Refuting the "Self-Defense" DV argument

Marc Angelucci writes "In the recent discussion at mensactivism.org, an anonymous poster (who sounds like the male feminist known as “ampersand”) quotes Dr. Richard Gelles as saying that domestic violence by women is often self defense or retaliation. I wrote a response but I don't see it posting. I think it’s important that men’s rights activists all be aware of why the “self defense” argument is unfounded. Too many of us go silent when confronted with it due to lack of awareness about the research, and feminists are using this as a very misleading tool. Below is a response I wrote to the anonymous poster on the issue in which I give references to some very good refutations of the self-defense argument. Anyone who is not familiar enough with the “self defense” argument should look up the sources and be prepared to answer it when the argument comes up, which it will.



Marc"Anon, You quote Richard Gelles in a 1994 article in which he implies that domestic violence by women is often self defense or retaliation. I provide a link (below) to a thorough refutation of the “self-defense” argument (which stems from the claim that the Conflict Tactics Scale used by many studies does not ask about context or self-defense).



But first, you should know that your 1994 source is outdated and that Gelles later took a completely different position in his 1999 article, “The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence: Male Victims,” in which he states: “contrary to the claim that women only hit in self-defense, we found that women were as likely to initiate the violence as were men. In order to correct for a possible bias in reporting, we reexamined our data looking only at the self-reports of women. The women reported similar rates of female-to-male violence compared to male-to-female, and women also reported they were as likely to initiate the violence as were men.” http://www.ncfmla.org/gelles.html



Gelles’ email is on the article and you are free to email him, as I did, to confirm that he stands by this 1999 article.



When Gelles spoke at the San Diego DV Conference in California in 2003, someone asked him, “but couldn’t a person ‘initiate’ DV as an act of self-defense when they see an assault coming?” Gelles, answered, “that is true, on BOTH ends” (i.e., both women and men can strike in self-defense). (Interestingly, feminists have been citing studies that use the Conflict Tactics Scale for decades to show figures on female violence, including the Department of Justice studies, and it is only when the same studies show high numbers of male victims that feminists suddenly find problems with the Conflict Tactics Scale.)



In 1997, Dr. Murray Straus, who was Gelles’ research partner, explains this shift in beliefs when he says: “In previous work I have explained the high rate of attacks on partners by women as largely a response to or a defense against assault by the partner. However, new evidence raises questions about that interpretation.” After explaining, Straus then says: “one can conclude that the research on who hit first does not support the hypothesis that assaults by women are primarily acts of self-defense or retaliation.” (Quoted from pages 213 and 215 of “Physical Assaults by Women Partners: A Major Social Problem,” published in the 1997 issue of “Women, Men, & Gender; Ongoing Debates.”)



In a recent paper, Dr. David Fontes, who is the Employee Assistance Program manager for the California Department of Social Services, thoroughly refutes the self defense myth. He references several studies that inquired about motives, context and self defense and shows how those studies found that women and men initiate DV for very much the same reasons, most often “to get through to” their partners, and that self defense accounts for only a small percentage of the violence by either sex. Fontes also goes into the important issues relating to injuries and “aggregate violence.” (“Violent Touch,” available at http://www.safe4all.org/essays/vtbreak.pdf , go to page 34.)



Still recently, Dr. Martin Fiebert and Dr. Denise Gonzales of California State University surveyed 978 college women at Cal State Long Beach and found that 29 percent of them committed violence against their male partners. Their top three reasons were: “My partner was not sensitive to my needs,” “I wished to gain my partner’s attention,” and “my partner was not listening to me.” www.batteredmen.com/fiebertg.htm This supports the research cited by Fontes in “Violent Touch.”



Dr. John Archer further refutes the self defense argument in a meta-analysis in the November 2000 issue of the Psychological Bulletin., a top-notch, peer reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association. Dr. Martin Fiebert references Archer’s meta-analysis in his bibliography at
http://www.csulb.edu/%7Emfiebert/assault.htm, which summarizes 150 scholarly investigations, all of which show that “women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.”



Again, for a thorough refutation of the self defense argument I highly recommend Dr. David Fontes’ Violent Touch” at http://www.safe4all.org/essays/vtbreak.pdf It is easy to reach, thorough, and addresses other important issues as well, such as injury rates and "aggregate violence."



Marc

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