https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-domestic-a...

Domestic abuse cuts differently for women and men

Supporting survivors 'should not be a zero-sum game' in which only one gender receives empathy, says noted researcher and Simon Fraser University criminologist Alexandra Lysova

      In escalating spousal conflicts, it’s also often noted that women tend to endure the most severe kinds of physical violence, including homicide, in part because men are often stronger.

    What is not so well known, however, is that males are more likely to be recipients of different kinds of spousal violence — such as slapping, kicking, biting and hitting with the fist. Men also more often experience emotional abuse when their jealous spouses try to limit their contact with friends or family, or demand to know who they were with and where they were at all times.

   Lysova peeled back the layers of Canada’s General Social Survey data on intimate partner violence (IPV), and she and her colleagues have uncovered that 418,000 Canadian males and 341,000 females report being victims of physical or sexual spousal violence.

 Lysova emphasizes that supporting survivors “should not be a zero-sum game” in which only one gender receives empathy.  

     Another spousal violence survey, created by American psychologist Denise Hines, looked at additional ways that women and men are domestic victims, including of legal and administrative aggression.

       While Hines has found females are more likely to report being called names or prevented access to family income, male spouses more often said their partner tried to control their every move or denied them access to their children.