Domestic Violence against Men by Women

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), intimate partner violence is one of the main risks to women's health worldwide. Men can also become victims of domestic violence; as well as female victims tend to present their injuries first to the family doctor or the emergency room. Domestic violence against men is thus a current topic for doctors of all specialties. Studies identified by the search provided prevalence rates of domestic physical violence against men ranging from 3.4% to 20.3%. Most affected men were violent towards their partners. 10.6-40% of them reported being abused or mistreated as children. Alcohol abuse, jealousy, mental illness, physical disability, and short relationship duration are associated with a higher risk of becoming a victim of domestic violence. Reported consequences of violence usually include minor physical injuries, impaired physical health, mental health problems such as anxiety or disruptive disorder, and increased use of alcohol and/or illegal drugs.

Perpetrator sex and presence of a physical disability predict judgements of intimate partner violence

“…An example of this is Sparks et al's (2023) recent investigation into fault-attribution in the context of infant homicide wherein mothers were judged more leniently than fathers; again, in heterosexual examples. Owing to men and women experiencing comparative impacts of IPV (Park, et al, 2021;Shrivastava & Muskan, 2022), this finding is of key importance, especially as it might further proliferate under recognition/reporting of IPV in male victims (Bates et al, 2019) and associated fear of blame (Heins et al, 2007;Wilson, 2006) and stigma around their perceived masculinity (Hine et al, 2022).…”

“…As men and women experience similar impacts of IPV (Park, et al, 2021;Shrivastava & Muskan, 2022), it is important to identify and understand broader circumstances where perpetrator characteristics influence societal attitudes.…”