What are the statistics used to back up the theory of “Battered Woman Syndrome”?

Feroste · 2023-11-02T00:01:14+00:00

Here's stats refuting it.

Most DV is reciprocal and when it's not 70% of the time it's the woman attacking the man.

Here's the crime data that is dependent on reporting bias and the laws surrounding.

Women are twice as likely to experience DV

If you're dishonest you can find evidence supporting any narrative you want.

angry_cabbie · 2023-11-01T23:47:53+00:00

If you go far enough back in history (say, the late 70's/), you'll find references to Battered Husband Syndrome.

Of course, if you go to a place like Wikipedia, up might notice that BHS barely gets mentioned, but BWS is noted as having been coined as a phrase a year or two later.

Ain't that weird.

JJnanajuana · 2023-11-02T11:56:27+00:00

I wrote a review of a book chapter that was about domestic homicide against men by women, the chapter essentially came to this conclusion. Here's my review.

They referenced a bunch of studies in the chapter while making claims that

women who kill their partners are more likely to do so following a history of domestic violence victimization

These claims were so essential to their conclusion (that "intervention programs should continue to prioritize female victims") That I decided to listen to every study they referenced (that I could access) to see if they backed up their claims.

{they sort of did, but not particularly well.}

I then wrote a reference article about them.

It's probably a bit hard to read because it's intro, then quote, reference studies and what they said or didn't to back up their assertion.

Their references are probably the kind of "statistics used to back up their theory" that you're looking for

They included;

- a book that repeated what women who had killed their partners said had happened,

- a study that found men killed by their partners were as likely to be abused as abusive to/by them previously 55.6% (while women were more likely to have been abused than abusive before being killed, but less likely than men to be either 47.2% and 13.9%),

- a study that found 36% of female perps acted in self defence (a lot more than men (1.1%) but, not most)

- an essay about committing illegal justice when legal justice isn't working.

- a study that interviewed women in shelters and found 93% had committed IPV, only 5.3% endorsed violence that was not mutual.

- and they (and other articles I saw) referenced a study finding that 9% of convicted women were primary aggressors, but when I read that study (it's interesting) the 9% is the self reports, of being the only perp, or committing significantly more. they also compared the women's reports to the police reports, and the previous arrests and other ways to determine if they were abusers, 9%, the self report, was the lowest.

- and a few more including a few studies that look at a host of things that have changed from the 70's that might have brought down all IPV homicides, and men by a bigger percentage, but a smaller number, shelters, singles, education, dv laws etc, (it's complicated)

Then they made this conclusion, that's sketchy at best. and then that was summed up in the books 'chapter one' even worse. they kept saying things like "more likely" but not saying more likely than what...

Because abused women killing men, was more likely than abused men killing women according to the research they chose to reference. But women were more likely to kill men without being abused (or after being abusive) than in self defence, according to the research they chose to reference.

And the chart (included at the top of the reference article from one of the studies) shows a decrease in ipv homicides for EVERYONE, EXCEPT 15-24yo men. more of a decrease for men, depends how you want to measure "more". and the causes for that were... complicated (difficult to determine).

Anyways, I'm big on shelters help. so lets get more shelters and make them accessible to everyone. and maybe if it's true they dropped for that we can see less women murdered by getting men shelters.

and I spent over a week listening to studies and feel like I've barely scratched the surface, most of them when looked at closely don't seem to support this conclusion, or are insanely bias, and some of them, and/or the way their findings are repeated/ misrepresented is frustrating.

also reading feminist research on dv is frustrating.

There was also some stuff about battered women's syndrome, it's a thing, happens sometimes, and sometimes it's a defence used by abusive murderers. (also there was much feminist in-argument about if it was good or bad legally from a feminist perspective.) These were all anecdotes, often described in science papers, more than they were statistics.

tzaanthor · 2023-11-02T00:25:34+00:00

so far the argument is that DV shelters and no-fault divorce gave women alternatives to killing their partners to escape abuse, and that the rate of wives/girlfriends dying hasn’t changed because unlike women, men primarily kill to control/dominate.

Bad thing happens to women=patriarchy Bad thing happens to men=patriarchy

My first thought is that it's likely relavted to how women were liberated from their gender roles, but men were not. If you remove the obligation to 'be a man' as the only solution within the law you'll see fewer men going without the law to solve their problems. Just like what happened to women.

JJnanajuana · 2023-11-02T12:29:25+00:00

also, not stat's and 7 years old, but I saw this earlier 'I stabbed him with a fork and reversed over him in my car': The secret Facebook page where women brag about violence toward men and while some could be in self defence or as a response, and not controlling, I think at least these quotes are not:

'Threw a chair at him through a glass door. Door smashed and cut him the f*** up. Needless to say he didn't smart mouth me again,'

The "didn't smart mouth me again" as an outcome sounds controlling af.

hitting her partner with her car 'all because it was Halloween and I felt bad that I didn't buy lollies for the kids'.

yup, she said why, and it wasn't self defence, or a response to chronic abuse.

'Headbutted by ex and knocked him the f*** out when I was drunk and he was looking at other girls'

another one that says 'why' sounds like she's trying to control who he can look at, so controlling not defensive.

'Hit him with my car then made him pay for the damage,'

Stabbed one in the leg with a fork ... pushed another into the wall and the fat fuck fell threw it so i made him fix the hole...

I donno, I just don't feel like people can make their abusers pay to fix the car that hit them, or the wall they got pushed through, not to mention one of those quotes mentions more than one guy she hurt...

I'm fairly sure that there are lots of "controlling type" abusers of both genders.

country2poplarbeef · 2023-11-02T00:18:58+00:00

Fwiw, my last ex-gf used to beat on me and flash into rages, pretty much going all out. Got a black eye, a fat lip, and a couple other minor bumps and bruises from the ordeal. During one argument, she was blocking the door and just wailing away and I got tired of just standing there and taking it so she'd wind down, and I stuck my arm out to push past her and leave. Ofc, since she was a good 50-75 lb lighter than I am, I go right through her and she stumbles backwards and trips over a table, almost busting her head open.

Fact is if I get pissed or I start to feel defensive, I have to understand that if I snap for even a second and lash out with all my strength, I can very well kill this person in front of me, if not grievously injure them. Women, in this circumstance, often have the luxury of being able to lash out and release their anger with abandon, simply knowing that the man is strong enough to take it. Like, I've seen a lot of women (and been the one wailed on by such a woman) that, if they knew how to punch like a man and they had the weight to put into a punch like a man, would have a trail of partners lying in a bloody pulp.

psychosythe · 2023-11-02T14:54:45+00:00

Well I'm not sure where these numbers are from so I don't know if they're in any way accurate or if they're just a result of veeeeeery specific definitions.

But I imagine you'll see a major drop in female deaths if men are given an option to leave a marriage without it costing them half their mortal possessions.

No_Cardiologist_797 · 2023-11-02T20:32:42+00:00

Women are the primary aggressors yet they kill their husbands in 'self-defense'..

Sparrowphone · 2023-11-02T16:14:12+00:00

Not all spouse killings are the same. If they were we wouldn't have murder 1,murder 2, manslaughter, etc.

I think it would be illuminating to compare each category individually.

I suspect it is far more easier for men to unintentionally kill their spouse than vice versa.

astral-mamoth · 2023-11-02T04:56:41+00:00

This is one the things that surprises me the most me the most. I was born and raised in a fairly conservative country in the developing world. And yes there was a lot of cases of men killing, maiming or attacking their girlfriends or wife’s on fits of jealousy, anger or the like. And although this kind of incidents were definitely over reported, I was glad we had many of the structures to protect women in place.

Now when I moved to the first world and I found out the statistics on abuse, I was abasolutely shocked, with women making most of the cases of abuse, and often against men.. I can’t give a reason of why. But it’s very strange. Most of the studies done about this are perplexed about it. In less develop countries men make the majority of the statistics of abuse. In more developed countries women make the majority.

There is no official theory and honestly I don’t know why either .

KordisMenthis · 2023-11-02T20:54:33+00:00

Or maybe because domestic violence services expanded much more women are able to actually leave the relationship and press charges against abusers leading to more male abusers murdering them to get 'revenge' which has kept the rate of women being murdered high instead of declining in line with all forms of murder.

Male abuse victims who leave are likely to still be paying child support etc so their abusers leave them alive because they are still useful. If the male victim starts defending themselves they get arrested for domestic violence and are in the same position. Basically female abusers 'win' without needing to communicate murde.

It could easily be that before dv laws male victims were more willing to lash put to defend themselves/resist at which point their abusers would kill them since they had lost control.

ActualInteraction0 · 2023-11-01T23:53:09+00:00

A silly take on it...

What if the graph shows a downward trend on how annoying men have got better at avoiding behaviour that would anger their spouse to murder levels of rage. While women have remained just as annoying, they haven't "done the work", as they say.

Also, it could show more acute awareness of timing, killing the other spouse before they get you.

What percentage of relationships actually have these violent occurances?

Title	What are the statistics used to back up the theory of “Battered Woman Syndrome”?
Author	psylikik
Upvotes	60
Comments	24
Date	November 1, 2023 8:58 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/17lm38x/what_are_the_statistics_used_to_back_up_the/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/what-are-the-statistics-used-to-back-up-the-theory.1237012 https://theredarchive.com/post/1237012

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