Notes

The majority of studies that have assessed the victimization of men in marriages have compared these men to abused women. Researchers mostly have attempted to ascertain whether abused women experience more physical injuries than abused men. However, in this article we consider only the rate of physical injuries among men. Overall, as previously stated, the studies have clearly shown that abused women are at higher risk for physical injury than abused men. It should be emphasized, however, that these studies have also shown that abused men are at risk for physical injury as well.

For instance, Cascardi et al. (1992) found that 2% of the men who reported experiencing minor or severe spousal abuse reported suffering broken bones, broken teeth, or injury to a sensory organ. Similarly, Makepeace (1986) found that 2.2% of the males in his sample of 2,338 students reported sustaining a moderate or severe physical injury as a result of the dating violence they experienced. Finally, in an analysis of the results from the 1985 National Family Violence Survey, Stets and Straus (1990) found that 1% of the men who reported being severely assaulted needed medical attention.

The results of these studies are logical, considering the relative size of the average man compared with the average woman. Obviously, men can inflict more harm with their fists than women can, and they are more able to restrain an abusive partner than women are. Some researchers, however, have pointed out that sometimes women may even the score by throwing things that could hurt their partners (e.g., dishes, boiling water, or a frying pan) or by brandishing a weapon (Langley & Levy, 1977). Perhaps this explanation is a reason why Morse (1995) and Makepeace (1986). compared with the injury rates in the previously mentioned studies, found even higher rates of injury among men. Specifically, depending on the time period, 10.4%-19.6% of the abused men in Morse’s study sustained some type of injury at the hands of their wives (Morse, 1995). Similarly, Makepeace (1986) found that 17.9% of the abused men in his sample sustained a mild or moderate injury. These rates of injury for abused men are noteworthy because they confirm that men can be injured by women.

In addition, although sources vary in reported frequencies of different forms of violence, it is clear that the effects of women’s violence against men, like those of men’s violence against women, can be lethal. For example, using data from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI’s) Uniform Crime Reports, Supplemental Homicide Report (1994) to analyze homicides between marital partners in the United States from 1976 through 1985, Mercy and Saltzman (1989) found that “husbands and wives were nearly equal in the risk of spouse homicide victimization” (p. 597). Whereas Mercy and Sa1tzman focused on marital partners, Browne and Williams (1993) analyzed a broader set of relationships and noted that FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Supplemental Homicide Report data for 1980-1984 indicated that “whereas only 12 percent of male homicide victims were killed by a female partner, over one half — 52 percent — of all women murder victims were killed by male partners” (p. 81).

More recently the 1994 Uniform Crime Reports, Supplemental Homicide Report revealed that, in 1994 for homicides in which the victim-offender relationship was known, 31% (1,394) of female victims over the age of 12 and 4% (669) of male victims over the age of 12 were killed by an intimate. Although most of these statistics indicate that women are more likely to be killed by an intimate than men are, it cannot be denied that a substantial number of men are being murdered by their female partners — and, although some of these murders are undoubtedly in self-defense, there is no evidence that all of them are (e.g., Mann, 1988).

Psychological Effects

Because men tend to be at low risk of physical injury at the hands of their female partners, the most fruitful avenues to pursue in research exploring the effects of abuse against men are the psychological effects. The bulk of the research that has been done on the psychological effects of physical abuse against men has compared abused men to abused women on various psychological outcomes. These studies certainly have been valuable in highlighting the potential consequences of this abuse on men.

In a study comparing the psychological effects of physical abuse on men and women, Follingstad et al. (1991) found that, following physical abuse, approximately 75% of the abused men reported experiencing anger; nearly 40% reported being emotionally hurt; nearly 35% reported experiencing sadness or depression; nearly 30% reported seeking revenge; nearly 23% reported feeling the need to protect themselves; approximately 15% reported feeling shame or fear; and approximately 10% felt unloved or helpless. In addition, in her longitudinal study, Morse (1995) found that 9.5% of the younger males and 13.5% of the older males reported experiencing fear in their violent relationships.

Stets and Straus (1990) researched the extent and severity of depression, stress, and psychosomatic symptoms manifested in both rnale and female abuse victims. For both abused men and abused women, the higher the level of violence experienced, the more severe the depression, stress, and psychosomatic symptoms. In addition to comparing abused men to abused women, Srets and Straus also used a more appropriate comparison group, nonabused men. They found that abused men were significantly more likely to experience psychosomatic symptoms, stress, and depression than nonabused men — a result similar to that of Cascardi et al. (1992). who found that abused husbands had significantly greater levels of depression than nonabused husbands.

In a study that specifically addressed the issue of abuse against men, Simonelli and Ingram (1998) assessed psychological distress and depression among college men experiencing emotional or physical abuse in their present or most recent relationships. They found that 90% of their sample reported experiencing emotional abuse, 40% reported experiencing physical abuse, and 29% reported experiencing severe physical abuse. Psychological distress and depression were significantly greater in men who reported being the recipient of either physical or emotional abuse than in men reporting no abuse. In addition, being physically abused predicted 37% of the variance in depression, whereas being emotionally abused predicted 14%-33% of the variance in depression (depending on the emotional abuse scale used). Finally, being emotionally abused predicted 15%-16% of the variance in psychological distress. Thus, abused men appear to be at substantial risk for experiencing depression and psychological distress.

In sum, the results of these studies show that abused men are at risk for emotional hurt, fear, helplessness, anger, revenge seeking, sadness, shame and humiliation, depression, stress, psychological distress, and psychosomatic symptoms. However, these studies have a number of major weaknesses. First, the researchers focused primarily on internalizing symptoms, which women experience at two times the rate of men in the population as a whole; they did not examine more externalizing symptoms, such as alcoholism, that are more characteristic of a man’s reaction to stressful events (e.g., Comer, 1992). Second, they also did not assess other symptoms that have been found to be prevalent in women who are abused, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Walker, 1993), and suicidal, self-destructive, self-mutilating, and assaultive behaviors (Carmen et al., 1984). Third, because the focus of many of these studies was the relative victimization of abused females to abused males, they did not specifically address the psychological consequences of physical abuse against men. To gain a clearer picture of the consequences of abuse toward men, researchers need to study both the externalizing and internalizing behaviors of abused men compared with those of nonabused men. Fourth, these studies were all cross-sectional studies. It therefore is not possible to conclude that the physical abuse men experienced from their partners caused these symptoms. It could also be the case that men who experience these symptoms are more likely to be victimized by physical abuse or that a third variable is the cause of both the symptoms and the abuse. Without a longitudinal study, it is not possIble to draw any conclusions regarding causation. Finally, these studies did not separate men who only experienced abuse from those who both experienced and perpetrated abuse.

This last point as an important one to stress. None of the studies in the current literature seem to consider that the dynamics of a mutually abusive relationship may be very different from the dynamics of a relationship in which the man is the sole victim. When couples are involved in a mutually abusive relationship, the line between victim and perpetrator is unclear and constantly shifting. The causes and consequences of violence in these mutually combative relationships may be quite different from the causes and consequences of violence in relationships in which men refuse to fight back because of societal sanctions against hitting a woman,because of the potential damage they know that they could inflict (Steinmetz, 1977-1978), or because they are unable to (Langley & Levy, 1977).

For example, Langley and Levy (1977) reported an account of a police officer who called a crisis line to report that his wife beat him. As Langley and Levy relayed:

He ... said: “My woman drinks, and every Friday night when I come home, she just starts pounding on me ...” He said he’d been severely beaten up by her several times and that he was big enough to fight back but that he didn’t want to beat her, and didn’t know where to turn to solve his problem. He was very emotional. (pp. 189-190)

Langley and Levy (1977) also related the story of an elderly man who was married to a woman 31 years his junior who was severe1y battered by his wife for 14 years. He displayed several bruises and scars. One time his wife shredded his ear with her teeth, and she injured one of his eyes so badly that the doctor thought he might lose it. These men who are the sole victims of violence in their intimate relationships should be assessed separate1y from men involved in mutually abusive relationships because the psychological ramifications could be quite different.