Billboards, radio, and TVads across the country proclaim that "every fifteen seconds a women is beatenby a man." Violence against women is clearly a problem of national importance,but has anyone ever asked how often men are beaten by women? The unfortunatefact is that men are the victims of domestic violence at least as often aswomen are. While the very idea of men being beaten by their wives runs contraryto many of our deeply ingrained beliefs about men and women, female violenceagainst men is a well-documented phenomenon almost completely ignored by boththe media and society.

The first reaction uponhearing about the topic of battered men, for many people, is that of incredulity.Battered husbands are almost a topic for jokes - such as the cartoon image of awoman chasing her husband with a rolling pin. One researcher noted that wiveswere the perpetrators in 73% of the depiction of domestic violence in newspapercomics (Gelles 1974).

Battered husbands have historically been eitherignored or subjected to ridicule and abuse. In 18th-century France, a batteredhusband "was made to wear an outlandish outfit and ride backwards aroundthe village on a donkey" (Langley & Levy 1977). E

Langley, R., Levy, R. (1977). Wife beating: thesilent crisis. New York: Pocket Books.

There is such a strongstigma against being a battered man, carried over from mid-evil times when thebattered man was considered the guilty party, that special attention should bepaid to reaching out to these victims. Simply opening up "Women'sShelters" to men is not enough.

Also in 1974, a study wasreleased showing that the number of murders of women by men (17.5% of totalhomicides) was about the same as the number of murders of men by women (16.4%of total homicides). This study, however, showed that men were three times aslikely to assault women as vice-versa. These statistics came from policerecords (Gelles 1974).

The murder statistic was no big news, by the way. In1958, an investigation of spousal homicide between 1948 and 1952 found that7.8% of murder victims were husbands murdered by wives, and 8% were wivesmurdered by husbands. More recently, in a study of spousal homicide in theperiod from 1976 to 1985, it was found that there was an overall ratio of1.3:1.0 of murdered wives to murdered husbands, and that "black husbandswere at greater risk of spouse homicide victimization than black wives or whitespouses of either sex" (Mercy & Saltzman 1989).

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Approximate Word count = 1895
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)