834,732 DV victims disappear! Guess who they are?

[Brent]

That's right- they're MEN. Read on for more...

This call for support of reauthorization of the Violence Against Women
Act comes from the Sheila Wellstone Institute.

http://www.wellstone.org/swinstitute/article_detail.aspx?itemID=3876&catID=3800

"Domestic violence is a major problem in the United States. Each year,
approximately 1.5 million women are victims of domestic abuse, and
millions of children witness abuse in their homes."

The source of this is the National Violence Against Women Survey, which
was funded by the National Violence Against Women Survey Act.  The same
report states that each year 834,732 men are victims of domestic abuse.
For analysis of the NVAWS and links to the original report, see:
http://batteredmen.com/batrNVAWf.htm

If the NVAWS is sufficiently robust to warrant citing in a lead
sentence, then the figure from that report regarding male victims must
be worth reporting, too.

Or, to quote a colleague:
. . .
Time and again we have noticed an ongoing pattern in which domestic
violence agencies systematically alter, conceal, or manipulate the
results of scientific research in order to further a gender-based
political agenda.  The report in question did NOT say 1.5 million women
- what it said was 1.5 million women AND 834,700 MEN.  Your distortion
of those results is apparently an attempt to convince the public through
the media that domestic violence is solely committed by men against
women, when in fact the research shows nothing of the kind.  

Your agency has the duty and the responsibility to report scientific
results accurately and completely, not select only the parts of it that
you happen to agree with.  Concealing these results is both
irresponsible and unethical, and I expect to see this practice
discontinued.
. . .

This misrepresentation of the data, making male victims invisible,
happens elsewhere, such as in this media guide published by the
Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which states on
page 7:
. . .
Approximately 1.5 million women are physically assaulted by an intimate
partner annually in the United States. Since many women experience
multiple victimizations every year, an estimated 5.9 million physical
assaults are perpetrated against U.S. women annually.

Source: Extent, Nature and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence:
Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey,
Patricia Tjaden
. . .
http://wscadv.org/projects/FR/Media_guide_stats%20section.pdf

= = =

I urge people to contact The Sheila Wellstone Institute, which is a
program of Wellstone Action and is located in the offices of Wellstone
Action:

Wellstone Action
821 Raymond Avenue
Suite 260
St. Paul, MN 55114

Staff: Connie Lewis, Director, Sheila Wellstone Institute
[email protected]
651-645-3939
http://www.wellstone.org/swinstitute/contact.aspx