Domestic Violence: Male Victims

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Domestic Violence Male Victims

• Patricia Lara
• California State University, Northridge

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Domestic Violence

• a pattern of abusive behavior in any
  relationship that is used by one partner to gain
  or maintain power and control over another
  intimate partner.  Domestic violence can be
  physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or
  psychological actions or threats of actions that
  influence another person. This includes any
  behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate,
  isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten,
  blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone (USDJ).
• The PURPOSE of this paper is to bring to
  attention the neglect of male victims of domestic
  violence.
• Due to societies perception of masculinity, men
  adopt the perceptions society has on how male
  victims is not viewed as an important issue in
  society. Some, people have argued that male
  victims of domestic violence does not exist.

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Abstract

• focus on the cycle of violence directed against
  women within abusive relationships
• little research has addressed mens accounts of
  victimization.
• domestic violence typically viewed as violence
  committed by men against women and/or children.
• The main reasons abused men do not report
  incidents of mistreatment include their strong
  endorsement of social/cultural values and
  avoidance of gender role conflict.

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Theories

• theory of masculinity
• gender role theory

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Generally....

• most research on domestic violence focuses on
  female victims.
• There is a gender bias within society females
  are seen as vulnerable and thus more susceptible
  abusers while a man is supposed to be strong and
  capable of handling any tribulations they may
  encounter
• According to a study by Wigman, women engage in
  comparable levels of emotionally abusive and
  controlling behaviors as men
• A male must be masculine. The term masculinity
  conveys that a man must have power and control
  in everything, including their relationships.

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Concern of Public Perception

• The saying be a man comes to mind in how
  society, not only believes, but expects a male to
  be able to handle any situation on their own.
• Men are generally more reluctant to file a report
  on domestic violence than women because of the
  prevailing norms regarding masculinity.
• According to Durfee, some ways in which they do
  so is by describing their victimization in ways
  that minimize their injuries, portray themselves
  as self-reliant, and express a fear that they
  would be less masculine if they disclose their
  abuse

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• If women are not believed or are belittled, and
  sometimes blamed for being victims of these
  domestic abuse men who experience the same type
  of abuse would be even less likely than women in
  discussing these matters, let alone reporting it.
  
• evident that intimate partner violence is a human
  problem, and not simply one of gender.
• However, it seems that males believe their own
  victimization is not serious enough to report.

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Secondary Analysis using the Violence and
Threats of Violence against Women and Men in the
United States Study

• 1994-1996
• All men and women in the United States 18 years
  of age or older.
• Following an extensive pre-test, completed
  interviews were obtained using a
  computer-assisted interviewing system from 8,000
  women and 8,005 men who were 18 years of age or
  older residing in households throughout the
  United States.
• funded by the United States Department of
  Justice, office of Justice Programs.

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Methods

• The purpose of this study was to provide
  descriptive data on victims and perpetrators,
  including male-to-female and female-to-male
  intimate partners and victims of different racial
  and ethnic backgrounds.
• telephone survey to conduct interviews
• female respondents were interviewed by female
  interviewers.
• to test for possible bias caused by the gender of
  the interviewers when speaking to men, a split
  sample was used so that half of the male
  respondents had female interviewers and the other
  half had male interviewers.

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Methods

• The questionnaires contained 14 sections, each
  covering a different topic. Of the eligible
  respondents who started the interview, 97 percent
  of the women and 98 percent of the men followed
  the survey through to completion
• Because the Dependent Variable is a
  non-quantitative dichotomy and the Independent
  Variables are categorical, the statistical
  analysis used was Logistic Regression and
  Descriptive Analysis

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• Due to societal perception of masculinity,
  victims of domestic violence are less likely to
  report an incident of abuse at the hands of a
  female.
• Logistic Regression was used to predict the
  likelihood of reporting an incident to the police
  or not from three independent variables
• To what extent do the variables Rs concern
  about own safety, previous violence, and injuries
  sustained in this incident affect the
  probability of a male victim of violence
  reporting an incident to police?

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Logistic Regression Variables

• Dependent Variable
• (k66) Was this incident reported to the police?
• Independent Variables
• (k28) What injuries did you sustain?
• (k2) You said before that PERPETRATOR has been
  physically violent towards you. Has
  he/she...mark all that apply (thrown, pushed,
  pulled, slapped, kicked...knife, gun)
• (a6) How concerned are you about your own
  personal safety? Are you... (very concerned,
  concerned, somewhat concerned, not concerned)

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Logistic Regression Resultsinterpretation
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Descriptive Statistics

• (K72) Is there a reason why you didn't report
  this incident to the police?

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T1AREASON R DIDN'T REPORT TO POLICE
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid Wouldn't be believed/incident viewed as 39 0.5 1.6 1.6
Valid Didn't think police could do anything 126 1.6 5.1 6.7
Valid Fear of offender 15 0.2 0.6 7.3
Valid Too minor/not a police matter 1283 16.0 52.2 59.6
Valid Keep incident private 2 0.0 0.1 59.6
Valid Shame/embarrassment/thought it was own f 25 0.3 1.0 60.7
Valid Not want anyone to know 41 0.5 1.7 62.3
Valid Not want involvement w/police or courts 133 1.7 5.4 67.8
Valid Not want him/her arrested/jailed, etc. 33 0.4 1.3 69.1
Valid Distance, R moved, R/he/she moved away 10 0.1 0.4 69.5
Valid R handled it/got revenge/family handled 174 2.2 7.1 76.6
Valid Assailant was husband(wife)/not want end 7 0.1 0.3 76.9
Valid Was police officer/justice officer 13 0.2 0.5 77.4
Valid R too young to understand/a child 14 0.2 0.6 78.0
Valid R not turn in family member, etc. 36 0.5 1.5 79.4
Valid One time incident/last incident/it stopp 50 0.6 2.0 81.5
Valid Military handled it 25 0.3 1.0 82.5
Valid R reported it to other 25 0.3 1.0 83.5
Valid Other 60 0.8 2.4 86.0
Valid Don't know 276 3.5 11.2 97.2
Valid Refused 66 0.8 2.7 99.9
Valid Did report incident to police 3 0.0 0.1 100.0
Valid Total 2456 30.7 100.0
Missing Missing 5544 69.3
Total 8000 100.0
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Discussion

• cases predicted correctly
• 45 cases were observed to be yes and correctly
  predicted,471 cases were observed to be no
• cases not correctly predicted
• 267 cases were observed to be yes, but predicted
  as no, 28 cases were observed to be no, but it
  was predicted as yes.

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Interpretation

• k28, k2, and a6 showed to be all significant
  predictors of whether a male victim of domestic
  violence reported their incident to cops.
• Even so, it only correctly classified 63.6 .
  model is still misclassifying 36.4 of the cases

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Interpretation

• It appears as if injuries, past injuries, and
  concern for ones own safety are significant
  variables in predicting whether a respondent will
  report an incident of physical assault to the
  police
• doesnt explain everything though
• there are other factors that this data set
  doesnt cover

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Future Research Suggestions

• More research is needed on male victims of
  domestic violence so that advocacy agencies may
  have a better idea on how to approach the
  situation.
• A study that focuses on domestic violence between
  intimate partners.
• questionnaires that apply to different forms of
  violence, not just stalking and physical assault.

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References

• Durfee, A. (2011). Im not a victim, shes an
  abuser Masculinity, victimization, and
  protection orders. Gender Society, 25(3),
  316-334.
• Eckstein, J. (2011). Reasons for staying in
  intimately violent relationships Comparisons of
  men and women and messages communicated to self
  and others. Journal of Family Violence, 26(1),
  21-30.
• Hamel, J. (2007). Toward a gender-inclusive
  conception of intimate partner violence research
  and theory Part 1 - traditional perspectives.
  International Journal of Men's Health, 6(1),
  36-53.
• Hines, D. , Brown, J. , Dunning, E. (2007).
  Characteristics of callers to the domestic abuse
  helpline for men. Journal of Family Violence,
  22(2), 63-72.
• Wigman, S. (2009). Male victims of
  former-intimate stalking A selected review.
  International Journal of Men's Health, 8(2),
  101-115.
• Worrall, John L., Jay W. Ross and Eric S. McCord.
  2006. "Modeling Prosecutors' Charging Decisions
  in Domestic Violence Cases." Crime and
  Delinquency 52(3) 472-503

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Questions

1. What was the most common reason male victims gave
   for not reporting an incident of abuse to police?
2. What was the dependent variable in the logistic
   regression?
3. How were interviews conducted?