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The statistics is a bit more complex and nuanced than giving straight answers. Studies looking at any form of violence in partner relationships shows both women

by belorn 1y ago

The statistics is a bit more complex and nuanced than giving straight answers. Studies looking at any form of violence in partner relationships shows both women and men having equal amount. When looking at physical violence, especially those that lead to people being charged with a crime, men are over-represented in heterosexual relationships. However, homosexual relationships has equal rate of partner violence as heterosexual ones. A bisexual woman that has a relationship with an other woman will double her rate of physical violence compare to relationship with a man (statically). A man who has a relationship with an other man will half his rate of violence. This makes no sense at all (unless we believe that sexual orientation is an factor for violent behavior), unless we add a additional factor of sexual dimorphism. Men are on average larger and more muscular, and there seems to be a correlation between being the larger/stronger and using physical strength/fists during a fight. The smaller person is in return more likely to use tools or other means of violence. Statistically, fist also has a higher probability to do damage than improvised weapons, since people are more proficient in using their fists. Does it mean men are biologically coded to be violent? No. Is it a question about education and culture. Maybe in some countries/cultures, and it wouldn't hurt to use the education system to teach people conflict resolution. Getting people who are physically larger to not exploit that fact during a heated fight is likely a hard problem to solve on a population level.

cauch 1y ago
Not sure what is your point. I think "any form of violence" is not a constructive direction. First, this ends up being very subjective: between 2 forms of psychological violence, which one is the most violent? Secondly, if indeed it is cultural, it implies that different sub-culture may have different ways of acting, so we can always play the subgroups to make it says whatever we want. But most importantly, it is not very relevant for our context: in the case of the first interactions during heterosexual dating, pretending that men risk as much as women seems a very unconvincing claim, for several reasons (even if under-represented it should be under-represented to an unrealistic level to reach an equal level, and it also does not fit with plenty of cultural tropes (I can find a video explaining explicitly that manly men need to dominate their female partner. I'm sure it exists, but the simple fact that I cannot easily find a video explaining explicitly that womenly women need to dominate their male partner shows it's not that of a trope. On the other hand, I can also easily find videos about "trad wife" that will explain that a womenly woman must be with a dominating man)) For the rest, I think we say the same thing: talking about the visible issues is not a problem in itself, but people instrumentalising these issues to be racist or sexist are the problem.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  > Not sure what is your point. If it's almost all about the size of the specific two people in a relationship, it's a terrible terrible idea to aggregate that by gender, leading to completely misplaced wariness and judgement.
  - cauch 1y ago
    Why would it be the size of the specific two people in a relationship? It looks very clear to me that violent behavior in relationship (and more specifically, in the first few days of dating) is a question of education, not the result of one person being bigger. For example, every parents are stronger than their young children, but only some kind of parent are violent towards their children. If it's a question of education, reducing the problem of the size of the people is a terrible terrible idea: the problem will never go away because you don't understand the source and therefore don't act on the source to fix it. It feels like some people here are framing the problem in "men vs women" framework, as if it is a competition and they don't want to accept that maybe men behavior is different from women behavior because the way they are raised in our society. I don't really see the point: I'm a man, and yet I don't take it personally. The same way I don't take it personally when someone says "don't accept candy from strangers": I'm a stranger for a lot of kids, and yet I understand why they should be prudent and I understand that, in situation where I have to interact with an unknown kid, I should do things differently (for example not giving them candy), not because I'm a danger for them, but because it is true that there is danger and that they cannot know if I'm a danger or not. So many men take it uselessly and nonconstructively personally as soon as it is dating.
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      > Why would it be the size of the specific two people in a relationship? That's the main argument of the grandparent post. If you're missing that then you're not really responding to what they said. They went into significant detail so I feel like trying to reword it myself would be worse than suggesting you read the post again. > If it's a question of education, reducing the problem of the size of the people is a terrible terrible idea: the problem will never go away because you don't understand the source and therefore don't act on the source to fix it. Nah. Root cause analysis is entirely different from risk analysis. This is about risk analysis. If a woman dates a man that's smaller than her, who should be more worried about violence? That's not the time to worry about why and how to fix society. > maybe men behavior is different from women behavior Maybe it is! But then you need a really good explanation for the data in the above post. Or you need to say the data is wrong. But you can't just dismiss it as being defensive.

by belorn 1y ago

cauch 1y ago

Not sure what is your point. I think "any form of violence" is not a constructive direction. First, this ends up being very subjective: between 2 forms of psychological violence, which one is the most violent? Secondly, if indeed it is cultural, it implies that different sub-culture may have different ways of acting, so we can always play the subgroups to make it says whatever we want. But most importantly, it is not very relevant for our context: in the case of the first interactions during heterosexual dating, pretending that men risk as much as women seems a very unconvincing claim, for several reasons (even if under-represented it should be under-represented to an unrealistic level to reach an equal level, and it also does not fit with plenty of cultural tropes (I can find a video explaining explicitly that manly men need to dominate their female partner. I'm sure it exists, but the simple fact that I cannot easily find a video explaining explicitly that womenly women need to dominate their male partner shows it's not that of a trope. On the other hand, I can also easily find videos about "trad wife" that will explain that a womenly woman must be with a dominating man)) For the rest, I think we say the same thing: talking about the visible issues is not a problem in itself, but people instrumentalising these issues to be racist or sexist are the problem.

Dylan16807 1y ago
> Not sure what is your point. If it's almost all about the size of the specific two people in a relationship, it's a terrible terrible idea to aggregate that by gender, leading to completely misplaced wariness and judgement.
- cauch 1y ago
  Why would it be the size of the specific two people in a relationship? It looks very clear to me that violent behavior in relationship (and more specifically, in the first few days of dating) is a question of education, not the result of one person being bigger. For example, every parents are stronger than their young children, but only some kind of parent are violent towards their children. If it's a question of education, reducing the problem of the size of the people is a terrible terrible idea: the problem will never go away because you don't understand the source and therefore don't act on the source to fix it. It feels like some people here are framing the problem in "men vs women" framework, as if it is a competition and they don't want to accept that maybe men behavior is different from women behavior because the way they are raised in our society. I don't really see the point: I'm a man, and yet I don't take it personally. The same way I don't take it personally when someone says "don't accept candy from strangers": I'm a stranger for a lot of kids, and yet I understand why they should be prudent and I understand that, in situation where I have to interact with an unknown kid, I should do things differently (for example not giving them candy), not because I'm a danger for them, but because it is true that there is danger and that they cannot know if I'm a danger or not. So many men take it uselessly and nonconstructively personally as soon as it is dating.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    > Why would it be the size of the specific two people in a relationship? That's the main argument of the grandparent post. If you're missing that then you're not really responding to what they said. They went into significant detail so I feel like trying to reword it myself would be worse than suggesting you read the post again. > If it's a question of education, reducing the problem of the size of the people is a terrible terrible idea: the problem will never go away because you don't understand the source and therefore don't act on the source to fix it. Nah. Root cause analysis is entirely different from risk analysis. This is about risk analysis. If a woman dates a man that's smaller than her, who should be more worried about violence? That's not the time to worry about why and how to fix society. > maybe men behavior is different from women behavior Maybe it is! But then you need a really good explanation for the data in the above post. Or you need to say the data is wrong. But you can't just dismiss it as being defensive.