Constantine
Et in Arcadia ego...
Its about the incidence of domestic violence directed towards men, from women, and how prevalent it is. Its just happenstance the guest was scheduled to appear on the show before Steve McNair was killed by his jumpoff.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106820029
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-07-16/news/0907150032_1_domestic-violence-violent-couples-violence-victims
NEAL CONAN, host:
And now the TALK OF THE NATION Opinion Page. Google murder-suicide and stories about the death of former pro quarterback Steve McNair pop right up. The phrase domestic violence is mentioned in just a few of them. In a recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, Dr. Ned Holstein and Glenn Sacks argued that men are routinely overlooked as victims of domestic violence by law enforcement, by the judicial system, and by the media.
What is your experience? Is it wrong to assume the man is usually the perpetrator and the woman, the victim? 800-989-8255, email us: talk@npr.org. And you can join the conversation at our Web site. That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION.
Dr. Ned Holstein joins us now from the studios of member station WBUR in Boston. He is the co-author of the op-ed "The Violence We Ignore" with Glenn Sacks. And nice to have you on the program today.
Dr. NED HOLSTEIN (Founder, Fathers & Families): Great to be here, Neal.
CONAN: And the McNair situation, obviously one anecdote, but you're right. None of those stories mention this as an incident of domestic violence, or very few.
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, it almost never happens.
CONAN: Why?
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, I think that there is a sort of cultural resistance to acknowledging that women too can often be violent. And beyond general attitudes, we also have the specific attitudes of what I'll - what I'm going to call the domestic violence establishment that specifically denies that female-perpetrated domestic violence is much of a factor at all.
CONAN: What evidence do we have as to who initiates the violence most of the time, who's responsible?
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Let me say this to begin with that I'm not really interested in a blame game and Fathers & Families is not really interested in a blame game. But what we are interested in is protecting everybody - men, women and children. And to do that, we have to take account of reality. There are over 200 studies now that clearly show that women perpetrate, and I would say more than that initiate domestic violence at rates that are about equal to those of men.
Now, there is one important disproportion. Because men are stronger, more women are injured. Women account for about two-thirds of the injuries and men account for about one-third of the injuries. But nevertheless, the incidence - of initiation of domestic violence by women is quite substantial. And if we want to protect people, we have to have open eyes about this and think about it clearly.
CONAN: And you argue in your op-ed that, in fact, a lot of the laws in this country, and obviously these vary state by state, but a lot of the laws in this country presume that in most situations the women is the victim and the man, the perpetrator.
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, look at the major federal vehicle for funding domestic violence work. It's called the Violence Against Women Act. It's not called the domestic violence act. And we see the same attitude propagated downward. Now, the real problem with this is that it fails to protect everybody. First of all, obviously it fails to protect men who do have violent partners. But the ironic thing about this is that it also fails to protect many women.
Well, how could that be? Well, if we really look at the data, what we find is that in couples where there is domestic violence, in about half of those couples, the violence is a two-way street. Sometimes he starts it, sometimes she starts it. Sometimes he hits her, sometimes she kicks him. And it can go either way. And what research - what several researchers have found is that when a women initiates the violence, she has a very high danger of being injured in retaliatory violence.
So, one of the things we can do to protect women is to teach women that just as it's not okay for men to hit women, it's also not okay for women to hit men, if for no other reason than self-protection.
Now, I know that whatever retaliatory violence might occur cannot be condoned or excused. But it's a little bit the same principle that we're taught when we're young or when we're teenagers, don't go walking down a dangerous neighborhood in the middle of the night on a dangerous street. If you get attacked, no one can condone the attacker for doing it to you. But nevertheless, if you want to be practical and protect yourself, there are some things you don't do.
And so we could help women by teaching women that it's not okay for them to hit their male partners. And by teaching them that, which the domestic violence establishment refuses to do, we can help protect some of those very same women.
CONAN: How does it refuse to do that?
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, there is an ideology at work. I hate to say it, but it's true. And there has been minimization and denial of women's role in domestic violence. For instance, Obama just recently appointed Lynn Rosenthal to be the White House czar of domestic violence. And she comes out of this tradition, and this tradition has it that domestic violence only occurs for one reason and that is a patriarchal insistence of men on controlling women. The problem with that conception is that it eliminates - it rules out all sorts of things that are avenues or wedge points for controlling domestic violence.
First of all, it rules out that women ever start it themselves. And I just talked about that. It also rules out substance abuse as an important factor. And lots of instances of domestic violence are directly related to alcohol or substance abuse and that offers us an opportunity to help prevent it. Third, it also rules out psychiatric disorders. Some people who commit domestic violence are just plain crazy. And instead of having - instead of needing education on their patriarchal impulses of control, what they need is mental health assistance.
CONAN: We're talking with Dr. Ned Holstein, founder of the organization, Fathers & Families, about an op-ed that he wrote in the Baltimore Sun called "The Violence We Ignore." Our phone number is 800-989-8255; email us talk@npr.org. Let's get to Steve(ph) on the line. Steve calling us from Syracuse.
STEVE (Caller): Hello?
CONAN: Hello, Steve. You're on the air. Go ahead.
STEVE: I just want to say one of my first jobs out of grad school with a new MSW, was at an emergency room at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse. And the powers that be were going to write a policy, and as you could probably tell with this topic, it was all about, when she comes in you remove him from her. And I'm looking around at all these high-ranking state employees, doctors and otherwise psychologists, and not one of them is picking up on the observation, this, you know, idiot, sort of, meaning myself, is going, now, wait a second. Now, this is like, over 90 percent of the situations but it's not all of the situations.
And when we genderize violence, at this point, I'm a licensed clinical social worker in psychotherapy practice, and what I meet a violent and abusive personalities. Now statistically, yes, more likely to be possessed by male. But if what we look for are the genders, we're going to miss the personality, and that's the topic. And I think this artifact of this czar of domestic violence, how many years forward, I don't know, that somehow we approach this through genderization, we missed an awful lot of people, real-life human beings and families in pain. And that's just my observation.
CONAN: Okay, Steve. Would that fit into the ideology that you're talking about, Dr. Holstein?
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, it certainly does, and this has been studied. As a physician, I often see forms in - for - in hospital records in which people are routinely asked, are you - do you feel safe at home or do you feel in danger at home? And the only ones who actually ever, who are ever asked this question are female patients. Male patients are never asked this question.
Now, a lot of people - what our caller just described, seems counterintuitive because men are bigger and stronger. But do recall that when you live together with a person, there are multiple opportunities for surprise or the use of weapons. Weapons are equalizers, and so is the element of surprise. You sneak up behind someone, you hit him over the bed- over the head with wine bottle, they're going to be injured. And this does happen to men.
CONAN: Steve, thanks for the call.
STEVE: If there's a line in the sand, it sort of begins quasi equal. But I agree with your speaker there, that that's usually not the case, you know? I mean, it's not going to be some face off. It's going to be opportunity. We're talking about violent personalities.
CONAN: Thanks very much, Steve. Bye-bye. Let's go next to, this is Rebecca(ph). Rebecca calling from Columbus.
REBECCA (Caller): Hello, Neal. I have to say I'm somewhat troubled by this conversation, particularly because I believe that when we start to talk about instances of male victims and instances of domestic violence, we miss a really big opportunity with regards to teaching young men and women about the cycle of power and control that contributes to domestic violence situations. I am an advocate for victims of domestic violence here in Columbus.
And I have to say, as part of the series of process that we teach to high school and junior high school students, that begins with the spectrum starting at sexual harassment going on to dating violence and sexual violence, that we do draw the line the same when talking about this. And we think that - I - my opinion is that it's not really being genuine to the situation to make it seem as though there is a 50-50 split, as though men are experiencing the sort of victimization as often as women are.
And the reason I don't think that's fair to talk about it, is because I think that we really miss an opportunity with regard to prevention. And I think what the previous caller was saying, with regard to violent personalities, you know, there's a lot in our culture that sort of, you know, glorifies a male, you know, dominant role and a female submissive role. And it's those sorts of, you know, social programming, I think, really contributes to the cycle of violence.
And, you know, I really think that the stereotypes that are associated with the damsel in distress and the, you know, aggressive male are, you know, are also contributing factors. So while I don't think that we should be ceasing a dialogue about, you know, instances of male victimization and you know, situations regarding domestic violence, I think that, you know, it's really important as we start to broaden the conversation that we are true to the fact that, you know, this is not a situation where there are equal numbers of female perpetrators (unintelligible).
CONAN: If it's not 50-50, Rebecca, what do you think it is?
REBECCA: Well, I think that, really, what we need to talk about is a broadening of the - what we consider to be domestic violence. I think that, you know, your guest brings up a lot of really great examples. And definitely, this is the conversation that needs to be going on. But I don't think that the reason the conversation needs to be going on is such that we can educate the public on how much more aggressive and violent women are in comparing them to men, but as part of a conversation that's really about prevention and stopping that sort of behavior.
And I just think that, you know, the reality of this situation is that there is a lot of social programming that contributes to this concept of male aggression and female submissiveness. And, you know, and the survivors that I have dealt with of domestic violence, whether they were women - and I have definitely worked with some men and, more often than not, and perhaps some of the sad situation is with children of both genders - that it's the sort of social programming of power and control that I think allows domestic violence to skip from one generation to the other.
And I really don't think this is a matter of clearing men's name or dirtying women's name with regards to…
CONAN: I'm not sure that that's what Dr. Holstein was talking about either, but let's give him a chance to respond.
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, I - you're quite right that we're - at Fathers & Families were not interested in a blame game. We want to protect people. But I am troubled by the comments, because I think that they illustrate the exact kind of denial that I have made reference to in a domestic violence establishment.
The fact that women initiate domestic violence about equally with men has now been established in over 200 studies, 200 published studies. They include studies by Harvard researchers, most recently in 2007, published in the American Journal of Public Health.
It includes studies published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - one of the most highly esteemed public health research organizations in the country - by the Department of Justice, by Richard Gelles - who is chairman of a department at the University of Pennsylvania - by Murray Straus - who's chairman of a department at the University of New Hampshire - by male researchers, by female researchers, many different parts of the country, over 200 studies.
And so I think the real issue before us, now, is how do we come to grips with this, and how do we ask the question, how do we better protect everybody - and we haven't even talked about children yet - because so many children end up in this sole custody of mothers who may be violent personalities.
So - and we haven't even talked about that. So we have a lot of work we need to do as a society…
CONAN: And…
Dr. HOLSTEIN: …get past blame, look at reality and protect people based on what the epidemiology shows.
CONAN: A Rebecca, I'm sure you could - we could discuss this with you all day. We want to give some other people a chance, though. We appreciate it.
REBECCA: Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for the discussion.
CONAN: Thanks very much for the phone call.
We're talking on the Opinion Page today, with Dr. Ned Holstein. And you're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News....
I had to cut the rest of the transcript out, because there were too many characters.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106820029
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-07-16/news/0907150032_1_domestic-violence-violent-couples-violence-victims
NEAL CONAN, host:
And now the TALK OF THE NATION Opinion Page. Google murder-suicide and stories about the death of former pro quarterback Steve McNair pop right up. The phrase domestic violence is mentioned in just a few of them. In a recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, Dr. Ned Holstein and Glenn Sacks argued that men are routinely overlooked as victims of domestic violence by law enforcement, by the judicial system, and by the media.
What is your experience? Is it wrong to assume the man is usually the perpetrator and the woman, the victim? 800-989-8255, email us: talk@npr.org. And you can join the conversation at our Web site. That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION.
Dr. Ned Holstein joins us now from the studios of member station WBUR in Boston. He is the co-author of the op-ed "The Violence We Ignore" with Glenn Sacks. And nice to have you on the program today.
Dr. NED HOLSTEIN (Founder, Fathers & Families): Great to be here, Neal.
CONAN: And the McNair situation, obviously one anecdote, but you're right. None of those stories mention this as an incident of domestic violence, or very few.
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, it almost never happens.
CONAN: Why?
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, I think that there is a sort of cultural resistance to acknowledging that women too can often be violent. And beyond general attitudes, we also have the specific attitudes of what I'll - what I'm going to call the domestic violence establishment that specifically denies that female-perpetrated domestic violence is much of a factor at all.
CONAN: What evidence do we have as to who initiates the violence most of the time, who's responsible?
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Let me say this to begin with that I'm not really interested in a blame game and Fathers & Families is not really interested in a blame game. But what we are interested in is protecting everybody - men, women and children. And to do that, we have to take account of reality. There are over 200 studies now that clearly show that women perpetrate, and I would say more than that initiate domestic violence at rates that are about equal to those of men.
Now, there is one important disproportion. Because men are stronger, more women are injured. Women account for about two-thirds of the injuries and men account for about one-third of the injuries. But nevertheless, the incidence - of initiation of domestic violence by women is quite substantial. And if we want to protect people, we have to have open eyes about this and think about it clearly.
CONAN: And you argue in your op-ed that, in fact, a lot of the laws in this country, and obviously these vary state by state, but a lot of the laws in this country presume that in most situations the women is the victim and the man, the perpetrator.
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, look at the major federal vehicle for funding domestic violence work. It's called the Violence Against Women Act. It's not called the domestic violence act. And we see the same attitude propagated downward. Now, the real problem with this is that it fails to protect everybody. First of all, obviously it fails to protect men who do have violent partners. But the ironic thing about this is that it also fails to protect many women.
Well, how could that be? Well, if we really look at the data, what we find is that in couples where there is domestic violence, in about half of those couples, the violence is a two-way street. Sometimes he starts it, sometimes she starts it. Sometimes he hits her, sometimes she kicks him. And it can go either way. And what research - what several researchers have found is that when a women initiates the violence, she has a very high danger of being injured in retaliatory violence.
So, one of the things we can do to protect women is to teach women that just as it's not okay for men to hit women, it's also not okay for women to hit men, if for no other reason than self-protection.
Now, I know that whatever retaliatory violence might occur cannot be condoned or excused. But it's a little bit the same principle that we're taught when we're young or when we're teenagers, don't go walking down a dangerous neighborhood in the middle of the night on a dangerous street. If you get attacked, no one can condone the attacker for doing it to you. But nevertheless, if you want to be practical and protect yourself, there are some things you don't do.
And so we could help women by teaching women that it's not okay for them to hit their male partners. And by teaching them that, which the domestic violence establishment refuses to do, we can help protect some of those very same women.
CONAN: How does it refuse to do that?
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, there is an ideology at work. I hate to say it, but it's true. And there has been minimization and denial of women's role in domestic violence. For instance, Obama just recently appointed Lynn Rosenthal to be the White House czar of domestic violence. And she comes out of this tradition, and this tradition has it that domestic violence only occurs for one reason and that is a patriarchal insistence of men on controlling women. The problem with that conception is that it eliminates - it rules out all sorts of things that are avenues or wedge points for controlling domestic violence.
First of all, it rules out that women ever start it themselves. And I just talked about that. It also rules out substance abuse as an important factor. And lots of instances of domestic violence are directly related to alcohol or substance abuse and that offers us an opportunity to help prevent it. Third, it also rules out psychiatric disorders. Some people who commit domestic violence are just plain crazy. And instead of having - instead of needing education on their patriarchal impulses of control, what they need is mental health assistance.
CONAN: We're talking with Dr. Ned Holstein, founder of the organization, Fathers & Families, about an op-ed that he wrote in the Baltimore Sun called "The Violence We Ignore." Our phone number is 800-989-8255; email us talk@npr.org. Let's get to Steve(ph) on the line. Steve calling us from Syracuse.
STEVE (Caller): Hello?
CONAN: Hello, Steve. You're on the air. Go ahead.
STEVE: I just want to say one of my first jobs out of grad school with a new MSW, was at an emergency room at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse. And the powers that be were going to write a policy, and as you could probably tell with this topic, it was all about, when she comes in you remove him from her. And I'm looking around at all these high-ranking state employees, doctors and otherwise psychologists, and not one of them is picking up on the observation, this, you know, idiot, sort of, meaning myself, is going, now, wait a second. Now, this is like, over 90 percent of the situations but it's not all of the situations.
And when we genderize violence, at this point, I'm a licensed clinical social worker in psychotherapy practice, and what I meet a violent and abusive personalities. Now statistically, yes, more likely to be possessed by male. But if what we look for are the genders, we're going to miss the personality, and that's the topic. And I think this artifact of this czar of domestic violence, how many years forward, I don't know, that somehow we approach this through genderization, we missed an awful lot of people, real-life human beings and families in pain. And that's just my observation.
CONAN: Okay, Steve. Would that fit into the ideology that you're talking about, Dr. Holstein?
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, it certainly does, and this has been studied. As a physician, I often see forms in - for - in hospital records in which people are routinely asked, are you - do you feel safe at home or do you feel in danger at home? And the only ones who actually ever, who are ever asked this question are female patients. Male patients are never asked this question.
Now, a lot of people - what our caller just described, seems counterintuitive because men are bigger and stronger. But do recall that when you live together with a person, there are multiple opportunities for surprise or the use of weapons. Weapons are equalizers, and so is the element of surprise. You sneak up behind someone, you hit him over the bed- over the head with wine bottle, they're going to be injured. And this does happen to men.
CONAN: Steve, thanks for the call.
STEVE: If there's a line in the sand, it sort of begins quasi equal. But I agree with your speaker there, that that's usually not the case, you know? I mean, it's not going to be some face off. It's going to be opportunity. We're talking about violent personalities.
CONAN: Thanks very much, Steve. Bye-bye. Let's go next to, this is Rebecca(ph). Rebecca calling from Columbus.
REBECCA (Caller): Hello, Neal. I have to say I'm somewhat troubled by this conversation, particularly because I believe that when we start to talk about instances of male victims and instances of domestic violence, we miss a really big opportunity with regards to teaching young men and women about the cycle of power and control that contributes to domestic violence situations. I am an advocate for victims of domestic violence here in Columbus.
And I have to say, as part of the series of process that we teach to high school and junior high school students, that begins with the spectrum starting at sexual harassment going on to dating violence and sexual violence, that we do draw the line the same when talking about this. And we think that - I - my opinion is that it's not really being genuine to the situation to make it seem as though there is a 50-50 split, as though men are experiencing the sort of victimization as often as women are.
And the reason I don't think that's fair to talk about it, is because I think that we really miss an opportunity with regard to prevention. And I think what the previous caller was saying, with regard to violent personalities, you know, there's a lot in our culture that sort of, you know, glorifies a male, you know, dominant role and a female submissive role. And it's those sorts of, you know, social programming, I think, really contributes to the cycle of violence.
And, you know, I really think that the stereotypes that are associated with the damsel in distress and the, you know, aggressive male are, you know, are also contributing factors. So while I don't think that we should be ceasing a dialogue about, you know, instances of male victimization and you know, situations regarding domestic violence, I think that, you know, it's really important as we start to broaden the conversation that we are true to the fact that, you know, this is not a situation where there are equal numbers of female perpetrators (unintelligible).
CONAN: If it's not 50-50, Rebecca, what do you think it is?
REBECCA: Well, I think that, really, what we need to talk about is a broadening of the - what we consider to be domestic violence. I think that, you know, your guest brings up a lot of really great examples. And definitely, this is the conversation that needs to be going on. But I don't think that the reason the conversation needs to be going on is such that we can educate the public on how much more aggressive and violent women are in comparing them to men, but as part of a conversation that's really about prevention and stopping that sort of behavior.
And I just think that, you know, the reality of this situation is that there is a lot of social programming that contributes to this concept of male aggression and female submissiveness. And, you know, and the survivors that I have dealt with of domestic violence, whether they were women - and I have definitely worked with some men and, more often than not, and perhaps some of the sad situation is with children of both genders - that it's the sort of social programming of power and control that I think allows domestic violence to skip from one generation to the other.
And I really don't think this is a matter of clearing men's name or dirtying women's name with regards to…
CONAN: I'm not sure that that's what Dr. Holstein was talking about either, but let's give him a chance to respond.
Dr. HOLSTEIN: Well, I - you're quite right that we're - at Fathers & Families were not interested in a blame game. We want to protect people. But I am troubled by the comments, because I think that they illustrate the exact kind of denial that I have made reference to in a domestic violence establishment.
The fact that women initiate domestic violence about equally with men has now been established in over 200 studies, 200 published studies. They include studies by Harvard researchers, most recently in 2007, published in the American Journal of Public Health.
It includes studies published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - one of the most highly esteemed public health research organizations in the country - by the Department of Justice, by Richard Gelles - who is chairman of a department at the University of Pennsylvania - by Murray Straus - who's chairman of a department at the University of New Hampshire - by male researchers, by female researchers, many different parts of the country, over 200 studies.
And so I think the real issue before us, now, is how do we come to grips with this, and how do we ask the question, how do we better protect everybody - and we haven't even talked about children yet - because so many children end up in this sole custody of mothers who may be violent personalities.
So - and we haven't even talked about that. So we have a lot of work we need to do as a society…
CONAN: And…
Dr. HOLSTEIN: …get past blame, look at reality and protect people based on what the epidemiology shows.
CONAN: A Rebecca, I'm sure you could - we could discuss this with you all day. We want to give some other people a chance, though. We appreciate it.
REBECCA: Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for the discussion.
CONAN: Thanks very much for the phone call.
We're talking on the Opinion Page today, with Dr. Ned Holstein. And you're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News....
I had to cut the rest of the transcript out, because there were too many characters.
I would've slapped fire out this brawd if I had to deal with her on the basis my friend did. And there was this brawd in highschool who had a crush on me and would always hit me in the balls..shyt just had me like 
she never gave me any ass or nothin..now she's a single baby momma making statuses on facebook about how you should let a man come to you 
.