The Backlash! - July 1997

Organization News - Family Guardian Network
Headquarters: P.O.Box 261824 San Diego, CA 92196
Northern Chapter: P.O.Box 1071 Fremont, CA 94538
National: 1-500-FOR-KIDS Local: (619)683-9024 Contact Ed Lusby, Interim Director

This is from my notes of the talk Richard Gelles gave at the Metro Boston CPF chapter meeting held on Fenruary 25, 1997, at Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

Richard Gelles is the director of the Family Violence Program at Rhode Island State University. He is one of the foremost researchers on domestic violence in the country (I believe), though he has shied away from male-female dv recently.

First study done in 1976 jointly with Muray Strauss and Suzanne Steinmetz revealed breakdown of domestic violence between husbands and wives or people living in common-law marriages:

The data was rechecked asking only the husbands, then only the wives, even only their children who witnessed it -- results came out basically the same. Specifically in 1985, the data was recalculated based only on the interviews with the women. (The results were the same.)

Because of these results, they were "excommunicated from the discourse." Susan Steinmetz and Murray Strauss received death threats and bomb threats. Steinmetz eventually "folded" under the pressure. Strauss didn't, and paid a "dear price." He was accused of being a wife-beater.

Gelles himself chickened out and went on to study domestic violence (dv) against children: "I'll just study child abuse for a decade."

Further stuff from 1985 study: Who initiates the violence (again, according to the women) -- men and women equally likely to initiate the violence.

Only difference is in serious injury: women are 7 to 10 times more likely to sustain injury as a result of dv. In one-half of the cases, the couples were beating each other. The remainder were split (equally, I guess).

Domestic violence homicides show surprising results when examined over the last 20 years. When first examined, 1977-8, male and female homicides were roughly equal. Since then, female murders of their male partners decreased significantly. Male murders of their wives did not. However, in the last 5 years, there has been a trend of decrease of male murders of their wives. (Why has female murder decreased? They have more options -- they are more likely to leave an abusive relationship now that there are options, whereas before they didn't and eventually killed their husbands.)

Gelles alluded to a female attorney from New England who has been instrumental as the distributor of misinformation w/r to dv. He didn't name the person. I don't have a clue who he was talking about. He then gave out some heavily propagated examples of misinformation, and what the correct response to them is:

According to FBI studies, a women is beaten every (fill in the blank) seconds.
• Not true. The FBI doesn't keep track of dv stats. 4,000,000 women beaten and abused.
• "A good twice as high ... achieved by broadening the definition of abuse." DV leading cause of injury, more than car accidents, muggings, rapes combined for women aged 15-44. Attributed to Surgeon General Novello (sp?) and S.G. Everett Koop.
• "A fairy tale." Evan Stark, a sociologist, made it up. He (Stark) said "blah, blah may blah, blah" 63% of 11-20 year-old men incarcerated for homicide killed their mother's abusers.
• False. Actually there for killing other 11-20 year-old men... Women who leave a relationship with a batterer have a 75% greater risk of injury.
• Not true. Falsely attributed to a Barbara Hart (sp?) Women who kill their husbands (or live-ins) receive longer prison sentences than men who kill their wives.

• Men receive sentences averaging 17.5 years, women 6.2. (Bureau of Justice -- This I'm almost certain comes from the 1994 Murder in Families study. The sentencing data was not included in the published report, but was later made available after it was requested -- according to my memory of a piece Alan Dershowitz did on the study.

Miscellaneous

Gelles made a statment that two biological parents is the best way to raise a child. "We shouldn't mess with nature." The family, with two biological parents is "the fundamental institution by which kids are socialized." We shouldn't mess with it.

Pat Flynn question: Are there any legitimate studies that equate child abuse with spouse battery?

• Answer (I have no study reference in my notes, so I don't recall if he named any): There is a 60% overly. Note that the child abuse is not always perpetrted by the abuser. Sometimes a woman who is abused by her husband will abuse the kids.

  How many allegations are false?

• The Center for Disease Control and the ? Mental Health ? will not fund a study to find out.