Prof. Dr. Dr. Michael Bock in Windisch

In the fall of 2003, the VeV invited the renowned German men's studies researcher Prof. Dr. Dr. Michael Bock to give a lecture at the Windisch University of Applied Sciences. His text from that time is available here.
Click here to watch the lecture as a video.

The role of numbers in the political discussion about domestic violence

2. The figures show: Domestic violence is not solely male violence against women and children

3. Disputes about numbers are always disputes about factual and practical problems

4. Feedback loops between numbers and reality

5. Counterproductive effects of a violence protection policy focused solely on female victims

6. Summary and conclusions for the current legislative process 

1.    The role of numbers in the political discussion about domestic violence

Ladies and gentlemen,

The days when it was thought that family disputes were a private matter and no business of the public or law enforcement are over. This is undoubtedly thanks to the women's movement. Austria was a pioneer with legal regulations on protection against violence and restraining orders. In Germany, the enactment of the so-called Protection Against Violence Act was the provisional high point in this development. The police laws of the individual states are still being continuously adapted to this new spirit. And this is precisely what is now being addressed in the Canton of Aargau. This is the reason for this lecture.

What all these legislative processes have in common is that they are embedded in a political accompaniment that is as multifaceted as it is monotonous, consisting of pronouncements and declarations, action plans and projects, official brochures and flyers, in which numbers repeatedly play a dominant role. Statistics on domestic violence form the skeleton of the same recurring dramaturgy, which then seemingly automatically leads to a demand for stricter laws against men and expanded support services for women.

Let me jump right into the discussion here, which also follows this pattern. I have before me a document that has significantly influenced the current legislative process and which contains a very typical argumentative arrangement in which, as usual, the seemingly irresistible allure of numbers plays the decisive role.

Slide 1 – Aargau Intervention Project

First, a horrific statistic about violence against women is used to evoke archaic emotions. One in five women! That's simply unimaginable; the situation must be correspondingly dramatic, and the need for new measures to remedy it just as urgent. But be careful: the terrible and frequent domestic violence only exists as violence against women. With men, there's only a theoretical possibility. That's why the subjunctive mood is used. Should it unexpectedly happen that a man becomes a victim, then the would apply. ca n't actually happen, because the definition of domestic violence states that it only be perpetrated by men . This, of course, applies not only to physical and sexual violence, but also to the far more insidious, because invisible, forms of psychological and structural violence—in other words, practically every time a man and a woman are together in a patriarchal society. Is it any wonder, then, that weaknesses are only seen in the protection of female victims and the control of male perpetrators, and that corresponding measures are demanded?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the political background noise I am referring to. It underlies the German Federal Government's justification for the Protection Against Violence Act[1] as the many tightenings of state police laws concerning restraining orders. And precisely because, as we have seen, numbers play a central role here, we must first examine them in detail.

2.    The figures show: Domestic violence is not solely male violence against women and children

Violence in partnerships is comparatively well-researched.[2] However, as is always the case in science, the findings depend on the terms and methods used. For example, "violence" is not an empirical term, but rather a normative, value-laden one. It assigns a negative judgment to certain behaviors, and it depends on the observer whether a) they share this negative judgment and b) they subsume the relevant situation under this term. The same applies to "crime" or "criminal." Labeling a behavior as criminal implies an evaluation that, in turn, depends on the perspective from which someone views this behavior. Both the individual involved and their interaction partners can arrive at different conclusions and draw different conclusions. These relationships naturally have considerable implications for scientific research.

The vast majority of empirical research can be categorized into two methodological approaches. Firstly, there are studies in the so-called "reported crime" field, which are referred to as "clinical" studies or "crime studies." These studies—like official crime statistics—regularly report significantly higher rates of male perpetrators and female victims of domestic violence, despite relatively small overall case numbers.[3] However, what these studies measure is a very "late" result of various evaluation and assessment processes. A "victim" must have subjectively assessed the behavior of a "perpetrator" as "violence," perhaps even as "crime," and, after weighing the pros and cons, must have decided to inform their social environment, a support organization, or law enforcement about the incident or to request help.

The other type of empirical study operates with the earliest possible measurement point for empirical research in this area. Here, the behavior in question is measured a) regardless of whether it is perceived as "violence" or "criminal" (by the victim or the perpetrator), and b) regardless of whether the victim has confided in their social environment, support services, or law enforcement about their experience of victimization. These studies, of which there are numerous internationally, are therefore so-called dark figure surveys, in which, strictly speaking, they do not measure "violence" but rather aggressive behavior.

These studies typically use a scale called the “conflict tactics scale (CTS)”.

Slide – CTS

This scale contains a list of aggressive behaviors presented to respondents. It encompasses all levels of intensity in ascending order, ranging from verbal abuse and insults (omitted here) to mild physical aggression such as pushing or slapping, and severe forms of physical aggression like scalding, beating, and the use of weapons. This is crucial. The fact that, strictly speaking, aggressive behavior, and not violence or crime, is being measured does not mean that it only includes harmless incidents, family squabbles, or trivial everyday disputes. Rather, the upper end of the scale can certainly include behaviors that, if reported, would readily be classified as serious bodily harm. Furthermore, the scale itself and the studies have, over time, been expanded with additional questions, such as those concerning the consequences of injuries, motives, or who initiated the aggressive behavior[4].

Concise summaries of this research area now exist[5] as well as a widely cited empirical meta-analysis by the British criminologist John Archer.[6] According to this meta-analysis, women and men exhibit the aggressive behaviors operationalized in the CTS almost equally frequently, with women even exhibiting them slightly more often, and this applies to all levels of intensity, including severe forms of aggressive behavior. Variations in the research design of the 82 studies included in the analysis resulted in only relatively minor deviations from this overall finding.[7] Women were more likely to report injuries (62% of reported cases involved women).[8] Another important finding was that in most cases, the violence is perpetrated reciprocally by both partners.[9]

The two types of studies measure "violence" at different points in time. Therefore, it is not surprising that they also result in gender-specific differences in the ratios of perpetrators to victims.

Slide – Male victim rates by data collection method

This overview shows that the rates of male victims decrease the more their own gender-specific perceptions and the selective perception of support and control mechanisms can interfere. Even the question of whether something should be considered an injury requiring treatment depends on gender-specific assessments—for example, the notion that "Indians don't feel pain"—as does the question of whether a particular behavior constitutes "violence" or whether one should truly be afraid of threats from a partner. Women and men perceive and evaluate objectively identical behavior differently due to their understanding of gender roles. It is therefore logical and plausible to attribute the differing rates of male victims in the two types of studies to internal and external obstacles encountered when moving from the shadow economy to the light economy.

Slide – From dark field to light field

While taking the step of speaking out and going public is not easy for most female victims, shame over the failure of their relationship and fear of an uncertain future often deter many women from taking this step. However, if they do overcome this reluctance (or if they deem it strategically advantageous), coming out often leads to an improvement in their material, psychological, social, and legal situation. Therefore, they are more likely than men to choose to go public, consult experts, contact the police, and go to court.

For men, the situation is entirely different. Most male victims are prevented by their gender identity from seeing themselves as victims of violence perpetrated by (their) wife, as this is incompatible with a respectable masculine identity. Even if they overcome this hurdle, they find neither communicative resonance nor social or legal support. They are not believed; they are ridiculed—in their social circles, by experts of both genders, and in court—because the prevailing notion is that domestic violence is male violence. Male victims find no understanding; on the contrary, they are suspected of having become victims through their own fault, of having "deserved it," and are forced to choose between the roles of "villain" and "idiot." Men fear this kind of secondary victimization and the loss of a respectable masculine identity, both from themselves and from those close to them.

3.    Dispute about numbers is always a dispute about factual and practical problems

Ladies and gentlemen,

My report on the state of research would be incomplete if I were to omit the fact that serious concerns have been raised, particularly regarding the dark figure studies I mentioned. This is hardly surprising, as these studies undermine the empirical and moral foundations of a violence prevention policy focused solely on female victims and male perpetrators. The criticism focused primarily on the measurement instrument used, the CTS.[10]

Slide – CTS – repeat

Older criticisms, claiming that women only use aggressive behavior in self-defense and that CTS fails to consider this or the extent of the resulting injuries, have since been refuted. They were unfounded.

However, there is another, much deeper level of criticism. The CTS only measures aggressive acts, not violence itself. It is only the subjective interpretation and attribution of aggressive acts as violence that transforms purely physical and, in that respect, trivial occurrences into violence. This interpretation, however, is supposedly only applied to women's experiences of victimization, and therefore, only women are considered suitable victims of violence[11]. It is readily apparent that this argument is not suitable for neutralizing or downplaying the findings of the CTS. Even if men do not describe and evaluate the corresponding "incidents" as "violence" or "crimes," this does not mean that a) men do not interpret these incidents at all, and b) that they do not nevertheless experience.

Furthermore, while certain phenomena of the exercise of power, such as the "psychological" or "structural" violence included in the definition of the document cited at the beginning, undoubtedly escape the CTS measurement tool, they are by no means unequivocally distributed against women. No one would deny women the ability to restrict food, communication, or sexuality, to sever contact, to damage a partner's reputation, to strike at the core of their identity, to humiliate and belittle them, or to alienate their children. Ultimately, it is precisely women, and only they, who have access to threats involving the police and the courts—weapons that strike at the very heart of social and material existence without harming a single person. However, systematic empirical studies of these phenomena are unknown[12].

The methodological problem that we know little about how men process their experiences of victimization[13] or how they cope with the specific scenarios of psychological or structural violence perpetrated by their partners is part of the social problem itself. For men, not only are institutional support services lacking, but also the linguistic reassurances within a public discourse where they can socially anchor their experiences and thus record, name, understand, and process them for themselves. Men find no platform within which their suffering could be translated into language and communication.

In a somewhat cruder version of this trivialization of male victimization, it is even claimed that the severe and chronic abuse of women who have to seek refuge in women's shelters belongs in a completely different category. The CTS, it is argued, measures slightly more intense partner conflicts of a temporary and harmless nature, the kind that occasionally occur in even the proverbial best of families. Only the severe and chronic abuse of women, however, is considered domestic violence and a serious social problem.[14]

I cannot accept this argument either. What the CTS measures at its upper end is a) anything but harmless, and b) some studies have indeed examined the frequency of severe physical aggression. Most importantly, however, c) the fact that there are no women's shelter studies for men does not lead to the conclusion that there are no men with comparably long and horrific ordeals. It may be that the CTS's explanatory power diminishes at its very upper end. But why should this only apply to female victims? I have already outlined the inescapable threat scenarios with the threat of material and social ruin hanging over them like the sword of Damocles, and it would be difficult to find a concept of psychological and structural violence that does not encompass these phenomena – which, incidentally, are reported extensively in the fathers' movement.

Conversely, it must be said that a single instance of victimization in the severe forms of CTS is quite sufficient to be admitted to a women's shelter. We don't even know how many residents of women's shelters suffer "more" than what is undoubtedly and indisputably equally distributed between women and men according to CTS, so the construction of a two-tier society of victims from both sides must be questioned.

And one last point regarding the burden of proof and the validity of the CTS should be mentioned. It is only through CTS studies that a reasonably reliable estimate of the prevalence of "violence" can be obtained, if at all, because this scale also measures verbal and mild physical aggression, which naturally occurs many times more frequently than severe physical aggression. However, when public statements are made using the well-known large numbers, one would have to honestly admit that these everyday and widespread acts of aggression, at the lower end of the CTS scale, are a) undeniably and uncontested equally distributed between the sexes, and b) feminist researchers, in their critique of the CTS, tirelessly emphasize that these acts are trivial, meaningless, and precisely not what is meant when discussing domestic violence. Thus, while "quarrels in the best of families" are trivial enough to deny men victim status, they are apparently serious enough to construct apocalyptic threat scenarios for women. This is a particularly good example of an irresponsible handling of social science findings, or, for those who prefer, a particularly blatant case of bigotry.

Slide – Male victim rates – repeat

However one looks at it, and regardless of which reputable sources one consults, the aforementioned arrangement of figures simply cannot be maintained. While I myself find the objections to the CTS by no means compelling, that is ultimately irrelevant. Even renowned feminist researchers[15]over the CTS studies[16] , express themselves on the state of research in a much more nuanced and moderate way than is regularly heard in the political discourse. They essentially acknowledge that male victims have been forgotten and that they deserve protection, help, and compassion just as much as female victims.[17] And even when considering the reported figures from police intervention projects, it becomes clear that men are victims of domestic violence to a significant extent and that a complete institutional ignorance of this phenomenon is neither empirically nor morally justifiable. Whether one assumes 50% or 20% is less important for the practical questions that arise.

4.    Feedback loops between numbers and reality

Ladies and gentlemen,

To better understand the figures, I would like to briefly place them in a broader criminological context, because then they begin to speak in a different way. As is often the case in other areas of crime, in domestic violence the deviant actions of individuals and the societal reproduction of normative expectations are intertwined in self-reinforcing feedback loops[18].

Slide – Self-affirmation of the myth

The supposedly reliable statistics claiming that only women are affected are being politically exploited by experts, the media, and various multipliers, from prevention councils and academies to football clubs. It is primarily through these figures that the issue connects to archaic emotions of anger, outrage, and revenge. Then, the appropriate images and cases are added. Tears and black eyes, distraught children, male criminal faces, chivalrous police officers, and affected female presenters create an archaic myth in which good and evil are clearly defined and divided. Evil men beat and terrorize good women.

This automatically creates political pressure and a need for action, because scandalous conditions must be eliminated. Laws must be enacted or strengthened, intervention projects initiated, action plans formulated and implemented, and the curricula of social work professions and police service regulations updated accordingly so that the content of the myth can truly take root in the minds and hearts of those who ultimately decide on the alternatives of shrugging their shoulders or investigating, dismissing or indicting, acquitting or convicting. After all, they must know where to look for evil and what it looks like in order to bring it to justice. And crucial to the effectiveness of this mechanism is the fact that these are not matters of opinion, but rather emotions deeply rooted in the psyche and gender roles.

So it's ultimately no wonder that male victims sometimes can't even accept to themselves that they have been victims of violence against women (internal barriers), and sometimes they anticipate a lack of communicative, social, and legal support, which would cause any expression of their victimization experiences to fall on deaf ears or even backfire on them (external barriers). On their way to being brought to light, they are filtered out at one point or another, so that we once again arrive at a gender-specific, clearly defined narrative, and thus the perpetual motion machine is complete, in which statistics and a myth about men and women mutually reinforce each other.

5.    Counterproductive effects of a violence protection policy focused solely on female victims

Current policies on violence prevention are not only selective in that they ignore male victims and female perpetrators, but their effects are also highly counterproductive where they do have an impact. This is especially true when considering long-term effects. Crisis intervention measures are certainly insufficient in this regard, and often have precisely these counterproductive effects, because they intervene with great intensity and usually with destructive consequences in a complex psychosocial situation that typically has a long history. The problem, which ultimately escalates into severe forms of physical aggression or distressing scenarios of psychological or structural violence, is rooted in

·        psychological characteristics (e.g., low self-esteem, need for control, “negative emotionality”[19]), in

•        Behavioral patterns (e.g., destructive communication styles, learned patterns of violence) usually of both parties involved, in

·        situational stressors (“life events”, alcohol) as well as in

·        Lack of constructive coping strategies,

These problems cannot be addressed with isolated repressive measures such as eviction or prosecution. The problematic behavioral patterns of women and men can only be sustainably changed if the shared "history" of a conflict-ridden relationship is also addressed jointly. That this will not be possible in many cases is one thing; another is whether strategies are pursued that systematically prevent it.

All efforts at prevention and all forms of "systemic" therapy or mediation are stifled from the outset, or rendered entirely impossible, if the "experts" involved consider a one-sided role distribution between an evil male perpetrator and a good female victim a given, and see it as their sole task to make this legally and socially binding. While existing support and counseling services exhibit considerable pluralism across regions and intervention approaches, the official political "line" in this area remains quite doctrinal and ideologically one-sided, focused on the exclusion and punishment of men, while the preventive needs of women are generally not even remotely considered. Once again, the document quoted at the beginning speaks a clear and devastating language.

The consequences are predictable. If the two partners enter into new partnerships, the same mechanisms will repeat themselves, because current measures to protect against violence only produce winners and losers, but not partners who have grown through learning processes.

6.    Summary and conclusions for the current legislative process

Men are victims of aggressive behavior by their female partners to a far greater extent than is commonly assumed and also than is taken into account in domestic violence policies. On the one hand, they do not perceive themselves as victims and remain silent for fear of stigmatization and exposure; on the other hand, there are no adequate support services available. Experts in social services and law enforcement agencies do not expect male victims and therefore either do not see them or even blame them for their own fate. This creates a vicious cycle: Because even fewer men than women seek help, access social services, and engage with the justice system, the statistics of these institutions repeatedly show almost exclusively female victims, with the result that the stereotypes are reinforced, leading male victims to remain silent rather than risk "secondary victimization.".

Older people and especially children who are victims of female violence are also not adequately considered. They were not specifically mentioned in this presentation due to time constraints, but the findings in this regard complete the picture that an overall gender-specific, one-sided policy on violence prevention prevails, systematically ignoring male victims and female perpetrators.[20] The gender-specific perspective, which only perceives men as perpetrators, has particularly disastrous consequences for children abused by their mothers, because neither they nor their fathers have any significant chance of having their plight heard against the bias of the responsible authorities. Every police officer knows, moreover, how difficult it is to remove a woman with children from the scene, because this can easily trigger a chain reaction of youth welfare and child protection services for which one feels neither equipped nor responsible. Taking the man along, on the other hand, saves time and effort in justifying the decision and avoids trouble with superiors and lawyers. In this respect, it is also noteworthy that both the German law on protection against violence and the Aargau and other intervention projects have deliberately left out abused children, so that while the horrors of "domestic" violence are discussed with maximum agitation and concern and measures to remedy are demanded, in reality only women are meant as victims, but children and other persons who live in the "house" are specifically excluded.

In light of all these circumstances, the draft of Section 31, and especially paragraph 2 of the new police law, now appears in a completely different light. It cannot be said that the wording of the draft discriminates against men. No, the language is gender-neutral and therefore not objectionable in that respect. However, as with all comparable legal regulations, the devil is in the application of the provision. Here, the primary concerns are the legal protection of the accused and the potential for abuse.

The very general and vague term "threat" creates a vague prerequisite for police intervention, which is particularly concerning because, as we have seen, the political demands also aim to encompass phenomena of psychological and structural violence that largely defy objective assessment. Furthermore, there is no explicit requirement that the accused be heard before such a drastic measure as a 20-day restraining order, and potentially even subsequent police custody under Section 36, can be imposed without much ado.

Of course, the practical outcome will depend to a large extent on whether the police officers on the ground act with discretion and a sense of reality. This can generally be assumed. There is no reason to place the police under a general suspicion of misandry. However, based on experiences in Germany, I must say that the police are sometimes under considerable political pressure to combat male violence as rigorously as possible, while at other times, out of preemptive obedience and a misguided sense of chivalry, they risk losing sight of the proper and otherwise customary standard of conduct in police law when it actually or even merely allegedly involves violence against women. The police, too, are under the spell of the myth of evil men and good women. In any case, for image reasons alone, they avoid anything that could even remotely suggest complicity in violence against women and are thus themselves prisoners of every absurd demand in the fight against male violence once it has been made. It is therefore cause for concern that the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Interior awarded the 2001 prevention prize to the municipality that issued the most "red cards" (i.e., orders to leave the premises) to violent men in a statewide municipal prevention project. With the current wording of Section 31, Paragraph 2, the Canton of Aargau could play a significant role in similar competitions in the future.

Furthermore, the 20 days stipulated in paragraph 3 are, of course, a deadline that arises not from objective necessity, but solely from the slowness of the courts, which are supposed to decide on further protective measures. Thus, a measure for averting danger and crisis intervention is transformed, by cold means, into a genuine sanction, a kind of "penalty based on suspicion," the prerequisites for which, as already mentioned, are completely vague and whose establishment does not meet the principles of the rule of law, particularly in view of the readily available consequence of police custody under Section 36 to enforce the measure.

The second danger, the potential for abuse, arises from the first. An expert witness at the time, during the hearing before the Legal Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag, described the Protection Against Violence Act as a "first strike weapon." A more apt description is hard to imagine, and it also applies to the stricter regulations regarding restraining orders. Once a restraining order has been issued, it will have an indicative effect on all family and civil court proceedings that may already be pending or threatened, even if the accusations should prove unfounded in later proceedings and even if no further protective orders are issued by the courts. Questions of custody and visitation rights, questions of alimony and control over the apartment – ​​all these existentially crucial questions are placed in an “aura” by a restraining order and/or a possible criminal complaint, in which the vague legal concepts present there – such as, above all, that of the “best interests of the child” – are interpreted in such a way that the accused man no longer has any chance of obtaining his rights.

This indicative long-range effect of first-strike weapons is already known from simple reports of bodily harm, which are always taken very seriously when a woman files them against a man, with the consequence, for example, that the children initially stay with the mother, and even if the proceedings are discontinued after a long time, the long absence of the father creates facts that the family courts then use accordingly.

As drafted, Section 31, Paragraph 2 can be seen as nothing more than an invitation to readily resort to a preemptive strike. Who would decide whether a woman is threatened with psychological or structural violence if she tearfully reports it in writing, since she doesn't need any "proof," such as a medical certificate? The consequences of psychological and structural violence are invisible. From a feminist perspective, every woman lives under the conditions of patriarchy in a state of structural violence anyway. And, of course, there are doctors who will certify anything the patient desires. Furthermore, it should be considered that psychological and structural violence does not constitute the same immediate "danger of imminent danger" as physical violence—for example, from a drunken person causing a disturbance and brandishing a weapon—meaning that in such cases it is far more proportionate and reasonable to await a judicial review in expedited proceedings and a corresponding court order.

For these reasons, it seems highly questionable whether a provision like Section 31 Paragraph 2 does not ultimately do more harm than good. Paragraph 1 is entirely sufficient for crisis intervention, especially when interpreted in light of the police's increasing awareness of the public interest in domestic violence. The removal and exclusion orders are appropriately and sufficiently linked to the serious and immediate danger to other persons, and this naturally also applies in cases of domestic violence. Should a special provision like Paragraph 2 be deemed necessary at all, it is urgently required that the provision be amended as follows:[21]

·        The term "violence" in the regulation must be clearly and unambiguously limited to physical violence

·        A simple threat is not sufficient; rather, in accordance with Section 31 Paragraph 1, a "serious and immediate" threat of physical violence must be credibly demonstrated, usually through traces or clear evidence from previous cases

·        The accused must be expressly guaranteed a fair hearing

·        The general authorization “…and to take the measures necessary to enforce the prohibition” is to be deleted without replacement

·        The 20-day period in paragraph 3 is to be reduced to 24 hours

In the medium and long term, it is of course necessary to dismantle the structural bias against male victims in both law enforcement institutions and support services, and at the same time to initiate awareness-raising processes that sensitize all those involved in the prevention and enforcement of domestic violence to the fact that domestic violence is not a male phenomenon, but a human one, and that victims of domestic violence are not only women and men, but above all, children. But this will not be easy.

 

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[1] See Michael Bock: Expert opinion on the draft law to improve civil court protection in cases of violence and stalking and to facilitate the transfer of the marital home in cases of separation. Prepared on the occasion of the public hearing in the Legal Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag on Wednesday, June 20, 2001

[2] While the German Federal Government has barely taken notice of this (see the expert opinion cited in footnote 1, p. 5), an official research report has been published in Austria, which takes into account the international state of research. See Cizek, B. et al.: Violence against Men. Part III of the Austrian Violence Protection Report of 1998, published by the Federal Ministry for Social Security, Generations and Consumer Protection, Vienna 2002

[3] See, among many other references , Schweikert, B.: Violence is not fate. Initial conditions, practice and possibilities of legal intervention in domestic violence against women with special consideration of police and civil law powers; Baden-Baden: Nomos 2000

[4] Research continues. Further confirmation of the findings so far can be found in Barbara Krahé: Aggression of men and women in partnerships: Differences and parallels, in: Siegfried Lamnek/Manuela Boatcă (eds.): Gender – Violence – Society, Opladen 2003, pp. 369-383. Furthermore, more differentiated assessment instruments are being developed (Fals-Stewart, W./Birchler, Gary R./Kelley, L.: The Timeline Followback Spousal Violence Interview to Assess Physical Aggression Between Intimate Partners: Reliability and Validity, in: Journal of Family Violence 2003, pp. 131-141) and different types of partner violence are being distinguished (Ridley, Carl A./Feldman, Clyde M.: Female Domestic Violence Toward Male Partners: Exploring Conflict Responses and Outcomes, in: Journal of Family Violence 2003, pp. 157-169).

[5] Jürgen Gemünden: Violence against men in heterosexual intimate partnerships. A comparison with the topic of violence against women based on a critical evaluation of empirical studies; Marburg 1996; Straus, Murray A.: The controversy over domestic violence. A methodological, theoretical, and sociology of science analysis; in: Arriaga XB & Oskamp S. (Eds.): Violence in intimate relationships, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage 1999, pp. 17-44; Tjaden, Patricia; Thoennes, Nancy: Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women, National Institute of Justice, US Department of Justice 2000; Lenz, H.-J./Meier, C.(Eds.): Male experiences of victimization. Documentation of a conference of the Evangelical Academy Tutzing from March 1st to 3rd, 2002 in Heilsbronn (Tutzing Materials No. 88), Tutzing 2002; Sticher-Gil, B.: Violence against men in the domestic sphere – a neglected problem!? Contributions from Department 3 of the University of Applied Sciences for Administration and Law (Police Service), Issue 35, Berlin 2003; various contributions in Siegfried Lamnek/Manuela Boatcă (eds.): Gender – Violence – Society, Opladen 2003

[6] Archer, John: Sex differences in aggression between heterosexual partners: A meta-analytic review; Psychological Bulletin 2000, pp. 651-680

[7] Archer (as in footnote 6), Tables 3 and 6 on pp. 657 and 660

[8] Archer (as in footnote 6), Tables 4, 5 and 7 on pp. 658, 659 and 661

[9] References in Archer (as in footnote 6), pp. 653f.

[10] Detailed, including controversial, discussion of these issues and numerous further references can be found in the literature cited in footnote 5.

[11] Hagemann-White, C.: European Research on the Prevalence of Violence Against Women, in: Violence Against Women 2001, pp. 732-759

[12] See, however, the qualitative study by Schenk, S.: Violence against men in heterosexual partnerships – patterns of interpretation and coping; Educational diploma thesis at the University of Münster 2002. The professional community is eagerly awaiting the results of the study on violence against men commissioned by the relevant German ministry.

[13] Here, particular reference should be made to the statements of authors working in therapeutic fields, for example in the volume edited by Lenz, H.-J./Meier, C.(eds.): Male Victim Experiences. Documentation of a conference of the Evangelical Academy Tutzing from 1 to 3 March 2002 in Heilsbronn (Tutzing Materials No. 88), Tutzing 2002. See also Heinrich Böll Foundation (ed.): Man or Victim? Documentation of a conference on 12/13 October 2001, Berlin 2002.

[14] Kavemann, Barbara: Violence against men – a neglected problem? In: Sticher-Gil (as in footnote 5) pp. 42ff.

[15] See footnote 14

[16] See footnote 5

[17] Similar to Barbara Kavemann (FN), Daniela Gloor and Hanna Meier argue in their article "Men Affected by Violence – Scientific and Socio-Political Insights into a Debate," published in: *Praxis des Familienrechts* (FamPra.ch), Issue 3, 2003, pp. 526-547. Regarding the political consequences, they maintain their demand to preserve the monopoly on financial and other support for women. If anything, additional resources are needed for men, but under no circumstances should women's services be reduced. It is correct that comparing the suffering of victims against each other is unproductive. This was never my intention, although the two authors are wrongly trying to push me into this misogynistic corner. Conversely, it remains a morally questionable standpoint to show respect and sympathy to male victims, but then to tell them, in essence, that they will only receive help if new funds flow, but that there will be no sharing (p. 546).

[18] H. Hess, S. Scheerer: What is crime? Outline of a constructivist theory of crime, Kriminologisches Journal 1997, pp. 83-155. The application of this very theory to the field of domestic violence brings labeling approaches back into play, which may have a much greater explanatory potential in the area of ​​gender-specific discrimination than in the area of ​​class- or stratum-specific discrimination, with regard to which they have been empirically tested extensively but with rather dubious success (cf. Michael Bock: “Of course we’ll take the man with us.” On resistance to facts and immunization strategies in domestic violence, in: Siegfried Lamnek, Manuela Boatca (eds.): Gender – Violence – Society, Opladen 2003, pp. 179-194).

[19] According to the well-known New Zealand cohort study, this construct was equally prevalent among men and women as well as perpetrators and victims of intimate partner violence, see Moffitt, Terrie E./Robins, Richard W./Caspi, A.: A Couples Analysis of Partner Abuse with Implications for Abuse-Prevention Policy, in: Criminology and Public Policy 2001, pp. 5-36

[20] See now Müller, Joachim: Children, women, men – protection from violence without taboos, in: Siegfried Lamnek/Manuela Boatcă (eds.): Gender – Violence – Society, Opladen 2003, pp. 507-532

[21] A revised version of Section 31(2) could therefore, if it is not deleted entirely, read as follows: “In particular, it may temporarily remove or keep away from the shared living space persons who are strongly suspected of repeatedly using physical violence against members of the shared household or seriously and imminently threaten to use physical violence again . The accused person must be heard.”