Experts and advocates for victims of domestic violence are challenging a new study from the Oregon Social Learning Center which finds that young women are more likely than young men to initiate physical aggression with their partners. Although the study itself has not yet been released, its findings and principal researcher, Deborah Capaldi, have been the subject of several media stories. According to these reports, the study claims that women are likely to initiate or engage in mutual aggression with their partners, that women are at higher risk for violence when they are physically aggressive towards their partners and that young men reduce their aggressive behavior with less-aggressive women.

"This study sends the dangerous and incorrect message that women are responsible for the abuse they suffer because their behavior somehow encourages violence," said Family Violence Prevention Fund President Esta Soler. "Those of us who work to stop abuse and help victims know that this is not the case. This conversation really goes to the definition of domestic violence. Certainly, all violence is wrong regardless of who is the perpetrator. But domestic violence is not one person pushing another person one time. Domestic violence occurs when there is an ongoing pattern of fear, intimidation and violent assault. It is simply wrong to suggest that victims are ever responsible for provoking or encouraging that kind of violence."

Many advocates are concerned that the study blames victims of domestic violence for the abuse they face, and paints a misleading picture about the dynamics of abuse. In abusive relationships, they say, batterers engage in a pattern of control and dominance over their partners that is based on fear and often includes physical, verbal and psychological abuse. Advocates also point to the preponderance of research that illustrates that women are the victims of domestic violence significantly more often than men, and that women are more likely than men are to be severely injured or killed as a result of intimate partner violence.

"It is very clear that the vast majority of domestic violence injuries occur when husbands and boyfriends assault their wives and girlfriends," continued Soler. "That is why our energy and resources must be directed at preventing assaults and helping the women and children who are the primary victims of family violence."

Blaming Victims of Intimate Partner Violence

On Tuesday, June 24, Capaldi appeared on the MSNBC show Scarborough Country, where she said that her study does not blame victims of domestic violence. "I haven't claimed there has been an increase in domestic violence," she said. "I have said that women are involved in mutual aggression with partners, that women have been observed to initiate it and have reported initiating violence...and that in order to protect women from their greater likelihood of injury, they should not engage in physical aggression with men...If they are frequently physically violent to their partner, they stand a higher chance of being injured and being more severely injured."

Capaldi added that, by being physically aggressive, women send "the wrong message" to their partners that "physical aggression is OK in this relationship. It's been shown that women can be frequently physically aggressive to their partners, that they can engage in high frequency of physical aggression."

Domestic violence expert and author Andrew Klein, a former probation officer, also appeared on the program. Klein challenged the study, criticizing its findings and basic premise. "What it's saying is that women are responsible for being abused because they're abusive or aggressive in relationships. And it's basically a real misstatement of what domestic violence is all about. It sort of presupposes incorrectly that domestic violence is a result of a conflict between a man and a woman that gets out of hand, when in fact we know that's not true."

"You're assuming that domestic violence is caused by provocative women who are attacked by men who are provoked, and that's just not what's happening out there," Klein added. "Domestic violence, the kind we see in courts...is not people getting in mutual fights and pushing or slapping or pinching each other. It's the kind of assaults that land people in hospital, that break bones and that land people in the morgue. And that is predominantly female victims of male intimate partners."

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