Subject: Re: Gender and violence (repo

From: [email-masked] (Chris Auld)
Date: 20 Dec 1994 06:42:39 GMT

[email-masked] (david maclean) writes:

>On 12-16-94, CHRIS AULD said:

>CA>o  The severe assault rate is 46/1000 for assaults by wives and 50/1000
>CA>   for assaults by husbands (Straus, ``Physical Assaults by Wives: A
>CA>   Major Social Problem'' in _Current Controversies in Family Violence_
>CA>   Sage 1993).
>CA>

>If I might be allowed to add, the 4/1000 differential may well be explained
>by the prevalent macho attitude.  It would appear to me (being male) that it
>would generally be more difficult for a man, given current mores, to admit
>that he was beat up by his wife, than it would be for a woman to admit that
>she was beat up by her husband.

Actually, the discrepancy is not even close to being statistically 
significant -- these figures are based on aa survey of some 2,500 families;
sampling error is far greater than 0.4%.  Also, the figure is, in fact,
accurate, although David's insight is also correct.  This is because
these figures were compiled using only the women's responses (ie, 'how
many times did you hit your husband,') rather than the men's (ie, 'how
many times did your wife hit you?')  This was done precisely for the
reason David suggests: men do not report being the victims of female
violence nearly as much as vice versa, there is a huge discrepancy between
the answers to the questions in parentheses above.  

Disclaimer: I'm happily out on the West coast at the moment, so I can't
verify the above from the paper.  

-- 
Chris Auld                               Department of Economics
Internet: [email-masked]       Queen's University
Office:   (613)545-2269                  Kingston, ON   K7L 3N6