Feminist Dominance in Domestic Violence Discussions
The problems of interpersonal and domestic violence are often defined in a manner prescribed by feminist thought. Women's shelters for neglected or abused women and children now in place did not exist in the early 1970s. Laws mandating the reporting of domestic violence are now in place in all of the states of the U.S. Discussions of domestic violence are nearly always of a feminist construct, largely due to statistics that show women as having a higher rate of victimization.
Women experience significantly more partner violence than men do: 25 percent of surveyed women, compared with 8 percent of surveyed men, said they were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date in their lifetime; 1.5 percent of surveyed women and 0.9 percent of surveyed men said they were raped and/or physically assaulted by such a perpetrator in the previous 12 months. According to survey estimates, approximately 1.5 million women and 834,700 men are raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States. Because women are also more likely to be injured by intimate partners, research aimed at understanding and preventing partner violence against women should be stressed.
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