The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new results yesterday from telephone surveys of about 9,000 women and 7,400 men. One in four women reported being violently attacked by their husbands or boyfriends. One in five women said they were victims of rape or attempted rape.
Read Survey: 1 in 4 women attacked by intimate partner on NPR.org.
Read Survey: 1 in 3 women affected by partner’s violent behavior on CNN.com, which also includes data about violence to men.
National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, on the CDC.gov.
This survey doesn’t surprise me in the least, I liked the comment from one man though, a bit “tongue in cheek” I think. True, none the less.
“One of the questions from the survey:
How many people have you had vaginal, oral, or anal sex with after they pressured you by”
doing things like telling you lies, making promises about the future they knew were untrue, threatening to end your relationship, or threatening to spread rumors about you?
• wearing you down by repeatedly asking for sex, or showing they were unhappy?”
This guy obviously knows a psychopath. NO Joke!
the jury trial for my ex to appear for domestic violence on me is january 13th. i’m going to try to have the prosecuter let me testify over the telephone. i just can’t even think about having him looking at me while i’m testifying. it terrifys me to no end. i will be glad when this is over. i haven’t been able to sleep at night at all since i found out he was arrested. i’m needing all your’s moral support through this or i will chicken out. i hope i don’t do that.
Marcy,
I’m not sure if they can allow you to testify at a jury trial over the phone….me thinks not.
As far as you “chickening out”—YOU CAN CHOOSE if you testify or not. IT IS UNDER YOUR CONTROL.
Him looking at you or not is beside the point. If you WANT and NEED to testify to get him put in jail, you WILL DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO ACCOMPLISH THAT.
It sounds like to me that you are talking yourself into “chickening out”—
Instead of doing that, how about you AFFIRM that you WILL testify, and focus on DOING IT….not allowing him to intimidate you, because if you allow HIM TO CONTROL whether or not you testify or not, HE STILL HAS CONTROL OVER YOU.
The only way you can “win” in this is to TAKE BACK YOUR OWN POWER AND CONTROL OVER YOURSELF. He can only have it if you GIVE IT TO HIM.
Your choice. ((hugs)))
Marcy,
just imagine him in a poopy diaper.
🙂
In my humble opinion this article’s headline should really read:
“MEDIA TELLING LIES ABOUT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE… AGAIN!”
Honestly, what a heap of manure that NPR news article is! I think this CDC survey itself has some flaws, but I’m really disgusted with the lying news media who make the problem far worse by deliberately misrepresenting the facts!
Anyone seeing a load of sensationalism like this in a news article ought to ask themselves right away: “What are they lying to us about now?” When it comes to domestic violence, that’s not really a rhetorical question. It has two answers, and they’re invariably the same.
The first lie is that they’re usually doing their best to EXAGGERATE the prevalence of domestic violence—sometimes wildly so.
The second lie is that they’re usually PRETENDING that “women” are the victims of all this supposed “violence”—and lying by deliberate omission about the assaults inflicted on MEN by violent and sometimes homicidal females!
Taking that second lie first, what does this NPR headline say? “Survey: 1 In 4 Women Attacked By Intimate Partner.” Excuse me, WHY does this headline about a CDC survey of violence toward BOTH SEXES choose to talk only about “women”? Personally I’m sick and tired of hearing brainless morons yammering on about nothing but “women-women-women” every single time they discuss “domestic violence.” What about the countless MEN who are abused by female partners? Contrary to the lies spread by some, their numbers are not small! This CDC survey itself shows that.
Not only did the NPR headline neglect to mention them, but there was no clear mention of abused men in the article whatsoever! Instead, the wretched hack named Kate something who wrote this garbage for NPR chose to act as a shill for the notorious man-hating feminazis and other biased “activists” who are constantly exaggerating the supposed “oppressions” inflicted on women and blaming it all on men, while whitewashing abusive females by pretending they don’t exist. Where is this woman’s integrity as a journalist? Domestic violence is NOT a “gender” issue the way feminazis have always tried to make it. It is a HUMAN issue.
Perhaps I shouldn’t expect any better from NPR, when much of “public broadcasting” suffers from a leftist bias even worse than that in the media as a whole. But I was already disgusted by the first report I’d seen of this CDC survey, this time from the Associated Press. The AP’s syndicated report, needless to say, found its way into far too many newspapers, all the way from the Arizona Republic to the UK Daily Mail. AP’s article, written by a man named Stobbs—obviously a pathetic brainwashed toady to feminazism—took exactly the same sensationalist tack, playing up how many women are supposedly being “attacked”—again without one single reference to the MALE victims of domestic violence.
Luckily I can award a far better grade to CNN for their own report of this CDC survey, a report that gender-wise at least was much more evenhanded. That can be seen here:
Link to CNN article
True, CNN’s headline did display some gender bias, by announcing “Survey: 1 in 3 women affected by partner’s violent behavior”. Again, there was nothing in the headline about how men are affected. And the photo underneath was a close-up of a woman’s eye. That again is a little too much feminization of the issue. But before going further, notice the discrepancy in those figures:
Is it one in three, as CNN’s headline says? Or is it one in four, as the NPR and AP headlines claim?
The fact that a discrepancy exists at all should start people questioning right away! If the figures can be “stretched” that far by one means or another for the sake of putting a spin on them, how far is reality being stretched altogether by these “reports” and “surveys” in pursuit of somebody’s political agenda?
Proceeding to CNN’s article itself, their first paragraph does begin: “More than one in three women have experienced sexual assault, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime.” However, their second paragraph immediately continues: “The same is true for more than one in four men.”
That “one in four” is a large figure. It’s not a lot less than the proportion of women claiming to be victims of these same acts!
Which of the survey’s findings are these figures based on? That’s hard to say at a glance, when the survey itself quotes a number of different figures. But a good idea can be obtained from Tables 4.1 and 4.2, which show that 28.2 percent of men and 32.9 percent of women reported physical violence from a partner at some time during their lives. Those figures are not very different from one another.
CNN also quoted a woman named Laura Palumbo, who “applauded the report’s focus on male victims of sexual assault. ‘For a number of reasons in our society, it’s really difficult to believe that this happens to men,'” among other comments.
Good for her! We need more honest Laura Palumbos in the field of domestic violence. But there was no mention of this in the NPR and AP reports, and it is inexcusable that they should continue pretending “domestic violence” is just something men do to women. Sexism should be removed from the topic altogether. I would much prefer to see headlines reading (for instance):
“ONE IN FOUR PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ATTACKED BY AN INTIMATE PARTNER”
And if there has to be a photo accompanying the headline, as I saw in one paper, I’d rather see one where both partners are setting about one another! Because that’s another truth about “domestic violence”: that half the time both partners are into it together! Still, I have to give CNN a “B plus” for more objective reporting of this story than many others.
However, that still leaves the first issue I mentioned at the beginning: that of exaggerating the prevalence of domestic violence altogether. That can be done in all kinds of ways. Looking at the survey itself, I can see obvious ways that the prevalence of rape has been inflated, for instance. “One in five” is too high a figure. But without going into a detailed critique of all that, the most glaring thing that strikes me is how the results have been presented: the way everything has been added up together into one huge, all-encompassing bundle.
This is really about the way a lot of people think—or more to the point, DON’T think! In particular, when people see headlines about “one in four women” being impacted by some circumstance or other, they’re liable to react as if it’s all happening in the present—when it’s not!
Take this headline: “1 in 4 women attacked by partner.” It creates an impression in the reader’s mind that these attacks probably happened recently, and worse, could be happening all the time to 25 percent of women. That’s simply not true.
Another headline reads “A quarter of U.S. women suffer violent attacks by their partners.” Notice the present tense of the verb “suffer,” giving the false impression that this is happening to a quarter of U.S. women right now, as we speak. That’s not true either.
The CNN headline reads “1 in 3 women affected by partner’s violent behavior—as if a third of all women suffered continually from these effects. Yet this is a long way from reality!
To their credit again, CNN did begin immediately by explaining that this is something alleged to have happened to these women at some time during their lifetime. That makes all the difference!
What none of these news media reports even tried to mention is the figures this survey quoted, for instance, in Tables 4.1 and 4.2 for the prevalence of physical violence from a partner over the preceding twelve months. Compared with “lifetime” figures, this gives us a better idea of how many people are affected by ongoing domestic violence at any given time. Their findings?
For women, 4.0 percent reported physical violence from a partner in the past year, and
for men, 4.7 percent reported physical violence from a partner in the past year.
Surprisingly, the figure for men is slightly higher! But the gender difference is not my point here, and in any case other surveys have found somewhat different results. That can also depend on what kind of “violence” is counted, whether “pushes and shoves” are included for instance.
My point, rather, is that with all the “boyfriends,” “girlfriends,” “dates” and other “romantic partners” (however transient) a person is likely to have throughout their long lives—including the rambunctious teen years when adolescent behavior is not at its best!—it would almost be surprising if the average person had never encountered a partner who was bullying or otherwise obnoxious, or “assaulted” them in some way. Even if it was only a violent shove! Yet on a survey like this, one small incident of that kind is enough to mark a respondent down as having experienced “violence from an intimate partner” at some time during their lives—even though it may have had next to no effect on them in the long run.
This is not remotely to be compared with people who ended up living with one or more constantly abusive partners, often for years. That can be far more damaging—but their numbers are obviously smaller.
Yet most of the media don’t like it when all they have to report is the facts! As far as this survey is to be believed, the facts seem to be these:
“ONE IN 21 MEN AND ONE IN 25 WOMEN WERE ATTACKED BY A PARTNER DURING THE LAST YEAR”
NONE of the news articles I’ve seen told us those far more modest figures! I suppose the journalists in question didn’t think that was much of a “story.”
I think the exaggeration of domestic violence statistics must have a depressing effect on some of those stuck in abusive relationships, especially those who grew up in abusive families and subsequently blundered from one abusive partner to another. Hearing people say that “domestic violence is everywhere,” they’re all too likely to conclude that “everybody does it” and “this is as good as it gets, so I may as well make the best of it.” It would be far better to impress upon them that chronic abuse happens in a smallish minority of families and is not normal behavior. That at least might help them to see they don’t have to put up with it, and in circumstances like that the grass really is greener on the “other side”!
Redwald,
It seems to me that your ire should be directed more towards the Associated Press than NPR. NPR posted the Associated Press story, which was the same story that I saw in my local newspaper and, as you noted, has probably appeared in hundreds of newspapers by now.
Thank you for finding the CNN story, which is, as you noted, reported more fairly. I have edited the original post to include a link to it, as well as to the CDC survey website.
Statistics are considered cold, bare facts but they can be presented in different ways in order to elicit different emotions from the reader.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/l-randall-wray/bernankes-obfuscation-con_b_1147291.html
Frankly I’m not shocked at any of these statistics. Whether it is presented as 2 in 50 persons per year or 50% of people over their lifetimes. (or 29 trillion cumultive bank loans since 2008)
If we consider that sex offenders usually have 100’s of victims before they are apprehended, these statistics aren’t surprising. And sometimes the victims of child abuse go on to become child abusers, so that violence begets violence and the cycle perpetuates.
Experts on the history of child abuse say it’s actually getting better in modern times. In the past, children were mere chattel, just as women were. It takes time to irradicate these old patterns of abuse from a family lineage. I’m just glad people are becoming aware of what abuse is. It took me 43 years to figure it out.
Thank you Donna for posting this.
Redwald,
You are not the only one who does not buy every story that the “media” puts out….and I agree, you make some VALID points.
“Statistics” can be skewed to “prove” anything! The old joke about “statistically a man with one foot on a red hot stove and the other foot on a block of ice is on average comfortable!” is so true.
Look at BloggerT’s web site about FEMALE (sexual) OFFENDERS. Everyone it seems ASSUMES that only men are the sexual offenders of our children, the Sanduskys of the world, but in actual fact, when you EXAMINE the FACTS sexual abusers in our society are about 50% men and 50% women. Yet almost NO one thinks about women being rapists or pedophiles. Blogger’s website though if you read it will DISABUSE YOU OF THE IDEA THAT 99% OF PEDOPHILES ARE MEN….fortunately some news articles are coming out now about women teachers etc having sex with students, but our society’s idea that if a man has sex with a 15 year old child it is ABUSE, but if an adult woman has sex with a 12-15 year old BOY, “he just got lucky.”
Sky is right, I think in that our children are not legally considered chattel any more, but that is only SLOWLY changing as “parents rights” seem to overcome the CHILD’s rights in many or most family courts. The parent’s rights to the child rather than the child’s rights to a nurturing parent.
Sex offenders DO have hundreds of victims, and a good study done using polygraphs on FIRST offenders convicted showed that the average of previous victims to the FIRST CONVICTION was between 110 and 300 previous VICTIMS. Kry-ma-neeeee!!!! I wish the judges that sentence these people would realize that these people have done a horrendous amount of damage to children BEFORE being caught and sentence accordingly. Plus, they will NOT reform or change.
Fortunately, though, not all child victims become abusers themselves…in fact the majority of child victims do NOT become abusers from what studies I have read.
I hope our friend BloggerT will chime in on this thread.
Oxdrover,
You are right when you say i will do what i have to do to get him punished for this. yes, i want to chicken out thinking of having to face him again. but i’m not going to no matter how scarey it is when that day gets here. he has gotten away with just short of murder being i think if my son wouldn’t of called last time i was with him i don’t think i would be here right now. i keep thinking that thought and i think that’s what will give me the courage to walk in that room.
Thanks, Donna, for adding that link to the CNN article.
Thanks also for pointing out that AP is the real culprit in this instance. When I was glancing over the texts last night I was focusing on the material at the end, which differs from one article to another. But you’re right: the NPR article did come from AP in its entirety, and the earlier paragraphs are identical.
As far as I can make out, it was Mike Stobbs of AP who wrote the earlier part of the article, which appeared in some newspapers. Then Kate Brumbeck, also from AP, added more material at the end which appeared in the NPR version and some other newspapers but not in every newspaper.
Unfortunately Brumbeck’s addition did nothing to remedy the bias and omissions of Stobbs’s original article. In fact she made the bias worse by running to a load of “advocates” for their comments, when a good journalist should have been soliciting opinions from critics as well. The whole article is slanted towards trying to make the reader believe these inflated figures instead of challenging what—if anything—they “really” mean.