Men are also victims of domestic abuse

The following is a letter from a Pattaya Mail reader which appeared in the December 16 Postbag section.

Domestic violence not a gender equality issue

Dear editors,

I’m writing regarding Michael Catalanello’s column on domestic violence in the December 9 issue of the Pattaya Mail.

Dr. Catalanello rightly pointed out that, like just about everywhere else in this world, domestic violence is rampant in Thailand. Unfortunately he perpetuates the canard that women are always victims, never perpetrators, of domestic violence.

In reality, in at least half of all cases, the perpetrators are women. Domestic violence is no more a “male problem” than it is a “blond problem” or a “gay problem” or a “left-handed problem.” Women batter their men with the same frequency, the same severity, and with broadly the same causes. Domestic violence rates do not significantly differ between heterosexual couples, lesbian couples and gay male couples. In short, it is not a gender equality issue.

The academic evidence for this is overwhelming and startlingly consistent, starting right from the landmark studies by Strauss, Gelles and Steinmetz to the National Family Violence Survey and National Violence Against Women Survey (!) in the United States, the Dunedin longitudinal study in New Zealand, and the annual statistics compiled by Statistics Canada. There is no room in this letter to list the hundreds of studies I could cite, but the scientific data are voluminous and publicly available, and they all point in one direction: Women are violent to their partners, on average, just as frequently and severely as men, if not more.

The study Dr. Catalanello cited simply assumed that only women were the victims, and did not bother to survey men about their suffering. This approach is typical.

A real solution to the problem of domestic violence will not be found until we start looking for the real causes of domestic violence, instead of twisting the facts into a stick to bludgeon men with.

Informed Reader
Jomtien

In my column appearing in the Pattaya Mail on December 9, 2005, I reported on two recently published studies of domestic violence in Thailand, one by the World Health Organization (WHO), and another by the Ministry of Public Health. The WHO study interviewed 24,000 women from both rural and urban settings in 10 countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, and the United Republic of Tanzania. The Ministry of Public Health study, likewise, focused upon violence against women and children. Both studies concluded that domestic violence is on the increase in Thailand.

I pointed out that experts in the field often point to gender inequality as an important factor in perpetuating and protecting the crime of domestic violence. For example, women in this society are often taught that it is a virtue to be submissive and accepting of male domination. Further, women who seek legal remedies for domestic abuse often encounter attitudes among public officials implying that domestic abuse is a private matter between the husband and wife.

A reader responding to my piece correctly pointed out that men, too, are often victims of domestic abuse. In fact, according to the reader, some studies have shown that men are victims of domestic abuse at the hands of women as frequently as are women at the hands of men. The reader evidently felt that I was being unfair by focusing exclusively on men’s abuse of women. He/she then reasoned that because domestic violence is found equally among heterosexual couples, lesbian couples and gay male couples, it could not be related to gender inequality.

A few points bear mentioning in this regard. First, domestic violence is not exclusively a problem of men abusing women. According to the research, women also abuse men, men abuse men, and women abuse women. Suffering produced as a result of domestic violence is suffering, regardless of the respective genders of the victim and perpetrator.

As for the relative frequency of episodes of man to woman violence versus woman to man violence, I am not aware of any studies addressing the question within Thai society, and I would be cautious in generalizing findings from the United States, New Zealand, and Canada to a society as different as that of Thailand.

I am not prepared to comment here on the methods and findings of the studies cited by the reader; however, there are some important distinctions to keep in mind in interpreting studies like these. For example, are those researchers adequately distinguishing between the initiation of violence, and violence performed in self-defense? Are they lumping together discrete episodes of violence with long-term patterns of abuse? Are they distinguishing between physical abuse and verbal/psychological abuse?

My colleague, psychologist Sombat Tapanya at Chiang Mai University has cited anecdotal reports that Thai females have become somewhat more “aggressive” in recent years, as compared to the past. He, likewise, observes that Thai women seem to favor using tactics involving psychological, rather than physical abuse against men. Obviously, questions like these could form the basis for further research on local domestic abuse which Dr. Sombat and I intend to pursue.

Finally, I fail to see the logic of concluding that if gay males and lesbians abuse their partners with equal frequency as heterosexual couples, gender inequality can not be a factor in promoting domestic abuse. That’s because even within gay male and lesbian partnerships, there is usually a partner who adopts a dominant “male” role, while the other partner adopts a submissive “female” role. Unequal gender expectations inherent in these culturally defined roles can often be observed, even within such partnerships.

As I pointed out, domestic abuse is a complex issue. Questions of what “causes” this unfortunate phenomenon are complicated. Furthermore, ethics and other practical limitations prevent us from carrying out the kind of research that would be needed to provide a definitive answer to the question of what causes domestic violence. Nevertheless, the evidence for gender inequality, particularly within Thai society, seems to me compelling. Certainly, not all individuals holding attitudes reflecting gender inequality end up in abusive relationships. It would be quite surprising, however, if the inferior status of women in Thai society were not somehow implicated in domestic abuse, whether perpetrated by men upon women, or by women upon men.

The death penalty debate: A case of emotion versus reason?

The high-profile and controversial execution last week of Stanley “Tookie” Williams in California, has reignited the public debate on issues surrounding the use of the death penalty. But will this new round of debate result in death penalty reform? Don’t count on it.

Williams was cofounder of the notorious Crips gang, reportedly implicated in countless killings and other criminal activity. He was convicted for the 1981 killing of convenience store clerk Albert Owens, 26, and Los Angeles motel owners Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63, and the couple's daughter Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43.

Over the years Williams has maintained his innocence in the murders. He, nevertheless, renounced his former life as a gang leader, and spent his time on death row writing children’s books about the dangers of gangs and a life of violence. For his efforts Williams received international acclaim, even being nominated for Nobel Prizes in peace and literature. In the end, however, even appeals on his behalf by international celebrities were not enough to enable him to escape death by lethal injection. Even celebrity Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to intervene to commute Williams’s sentence to life in prison.

Like many attitudes, those concerning the use of the death penalty, whether pro or con, are usually held quite firmly and passionately. The arguments on both sides are familiar. The logic of the arguments, however, does not always succeed in persuading, particularly those most affected by the crime. Research has demonstrated that emotions sometimes trump logic, particularly among those less educated or less analytical.

Some arguments, such as those based upon appeals to authority, religious, or cultural values, cannot be easily challenged by appeals to “facts,” or “evidence.” Bible passages, for example are sometimes used to defend capital punishment for murder. Few, however, would tolerate capital punishment for those engaging in premarital sex or adultery, although support for such punishments can also be found in passages from the Bible. The contradictory injunctions, “You shall not kill” and, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” are also Biblical.

Other arguments can be informed by research carried out by social scientists, and can be factually challenged and refuted. For example, the claim that it is less costly to execute a convicted criminal, than to incarcerate him for life has been investigated, and refuted. Likewise, the notion that the threat of execution acts as a deterrent to other would-be murderers has been found to be without empirical support. Nevertheless, such beliefs persist among the public, and arguments like these continue to be offered in support of capital punishment.

Death penalty advocates often correctly point out the harm experienced by the family and friends of the murder victim. A victim’s family members can often be seen attending the murder trial, applying whatever influence they can muster to obtain a conviction and maximum penalty against the accused. Some victims take the position that they cannot possibly achieve “closure,” find peace, and get on with their lives until they see their loved one’s murderer duly convicted and executed. The evidence of others who have done just that, despite a failure to receive “justice” for some reason, fails to persuade that nonviolent routes to achieving peace and closure are also available.

Death penalty advocates often base their arguments upon appeals for justice, a sort of balancing of the scales. They, nevertheless, appear to overlook the secondary trauma and suffering produced as a result of the offender’s execution. For example, innocent family members of the accused and convicted offender, already adversely affected by their loved one’s heinous crime, are further traumatized when the offender is subsequently killed by the state. It has also been demonstrated that those who serve on juries at capital trials are prone to suffer the effects of trauma as a result of their role in putting another human being to death. Witnesses to an execution have also experienced psychological distress as a result of the experience. Can the traumatization of other innocent people be considered a “just” outcome? Who is to determine when the requirements of justice are sufficiently fulfilled?

Our world is, after all, filled with injustice. One need not look far to see evidence of this fact. Death penalty advocates appear quite selective in their choice of injustices to attempt to rectify. If fighting injustice were truly the motivating principle behind death penalty advocacy, wouldn’t such proponents be equally vocal on other glaring injustices, such as poverty, hunger, and similar human right abuses? Viewed in this way, the use of appeals for justice as a rationale for capital punishment begin to appear more as rationalizations for further acts of violence, perhaps motivated by darker impulses, such as hostility and a desire for vengeance.

Crime is certainly not pretty. Murder is arguably the ugliest of all crimes. Those impacted by crimes are understandably affected emotionally, and anger is a quite natural human response to such events. Punishment and retribution, however, by no means guarantee a sense of closure, nor do they necessarily restore justice and dissipate anger. We have other more humane means at our disposal for resolving anger and for working toward social justice. Perhaps future societies will evolve away from the use violence as a response to violence. Perhaps we will begin to develop and make use of more creative alternatives available to us.

Airport shooting highlights human rights problems faced by people with mental illness

A man was shot to death by federal air marshals at a Miami airport last week. Media reports indicated that the man, Rigoberto Alpizar, an American citizen, ran from an aircraft after claiming to have a bomb in his backpack. No bomb was found.

It was later revealed that Mr. Alpizar may have been mentally ill, suffering from a bipolar disorder, and off his medication.

This copy of an undated family photo shows Costa Ricans Rigoberto Alpizar, right, and his brother Rolando Alpizar, left, and his sister-in-law Violeta Castro, center, outside their home in Costa Rica. Alpizar, a passenger who claimed to have a bomb in his backpack was shot and killed by a federal air marshal Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2005, after he bolted frantically from an American Airlines jetliner that was boarding for take off at Miami International Airport. No bomb was found. (AP Photo/Courtesy of the Family)

This tragic incident is by no means unique. A nonprofit group called Treatment Advocacy Center this year published results of a study indicating that people who are mentally ill are four times more likely to be killed by police as compared to other members of the public. Moreover, people who suffer from a severe or chronic mental illness face a number of daily obstacles few of us can even imagine.

First, the mentally ill are confronted with the problem of dealing with the disturbing and potentially debilitating symptoms of a mental or emotional disorder. One’s symptoms might range from nervousness, anxiety, and depression, to hallucinations, and bizarre and frightening delusions. The simple process of reliably distinguishing between reality and fantasy, an ability taken for granted by most of us, can be a major challenge for a person experiencing a severe thought disturbance, known as psychosis.

Further, the mentally ill are often misunderstood and demonized by our societies. People often look upon mental disorders as a sign of low intelligence, indecisiveness, or worse. Some groups hold that the mentally ill are impious, immoral, even influenced or possessed by evil spirits. Despite the development and availability of effective treatments for mental illness, there is a persistent belief in our societies that psychological disorders are untreatable.

Ironically, Mr. Alpizar's killing approximately coincided with December 10, designated as Human Rights Day, a day the World Health Organization (WHO) has dedicated to people with mental disorders. The following important facts are offered by WHO on this occasion:

• 450 million people worldwide are affected by mental, neurological or behavioral problems at any time.

• About 873,000 people die by suicide every year.

• Mental illnesses are common to all countries and cause immense suffering. People with these disorders are often subjected to social isolation, poor quality of life and increased mortality. These disorders are the cause of staggering economic and social costs.

• One in four patients visiting a health service has at least one mental, neurological or behavioral disorder but most of these disorders are neither diagnosed nor treated.

• Mental illnesses affect and are affected by chronic conditions such as cancer, heart and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and HIV/AIDS. Untreated, they bring about unhealthy behavior, non-compliance with prescribed medical regimens, diminished immune functioning, and poor prognosis.

• Cost-effective treatments exist for most disorders and, if correctly applied, could enable most of those affected to become functioning members of society.

• Barriers to effective treatment of mental illness include lack of recognition of the seriousness of mental illness and lack of understanding about the benefits of services. Policy makers, insurance companies, health and labor policies, and the public at large – all discriminate between physical and mental problems.

• Most middle and low-income countries devote less than 1% of their health expenditure to mental health. Consequently mental health policies, legislation, community care facilities, and treatments for people with mental illness are not given the priority they deserve.

It is important for us to develop an increased awareness and sensitivity to the problems faced by those with mental illness. Treating these individuals with greater understanding and compassion makes good sense, both from a humanitarian and a practical, economic perspective.

To learn more about mental health issues, visit the WHO website at http://www.who.int/, or the American Psychological Association’s website at http://www.apa.org/.