Which of the Following Tragedies Can You Safely Ignore ?

1. Women as a percentage of all Australian combat deaths                   0.01 %
2. Women as a percentage of all AIDS deaths                                     3.0 %
3. Women as a percentage of all those in prison                                   4.0 %
4. Women as a percentage of all workplace deaths                              6.0 %
5. Men as a pecentage of reported domestic violence victims    18.0 %
6. Women as a percentage of all those who commit suicide                19.0 %
7. Women as a percentage of all those who are murdered                  35.0 %
8. Men as a percentage of all domestic violence victims             40.0 %
   who require hospital admission

Yes, men make approximately 15.0 - 19.0 % of all the reported cases of domestic violence and they represent 40.0 % of all domestic violence victims requiring hospitalization.

• Victorian police crime statistics for 1993-94 show that of the approximately 1,850 call-outs to domestic disturbances that definitely involved violence against a person, 18.0 % of the complainants were male(ref.1).
  
• "The Superintendant of Police in Hong Kong, Patricia Walsh, recently referred to a 1994 survey which showed that 15 % of domestic violence cases involved the male as the victim of a female, and an amazing 72 per cent of these required hospitalization - a much higher proportion than for female victims.''(ref. 2)
  
• In state of Florida, 26 % of the victims of domestic violence reported to law enforcement agencies were male and 18 % of those arrested as perpetrators of domestic violence were women. (Ref. 3)
  
• A 1995 study in four Victorian hospitals by Virginia Routley and Jenny Sherrard using data from the Victorian injury surveillance system (VISS) showed that 40 % of all domestic violence victims who required hospital admission were men who had been assaulted by their partners.(Ref 1.)
  

and this is only a lower limit to the true extent of domestic violence against men, since men are far less likely than women to report their victimization to the authorities.

1. "All Men are Bastards", John Coochey, The Independent Monthly, Nov. 1995.

2. "Domestic violence survey provokes a ROW", John Coochey, IPA Review Vol. 48/1, 1995.

3. Florida Department of Law Enforcement, 1994.

Ian Wilson
October 1997