A common feminist/domestic violence establishment claim goes something like this--"a third of all women who are murdered are murdered by an intimate partner, whereas only 3% of men are murdered by an intimate partner." From this one would think that men are 11 times more likely to kill their wives as vice versa, or something along those lines.

In reality, official statistics put the rate at around 2.5 to 1, not 11 to 1. Moreover, there are various reasons to believe that the rates are actually far more equal than that--to learn more, click here.

Leaving that aside, there's another way to look at the statistic which is also revealing. Donald G. Dutton of the University of British Columbia cites research showing that out of 1,000,000 marriages which split up, 999,900 men do not kill their wives/ex-wives. By contrast--or lack of contrast--out of 1,000,000 marriages which split up, 990,940 women do not kill their husbands/ex-husbands.

The point? It is rare for men to kill their intimate partners, and women do it in somewhat similar numbers. So why do so many of our domestic violence, police, and family law policies revolve around pushing men out of their children's lives as a supposed way to protect women from their ex-husbands?

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Domestic Violence/DV System. You can trackback from your own site.