University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Male reports of abuse in romantic relationships on the rise

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Male reports of abuse in romantic relationships on the rise

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Content MALE REPORTS OF ABUSE IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS ON THE RISE by Delana Georgianna Gbenekama A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS (BROADCAST JOURNALISM) May 2008 Copyright 2008 Delana Georgianna Gbenekama ii DEDICATION This master’s thesis is for my mom and dad, who have always believed that I can accomplish anything; my godfather, who has always supported me in every endeavor; my sister, whose unconditional love has inspired me to be a better person; my brother, who has always pushed me to go after what I want; and my closest friends, who have encouraged me and expressed interest in my work. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank the people who took time out of their busy schedules to sit through interviews and informational sessions with me. I also want to thank the faculty members who gave me suggestions and guided me through this process. This story would not be complete without your help. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication……………………………………………………………………......ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………...iii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………..v Article…………………………………………………………………………….1 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….23 v ABSTRACT Reports of women abusing their male partners are on the rise. From 1994 to 2005, the number of U.S. men who reported abuse to police has increased from 48 percent to 64 percent. Studies by researchers on male victims have only begun and are estimated to be at least 30 years behind studies on female victims. Men are less likely than women to report abuse to authorities, most frequently citing privacy as a reason. Prosecutors and police do less investigating when men are victims, and it is unfair that abused men who do report abuse have a tougher time getting their voices heard. 1 INCREASING REPORTS OF MALE VICTIMIZATION It is a Saturday night and Bill, who lives in Tennessee, accompanies his wife of three months, along with her siblings, to dinner and a nightclub. But their date quickly turns sour as his wife’s behavior begins to change after hours of drinking alcohol with her family. Weary of her drunkenness and insults, Bill leaves for home without her. What happens shortly after his wife’s return home remains the most vivid memory of his marriage. His wife repeatedly punches and charges at him. Bill grows tired of blocking her blows and restrains his wife by forcing her to the floor, face-up, sitting on top of her until she calms down. But she does not. And then Bill, who does not want his last name published, feels the worst rush of pain he has ever experienced. He watches in surprise as his wife’s mouth fills up with his blood as she bites down on and tightly clinches his finger between her teeth. That was 10 years ago. Their eight- year marriage, which was plagued by similar incidents, ultimately ends in divorce. Reports of women abusing their male partners are on the rise. From 1994 to 2005, the number of U.S. men who reported abuse to police has increased from 48 percent to 64 percent, according to a Department of Justice report, “Intimate Partner Violence in the U.S.” The report is based on statistics compiled by the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2 In California, the number of women arrested for committing domestic violence against their male partners has increased from 6 percent of domestic violence arrests in 1988 to 20 percent in 2006, according to statistics by the California Department of Justice. Studies by researchers on male victims have only begun and are estimated to be at least 30 years behind studies of female victims, said Denise A. Hines, a research professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. who specializes in family violence. “We don’t really have anything out there on men who sustain partner violence,” she said. “We have a handful perhaps of descriptive studies,” said Hines who added that there is little grant support for that type of research. “And there’s nothing on women who use violence. We don’t know anything about them.” Men are less likely than women to report abuse to authorities, most frequently citing privacy as a reason, according to the Justice Department. “Male victims, in general, do not want to go down on paper as being a wuss or a weakling,” said Detective Robin Jones of the Los Angeles Police Department, who specializes in domestic violence and has been on the police force for 13 years. “It takes a whole lot more work to get legit male victims to come forward, because they are afraid of being arrested, afraid of not being believed, and afraid of being looked at like they don’t have their manhood.” 3 Some lawyers believe that police officers do not always treat male and female victims of abuse equally. Beat cops have a lot of prejudices, but they won’t tell you that on the record, said Lupe Zamorano-Reagin, a deputy public defender for Los Angeles County. “In my conversations with police, they admit that there’s still the gender bias, and they feel that a guy can take a slap or a small hit from a girl, so they don’t actually file it as a crime,” she said. Sometimes police do not arrest the woman or the district attorney does not file a case. Nan Whitfield, a deputy public defender for Los Angeles County, said that men are less likely to cooperate with the courts and that women aggressors are usually acquitted. “Juries have a greater sympathy for women when women batter men,” she said. “In terms of violent crimes, women get a much fairer shake in the system unless the crime is committed against their own children,” said Whitfield, an attorney for 20 years. Prosecutors and police do less investigating when men are victims, and it is unfair that abused men who do report abuse have a tougher time getting their voices heard, said Whitfield. But LAPD officers say that they are trained to move beyond prejudices toward men and that officers who discriminate against men face punishments ranging from being issued a written warning to being suspended. 4 “Recruits get 14 hours of classroom training for domestic violence,” said Officer Don Wynne, an instructor at the police academy. Recruits also take a cultural diversity course that teaches them how to handle cases involving men, though women are the majority of abuse victims, said Wynne. INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE RESEARCH AND DEBATE The results of recent studies focusing on male victims that researchers have conducted suggest that women can be just as violent as men in romantic relationships. “Women start violence as often if not more often than men…,” said John Hamel, a Northern-California-based researcher and licensed clinical social worker who is the author of the book “Gender Inclusive Treatment of Intimate Partner Violence.” In a May 2007 study on violence differences in relationships published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers found that about 24 percent of dating and marital relationships involved violence. Half of those abusive relationships involved reciprocal violence, where both partners hit each other. In relationships involving non-reciprocal violence, where only one partner hit the other, the CDC researchers found that women were the perpetrators 71 percent of the time. As in many such cases, the violence between Bill and his wife was reciprocal. He did hit her after she tried to bite off the tip of his finger. He also hit her when she withdrew all his earnings from his own bank account and refused to give him half. 5 Despite research findings, a debate exists among professionals in the domestic violence field who disagree about how abusive women can be toward men. Some researchers point out that women use violence at the same rates as men. But they do acknowledge that women sustain injuries at higher rates, because men are physically capable of inflicting more bodily injury than women. They also acknowledge that women are by far more sexually abused by intimate partners than are men, according to Hamel. But some experts and women’s advocates say that patriarchy is a major contributor to abuse, disputing results that suggest equal violence rates. They say researchers who suggest equal violence rates use a flawed method of measuring violence, the Conflict Tactics Scale. The Conflict Tactics Scale, they say, measures frequency of violence but fails to take into account women’s motives for using violence, such as reacting to sexual abuse or patriarchal traditions that encourage male dominance over women. “What we look for in domestic violence is a pattern. … If you ask about hit for hit, yes women hit as often as men,” said marriage and family therapist Alyce LaViolette, founder of Alternatives to Violence, an organization based in Long Beach, Calif., that facilitates court-approved domestic violence courses. 6 But proponents of the Conflict Tactics Scale say it measures exactly what it sets out to measure, adding that it is one of the most valid and reliable measures in social science. “There are lots of criticisms against it, because the criticisms are based on what it doesn’t measure. But the things that it doesn’t measure, you can use a different measure to find out. …you can use measures of context and use that in combination with the CTS,” said Hines. Some women’s advocates assert that most women are violent in response to abuse by their male partners. “There are a lot of women hitting in self-defense and if you don’t know why they’re hitting, how would you know that was an act of violence against men?” said LaViolette. “I’ve been working in this field for 32 years, and I have seen only one or two men who were truly battered.” But some domestic violence practitioners balk at the claim that women’s violence is only reactionary. “You can’t claim that women are only violent in self-defense,” said Hamel. “Both men and women use self-defense, but it’s not a predominate motive for violence. So, maybe 10 to 20 percent of the time, violence would be in self-defense for both men and women,” said Hamel. 7 Los Angeles County law enforcement officials and judicial officers contacted for this story assert that about 90 percent of domestic violence cases they come across with female defendants involve women retaliating against men. “The common thread in all the cases where the woman is a defendant, a high majority of the women are victims of abuse themselves by the alleged male victim in their new case,” said Los Angeles County Superior Court Commissioner Collette Serio, who presides over misdemeanor cases. But “there has been an increase in male victims. I’ve been at the domestic violence dedicated court … over 10 years and there has been a marked increase in women defendants, but still it’s a low percentage compared to our total case load,” she said. Researchers investigating male victims and the female partners that abuse them still have a long row to plow. They are decades behind in research and are slow to catch up, according to researcher Denise A. Hines. “It’s a social problem and it might not be as big as domestic violence against women, but the extent of the problem is not based on how big it is relative to another problem,” she said. “So, we say that heart disease is a significant problem, but just because fewer people die from cancer than from heart disease doesn’t mean that we don’t study cancer. Just because it might not be as prevalent as domestic violence against women doesn’t mean that it’s not worth looking into and that men aren’t suffering…” 8 A HIDDEN SHAME Throughout Bill’s marriage, the physical abuse took many forms. A few times his wife slapped his glasses off his face and stomped them to pieces. She also went after him with a baseball bat and with a steak knife, according to Bill. He recalled the embarrassment he suffered when carrying physical signs of the abuse, which he tried to conceal by applying makeup. “She used to scratch the **** out of my face,” he said in a telephone interview, “and it’s hard to go to work as a professional and you have to make up stories about being scratched by the dog or something. If she punched you, you have to come up with an excuse that you got hit by a softball. It got to the point where I got really good at it.” Like many men, he failed to report abuse to police. From 2001 to 2005, 39 percent of men compared to 22 percent of women did not report their partners to police after an incident of abuse and cited privacy as a reason, according to the Justice Department’s report, “Intimate Partner Violence in the U.S.” There’s much more shame for male victims and much more reluctance to talk about it because it isn’t supposed be happening and it is socially unacceptable for a man to say that he was a victim, said Lisa Firestone, a clinical psychologist who works for a Santa Barbara, Calif., organization that specializes in violence research. 9 In her experiences, most men do not report abuse until they need medical treatment, said Detective Jones of the LAPD. “When they require paramedics is when they’ll call police,” she said. But a lot of times someone else calls for them. When Bill’s finger got infected after his wife tried to bite the tip off, he finally sought medical attention, but he lied and said he had shut his finger in a car door. Even though he had to seek medical treatment, he still did not report the incident to the police. ALCOHOL ABUSE AMONG CONTRIBUTING FACTORS TO PARTNER VIOLENCE Legal experts say the reasons women lash out against their male partners vary. “The reasons women state are often issues of infidelity, issues of finances because the other party may not be working, may be drinking away or spending their money on drugs, “ said Deputy District Attorney Lee Mitchell. “It may be drug-related on both sides of the case where both people actually do drugs… Alcohol is often involved, and there are just sometimes rage issues and people get angry at some rather miniscule domestic item and can’t control their anger, so they strike out.” “Alcohol does play a big part in violence, and it certainly does in partner violence as well,” said Firestone. Alcohol abuse was a factor that led to the downfall of Juan Antonio Guzman Jr.’s marriage. His wife, Francis Juarez Guzman, lashed out at him when she was intoxicated and also when she became jealous. 10 Only once during their six-year marriage did Guzman, who lives in Los Angeles, hit his wife, and he maintains that he was only protecting himself. That was after she became drunk at a Thanksgiving gathering at Guzman’s mother’s house. Guzman insisted they go home, because he did not want his mother to see how his wife’s behavior changed when she became drunk. Juarez refused to leave, started pushing and hitting Guzman as he walked away to avoid getting into a fight. As she continued striking him in the back as he walked away, angry, he turned around and hit her in the face. Guzman first met the love of his life, Francis Juarez, nine years ago at a friend’s house. And after dating for eight months, the two of them were in love and decided to marry. He never imagined that Juarez would commit violent acts against him that ranged from pushing and striking him to lunging at him with scissors and eventually trying to kill him. “One of the problems we had was she could not control herself when she was drinking,” he said of Juarez, who sometimes arrived home drunk around 2 or 3 a.m. After three years of marriage, Juarez was jailed in 2003 for three days during the Christmas holidays for kicking, scratching and throwing things at Guzman after he had told her several times that he did not want to continue their troubled relationship, according to Guzman. But being jailed once was not enough to stop Juarez, who was intent on maintaining a relationship with Guzman, who had separated from her shortly after the 2003 arrest. 11 In 2004, on New Year’s Day, intoxicated, she parked her car outside of Guzman’s home, called him on her cellular phone and demanded he come outside to speak with her. He refused. But when she threatened to vandalize his truck, he rushed outside. But it was too late and she had already begun dragging her keys along each side of his new truck, plucking up its paint. He quickly pushed her away from his vehicle. While arguing with Guzman, Juarez made a phone call to the police, warning them that she would kill her husband if they did not show up right away at his home. She then grabbed a crowbar from her car, swinging and hitting him before he took it away. Still enraged, she went back to her car, turned the key in the ignition and pushed down on the gas pedal, speeding toward Guzman, who was standing near his truck. Guzman’s mother, who had darted outside to see what was happening, ran in front of him, her youngest son, to protect him. Guzman pushed his mother out of harm’s way. Juarez hit the brakes, bringing her car to a halt for a moment, and then sped away. Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Anthony S. Jones, who issues restraining orders in civil cases, said the number of men requesting protective orders against their female partners has increased. “I think the whole issue of domestic violence is more prominent now,” said Jones, who is not related to LAPD Detective Robin Jones. “More people are aware of it, and more people are becoming aware that the court has services to offer. So, we are seeing more men coming in,” said Jones, who has been a commissioner for 13 years. 12 During the course of his six-year marriage, Guzman went to court twice to request restraining orders against his wife, whose behavior he said sometimes frightened him. He recalled how one night he awoke to find Juarez crying. When he asked her what was wrong, according to Guzman, she said: “You know what? I love you so much, and you know that I’m a jealous person. And one thing I wouldn’t like is for you to go with another woman. And I’m crying because there’s some times I feel that I want to kill you, because I don’t want you with nobody else.” Police arrested Juarez after the New Year’s Day incident. She was arrested on felony charges of what the court refers to as making a terrorist threat, which includes an unequivocal threat to commit a crime that will result in death or great bodily injury and causes the victim to fear for his safety, according to the court documents. The district attorney brought against Juarez two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one felony count of vandalism. After agreeing to a plea bargain, Juarez pleaded no contest to the felony count of vandalism. She was sentenced to six months in county jail and was placed on 60 months of probation. Recounting the violence in his relationship brings back bad memories for Guzman. “In the beginning of the relationship I thought things were going to get better and things were going to change later down the road and we would be able to build a family together and have our own things.” Guzman also said that he was hurt emotionally by his ex-wife’s actions. 13 “I think there are many overlaps in terms of post-traumatic stress and that it eats away at their self-esteem,” said Lisa Firestone, the clinical psychologist in Santa Barbara. “The reactions all depend, but certainly, even if you’re not afraid physically of your partner, there’s the emotional issue of ‘Here’s my partner who’s supposed to love me and now she’s abusing me.’ I don’t think that doesn’t make an impression on anybody.” Guzman attributes his ex-wife’s behavior to her drinking problem and troubled childhood. She has many brothers, one of whom was frequently abused by their father, who was a heavy drinker, according to Guzman. Bill’s ex-wife also has a troubled past. She and her siblings were raised in a violent home by an alcoholic father, whose addictive behavior was repeated by her and her siblings, two of whom Bill said died from alcohol-related illnesses. Bill’s ex-wife, who suffered from bouts of depression, had abused cocaine, which Bill said he found out about toward the end of their marriage. “It’s the way that alcohol interferes with our brain chemistry that makes it the most dangerous drug in terms of domestic violence, in terms of violence and suicide,” said Firestone. 14 “The limbic brain, the part of the brain that motivates people to eat, drink and have sex, gets reinforced by alcohol,” said Dr. Matthew A. Torrington, medical director of the Prometa Center in Santa Monica, Calif., an organization that treats people with substance abuse problems. “It starts to think that it’s more important to drink alcohol than to eat, drink and have sex. … A person may have never thought of hurting or killing themselves or someone, but alcohol makes one so depressed that they are able to think of committing violent acts.” Many people who have substance dependence suffer from psychiatric illnesses, such as depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder or compulsivity, said Torrington. Genetic susceptibility and the environment in which ones grows up are two of many factors that determine whether or not people become violent when intoxicated. AGENCIES BECOMING MALE CONSCIOUS Studies indicate that fewer abused men contact outside agencies, such as shelters, for assistance than do abused women. From 2001 to 2005, 9 percent of male victims of intimate partner violence compared to 23 percent of female victims contacted outside agencies for help, according to the Justice Department. Neither Bill nor Guzman contacted domestic violence agencies, but men who do seek services from agencies like shelters, domestic violence organizations and hotlines have at times been met with discrimination. 15 Jan Brown said she was inspired more than 10 years ago to begin a hotline for men after unsuccessfully searching for supportive services for a male relative who had been abused by his significant other. “I just wanted men to realize that this was a place for them,” said Brown, who in October 2000 founded the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men, which she later renamed the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women. Her nonprofit organization, which is based in Harmony, Maine, refers men to domestic violence shelters and does court advocacy on their behalf. “I’m a feminist, and I believe in equality. I don’t think that one group should have more rights than others,” said Brown, who co-wrote the study titled “Characteristics of Callers to the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men.” Since the line began, men have been increasingly calling for help, said Brown. When the hotline first began in 2000, it received about one call a day. Today, the hotline receives between 260 calls and 290 calls per day, 95 percent of which are from men in abusive relationships or from their family members calling on their behalves, she said. Part of the increasing call volume can be attributed to the organization’s ability to better promote its Web site and its phone book debut in 2004, according to Brown. Her quest to assist male victims of intimate partner violence has not been an easy task. When she began a volunteer training course to learn how to operate a domestic abuse hotline, the instructors focused on support for female victims and discouraged her from considering male victimization, she said. 16 “I’ve been written off as an abuser supporter when that is so far from the truth. But I’ve seen a big change over the last two years. I’ve gotten calls from different domestic violence groups. …People are starting to open up and are thinking they got to do something. They are starting to see the need...” The organization aspires to open a shelter or transitional housing in Maine, to increase public awareness and to generate more revenue so it can better help victims. Los Angeles County has one shelter that offers on-site housing support for men: Valley Oasis, in Lancaster, Calif. It has opened its doors to men for the past 19 years, said Executive Director Carol Crabson. “We’re one of the only shelters in Southern California that takes men and teenage boys over the age of 13,” said Lorraine Hines, program manager at Valley Oasis, who is of no relation to researcher Denise A. Hines. The shelter offers a 60-day emergency program for victims who have become homeless as a result of abuse. It also provides services that include counseling, case management, court accompaniment and referrals for medical services. The shelter not only serves men in California, but it also accepts men from other states that may not offer local services. The availability of beds for people seeking shelter, regardless of their sex, are offered on a first-come-first-served basis, said Hines. 17 “What I have encountered is people just being surprised that we do take men, and being surprised that we do take teenage boys over the age of 13. People are actually shocked that men can be victims, but they are,” she said. Not only do some shelters not accept men, but they also do not accept boys aged 13 and above, said Hines. Some shelters maintain that they cannot house both males and females, because of possible sexual activity. But Valley Oasis’s successful housing of both men and women is testament that serving both genders is possible. The shelter has separate cottages for men and its staff is available for 24 hours, 7 days a week, to monitor the location, said Hines. “Shelters have to open up their doors and find a way. It is difficult. I’m not sitting up here telling you that it’s not hard to manage that piece. It is, but I think the end justifies the means,” she said. “People are people.” ENDING THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE Mental health professionals say couples can avoid violence in their relationships by taking couples’ counseling and parenting courses. Psychotherapist Marc Sadoff, founder of the Los Angeles-based Pacific Skills Training Co., teaches a one-day communication workshop for couples who frequently have heated arguments but want to learn better communication skills. He also holds private counseling sessions for couples with more complicated underlying issues, such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. 18 “If people learn how to listen better, it will prevent violence,” said Sadoff, whose technique is partly rooted in his training in PREP (Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program), a divorce prevention program, and the teachings of John Gottman, who Sadoff called the king of all marital research. In his course, Sadoff uses a metaphor that he calls, “first pants, then socks, then shoes,” to help people respond to their partners in the most constructive way when their significant others are angry with them, according to Sadoff. The first step is to put on the right pant leg, which is admitting responsibility for what you may have done to upset your partner. Putting on the second pant leg, said Sadoff, requires validating your partner’s feelings. The second step, wearing your socks, requires a promise of action or what you’re going to do about the problem and may also include an apology or regret statement. The final step is wearing your shoes, which is stating your point of view. “Those kinds of skills are good for any marriage or any relationship. You don’t have to already have pre-existing anger management problems.” 19 It is a generally accepted practice in the marriage and family therapy field that counselors not accept couples who are involved in abusive relationships, said Sadoff. It is for that reason that Pacific Skills Training Co. does not accept couples who have a history of violence in their relationship into the program. Communication skills, said Sadoff, cannot solve a violence problem. People who are violent should be enrolled in group treatment programs like an anger management course or domestic violence course to deal with their behavior before seeking out couples counseling. Firestone, the psychologist, suggests that targeting parents would help prevent a lot of violent tendencies from passing on to children. “I think if we really were going to do the ultimate in violence prevention, we’d do parents groups,” she said. “And we’d help parents, really high-risk parents like underage parents. I think there’s a lot we can do so that we’d never have to deal with that sort of work afterwards.” Researchers have found that factors that increase the likelihood of children using violent conflict resolution as adults in their romantic relationships include exposure to violence between parents and excessive punishment that is physical, power assertive and inconsistent, according to the 2003 study “Intergenerational Transmission of Partner Violence: A 20-Year Prospective Study” by the American Psychological Association. 20 Bill’s daughter, who was about 4 years old when the marriage ended, had witnessed arguments between her parents. But Bill said he will teach his daughter, who lives with him, that the type of behavior she witnessed is abnormal. “It gets confusing for people who grow up in a home with people who are supposed to love them and are also violent toward them or they also witness violence,” said Firestone. “Our brains are ‘socially wiring’ in our first couple of years of life. We have very adaptive brains and we adapt to the environment that we are presented with. Those two things are mixed, are confusing in our childhood, and we may retain that kind of image of a part of love includes violence.” One organization called Break the Cycle, a non-profit, law-based organization with offices both in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., has taken the initiative to educate youth about abuse through their prevention program called “Ending the Violence.” “It is a three-session curriculum that deals with the dynamics of dating violence,” said Liza Lorenz, the director of programs. “It deals with issues around what legal options young people have who are victims of dating violence and how to hold abusers accountable through the law, it goes through the process of obtaining a restraining order, and it talks about safety planning and healthy relationships.” Break the Cycle reaches youth ages 12 to 24 across the country. 21 “If we can teach them what a healthy relationship looks like or intervene on an unhealthy relationship in an early age, then they won’t have to spend their whole lives in an abusive relationship,” Lorenz said. “There are far too many people who are in abusive relationships and don’t find their way out of them until they’re middle-aged and have lived that way their whole lives. And I think working with young people to try and prevent it to begin with, or at least intervene early enough to change lives, is critical.” But for adults who are already violent toward their intimate partners, there are treatment programs that can help them address their problems. Los Angeles County Superior Court Commissioner Serio says that women convicted of domestic abuse can benefit from court-ordered classes. “Violence is a learned behavior, and I think the only way to break the cycle of violence is to have counseling as part of the condition of probation,” she said. “Many defendants don’t know how to deal with frustration, disappointment, financial problems, lack of a job, and they take it out on their significant other by way of violence. So, counseling is critical, because it deals with anger management type issues. We’re not talking psychotherapy here or heavy duty counseling. It’s dealing with everyday issues of life and how we deal with anger and frustration,” said Serio. The Los Angeles Superior Court offers two types of counseling courses: domestic violence, which is a weekly two-hour session, and anger management, which is a weekly one-hour session that domestic violence offenders must attend for 52 weeks. 22 Anger management courses are less comprehensive than domestic violence counseling and are intended for people who may threaten their partners as opposed to actually injuring them, said Serio. Serio also said that the usual sentencing in the misdemeanor cases she handles can be three years of summary probation or a jail sentence, if defendants are in custody. She also requires twelve-step meetings, if alcohol or drugs were involved, and a victim restitution fee. Some mental health experts believe programs need to be specifically designed for violent women, as opposed to unisex programs. “I don’t think that we’ve really developed necessary solutions that we know are going to work with women. We just take the paradigms we developed for what’s going to work for men and applied it to women,” said Firestone, who compared it to medical professionals’ failure to recognize heart disease accurately in women because they think of it as a male problem. 23 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bill. Personal Interview. 28 November 2007. Brown, Jan. Personal Interview. 21 November 2008. California. Department of Justice. Report on Arrests for Domestic Violence in California, 1998 1(1999): 1-21. 7 Oct. 2007. <http://ag.ca.gov/cjsc/publications/misc/dv98.pdf>. California. Superior Court. The People of the State of California Vs. Francis Juarez. Los Angeles, 2004. Cascardi, Michele, and Dina Vivian. “Context for Specific Episodes of Marital Violence: Gender and Severity of Violence Differences.” Journal of Family Violence 10 (1995): 265-93. Crabson, Carol. Personal Interview. 18 February 2008. Ehrensaft, Miriam K., et al. “Intergenerational Transmission of Partner Violence: A 20-Year Prospective Study.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 71 (2003): 741-53. Feder, Lynette, and Kris Henning. “A Comparison of Male and Female Dually Arrested Domestic Violence Offenders.” Violence and Victims 20 (2005): 153- 71. Firestone, Lisa. Personal Interview. 13 November 2007. Guzman, Juan Antonio Jr. Personal Interview. 4 February 2008. Hamel, John. Personal Interview. 1 December 2007. Hamel, John. Gender Inclusive Treatment of Intimate Partner Violence. New York: Springer, 2005. Hines, Denise A. Personal Interview. 5 November 2007. Hines, Denise A., Jan Brown, and Edward Dunning. “Characteristics of Callers to the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men.” Journal of Family Violence 22 (2007): 63-72. Hines, Lorraine. Personal Interview. 7 November 2007. 24 Jones, Anthony S. Personal Interview. 8 February 2008. Jones, Robin. Personal Interview. 5 January 2008. LaViolette, Alyce. Personal Interview. 27 November 2007. Lorenz, Liza. Personal Interview. 9 November 2007. Mitchell, Lee. Personal Interview. 29 January 2008. Sadoff, Marc. Personal Interview. 8 November 2008. Serio, Collette. Personal Interview. 31 January 2008. Torrington, Matthew A. Personal Interview. 7 January 2008. United States. Department of Justice. Intimate Partner Violence in the U.S. 19 Dec. 2007. 23 Nov. 2007. <http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/intimate/ipv.htm#contents>. Waldner-Haugrud, Lisa K. and Brian Magruder. “Male and Female Sexual Victimization in Dating Relationships: Gender Differences in Coercion Techniques and Outcomes.” Violence and Victims 10 (1995): 203-15. Whitaker, Daniel J., et al. “Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships with Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence.” American Journal of Public Health 97 (2007): 941-47. Whitfield, Nan. Personal Interview. 25 January 2008. Wynne, Don. Personal Interview. 8 January 2008. Zamorano-Reagin, Lupe. Personal Interview. 31 January 2008.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Reports of women abusing their male partners are on the rise. From 1994 to 2005, the number of U.S. men who reported abuse to police has increased from 48 percent to 64 percent. Studies by researchers on male victims have only begun and are estimated to be at least 30 years behind studies on female victims. Men are less likely than women to report abuse to authorities, most frequently citing privacy as a reason. Prosecutors and police do less investigating when men are victims, and it is unfair that abused men who do report abuse have a tougher time getting their voices heard.

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Creator Gbenekama, Delana Georgianna (author)

Core Title Male reports of abuse in romantic relationships on the rise

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Journalism (Broadcast Journalism)

Publication Date 10/15/2008

Defense Date 03/26/2008

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag domestic violence,intimate partner violence,male victims abuse,OAI-PMH Harvest

Place Name USA (countries)

Language English

Advisor Pryor, Lawrence (committee chair), Parks, Michael (committee member), Trickett, Penelope K. (committee member)

Creator Email gbenekam@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1109

Unique identifier UC1108163

Identifier etd-Gbenekama-20080415 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-51221 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1109 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Gbenekama-20080415.pdf

Dmrecord 51221

Document Type Thesis

Rights Gbenekama, Delana Georgianna

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu