Kathleen Parker: Politically incorrect domestic violence

Article here. Excerpt:

'The words "domestic violence" typically invite images of bruised women and children - and male perpetrators. But the real picture of domestic violence isn't so clear-cut. And the solution to family violence is far more complex than our current criminal justice approach can handle.

One of the primary myths - and the one that meets with the most resistance - is that only men are violent. Women and children indeed suffer the worst injuries and more often die as a result of those injuries, but women initiate violence as often as men.

Ignoring or playing down that fact obscures the real problem of intimate violence and makes solutions less likely. Yet even people who know better are afraid of speaking up lest they be accused of undermining feminist efforts to help women and children in danger.

According to Ms. Mills, studies now confirm that women initiate violence in 24 percent of cases in which the husbands don't fight back, while men initiate violence in 27 percent of cases in which women don't fight back. In the other 49 percent of cases, both partners actively participate in the violence.'