Measuring gender differences in partner violence: implications from

research on other forms of violent and socially undesirable behavior

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, June, 2005 by Sherry L. Hamby

This is an excerpt from: Measuring gender differences in partner violence: implications from
research on other forms of violent and socially undesirable behavior

Source: findarticles.com; retrieved 12/11/05

URL: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_11-12_52/ai_n15395183/pg_2

Sherry L. Hamby

If you enter "partner violence" and related terms into PsycInfo (American Psychological Association,
2004), you get almost 6000 unique references. Enter "crime" or "marriage" and you get approximately
20,000 each. Given the explosion of social science research, it is not surprising that the field of partner
violence, like so many social science disciplines, has become increasingly insular as scholars struggle to
keep up with the volume of research (Hamby & Finkelhor, 2000). Still, no matter the reason, insularity
comes with a price, and nowhere are the effects seen more keenly than in theoretical controversies such
as the debate over violence by women. This debate has been central to the field and has been an
important impetus to theory (Johnson, 1995), measurement (Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, &
Sugarman, 1996), epidemiology (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000), and almost every other topic of study.

Nonetheless, in some respects we are scarcely further than we were in 1975 when the first National
Family Violence Survey (NFVS; Straus & Gelles, 1990) found that women reported similar levels of
violence as men, a finding replicated in dozens of studies comparing women's and men's reports of
violence (Archer, 2000). Yet the debate is much the same, with questions commonly raised about
differences in context, motive, injury, and measurement in ways that are not that different from when
the first data emerged nearly 30 years ago. There is considerable entrenchment, as people who believe
that partner violence is gender neutral are as resistant to data suggesting otherwise as are those who
believe that partner violence is primarily a problem of men victimizing women.

Rather than review the same arguments about the same data again, the best chance for moving forward
seems to be in broadening the framework of the discussion. Both violence and gender are much
discussed in other fields, and numerous methodologies have been developed to study violence and other
sensitive behaviors. This paper will outline findings from criminology and the measurement of sensitive
or socially undesirable behaviors that can shed light on the issue of gender and partner violence.

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN OTHER FORMS OF INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE

Data on many different types of violence indicate that men perpetrate more violence than women,
although women do perpetrate a substantial minority of violent acts. The federal government regularly
collects data on interpersonal violence, including monitoring of arrests and child protection cases as well
as several very large self-report surveys. As with attempts to measure partner violence, obtaining
precise, bias-free estimates of other forms of violence is challenging. First, a summary of the data and
the gender differences found therein is presented, followed by a discussion of methodological issues for
these data sources.
Physical Assault and Robbery

The best criminology data indicate that men commit more violent crimes than women. There are two
major sources of crime data in the United States: the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS;
Rennison & Rand, 2003) and arrest data. The NCVS is one of the largest ongoing surveys in the world,
with more than 76,000 interviews completed in 2002 and data going back to 1972. The Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) gathers arrest data from almost every local, state, and federal jurisdiction. With
94% coverage of the US population, it is essentially population data, not a sample (FBI, 2003). The
most recent NCVS data (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2003) indicate that men commit 79% of assaults
and robberies. Arrest data show a nearly identical pattern, with men comprising 77% of those arrested
for assault and robbery (FBI, 2003). See Table I for a breakdown by type of offense and gender.
According to the NCVS, most victims of these crimes are men, too, but the gender difference there is
much less pronounced--55% of victims are men, and 45% women (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2003).

Homicide

The FBI also produces annual homicide statistics from police reports. It is generally thought that
homicides suffer from less underreporting to the police than most other crime. In 2001 (most recent
data available), most murderers (90%) were male. Most murder victims were also male (76%), but as
with robbery and assault, the gender difference is less pronounced for victims than it is for offenders
(Rennison & Rand, 2003).

Intimate Partner Homicide

Intimate partner homicides comprise approximately 10% of all US murders, according to FBI data. The
gender difference in partner homicide is less pronounced than for total homicides--men perpetrate
approximately three-fourths of intimate homicides versus approximately 90% of all murders (see Table
I). The gender difference in partner homicide is also less pronounced in the United States than in some
other countries (Archer, 2000). Easy gun availability in the United States is the likely reason for this,
just as it explains why the total US homicide rate is so much higher than for other wealthy,
industrialized countries (Hemenway, Shinoda-Tagawa, & Miller, 2002). Guns are the murder weapons in
most (63%) US homicides (Rennison & Rand, 2003), including intimate homicides (Aldridge & Browne,
2003). In the United Kingdom, in contrast, most partner homicides are from stabbings or strangling
(Aldridge & Browne, 2003). The size and strength difference between men and women make it much
harder for a woman to stab or strangle a man, both of which generally require up-close physical contact.
Even though gun availability reduces the impact of the size and strength differences between men and
women, US men still kill their partners three times as often as women do.

Sexual Assault and Rape

Criminological data on sexual assault indicate that males perpetrate the vast majority of sexual assaults.
Males perpetrated 96% of all sexual assaults reported to the 2002 NCVS, and 100% of assaults against
intimate partners (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2003). Almost everyone (99%) arrested for forcible rape
in 2002 was male (FBI, 2003), although this partly reflects the fact that only women can be raped
according to the legal definition in many jurisdictions. Nonetheless, the FBI provides an index of all
sexual offenses excluding rape and prostitution, and this figure too shows a pronounced gender
difference--92% of those arrested were male.
Child Sexual Abuse

Child abuse statistics are an important comparison for partner violence statistics because these
generally involve familial or caregiving relationships, and social roles inhibiting female participation in
crime may be less active in the home (Straus & Smith, 1990). Yet a careful examination of child abuse
data does not suggest gender parity for violent forms of maltreatment. The gender pattern for child
sexual abuse is similar to the pattern for other sexual assaults--the vast majority of reported offenders
are men. As seen in Table I, this holds true for official child protection statistics (Sedlak & Broadhurst,
1996; Snyder & Sickmund, 1999) as well as retrospective self-report (Finkelhor, Hotaling, Lewis, &
Smith, 1990). Unlike physical violence, most childhood sexual abuse victims are women, although even
most male victims of childhood sexual abuse are also assaulted by men (Finkelhor et al., 1990).

Child Physical Abuse

At first glance, statistics on child physical abuse might seem like an exception to the patterns for
physical assault, robbery, homicide, and sexual assault. Several national studies have found that women
and men perpetrate physical abuse against their children in roughly equal numbers, or even that women
perpetrate physical abuse slightly more than men (e.g., Straus, Hamby, Finkelhor, Moore, & Runyan,
1998). Official statistics, although widely acknowledged to capture only a small percentage of actual
abuse, show a varying pattern, but certainly indicate more gender parity than other forms of
interpersonal violence (Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996; Snyder & Sickmund, 1999; see Table I). More
specifically, official data suggest that the greatest gender parity exists for biological parents (50% of all
abuse cases involve mothers and 58% involve fathers, and 60% of physical abuse cases involve
mothers, whereas 48% involve fathers), whereas 80-90% of abuse by other parent figures is
perpetrated by males (Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996).

Nonetheless, several authors have noted that child abuse statistics, like any others, must be viewed in
context (Straus et al., 1998). One of the most important contexts for child abuse statistics is caregiving.
In 2002, approximately 23% of all children lived only with their mothers whereas only 5% of children
lived solely with their fathers (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2003). Of those
that live with both parents, children are 56 times more likely to live with a stay-at-home mother and
employed father as to live with a stay-at-home father and employed mother (Fields, 2003). Thus, in
terms of amount of yearly contact, female caregivers are probably much less likely to physically abuse
children than male caregivers. To date, there have been no quantitative efforts to adjust gender
differences in caregiver violence for contact frequency. Although important to understanding child
physical abuse, differences in contact time are not applicable to partner violence data. Partner violence
involves only one dyad (partner-to-partner), whereas child abuse statistics compare two dyads (mother-
child to father-child). The contact time between partners will be perfectly equivalent.

Elder Abuse

Elder abuse is perpetrated primarily by family members and hence is another important comparison for
partner violence data. Of five forms of elder maltreatment--emotional/psychological abuse, financial
exploitation, abandonment, neglect, and physical abuse--only neglect is perpetrated by more women
than men (National Center on Elder Abuse, 1998). This is probably because women provide more
caregiving to older family members as well as children (National Alliance for Caregiving & AARP, 2004).
Males perpetrated almost two third of physical abuse, the only violent form of elder abuse (see Table I).
Most perpetrators of elder physical abuse were adult children (49%) or spouses (23%). Females make
up about 58% of the population of elders, due to their longer average lifespan, but still comprised a
disproportionate number of physical abuse victims--71% (National Center on Elder Abuse, 1998).