# Do we care more for animals than battered women? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2013, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430 "2013-02-26T13:23:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/1 "2013-02-26T13:23:20Z")
There are more animal shelters than battered women’s shelters- a LOT more. I read many articles talking about how people are more willing to donate to causes dedicated to saving animals than protecting women. The theory about it is that people believe that animals are “helpless” to cruelty, while battered women somehow have a “choice” in their fate. The other thing is that many (middle/upper class) people dont really address domestic violence- they see it as something that happens to other (poor and/or brown) people, not them. Some relevant articles: [http://m.jezebel.com/5019968/america-loves-abused-puppies-approximately-25-times-more-than-battered-women](http://m.jezebel.com/5019968/america-loves-abused-puppies-approximately-25-times-more-than-battered-women) [http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/does-one-abused-woman-100-abused-puppies](http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/does-one-abused-woman-100-abused-puppies) Edit: That should read _battered_ women in the title :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/2 "2013-02-26T13:33:31Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > The theory about it is that people believe that animals are “helpless” to cruelty, while battered women somehow have a “choice” in their fate. Don’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/3 "2013-02-26T13:45:10Z")
1. While it isn’t 100%, women do have more of a choice than do animals. 2. Battered _and_ loose/unclaimed animals go to animal shelters. If we gathered up all the unclaimed women we would certainly have more women’s shelters out there. 3. If animals at treatment shelters were treated like women at battered women’s shelters, they would be too expensive to operate. Likewise, if women’s shelters treated their clientele the same way animal shelters treated the animals, they would be a lot cheaper to run. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/4 "2013-02-26T13:47:30Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > The other thing is that many (middle/upper class) people dont really address domestic violence- they see it as something that happens to other (poor and/or brown) people, not them. Are they incorrect? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/5 "2013-02-26T13:59:06Z")
The rich have better access to funds for traveling elsewhere, and are more likely to have an effective support group with the means to help. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/6 "2013-02-26T14:10:55Z")
But domestic violence can affect anyone. It isnt limited to people who are “not like us”. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/7 "2013-02-26T14:14:27Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > But domestic violence can affect anyone. It isnt limited to people who are “not like us”. That is true, but might it not be more likely to happen if the spouse that does the battering thinks that the victim has nowhere to go and no one to talk to? ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/8 "2013-02-26T14:20:30Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > That is true, but might it not be more likely to happen if the spouse that does the battering thinks that the victim has nowhere to go and no one to talk to? There is some correlation: [Domestic Violence Resource Center](http://www.dvrc-or.org/domestic/violence/resources/C61/) > [@](#): > > Intimate partner violence affects people regardless of income. However, people with lower annual income (below $25K) are at a 3-times higher risk of intimate partner violence than people with higher annual income (over $50K).\* > (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Intimate Partner Violence in the U.S. 1993-2004, 2006.) > [@](#): > > On average between 1993 and 2004, residents of urban areas experienced highest level of nonfatal intimate partner violence. Residents in suburban and rural areas were equally likely to experience such violence, about 20% less than those in urban areas. ---
**Author:** ![Cyros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a698b9/32.png) [@Cyros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyros)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/9 "2013-02-26T14:20:56Z")
Do we care more for animals than battered women or do we care for more animals than battered women? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/10 "2013-02-26T14:25:31Z")
It’s incredibly hard to keep your compassion when you actually know someone (man or woman) who is battered who keeps going back to their abuser. Compassion for a bedraggled puppy is much easier than compassion for my neighbor who gets drunk with her husband until they start hitting each other and screaming in the street but send the police away when I call them and refuse my offers to find them alternate living arrangements. But what I’d like to know is…do we not have enough shelters for battered women? Do we have too many shelters for animals? I don’t know, but those questions seem more important than simply comparing number of shelters and dollars spent. As I tell my kids, fair isn’t about giving everyone exactly the same thing, it’s about meeting needs as people (and animals) have them. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/11 "2013-02-26T14:27:59Z")
If we cared more about animals it would be easier to put the perpetrators in jail. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/12 "2013-02-26T14:35:57Z")
Well, we care more for cable television, fast food, tobacco, and cell phones than we do for battered women, judging by dollars spent, number of locations, and prominence in our culture. Hell, we care more for carpeting – there are more carpet stores than food stores in the United States. I see this over and over and over again. When people propose that one thing is receiving some disproportionate amount of resources, why is it ALWAYS an animal charity? Because animals cannot advocate for themselves – they can’t fight back. If you think spending is a limited resource for which battered women’s charities must compete, why not take out your outrage on the dollars spent, number of locations, and prominence in our culture of motor sports, dance studios, tattoo places, liquor establishments, and other frivolous pastimes? Surely people can give THOSE up before you need to take money away from ANY other charity cause. Instead, people like to pick on the one constituency that CANNOT speak for itself. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/13 "2013-02-26T14:48:29Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > But what I’d like to know is…do we not have enough shelters for battered women? Do we have too many shelters for animals? I don’t know, but those questions seem more important than simply comparing number of shelters and dollars spent. As I tell my kids, fair isn’t about giving everyone exactly the same thing, it’s about meeting needs as people (and animals) have them. No, we don’t have enough battered women’s shelters, otherwise this wouldn’t be an issue. There are 2/3s more animal shelters in the US than battered women’s shelters. Many shelters are funded via private donations which indicates to me that people are more interested in spending money on animals than abused women and their children. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/14 "2013-02-26T15:27:48Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > No, we don’t have enough battered women’s shelters, otherwise this wouldn’t be an issue. There are 2/3s more animal shelters in the US than battered women’s shelters. Many shelters are funded via private donations which indicates to me that people are more interested in spending money on animals than abused women and their children. You haven’t said anything that indicates there is a problem. You have asserted that there aren’t enough battered women’s shelters. Cite that this is the case? You have asserted that there are 66% more animal shelters than battered women’s shelters. Cite that this is the case? Now to the real meat of the issue. What percentage of those battered women’s shelters are full at any given time? What percentage of those animal shelters are full at any given time? What are the annual numbers of women seeking help from a battered women’s shelter, and what are the number of animals housed at an animal shelter? What percentage of those animals are abused vs. merely being strays caught by the county dogcatcher or pets whose owner didn’t want them anymore? Just because more money is spent on animal shelters or there are more animal shelters, DOES NOT mean the money is poorly allocated. It could even be that we spend too much on women’s shelters now and not enough on animal shelters. But blindly asserting that we should spend more on women’s shelters isn’t really going to get a reaction from anybody that will think about it for more than 5 seconds. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/15 "2013-02-26T15:37:36Z")
The funny thing is, if we follow the OP’s logic we care more about both women and animals than we do about _men_ being abused. The OP even seems to be written like domestic violence is a _synonym_ for men attacking women, and that abuse by women is something that doesn’t even exist. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/16 "2013-02-26T15:47:17Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The funny thing is, if we follow the OP’s logic we care more about both women and animals than we do about _men_ being abused. The OP even seems to be written like domestic violence is a _synonym_ for men attacking women, and that abuse by women is something that doesn’t even exist. Er…because domestic violence, or at least serious cases of domestic violence are overwhelmingly of women being battered by men. Now, are there other examples? Certainly. To give an obvious example, gays of both genders engage in such behavior probably at about the same rates as straights do. And yes, very occasionally, men are battered by women, but even in those few instances, the men almost never have to go to a shelter. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/17 "2013-02-26T15:58:15Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Er…because domestic violence, or at least serious cases of domestic violence are overwhelmingly of women being battered by men. > > Now, are there other examples? > > Certainly. To give an obvious example, gays of both genders engage in such behavior probably at about the same rates as straights do. > > And yes, very occasionally, men are battered by women, but even in those few instances, the men almost never have to go to a shelter. But now you are talking about need and rates of incidence which doesn’t enter into the OP at all. According to the OP’s logic the degree to which we care about something is in direct proportion the the amount of money we spend on it. So we must care 100 times more about a battered women than a battered men since we spend so little money on the latter. ETA: Since my wife barely escaped a horribly abusive relationship I am a HUGE advocate for battered women’s shelters give generously and think they deserve much more support. I just hate the comparison logic of the OP. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/18 "2013-02-26T16:07:20Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Er…because domestic violence, or at least serious cases of domestic violence are overwhelmingly of women being battered by men. > > Now, are there other examples? > > Certainly. To give an obvious example, gays of both genders engage in such behavior probably at about the same rates as straights do. > > And yes, very occasionally, men are battered by women, but even in those few instances, the men almost never have to go to a shelter. I dunno about ‘very occasionally’. [This report from the guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-domestic-violence) indicates that men are the victim in 40% of cases, although [This DOJ report](http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4536) indicates that only 20% of victims are male. Neither of those I would call ‘very occasionally’. If you follow the cites on [This wiki article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence#Gender_aspects_of_abuse) you find that 84% of men abused needed medical attention. I’m not saying that men are only the victims here. I’m just saying that domestic violence affects both genders, and it’s unhelpful to imply that it’s only a woman’s problem. It’s a problem for both genders. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have battered women’s shelters, it just means we need a support network for battered people in general. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/19 "2013-02-26T16:08:42Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > But now you are talking about need and rates of incidence which doesn’t enter into the OP at all. According to the OP’s logic the degree to which we care about something is in direct proportion the the amount of money we spend on it. So we must care 100 times more about a battered women than a battered men since we spend so little money on the latter. > > ETA: Since my wife barely escaped a horribly abusive relationship I am a HUGE advocate for battered women’s shelters give generously and think they deserve much more support. I just hate the comparison logic of the OP. I agree with you that the logic of the OP is terrible. Amongst other things, the OP ignores the fact that there are vastly more abandoned pets then there are battered women seeking help in shelters. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430/20 "2013-02-26T16:13:01Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > the men almost never have to go to a shelter. No, most men are taken to the cleaners in divorce-court, lose their kids and everything they built and don’t even have shelters to go to. They can go live in a caravan or whatever, nobody cares. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-care-more-for-animals-than-battered-women/651430.md?page=2)