I am a female victim of dv and there are more female victims of dv out there than male. The research that Glenn Sacks quotes uses the conflict tactic scales. To show an example of how this works I will show how a typical situation plays out. Picture a husband and wife. The husband is angry for anything or everything. He looks at his wife and yells at her telling her she is stupid for some slight, real or imagined. He towers over top of her (no actual violence yet according to the conflict tactic scales). The wife then psuhes him away trying to get to safety – you see she knows these looks and phrases, she is in for a beating. According to the CTS, woman – 1, man – 0. The husband then chases after her and smacks her and she psuhes him back. So now we are at woman 2, man 1. He pulls back and punches her. She flails around and in defense, punches or bites or pulls his hair. So now we are at woman 3, man 2. And according to the CTS, the woman in this situation was the primary aggressor because there were more acts of violence on her part than there were on his part. This research does not lok at “types” or “severity” of the violence, only that certain criteria were met for an act to be considered violent. This is a typical dv situation. Many times, time after time, incident after incident, the FEMALE victim gets “tired” of the abuse, the assaults and decides to defend herself. And nearly all humans will defend themselves if they are in harms way, this is a normal human reaction.
This research however is extremely flawed and hurts ALL domestic violence victims. And a victim does not need to just go to court and fill out a few pieces of paper in order to get an RO. I can speak from my own personal experience. My ex is an extremely controlling and abusive man and I was unable to get a second RO on him after the first was cancelled against my wishes and without me even being consulted.
There is so much information available about this subject – both pro-male and pro-female. The bottom line is that the court system needs a severe overhauling and the likes of Glenn Sacks and his misguided, flawed research and statistics are not the answer.
