Rhian, odd that you could not get past abstracts on those papers. I'm not a member and can see them.

My understanding is that they survey type research disproves the claim about significant gendered differences in the types and motivations for coercive DV. The report versions are heavily impacted by existing beliefs about DV, a lot of DV with male victims goes in reported because the dominate narratives don't recognise it as DV.

Whichever way that aspect is dealt with it is abundantly clear that the way DV has been presented over many years has been very misleading. From the material its also quite clear that the majority of DV is not patriarchal coercion. Its people not handling conflict well. It would be a bit step forward for government and DV agencies to put aside the ideological assumptions about DV and present a more balanced view of it. If nothing else giving both parties option to seek help in an abusive relationship might mean less where one feels trapped with no where to turn and eventually hits back.

R0bert

Hi R0bert

The website requires an institutional email address to register and access papers; I only have a personal one.

My reading of Johnson’s articles is that both sides of the debate have the story partly right, but also have legitimate criticism of the other side’s position. The symmetrical case is right that agency data under-count non-coercive violence, and so over-state the proportion of violence initiated by men and underestimate the level of DV. The asymmetrical case is right that family survey methods under-count coercive violence and overstate the proportion of violence in conflict situations. There are other criticisms of Straus’ survey instrument, such as failure to count rape or violence between separated/estranged partners, both of which are mainly perpetrated by men; but I’m not sure if other surveys have addressed these issues.

Johnson’s view of sampling differences also helps to explain other differences between the analysis methods, for example whether violence tends to escalate over time (it does with coercive violence, not situational violence).

I agree that the way DV has been presented has been misleading. But both sides of the debate have misled; and there’s reason to think neither of them did so intentionally (though given the ideological flavour of the debate, both could be subject to confirmation bias). They were just describing different parts of a picture that is bigger and more complex than either of them realised.

I certainly support giving both parties options to seek help in an abusive relationship.

doog

On what basis do you say "Do you notice there is no females on this thread"? I'm one. With the others, some have names or use arguments suggesting they are male, but not all. I have always assumed Killarney is female (sorry, Killarney, if that's wrong).

//I also think that there are people who manage to stick to celebacy, I don't necessarily think its healthy unless there is an abnormally low interest in sex and I certainly would not want to take sexual or relationship advice from those who do so//

There's no evidence to support the view that celibacy is unhealthy. I'm not celibate and I don't think I have an 'abnormally' low interest in sex, but I do sit towards the less interested in sex side of the Gaussian distribution and I don't seek out sex as actively as a lot of my peers. I don't think that's unhealthy.

//Personally I do not like uncovered meat, it does nothing for the imagination.//

Who cares about the imagination? It's the taste that's important. Uncovering your meat and allowing it to sit exposed to the air - oxidising, essentially - for a day or two can significantly improve the flavour of red meats like beef and lamb. Note that this should be done in the refrigerator, where flies cannot come and lay eggs in your uncovered meat: nobody likes carpetbag steak with maggots.

//You are right about celibacy not being healthy, my cardio doctor told me that. He said it is just something else floating around in your blood stream.//

Your cardio doctor sounds like a quack to me. Your blood stream is there to have things floating about in it, and you'd be in a sorry state if it didn't. You'd miss your red blood cells if they weren't floating around in your blood stream. Of course, there are things that you really don't want floating around in your blood stream, like plasmodium.

I cannot think of a single pathogenic agent that celibacy alone would introduce to your blood stream. Can you?

Toni, I was thinking more of religious orders where regardless of interest in sex celibacy is the requirement. You may be right about the data, not something I've researched much.

Rhian, You raised a number of points
- Researchgate access : I'm wondering if it's a browser issue. In both Firefox and Microsoft Edge I have a window on the Reseachgate site that lets me scroll through those particular article (but not all articles). I'm not a member nor logged in.

- Use of DV as a means of coercion - I will attempt to address that point with some references. A little bit referenced in the Straus article I link to for the next point. From one of the papers from the researchgate site http://www.researchgate.net/publication/15503361_Patriarchy_and_wife_assault_The_ecological_fallacy

"Another tenet of feminist thought is that male violence is part of a wider repertoire of control tactics men use to dominate women. In the literature on "feminist therapy" (Adams,1988), emphasis is placed on "male control and domination." However, in one of the few studies to
examine controlling behaviors and psychological abuse, Kasian and Painter (1992) found that females were more jealous, more verbally abusive, and more controlling than males in a sample of 1,625 dating
undergraduates. Use of controlling behaviors and verbal abuse appears to be bi-directional in intimate relationships. If controlling behaviors are bi-directional and feminist therapy seeks to reduce control tactics in men who already feelpowerless in intimate relationships, a positive therapeutic outcome is contraindicated." Whilst I'm cautious of extrapolating too far from studies of undergraduates I think it's more evidence than the males use DV for coercion viewpoint has to back their view. There is quite a bit of other material touching on this.

TBC

R0bert

I came across a very good paper while trying to track down more material on claims of differing patterns of coercion in DV.

http://ncfm.org/libraryfiles/Children/DV/Gender%20Paradigm%20In%20Domestic%20Violence.pdf

I think it's the best of the point by point coverages of the topic which I've seen.

Rhian you also raised a point about the way the gendered paradigm of DV is presented being a result of differing views or deliberate deceit in response to my comment about it being misleading. I have some fairly strong views on that but if you don't mind I'll leave it aside for the time being as it would easily become yet another distraction from the core issue about the evidence.

Now for a slight distraction, earlier comments about romantic love were brought back to mind in a Ted talk I watched earlier http://www.ted.com/talks/mandy_len_catron_falling_in_love_is_the_easy_part

Not quite the same tone as the earlier discussion.

R0bert