Women commit, by far, the majority of violent child abuse.
They also commit, by far, the majority of elderly abuse (i.e. kicking, punching, and beating up helpless old people).
Isn’t it amazing how many people become enraged or snotty when you point out this unassailable fact?
I guess the stereotype of “woman as perpetual victim” is embedded permanently in the culture.
Men must be ultimately to blame, I suppose.
{ 22 comments }
The interesting thing here is, that prior to VAWA, agencies that dealt with child and elder abuse recognized that, and so their services were quite different than those for women between those age groups.
That has all begun to change. In fact, in 2005, there was some material for that October’s dpmestic violence awareness event that “proved” men are the perpetrators of violence from cradle to grave. It was considered very authoritarian because it had a pie chart. Which actually said nothing.
I’ll hafta see if I can find that.
I think the problem is that the word “Domestic Violence” has so long been used to describe Man on Women crimes that it’s difficult to use it as a means of communicating anything else.
Very much like saying a crime is “Gang Related.” You would not typically use this term for a crime in which a group of skin head was selling drugs and doing drive-bys. How about if an group of Asian suburbia kids from the chess club broke into the schools computers and changed their grades? We use other words for those things.
So what IS the word we should use, or is their hope for “re-inventing” Domestic Violence? My opinion is that the radical feminists don’t want any word at all. Orwellian DoubleSpeak at his best….
The very term “domestic violence” was coined to be gender neutral, to replace the phrase “wife-beating” in order to make it clear that women were often perpetrators.
Which, of course, they often are.
However, somehow we’ve come to see it as just another word for “wife-beating.”
Conservatives laugh at the notion that women can be dangerously violent, and liberals are outraged at the very suggestion that the problem isn’t a problem with male behavior or “patriarchy” or whatever. Feminists who’ve tried to write about this have been drummed out of the feminist movement, of course.
With such a strong statement (”unassailable facts”), there should be links.
Sure thing. There’s an excellent report you can start with right here.
We’ve been writing about it for years, Trudy especially. Most people just ignore it or get angry with us.
Lots and lots of sound references right here.
People don’t want to look at it.
According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System’s most current report, Child Maltreatment 2005, of the approximately 899,000 child abuse and neglect victims in 2005, the largest percentage of perpetrators (79.4 percent) were parents, including birth parents, adoptive parents, and stepparents. Other relatives accounted for an additional 6.8 percent, residential staff for 0 .2 percent, and daycare providers for 0.6 percent. Unmarried partners of parents accounted for 3.8 percent of perpetrators while foster parent accounted for 0.5 percent of perpetrators.
In 2005, 57.8 percent of child abuse and neglect perpetrators were females and 42.2 percent were males. For the most part, female perpetrators were younger than male perpetrators; of the women who were perpetrators, 45.3 percent of females were younger than 30 years of age as compared to 34.7 percent of males.
From the U.S. Department of Health &Human Services Administration for Children &Families report, Child Maltreatment 2005. I can assure you 2005 was in no way an anomaly.
wow.
“Men must be ultimately to blame, I suppose.”
I don’t understand that. Really I don’t.
Women commit, by far, the majority of violent child abuse.
Given the data above and taking into account the number of female led single parent households, I’m not sure it justifies the above statement. There’s no data above on how much of the abuse and neglect was of a “violent” nature. Got any better data?
I will never understand how anyone could ever harm a child, any child, but most especially their own child. That is the kind of thing that could well drive me to violence, I would probably beat the snot out of someone that hurt a child. I would most likely maim someone that hurt mine.
I feel like you Rosemary and would do the same. Funny thing is now that my kids are all grown I still feel that real strong. I guess that never goes away. I’m so glad Dean and the children have you.
I still do not know why men would ultimately be the blame. I guess he gets the blame even if a woman did it because why?
MaryJ: The standard narrative says that the violence is the fault of the men. You haven’t noticed?
Maggie: Well I’ve linked multiple sources. Have you read them? Let me quote one again:
According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System’s most current report, Child Maltreatment 2005, of the approximately 899,000 child abuse and neglect victims in 2005, the largest percentage of perpetrators (79.4 percent) were parents, including birth parents, adoptive parents, and stepparents. Other relatives accounted for an additional 6.8 percent, residential staff for 0 .2 percent, and daycare providers for 0.6 percent. Unmarried partners of parents accounted for 3.8 percent of perpetrators while foster parent accounted for 0.5 percent of perpetrators.
Let me repeat: unmarried partners of parents accounted for 3.8 percent. And 79.4% are the parents. Which means that step-parents/live-in boyfriends and girlfriends are mostly not the problem. But parents are.
And daycare providers and live-in nannies and such are statistically very small contributors.
So who are the major contributors, given that women are the majority by a 20-point statistical margin?
You know, I get tired of being told that men are bigger than women, and have things like testosterone and testicles and whatnot, by people who refuse to acknowledge that women are bigger than children. Especially when study after study demonstrates that women are every bit as violent as men. Just not as likely to do injury to the men since the men are bigger and stronger than the women. But way likely to be able to whip the shit out of a little boy or girl.
The women are bigger and stronger than the children most of the time.
Most violent child abuse is committed by women. This has been known to social scientists for more than 30 years. Make of it what you will.
Read this.
By the way, if it helps:
Most child sexual abuse is at the hands of men. It just is.
Violent child abuse, on the other hand? Including murder of children? Mostly at the hands of women.
Make of it what you will. You won’t see it on the nightly news.
And how infantalizing of women is it, by the way, to deny these facts?
If you think about our definition of violence and the difference between men and women (in general) in terms of strength, this actually makes sense. As men are nearly always stronger, they’re more intimidating. For instance, it may be that one spanking is enough to convince the child that it’s not in their best interest to keep trying to break the rules, but they may feel that whatever their mom dishes out they can take. I know when I was little a spanking from my mom was no big deal but one from my dad was something to be feared (and he only used his hand on my rear end). Similarly, because men tend to be stronger, they can often successfully restrain children, whereas women may need to resort to violence in an effort to keep their children where she wants them.
According to multiple sources (again, click the many links I provided above), the vast majority of people experienced their first incidence of violence at the hands of their mothers.
Does that make mothers bad? No it certaintly does not. It makes them adults capable of making adult decisions. Including, sometimes, bad decisions. And sometimes, correct decisions.
I just grow tired of the conspiring between liberals and conservatives to deny all of this.
Women commit the vast majority of violent child abuse. Deal with it. It’s reality.
I know the men get the blame and I have noticed that popular word is…MEN!
It just isn’t right Dean.
On a side track, I’m curious to know your opinions of spanking? Also, and I am reading the links, but perhaps through your analysis you already know — how is violence against children defined and measured? Is spanking included? If not, at what point does corporal punishment cross into violence? I know where I draw that line for myself, but where do the researchers?
RE: that link I mentioned earlier:
The 2005 document put out by the NCADV with federal funding to suggest themes for Domestic Violence Awareness Month is entitled, Action for Social Change. For 111 pages, this PDF goes on about things like the language used to talk about the issues, finding new groups of victims to claim, and items such as graphic diagrams of the special ways handicapped and elderly women, even babies are victimized. There are sources cited that once again blame men and the “patriarchy†for the continuing oppression of women.
One article is entitled, Social Change to End Violence Against Women (or to Reclaim Women’s Sovereignty) The title says it all. This is the first time we’ve seen a publicly-available document that alludes to the truth behind this movement.
Linda: I don’t think that spanking, most of the time, is child abuse. In fact I think it’s sometimes necessary. Sometimes inflicting pain is the only way to get the message through. Positive reinforcement isn’t always enough.
From my own perspective, my oldest is 9 and I’ve spanked him a handful of times in his entire life. Once, it was too much and I regretted it, but the message got through. My youngest is 2 and I’ve slapped his hand a couple of times.
Punching, kicking, scratching, burning with a cigarette, or spanking enough to leave welts–that’s child abuse in my view.
And no, by the way, I don’t think that if you’ve ever done one of the above it makes you a “child abuser,” so long as after it happened you recognized that you went too far. We’re only human after all.
The whole point of this is not to indict parents, or women. And yes, we men need to recognize that we’re bigger and stronger and need to be careful about that.
What we need to dispel is the cultural stereotypes. Women are every bit as prone to violence as men are, and these days the culture tends to view violent women as funny or as innocent victims. We need to stop that crap. It’s not funny and it’s not acceptable.
“She’s just a girl” is not a defense.
Funny thing is, at one time this would have been considered the feminist viewpoint. I’d argue that it still is.
Comments on this entry are closed.