eminist researchers have long identified ‘gender asymmetry’ in domestic violence, arguing that women are the primary targets of abuse and that men comprise the large majority of perpetrators. On the other hand, family conflict researchers typically find ‘gender symmetry’, arguing that women and men experience and perpetrate violence at similar rates. > Feminist and family conflict researchers also differ in their data collection methods. Feminist researchers tend to favour qualitative approaches commonly used in clinical studies, as well as quantitative information collected via officially reported data and community sample surveys. Family conflict researchers tend to favour quantitative approaches, relying predominantly on acts-based surveys (such as the Conflict Tactics Scale).
Somewhat contradictingly, the paper concludes:
From the real life examples presented in this paper and in many other studies canvassed, practitioners and advocates should have confidence in claims of gender asymmetry in domestic violence.
Another one of their papers ironically concludes that the data confirms it is clear females are the predominant victims while conceding that data on male victims doesn’t get collected at any comparable rate.
It seems to me that we could get results a bit like that without anyone being grossly dishonest or incompetent, if (1) men and women are violent about equally often but (2) men tend to be substantially more violent than women when they are violent. And #2 seems a plausible-enough just-so story; even if intentions are exactly equal in each case, men tend to be stronger so will do more damage.
(Why would this lead to such results? Well, e.g., officially reported data will tend to focus on violence serious enough for the police or social services to pay attention, whereas if you survey people and ask “have you ever been violent?” or “has your partner ever been violent?” I would expect them to include more-minor violent acts too.)
… OK, I just looked at the paper and behold, that does in fact appear to be the case, and is a large part of why the author says that there is gender asymmetry in domestic violence. (And no, it isn’t “somewhat contradictory” to say that one group of researchers finds X, another finds Y, and that on the whole Y is more accurate. The paper goes into quite a lot of detail about the actual evidence each way. The last sentence, aside from acknowledgements and bibliography, is this: “The severity of physical injury and levels of coercion from all forms of violence in relationships appear to be greater for women than for men.”)
Feminism is epistemically irrational but potential instrumentally rational for both women (obviously) and men.
Consider factual claims about domestic violence. Domestic violence costs around 50,000 dollars per person AUD according to this paper.
The foremost authoritive Australian source summarises the matter as such:
Somewhat contradictingly, the paper concludes:
Another one of their papers ironically concludes that the data confirms it is clear females are the predominant victims while conceding that data on male victims doesn’t get collected at any comparable rate.
It seems to me that we could get results a bit like that without anyone being grossly dishonest or incompetent, if (1) men and women are violent about equally often but (2) men tend to be substantially more violent than women when they are violent. And #2 seems a plausible-enough just-so story; even if intentions are exactly equal in each case, men tend to be stronger so will do more damage.
(Why would this lead to such results? Well, e.g., officially reported data will tend to focus on violence serious enough for the police or social services to pay attention, whereas if you survey people and ask “have you ever been violent?” or “has your partner ever been violent?” I would expect them to include more-minor violent acts too.)
… OK, I just looked at the paper and behold, that does in fact appear to be the case, and is a large part of why the author says that there is gender asymmetry in domestic violence. (And no, it isn’t “somewhat contradictory” to say that one group of researchers finds X, another finds Y, and that on the whole Y is more accurate. The paper goes into quite a lot of detail about the actual evidence each way. The last sentence, aside from acknowledgements and bibliography, is this: “The severity of physical injury and levels of coercion from all forms of violence in relationships appear to be greater for women than for men.”)