment, low educational attainment, few social support resources, polydrug use, antisocial personality disorder symptoms, depression symptoms, and violence toward strangers for men than for women. Women who were victims of severe physical violence were more likely than men who were victims to experience symptoms of anxiety. The findings converge with community studies showing that more women than men are physically violent toward a partner and with clinical studies highlighting violence perpetrated against women by men with deviant characteristics. J Consult Clin Psychol. 1997 Feb;65(1):68-78.

Now, violence matters. There are a series of meta analyzes of violence scales that show very much the same information at batteredmen which has links to the US intimate partner survey (53% victims are men) and to a 2000 analysis by Archer.

But these things matter. Consider this graph, from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary study — which is probably the best long-term data set on social issues in the world.

This cohort was born in 1972. The world was different then. There was less misandrist propaganda, more intact marriages, and less hysteria from the sisterhood. I’m going to finish by quoting from a woman who is a martial arts instructor — she says it better than I can.

I’m chatting with a girl I just met & she asks what I do for a living.  Once I tell her I’m a Krav Maga instructor she gets all tickled and says she ought to train, and tells me what she does for fun:  she goes down to Sixth Street on the weekend and picks fights with guys.  This is to say, she says or does something so irritating or offensive to a male stranger that he tells her to shut up, go away, etc.  So she punches him in the face as hard as she can.
Since a guy will get hauled off to jail if he punches a female, he feels like he can’t retaliate (or, in this case, defend himself) so she “won”.   And these girls were pretty proud of themselves when they told me this & expected me to applaud them. …
The truth is, I was so shocked and offended by them that I really had no idea what to say.  So I got very quiet and still and said that if they act like that they can’t train at our school. …

If you punch people in the face for fun you deserve to get punched back.  I don’t care who you are. There are people who engage in this behavior because they are with a friend who trains in martial arts & the puncher assumes they’re immune from retaliation because their friend will “take care of it”.  If I see someone acting like this I will not help them.  After they get their ass beat, I’ll tell their mother on them. Young lady, the man who is not punching you back is not refraining because you’re so tough.  He is using self-control because he doesn’t want to go to jail and/or he’s been taught not to hit a female under any circumstances.  The fact that you’re exploiting this makes you a bad person.  I will now refer you to the previous point.

Ladies, if you do not want to be dominated and beaten, do not fight. Most men who are in love with you want to protect you… including from yourself. They do not want to be a punching bag. If you do this, you will (a) damage the man you love and (b) if you then use the law to get him labeled as an abuser, you will damage your children.

You will also find that when you go looking for a new man — the men you are looking for are much more likely to avoid you. You made their buddies life hell: you are now poison.

Stop believing the sisterhood and realize that it you have as many faults as the men around you. You are not perfect. If you change your ways, get off your pedestal and treat men as human beings you will (again) realize that most men enjoy being around women.

When it is safe.

But this meme that men are the only abusers makes being around women profoundly unsafe.