Howard Dean and domestic violence (an open letter)

An open letter from SAFE to Howard Dean on domestic violence

Re: Violence Against Women-“On The Issues” Statement

We are a human rights organization that has as one of our primary purposes supporting accurate and balanced information about intimate partner violence.

We have reviewed your statement and while we find one inaccuracy, we are more concerned with the neglect it evidences. To put this in other terms, as one judge commented in ruling on a consumer fraud case, “half the truth is as good as a whole lie.”

The Dean statement says “one in three women will experience (domestic) violence at some point in their lives.” We note that Dean supports the Violence Against Women Act, we also hope Dean will also support the research funded by the act, (NCJ 181867), which concluded that over a lifetime, 25.5 percent of women and 8 percent of men will experience an intimate partner rape, assault or stalking.

Thus, it is not accurate to say “one in three women” but rather, “one in four women and one out of every eleven men will experience domestic violence at some point in their lives.” The (1998) National Violence Against Women Act Survey found 1.5 million female victims and 835,000 male victims or 36% of the total. Ignoring as the statement does, the large number of male victims in the VAWA act survey, certainly can be deemed misleading information. Lead researcher Patricia Tjaden has been quoted as saying, “The survey certainly shows that there are a significant number of male victims and should not be taken to mean there should be no concern and resources for them.” There are further qualifications, in terms of injury (women are twice as likely to be injured), and as in any instrument there are other qualifications-it doesn’t ask as the National Family Violence Survey did for example, who initiated the attack. However, organizations rarely go into that much detail in public pronouncements. If just ‘raw’ numbers are being used-then it is most accurate to show them as they are in full in the VAWA Survey: 1.5 million women a year, 835,000 men a year. The National family Violence Survey (1979 & 1989) funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, found a higher number of both female and male victims of severe partner violence, 1.8 million women a year and 2 million men a year. (This is the only source for the frequently mentioned statement that a woman is ‘battered’ every 18 seconds.) We are intimately acquainted with the prime researchers for this data, and agree with them in saying that statements using their data that do not include the equal or greater number of male victims is false and is an example of “selective inattention” to use their phrase when such a statistical contention is made.

The Dean statement notes that “On average, three women a day are murdered by their male partners.” The Justice Department (NCJ-143498) notes that among all murder victims, 6.5% were killed by their spouse and that 62% of these were male against female and 38% were female against male. In African-American family murders, “wives were about as likely to be as husbands to be charged with the murder of their spouse.”

The lack of inclusion of the number of male spousal murder victims in the Dean statement is not just a matter of neglect, but a . It also neglects children, since it intimates that children only witness violence by men against women, and neglects the fact that 55% of all murders of children and the majority of the cases of child abuse (63%) are committed by women. The National Family Violence Survey (the VAWA survey did not measure this) found that it does not matter whether it was a mother assaulting a father, or a father assaulting a mother, the increase in the likelihood of the child going on to be a victim or perpetrator of domestic violence was relatively equal for both sexes. We note that while the majority of child abusers are mothers, the second most frequent abuser of children are not biological fathers but live-in boyfriends and stepfathers.

The Dean statement says, “I will set a goal that every woman who is the victim of rape, sexual assault, domestic violence or stalking has some place to turn, be it a local shelter, or a competent law enforcement and judicial system.”

We suggest the statement be amended to say, “that every person who is a victim…”

The fact is, that while there are more than one thousand shelters in the U.S., numerous crisis lines, victim advocate programs, judicial and law enforcement domestic violence units and task forces, nearly ALL are solely focused on female victims, and there are fewer than ten shelters that even accept male victims or provide any services at all. It is not true, and we have proved this, that there needs to be any reduction in funding or services to female victims of domestic violence when such services are also provided to male and same-sex partners. It is demonstrably true that the neglect extends to victims of same-sex partner violence for females, males, and the trans-gendered.

The Dean statement says, “A crucial element of a strategy to combat domestic violence is for men to speak to other men about the issue…I will personally engage men in efforts to end family violence.” This is a laudable effort and should be engaged in, however, there needs to be an equal dialogue with women to condemn and reduce their violence against intimate partners and their children.

We trust that the Dean administration will be supportive and act to protect the majority of child abuse and child murder victims and not neglect them as the statement indicates. We also trust that the Dean administration will be supportive of human rights for everyone and not be neglectful of a minority of intimate partner violence victims simply because they are a slight minority.

We stand ready to assist the Dean campaign in developing more accurate and inclusive statements regarding intimate partner violence and to work with you to inform you and the public about outcome-measured programs that promote a real reduction in family violence in all its aspects.

Sincerely,
Philip W. Cook
Program Director