> they are much more likely then men to be the victim
That's the common belief. How do we know it's true, and not a "just so" story?
My investigations into this led me to CDC reports (and others) showing that DV / IPV was largely 50/50. Harm was more often done to the smaller partner (i.e. women). But women also tended to use more weapons in their attacks.
These reports aren't hard to find. Most people don't look.
In particular, from the key findings sections of the report from the National Violence Against Women Survey:
"Women experience more intimate partner
violence than do men: 22.1 percent of sur-
veyed women, compared with 7.4 percent
of surveyed men, reported they were physi-
cally assaulted by a current or former
spouse, cohabiting partner, boyfriend or
girlfriend, or date in their lifetime; 1.3 per-
cent of surveyed women and 0.9 percent of
surveyed men reported experiencing such
violence in the previous 12 months. Ap-
proximately 1.3 million women and 835,000
men are physically assaulted by an intimate
partner annually in the United States." [1]
Rather than look at all cases of "harm", look at the serious cases, like murder, or harm requiring a hospital visit/stitches/broken bones/etc. What's the split then?
That's the common belief. How do we know it's true, and not a "just so" story?
My investigations into this led me to CDC reports (and others) showing that DV / IPV was largely 50/50. Harm was more often done to the smaller partner (i.e. women). But women also tended to use more weapons in their attacks.
These reports aren't hard to find. Most people don't look.