Females can be violent and abusive too, research suggests

The idea that females are far less likely than males to engage in sexual abuse has been questioned in recent piece of research from the United States, says my That's Men for You column in today's Irish Times. This research, along with findings on female domestic violence, suggests that we need to look again at whether we are responding adequately to what really goes on between men and women in society, it says. The column is part of The Irish Times' premium content so I can't reproduce it here.

The research, on which you can find more here on Medical News Today, suggested that boys in one-parent families in Pennsylvania are more likely to be sexually abused by females than by males. The column goes on to refer to Irish, Canadian and US research on domestic violence inflicted on men by women.

The point of all this is not to engage in a woman-bashing exercise but to suggest that professionals working with domestic violence, sexual abuse and other issues really need to open their minds and ears to complaints from men are as well as to those from women. And it notes that Amen, the organisation that works with male victims of domestic abuse in Ireland, complains that less than 1% of all government funding for domestic violence goes to services for male victims, "an indefensible situation given that the government's own research found that 29% of women and 26% of men suffer domestic abuse.".....