Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

194 WHO STOLE FEMINISM?one every 15 seconds. (Mary McGrory, Washington Post, October 20,1987)Domestic violence affects an estimated 4 to 5 million women a year.Every 15 seconds, an American woman is abused by her partner.(Christian Science Monitor, October 12, 1990)There are 3 million to 4 million women beaten by husbands orlovers every year; that's one every 15 seconds. (Chicago Tribune,February 10, 1992)Richard J. Gelles and Murray A. Straus are academic social scientists(from the University of Rhode Island and the University of New Hampshire,respectively) who have been studying domestic violence for morethan twenty-five years. Their research is among the most respected andfrequently cited by other social scientists, by police, by the FBI, and bythe personnel in domestic violence agencies.For a long time, Gelles and Straus were highly regarded by feministactivists for the pioneer work they had done in this once-neglected area.But they fell out of favor in the late 1970s because their findings were notinformed by the "battery is caused by patriarchy" thesis. The fact thatthey were men was also held against them.Gelles and Straus do find high levels of violence in many Americanfamilies; but in both of their national surveys they found that womenwere just as likely to engage in it as men. They also found that siblingsare the most violent of all. 24They distinguish between minor violence,such as throwing objects, pushing, shoving, and slapping (no injuries, noserious intimidation), and severe violence, such as kicking, hitting ortrying to hit with an object, hitting with fist, beating up, and threateningwith gun or knife—actions that have a high probability of leading toinjury or are accompanied by the serious threat of injury. The vast majorityof family disputes involve minor violence rather than severe violence.In their 1985 Second National Family Violence Survey, sponsored by theNational Institute of Mental Health, they found that 16 percent of coupleswere violent—the "Saturday Night Brawlers" (with the wife just as likelyas the husband to slap, grab, shove, or throw things). In 3 to 4 percent ofcouples, there was at least one act of severe violence by the husbandagainst the wife. But in their surveys they also found that "women assaulttheir partners at about the same rate as men assault their partners. Thisapplies to both minor and severe assaults." 25