L'Express , June 20, 2005
by Elisabeth Badinter
In studies and treatises on intimate partner violence, the division of roles sounds self-evident: men are perpetrators and women are victims. This is a well-founded assumption, supported by facts and statistics, when it comes to physical forms of violence such as beatings, rape, or murder. However, in the majority of existing works and the resulting euphemisms, all forms of intimate partner violence—both physical and verbal—are conflated. This conflation also applies to the only serious study on this topic conducted in France, published in 2001: the "Enquête nationale sur les violences envers les femmes en France" (Enveff). From its findings, a "global index" for intimate partner violence was derived: 10% of women report being victims. This alarming figure and the terminology used, however, obscure the fact that three-quarters of this "violence" consists of psychological aggression such as insults, defamation, or harassment. This raises the question: aren't men also victims of this psychological aggression, of which they are so vehemently accused? According to a study conducted by the BVA polling institute for L'Express, men and women report being victims of this relationship conflict to roughly the same extent, a conflict whose classification as "violence" is met with involuntary hesitation. This phenomenon is too serious to be left to mere verbal sparring. Instead, we must stick to the facts: this is precisely the point of the debate on this topic led by philosopher Elisabeth Badinter. We are publishing her lecture, which she delivered at an Amnesty International discussion event in Lyon on June 16. This study is a major first. Asking women and men the same questions about the tensions within their partnerships represents a break with the prevailing discourse on "intimate partner violence." The finding that men and women complain about each other in roughly equal measure (and that men even have to endure twice as many insults as women) reinforces the unease I have always felt, both with regard to the usual method used to talk about violence against women, and with regard to the conclusions that are drawn from it.
First of all, the method employed by most institutions or associations is a generalizing one: they tell us that male violence against women is universal. For example, Amnesty International's 2004 brochure states: "All over the world, women suffer acts of violence or threats of violence. This shared fate transcends national, income, racial, and cultural boundaries. At home as well as in their communities, in times of war as well as peace, women are beaten, raped, and mutilated with impunity."
| A duel
All the analyzed tables clearly show that relationship conflicts are fought by two parties. When asked by the BVA Institute about the tensions they had experienced in their relationship over the past twelve months, all French people aged 20 to 59 expressed the feeling of having experienced at least one of the situations tested in this study. 44% of respondents had to listen to unkind remarks from their partner about their own family or friends. 34% felt belittled and criticized. 30% were subjected to jealous questions: "Where have you been, with whom?" 29% experienced their partner making significant expenditure decisions without considering their opinion. And 25% had to cope with their partner "stopping talking, refusing any discussion," in other words, being furious. It gets worse, but this is less common. 23% had to listen to unkind remarks about their physical appearance ("You're ugly!") and 22% about their sexual behavior. 23% accuse their partner of having expressed contemptuous views towards their opinions in private and sometimes in public (13%). But the most interesting findings lie elsewhere. The men are a surprise. Like the women, they also claim to be occasionally attacked, mistreated, or discredited. Even more often than women, they feel harassed by their partner's jealousy: 18% of them (compared to 12% of women) state that their partner prevents them from speaking to other women (or men). 34% of men (26% of women) state that their partner wants to know with whom and where they have been, and 33% (27% of women) state that their partner makes important expenditure decisions without considering their opinion. It is the women who are least hesitant to make critical remarks about their partner's physical appearance. And they are by no means the last to resort to insults or name-calling: 15% of men claim this, while 8% of women accuse their partner of it. Of course, these are statements made and should be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that it is not easy for a man to admit that he feels under psychological pressure. More women than men complained about some of the issues raised: their partner "devalued" them (37% compared to 30%) and was particularly quick to question their sexual competence (25% compared to 19%). It should also be noted that women answered certain questions more pessimistically than in the 2001 "Enquête nationale sur la violence envers les femmes en France" (National Survey on Violence Against Women in France). The less bleak framework of our survey, which is also shorter, undoubtedly contributed to de-dramatizing the issue and encouraging the free expression of opinions. It clearly demonstrates that men and women are equally capable of perpetrating "partner violence." On the other hand, it does not address all the disputes that escalate in various ways—and usually to the detriment of women—into worse. |
This approach conflates various types of violence, which are, however, very different in nature: violence in times of war and in times of peace; violence perpetrated by states and violence perpetrated privately; the violence of a husband or partner, that of a sexual or moral harasser, a soldier, or a black marketeer. Likewise, no distinction is made between the Parisian woman harassed on a bus or train and the young Nigerien woman who falls victim to a sex deal, or the Jordanian woman who is the victim of an honor-related crime. Psychological and physical violence; violence in totalitarian, patriarchal states and violence in democratic states.
This approach also implies a kind of continuum of violence by equating the threat of a slap in marriage with the stoning of an adulteress: "A hand on the buttocks on the subway, whistling in the street, beatings, insults, humiliation by a partner, forced marriages, raped girls, etc." (Collectif national pour les droits des femmes, 2005). No distinctions are made; instead, completely disparate actions are listed, resembling a general store where everything and nothing is given equal weight: from verbal attacks to the exertion of psychological pressure to physical assault.
Finally, it seems to me, statistics aren't taken too seriously, and even less so their sources or interpretation. For example, the Amnesty booklet states: "At least one in three women has been beaten, forced into sexual intercourse, or subjected to violence in some way or another at some point in her life" (Population Reports, No. 11, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Dec. 1999). What does "subjected to violence in some way or another" mean? This imprecise phrase leads to only one thing sticking in the mind: that one in three women is beaten or raped.
Even worse: the internet reports that almost 50% of women worldwide have been beaten or physically abused by their partner at some point in their lives. According to the Council of Europe, domestic violence is the leading cause of death and disability for women aged 16 to 44, even ahead of cancer or traffic accidents. These claims by Spanish feminists from 2003 are cited everywhere, especially in the Council of Europe report. Was I the only one who was shocked when I read this? Statistics from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) show that in 2001, 2,402 women aged 16 to 44 died from cancer!
The National Survey on Violence Against Women in France (Population & Sociétés, January 2001) cites a global index of 10% for intimate partner violence against French women, which, strangely enough, breaks down as follows: insults and verbal threats (4.3%), emotional blackmail (1.8%), psychological pressure (37%), physical assaults (2.5%), of which repeated assaults (1.4%), and rape and other forced sexual acts (0.9%). Journalists and politicians translate this as: 10% of women in France are beaten. Year after year on March 8th, we are subjected to this false claim without anyone considering examining the figures more closely or correcting them.
Fourth illustration of the persuasive use of statistics: in 1980, two researchers, Linda MacLeod and Andrée Cadieux, published a report on battered women in Quebec, citing figures of 300,000 battered women and 52 women murdered by their partners or ex-partners. For over 24 years, the "300,000" became a headline-grabbing figure for feminist movements in Quebec; until the Quebec Institute for Statistics published a study worthy of the name in 2004, which counted no more than 14,209 women who identified themselves as victims of intimate partner violence. Regarding the 52 women murdered by their partners or ex-partners in Quebec, the Quebec Public Security Service (Sécurité publique du Québec) reported 14 women and 7 men murdered by their partners in 2000-2001. Linda MacLeod admitted her error in 1994. She defended herself by saying, "I had no doubt about that number because it represented a reality corroborated by the women and men working on the front lines. That was a legitimate assumption." I don't question the good faith of these researchers, but I can't help thinking that what's happening here is less about finding the truth than about confirming existing preconceptions. Male violence is being systematically tallied; the numbers are being inflated until they are completely distorted, as if this reflects an unconscious desire for a global condemnation of the other sex. The goal here is no longer to condemn violent men, but—in my view—men in general.
This is why I am so concerned by the United Nations' use of the term "gender violence," a term adopted by Amnesty International. It is a term that originates from the work of the most radical Anglo-Saxon feminists in the 1980s and 90s. What does "gender violence" mean? Does it mean that the use of violence is a specific characteristic of masculinity? That masculinity is defined by the dominance and oppression of the other sex? That women are incapable of using violence?
The choice of terminology is of fundamental importance. Introducing the term "gender violence" leads to a dualistic definition of humanity, characterized by antagonism between perpetrators and victims, or between good and evil. I believe this is a twofold error. On the one hand, the concept of "gender-based violence" seems unfounded. On the other hand, generalizing male violence without any qualitative, cultural, or political distinction squanders the opportunity for change.
Missteps in a couple's life are not a sufficient argument to speak of "terrorizing the partner"
When I advocate for the conviction that violence is not a specific characteristic of one gender, I refer to the phenomena of intimate partner violence in Western democracies, where a more differentiated and scientific approach to this issue can be assumed.
First observation: the studies available to us, both in France and in Europe, especially those of the Council of Europe, strike me as incomplete and consequently biased in many respects. They are incomplete because they only record women as victims. There has been a consistent and deliberate decision not to know whether there are male victims. The justification given for this omission is always the same. It consists of two arguments: we have no statistics, but we have good reason to assume that 98% of intimate partner violence is perpetrated by men (cf. Marie-France Hirigoyen in L'Express of April 25, 2005: "The men? They weren't asked. They are assigned the role of aggressor by definition: they are in 98% of cases."). As for violence by women, it is merely a legitimate defense against violence initially perpetrated by men.
Second observation: in the absence of reliable studies, the most questionable figures are circulating. For example: Are 6 women killed by their partner or ex-partner every month in France (i.e., 72 per year), or 400, as stated in the TF1 television program "Le Droit de savoir"? And how can one assess the extent and significance of this phenomenon when judicial and police statistics fail to differentiate between women who die as a result of intimate partner violence and those who die from other circumstances?
Given this situation, I want to show that violence has no gender by highlighting some rarely discussed aspects of female violence. Regarding female intimate partner violence, we must, as usual, turn to North American research for clarity, specifically the recent study by Denis Laroche for the Quebec Institute of Statistics, whose statistics were approved in February 2005 by the very feminist Quebec Women's Statute Council. To my knowledge, this is the first comprehensive French-language study on intimate partner violence that addresses both male and female violence. It is also the first study to differentiate between serious and less serious forms of violence, which it does by presenting a list of 10 situations of physical violence, ranging from threats to actual acts. Four key pieces of information are included: in the five years prior to the study, 92.4% of men and 94.5% of women reported not experiencing physical violence. In 2002, 62,700 women and 39,500 men in Quebec identified themselves as victims of intimate partner violence (including all forms of violence). Differences exist between the acts of aggression experienced by men and women. Women are more frequently victims of severe physical violence than men. Of these, 25% were beaten (compared to 10% of men), 20% were nearly strangled (4% of men), and 19% were threatened with a weapon (8% of men). Seven times more women than men were victims of sexual assault. However, according to the Canadian studies, men and women are equally affected by psychological violence.
The Canadians adopted from the American psychologist Michael P. Johnson (2000) the distinction, which seems fundamental to me, between two types of partner violence: the "terrorizing of the partner" and the "situation-specific violence".
Severe violence, occurring in a context of "partner terrorizing," is defined by the will to destroy the partner in every respect (psychologically and physically). This violence is predominantly perpetrated by men.
In contrast, most affected men become victims of their female partners in a context of "situational violence," which arises either from the woman's self-defense, from mutual violence, or from a power struggle between the two partners. This is where the concept of "interactive violence" is introduced, which is crucial for understanding a large proportion of intimate partner violence.
It is therefore observed that women, even though they are predominantly victims of violence, especially physical violence, also perpetrate this violence when they are in the physically or psychologically dominant position.
To understand this, one must look at the violence perpetrated by women against the most vulnerable, starting with children. Although this topic is rarely discussed, some studies give cause for concern. The most recent report, published in December 2004 by ODAS (Observatoire national de l'action sociale décentralisée, which oversees child welfare services), cites 89,000 at-risk children in France, of whom 18,000 are abused.
The 2002 activity report of the Child Abuse Helpline indicates that 76.2% of abuse is perpetrated by parents, with 48.8% attributed to mothers and 27.4% to fathers, although these figures are likely higher in reality. Finally, the UNICEF report (2003) on child deaths resulting from abuse in wealthy countries cites the deaths of 3,500 children under the age of 15 annually. The report does not provide precise figures on the ratio between fathers and mothers responsible for their children's deaths. However, it would certainly be wrong to assign this blame solely to one gender.
An epidemiological study on this topic is currently underway in France, conducted by INSERM. Initial findings suggest an underestimation of the number of children under one year old who died as a result of abuse and were previously attributed to "sudden infant death syndrome" (see Journal de l'Inserm, May-June-July 2003). But who predominantly cares for infants in our society? Finally, I will limit myself to mentioning the existence of female pedophilia, which was apparently only discovered less than a year ago in the course of the trials in Outreau and Angers. I remind you that in the latter case, 29 women and 37 men were in the dock. However, to this day, we have no serious investigation into this type of violence.
However, children are not the only vulnerable beings exposed to female violence. The abuse of the elderly is another issue in which this female violence implicitly plays a role. In 2003, the responsible minister estimated the number of abused senior citizens at 600,000. This family-based abuse takes place at home. But regardless of whether it occurs within families or in institutions, it is predominantly women who care for the elderly, just as they do for the youngest.
One topic remains taboo and is only rarely investigated – especially in France: violence within lesbian relationships. A 1998 study by the Canadian Public Health Agency concluded that the level of violence in gay and lesbian relationships is the same as in heterosexual relationships. Including all forms of violence, one in four couples reports experiencing violence in their relationship.
All these mindless but necessary statistics demonstrate that we shouldn't speak of gender violence, but rather of the "law of the jungle." One crime is undoubtedly more attributable to men than to women: rape, which in France today is punished as severely as murder. It remains true that both men and women, when they hold a position of power, can descend into violence. The photographs of Abou Ghraib in Iraq have shown this, as has the participation of women in the genocides in Nazi Germany and Rwanda. That men have historically borne the majority of the responsibility for physical violence is self-evident. For millennia, they have held all positions of power in the economy, religion, military, politics, and family—that is, they have ruled over women. However, with the growing participation in power that emerges under democratic conditions, it is inevitable that more and more women will abuse their positions of power, that is, perpetrate violence themselves.
Furthermore, the concept of violence, as it is currently used to describe any conceivable action regardless of its context, needs to be reconsidered. One cannot use the same word for an inappropriate gesture in a public place and for rape. Nor can one use it for the numerous different situations described in studies on intimate partner violence. An unpleasant remark, an insult, an inappropriate authoritarian act, or even the threat of a slap cannot be equated with a destructive attack on the other person. Slip-ups in a couple's life are not sufficient grounds to speak of the "terrorizing of the partner," which is fundamentally different and which many specialists now define as "a dynamic in a couple's relationship where one partner violates the integrity and dignity of the other through aggressive, active, and repeated behavior aimed at controlling them." It also seems unreasonable to me to equate violence against women in democratic states with that in patriarchal, non-democratic states. In the latter, violence against women is based on traditional philosophical and religious principles that contradict our own. It is these principles that must be combated. Only the education and mobilization of women will put an end to this systematic imbalance that assigns all rights to one sex and all duties to the other.
In our societies, however, violence against women contradicts our principles. It demands the prosecution of its perpetrators. Contrary to those who believe that every society is structurally violent towards women, I think it is primarily an expression of a pathological psychological and social condition that requires care and serious reflection on our priorities. The growing violence observed in Western societies, quite apart from age, gender, and social context, may be related to a growing inability to conform to the constraints of existing obligations and to a disturbingly widespread tendency to confuse universal rights with individual desires.
The winter of 2005 taught us that violence among children and young people in schools has increased dramatically, across all age groups, from high schools to kindergartens, and that no social class has been spared. Irritability, rudeness, insults, and physical violence have become expressions of a banal aggression, even directed at those who are there to help and protect us, such as teachers and doctors. Between 1999 and 2003, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), the number of French people who were victims of aggressive acts (insults, threats, physical violence) increased by 20%. Given these circumstances, the question naturally arises as to why we are increasingly unable to tolerate frustration and manage our aggression.
It is not our principles that are in question, but our upbringing. That is what needs to change. For over thirty years, individual self-realization and the gratification of our desires have gained the upper hand over respect for others and the rules of the community. This applies to men as much as to women and has nothing to do with what is happening in other parts of the world, where the law is an oppressive yoke and individual self-realization an empty concept. Essentially, the meaning of the concept of obligation needs to be relearned in our societies, just as others need to learn to demand their rights. Attempting to conflate these two contexts at all costs puts us in a position of powerlessness and also accepts injustice. By succumbing to the clamor of "gender-based violence," we are guilty of a new form of sexism that is no more acceptable than the first.
Elisabeth Badinter