HONORING SURVIVORS
A service to Reflect on The Impact of Domestic Violence
This is going on down the hall from me right now. Don’t get me wrong – when it comes to domestic violence, I’m against it. If I could spare the time, I’d attend and show my support. Instead, I just grabbed a pamphlet, in which a phrase is quoted in the title of this thread.
Shocking, if true. But is it true? 2 out of 5? Seems a little high to me. Is there any support for this statistic, or is it inflated for shock value?
Define “abuse”. Are we talking regular smackdowns with an iron pipe, or are we talking, “My husband abuses me by not letting me buy more than 10 pairs of shoes a month.”
I was wondering that myself. While abuse encompasses more than physical violence, I’m wondering if a woman that was told to sit down and shut up one time back in the 70s is included in the statistic.
I tried to Google up some backing for this, but it became clear right off the bat that there is very little in the way of an unbiased source out there.
I was going to answer that this morning , then realized it was in GQ, so left, but I’ll add my opinion anyway.
I’d say the majority of women have had some sort of unpleasant experience with a male. Do an informal survey of your girlfriends and you’ll find I think that most of them have been touched inappropriately at least once, in a sexual manner. Now do things like this count as abuse?
I think that they are counting all of it as abuse, even shouting or asking for sex when she doesn’t want it.
Are we talking in America? Sub-saharan Africa? India? The middle East? Or Worldwide?
I suspect that in cultures where wife-beating and female subjugation is condoned, if not openly encouraged, 2 out of 5 would be somewhat low, while in the USA 2 out of 5 would be somewhat high…it probably evens out.
The current statistic for child sexual abuse in the USA and Western Europe is approximately 1 in 6 (or at least, that’s what I was told in a psychiatry lecture).
Yeah, I’m going to need a definition. Hitting with a closed fist? Grabbing shoulders and shaking? Physically threatening in an argument? Throwing things at the woman during an argument? Grabbing the arm and “don’t you fucking walk away from me”? Just general physical intimidation during anger?
I’ll just chime in uselessly to say that it sure sounds suspicious to me as well. Remember when one in four women had been raped at some point in their lives? I’m no longer much inclined to trust fantastical sounding statistics like this.
Sexual harassment is not domestic violence. I’m not about to join a fan club for either activity, but being “touched inappropriately . . . in a sexual manner” does not represent domestic violence.
No, it’s not, I agree. I’m sorry I implied it. Part of my post this morning, that I dropped, went on to ask -
Does the statement in the OP “2 out of 5 women are abused” stand by itself or do they go on to relate it to anything else? I mean, do they just say it and then go on to say “And in domestic issues, the number is higher”, implying they are separate things, or do they leave it by itself and leave you to assume they mean inside domestic disputes.
I guess what I’m saying is what does the brochure look like? Like this:
HONORING SURVIVORS
A service to Reflect on The Impact of Domestic Violence
blah blah blah. Did you know that 2 out of 5 women are abused? blah blah blah.
Or…
HONORING SURVIVORS
A service to Reflect on The Impact of Domestic Violence
blah blah blah. Did you know that 2 out of 5 women are abused? The number is vastly higher in families. blah blah blah.
Or…
HONORING SURVIVORS
A service to Reflect on The Impact of Domestic Violence
blah blah blah. Did you know that 2 out of 5 women are abused as a form of domestic violence? blah blah blah.
On page two is an agenda of the presentation, including a reading, a song, a moment of silence, etc. Nowhere is there anything like “Survivor’s Stories.”
On page three is Survivor’s Stories, followed by a list of names. Below those is a random list of short quotes, none of which are attributed. In addition to the one I quoted in the title, her are some more of them:
“Silence is the voice of complicity – speak up, save a life!”
“Don’t allow domestic violence. Before my life was to cry. Now, my life is happy. How do you want your life to be?”
I would believe that two out of every five women have been abused at some point in their lives depending on how you define abuse. If they are trying to say that two out of five women are currently in a relationship where abuse takes place, I call bullshit.
My favorite silly definition of abuse, from some obscure feminist ( back in the 80s I think ). She claimed that men are more logical than women, therefore trying to reason with a woman is abuse. :rolleyes:
Really, without a definition of abuse I can’t take such a study seriously at all. For that matter, I’d like to know if the alleged victims thought they had been abused; I recall “rape” studies that inflated their numbers by including many women who didn’t think they had been raped.
Given the context, it doesn’t even sound like a study. It sounds like a half-remembered statistic.
I am reminded of the Doper who told the story of having sex with his girlfriend. At one point, he “missed”, and accidentally almost touched her anus with his penis. She gasped out a little “no.” He corrected his aim, and they continued their amourous adventure.
Years later, after taking a feminism class, she met up with him and told him about the time he almost raped her. Because, you see, if you’re a woman who has ever said “no” to a man, you’ve been raped.
With a mindset like that, I will never offer the last eclair to a woman.
As in many misuses of statistics, this alleged fact is worse than useless. As several have pointed out, first one must define what is being measured. But you also need to know something about the methodology. Where and when was the data collected, for example? Skid Row? Marigold Lane? Thailand? Africa? France? Holland? How was the question worded? Who made the study? How was the sample population selected?
I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that the study, whatever it was, was done in the US over a range of socio-economic levels. I’ll give it that much credit.
However, I don’t know if the deciding question was “Does your husband beat you on a regular basis?” or “Have you ever felt unsafe in your own home?”
About 20 years ago my wife threw something at me in anger. Therefore, when you do your survey on men that have been abused please be sure to include me in the affirmative.