By F. M. Christensen, Ph.D.

For years, publicity on violence in the family has promoted the idea that only men do it--that there is hardly enough physical abuse of spouses and children by women to mention. This message has been promulgated by many volunteer groups and government agencies dealing with family violence, and by the media. In the words of a report by one Safer Cities committee, "Family violence encompasses violence against women and children, committed by men".

Recently, this message has been brought to a sharp focus, as it has been promoted continually in the hearings of the Special Senate-Commons Committee on Custody and Access.

In spite of this misinformation fed to the public, there is no rational doubt about the actual facts on violence in the family. Women commit physical and emotional abuse of both spouses and children about as often as men. The many sources of possible statistical errors make it unwise to make claims about precise numbers, and such are not important; but it is crystal clear that the standard only-men-do-evil party line is a grotesque falsehood.

Though usually kept from the general public, large numbers of research studies reveal this information. On the subject of partner abuse, over a hundred random surveys inquiring about both sexes have been carried out in Canada, the US and elsewhere, and all get the same result: women commit acts of physical and emotional abuse at least as often as men.

Nor can this result be attributed to women's merely defending themselves: the many studies which focus on that question also find that they start the violence about equally often, and that the motives of abusive women are very similar to those of abusive men. In about 1/4 of cases, only the man is violent, in another 1/4, only the woman is; and about half of partner violence is mutual brawling, with both to blame.

It must quickly be added that, in the small minority of partner assaults where serious bodily harm is done, women are the victims much more often. Indications are that somewhere around 25% of those seriously harmed are men. (This estimate is harder to be sure of. But also, about 25% of victims of spousal homicide in Canada are men.) Important though this fact is, however, it hardly justifies the black-and-white concern for women victims only. By a similar prejudicial reasoning, one could ignore violence by whites to persons of color on grounds that there is much more harm inflicted on whites by persons of color.

Furthermore, the fact that women are less able to inflict physical injury certainly does not justify ignoring half of all those who attempt to harm their partners; being less able to hurt is not a moral virtue. Nor do the serious-injury figures include the serious harms committed by the weaker through getting someone more powerful to do the dirty work. This is usually accomplished by making false accusations against the target--especially to the state, with all of its powers to inflict harm.

In sum, whether we focus on victims or on victimizers, there is no excuse for the standard all-and-none portrayal of spouse abuse.

As for family violence directed toward children, women are nearly as capable as men of inflicting serious harm on them. And at all levels of severity (including child murder), the studies indicate, women and men commit physical abuse about equally often. Certainly--to make the point relevant to the current context--biological fathers and mothers do not differ greatly in this regard.

As to the causes of violence to children, two facts are especially relevant here: The burden of rearing children alone evidently leads to greater amounts of abuse by single mothers, and lack of bonding with children from birth means that second husbands and boyfriends are far more likely to abuse children than natural fathers are. (This is not said to malign single parents or stepparents in general, who often perform heroic service raising children. But it is a sad fact about a minority of cases.)

In short, family violence is a human problem, not a gender problem.

The reasons why such a serious distortion of the facts has been promulgated--and why it has been allowed to be promulgated--cannot be discussed here. But the biggest source of the stereotyping is the powerful influence in certain domains of an ideology best described as sexist feminism (to distinguish it from genuinely egalitarian feminism)--aided and abetted by sexist chivalry. In the minds of some, false stereotypes are hateful bigotry only if directed against certain "designated groups"; fathers and husbands do not qualify for protection.

Particularly troubling is the stereotypers’ common use of tactics of deception, such as the following. To get high numbers for violence toward wives, they cite statistics from surveys asking about all partner assaults--not just those doing serious harm. Since in only a small percentage of all such acts is appreciable harm done, the typical male and typical female victims in this general case are about equally harmed (i.e., neither appreciably harmed)--as well as equally assaultive. But admitting this rough equality in the general case would not validate the claim of a "war against women" in the home. So the stereotypers simply suppress the half of the data about assaults by women.

No decent person would allow the vulnerable to remain in danger of abuse. But stereotypes have consequences--they harm people. They influence judges and police and social workers and legislators and others with massive power to harm; just ask Donald Marshall. Moreover, anti-male prejudice doesn’t just hurt men: it hurts grandmothers and sisters and wives and other women in their lives. And anti-male prejudice hurts the most vulnerable of all--children.

Having entrenched in society the image of only men as violent in the family, the sexist feminists have cashed it in with demands that divorce laws and policies keep spouse and child abusers--i.e., men, under their stereotype--away from their children.

In the recent Parliamentary hearings, family violence has been the largest single topic of discussion by feminist groups making submissions. The Committee’s subject of concern, once again, is child custody and access in separation and divorce. But instead of decrying the harm to children of losing a parent and seeking ways to promote shared parenting following the breakup, the feminists have filled hours and reams of paper warning against all those abusive husbands and fathers. Not only the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, but volunteer groups such as the YWCA and government agencies such as Status of Women Canada have been promoting this gross stereotype.

Many divorced fathers have gone before the Committee as well, to tell of the heartbreak of losing their children, and of their trials in attempting to remain part of their children’s lives. Having endured the vicious stereotype for years, and having in some cases suffered terrible personal consequences because of its pervasive influence (see below), they have suddenly found it thrust in their faces again in the hearings. And some of them have responded with vocal anger.

Certain feminist journalists have gotten a lot of mileage out of that reaction. I submit that members of any other negatively stereotyped group would have responded in similar fashion--and those same journalists would have understood their pain. Indeed, if similar prejudice toward any of the "designated groups" were to be expressed in such a government forum, commentators across Canada would denounce its advocates for what they are.

The touchstone of the Committee, routinely acknowledged by those presenting before it, is "the best interests of the children". But would people genuinely concerned about the welfare of children promote false stereotypes about parents? Would people genuinely concerned about combatting abuse in the family deny half of the problem? Ironically, not only does such behavior result in failure to solve the problem; it worsens it. Consider some of the ways.

First: Promoting the stereotype sends a message to abusive wives and mothers that they have no problem to overcome--only those nasty men do. It also creates a tendency for authorities to overlook children abused by their mothers--or else to assume the abuser must be the father. Sometimes, it even results in police or social workers preventing fathers from protecting their children from abusive mothers. I have witnessed the pain of fathers and paternal grandparents trying desperately to protect a child while the all-powerful state stood in the way.

Second: Recall that a child is more likely to be abused in a single-parent home. But keeping both parents importantly involved in their lives after separation spreads the burdens of parenting and also increases the chances of any such abuse being discovered. In contrast, abuse by a mother or her new partner is one of the illegitimate reasons for denying a child access to the father: to keep it from being found out by the one other person most concerned and most able to do so.

Third: Harm to the bond between a father and a child is already, in itself, a serious form of abuse --abuse to both parent and child. Those who promote the stereotype do not include, on their lists of types of abuse, actions by the state or by individuals which threaten this bond. (Such actions by individuals include access-denial and parental alienation.) But loss of that relationship is one of the greatest harms a parent or child can suffer. In fact, fear of losing their children in divorce is a major reason why men remain with women who abuse them or the children. Each sex has its special vulnerabilities.

Fourth: The stereotype itself promotes destruction of the father-child bond. One way it does so: to those women (a small but very real minority) who maliciously want the father out of the child’s life, it suggests a powerful weapon: "Just tell authorities he is abusive to you or to the child. Then since only men do evil things in the family, you must be the one telling the truth." Note well, then, that wrongful accusations themselves constitute yet another form of abuse. It is merely indirect, proxy aggression--aggression committed using police and other agents of the state. Once again, however, this is a form of abuse not listed by those promoting the stereotype.

Fifth: The emotional harm to children caused by parental loss is in turn a cause of violence--violence committed by the children as or after they grow up. There is a huge sociological literature on this emotional damage: everything from suicide and rape and other crimes to teen pregnancy to poor school performance has been convincingly traced to father loss. Yet again, those who promote the stereotype seem unconcerned about this type of harm.

Lastly, there is that violence arising from the emotional anguish and psychological harm caused by losing a child. Those who promote the stereotype make a special issue of violent behavior by men during divorce. Here again, no decent person would deny protection to the vulnerable from violently possessive individuals. But much of the violence committed by men in that situation results from their being pushed over the edge by the massive anti-father bias in the system. If women were routinely seeing their children ripped away in divorce, far more of them would be driven to violence.

Are the stereotypers genuinely opposed to abuse in the family? Or are they just opposed to fathers?