Battered Wives vs Battered Husbands

Shortly after my mother was born immigrant couple had moved in to the farm next door. Like all immigrants they had their rows in thier native tounge. However, when the sound of thumping as well as screaming came across the fields, a half a mile away, my grandfather decided that it was time to interviene. He didn't want the wife being badly hurt.

Making his way accross the fields he looked in the window. The husband was flat on his back on the floor, the wife was sitting on his chest screaming her lungs out. And she had grabbed his hair and was banging his head on the floor with it. That was the thumping sound

The neibourhood stopped worrying about her welfare after that.

Almost a century later and things havent changed much.

The worst one I witnessed was a maniac girl who had cornered her boyfriend at the point of a kitchen knife and was screaming at him full blast. C mon ya gutless %^&* Hit me. Ya havent got the guts.

When she made another lunge at his he lifted a boot and shoved, (not kicked) her away. She promptly rang the police and tried to have him charged with wife bashing.

This illustrates the first point. Most people think that domestic violence and wife bashing are one and the same. In reality most domestics are pure screaming matches with the wife doing most of the screaming. A few are shovng matches with both parties shoving. And far fewer are either wife or husband bashings. When police are allowed to speak freely they will normally say that the gender abuse is fairly evenly matched.

Why then is it still assumed that ALL domestics are wife bashing?

A second point here is illustrated by Rowntree's "treat your man like you treat your dog" comment. Hsband bashing remains the only form of domestic violence that is socially acceptable on a large scale.

And a final point is also the definition of violence against women.

. Try this collection, of definitions of battered wives, from the Darebin Community Centre in Northcote.

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