COMMENTS ON: HILARY LAPSLEY'S CRITICISMS OF STRAUS, GELLES ETC. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FINDINGS, AS PRESENTED IN "THE MEASUREMENT OF FAMILY VIOLENCE: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE", SOCIAL POLICY AGENCY, NEW ZEALAND, 1993.

In Family violence definitions (p.6-7), she says:

"Straus and Gelles (1986), ... , define violence as:

... an act carried out with the intention, or perceived intention, of causing physical pain or injury to another person."

and:

"This theoretical perspective leads to calls for a focus on making minor violence illegitimate, as a means of preventing abuse, and this perhaps is its strength. Its weakness lies in its blurring of distinctions between minor violence and abuse, as has been notably demonstrated in the case of the exaggerated "battered husband" syndrome ... ."

On page 34, in Violence against men in families, she says:

"The surveys by Straus, Gelles, Steinmetz and colleagues showed that women in their survey were as likely to hit men as men were to hit women. In 1978 Suzanne Steinmetz published a journal article, "The battered husband syndrome", which argues that husbands were also victimised and that their victimisation was even more under-reported than wife abuse. This paper lead to considerable controversy and points to the weakness of the approach to family violence measurement which focuses on counting "hits", rather than describing a syndrome, well-known to those who work with battered women (and to the women themselves), which rises from living in an atmosphere of fear, threats and violence which can be life-endangering. As Gelles and Cornell point out, when other measures are used, such as police call-outs, men are found to be rarely the victims of violence. When women hit men they are less likely to do so with such damaging consequences, it is more likely to be in self-defence or in exchange, and they are less likely to create an atmosphere of fear and coercion. The "battered husband" syndrome is still of dubious status."

Comments:

While she would like to discount violence against men as being of lesser severity, she still wants minor violence by men to be considered serious.
She gives no data on severity of violence by men and women, but makes assertions to discount the importance of violence against men.
While generally accepting the results of surveys that indicate equal incidence of "hits" by men and women, she then redefines the issue by introducing a "syndrome" which makes it worse for women. This is based on assertion, with no evidence to indicate that men are not equally affected.
She essentially broadens the concept of violence to include "fear and coercion", but if non-physical outcomes are to be included, how can it be asserted that women are affected far more than men? Where is the information that men are not controlled by demands, threats and other behaviour by women? Is this a case of shifting the goal posts, reinforced by wild speculation, to support a preconceived opinion?
The police call out data should be viewed with great caution given police policy and attitudes towards domestic violence by men in comparison to women.

Stuart Birks

28 November, 1995