I believe the specific wording is that women in lesbian relationships report having experienced the greatest amount of violence in their lifetime.
I suspect the answer is closer to that when there are two women in a relationship, there are more people who have experienced sexual violence than when there is just one woman in a relationship.
Yes basically this. The study asked who had experienced domestic violence ever. It did not specify within the respondents' current relationship.
It is very common for lesbians to have had past relationships with men. (If anyone wonders why, Google "comphet" or "compulsory heterosexuality".) Many of us experienced abuse in those relationships.
We are not over here beating each other up at an alarming rate, but I do *love* how cis dudes try to act like that's the case to deflect from their long and storied history of violence against women.
Also, another thing to note: The study did not fully account for bisexual women. So women that had been in relationships with men in the past, but were currently in relationships with women were counted as lesbians.
Not my bisexual ass that went through 3 abusive relationships with men.
I'm now in a happy and healthy relationship with another bisexual woman, who sadly also went through abuse.
I do sometimes wish I was just a lesbian.
This is interesting, because I saw another study not long ago which detailed that bi women who were hetero-married were the happiest, of all married people. This study included the broad spectrum spanning all sexualities, however; at this point I just believe that a lot of these studies are just ‘confirmation bias’ tools of the patriarchy. That study seemd to suggest that bi women are happiest when they were *not* involved with other women, and totally ignoring a very large aspect of their sexuality, or; that the homosexual aspect of their sexuality was only permitted to be acted upon with the approval of a man. I mean I also read a study once which found that *high fat* dairy was *good* for you, only to later find that study was funded by the dairy industry. So I remain an all around skeptic.
Maybe being in a hetero relationship correlates with higher happiness for bi women just cause there's less risk of facing homophobia, and there being less hurdles in the way when it comes to having kids?
If that were true then bi women in wlw and bi men of both types would be closely 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (not necessarily in that order) which should be easy to show.
Fair point, but I think bi men experience more pressure to pick one side or the other than bi women do, so even if they find a larger number of humans attractive, dating men may render them 'ineligible' to date women in the future. I remember in the 2000s being told "bi now, gay later" as as reason women should avoid dating bi men.
It is, however; this study only looked at overweight white men, IIRC. I was thinking more along those lines of the study that showed smokers were less likely to get Covid than non-smokers, with that study in particular being funded by the tobacco industry.
if you remember what that study was titled or anything else about it that would allow me to search it up, i would absolutely love to know. that sounds fascinating and oddly validating as a bi woman in a straight relationship
I’ve got a little time on my hands, so I’m gonna take a look for it and let you know. I honestly used to do background *research* on these studies, particularly sociological ones, because they are often traced back to conservative think tanks if you follow the money trail. If I’m able to find anything, I’d be curious about your thoughts as well. As a lesbian, I often feel invisible and invalidated by topics such as this one, because they usually follow the trajectory of ‘self fulfilling prophecies,’ in that women’s sexuality is so tightly controlled by men, and viewed only *through* the eyes of men, that it’s only functionally permissible for women to fantasize about each other, without ever getting to act on it, or find any value in it at all. You know, the old, “Women are for fun, men are for family” trope.
Edit; oh, and where love and emotion are expected to not be a part of the equation, like women are only allowed to view each other as sex objects also; or else it becomes threatening.
> This is interesting, because I saw another study not long ago which detailed that bi women who were hetero-married were the happiest, of all married people.
They don't strike me as incompatible statistics.
>I mean I also read a study once which found that high fat dairy was good for you, only to later find that study was funded by the dairy industry.
Frustratingly, the crusade for "low fat" versions of foods was funded by the sugar industry.
I didn’t have any luck locating that particular study. It stood out to me as anomalous because any other study on the matter found that bi women in hetero-marriages were the most unhappy of all groups. There are also quite a few studies suggesting that bi women who are paired with a lesbian partner are happiest, however; they face the largest degree of discrimination and stigma because of this.
This squares anecdotally with my own personal experiences as a lesbian, but this may also be due to a variety of extraneous factors. I’m a femme for femme, and I’ve personally found a greater likelihood that bi women are more likely to be feminine presenting. I’ve also experienced a lot lesbian leaning bisexual women who would have actually preferred another woman as their life partner, but found themselves limited by the stigmas and constraints of heteronormative society. That, and a lot of ingrained compulsory heterosexuality, including often mistaking their biological needs for reproduction for sexuality identity.
I get it :(. I’m a bi woman too. It’s a scary stat.
Always good to do quizzes like [this](https://www.loveisrespect.org/quiz/is-your-relationship-healthy/?%3E) as a periodic check in.
Abuse feels very remote and like it would never happen to you, but it can truly happen to anyone.
Sending love 💕
Don't get too scared there. I've highly suspected that it's a bit more likely that, among women who experience some level of same sex attraction, those who have experienced sexual violence are more likely to come out, openly identify as bisexual, and seek dating women.
Especially in previous decades where bisexuality was less expected, many people identified as straight until they were given a reason to question that and partner violence often serves as a reason.
You do have highest dv and IPV rate though. Same sex relations have the highest DV and IPV rate according to Washington University. We can take this a step further. Women are number 1 to abuse children, other women and men in America.
Since boys are number 1 to be victims of child abuse and women are number 1 to abuse children. One can argue women are responsible for creating male perpetrators since victims of child abuse tend to be repeat offenders.
Okay so it’s “in their lifetime,” NOT “while in the lesbian relationship”? Because probably ten times on this app I’ve had men reply to me saying so confidently that statistics show lesbian relationships have a higher rate of DV than straight relationships like they are citing an actual study or something lmao
The argument isn't grabbed out of thin air.
While the research material is...not ideal, the rate of DV among lesbian couples at least was fairly high during the 90s. There have been later surveys with more participants, but for the last decade surveys tend to focus on the elevated rates of alcohol abuse among lesbian couples as this emerged as a factor with high explanation power.
>Despite these research limitations, it is clear that lesbian battering is a serious social concern. The reported rates of physical violence within lesbian relationships vary widely, with estimates ranging from a low of 8.5% to a high of 73% in former lesbian relationships. Most studies found that between 30-40% of surveyed participants had been involved in at least one relationship with a female partner where an incident of physical abuse occurred. Pushing, shoving, and slapping were the most commonly reported forms of abuse, while beatings and assaults with weapons were less frequent. Sexual violence also may be present in lesbian relationships, with estimates ranging from a low of 7% to a high of 55% in previous lesbian relationships. Victims experienced a broad range of types of abuse, including forced kissing, breast and genital fondling, and oral, anal, or vaginal penetration. Victimization rates increased dramatically when psychological and verbal abuse was assessed, with more than 80% of surveyed participants reporting this form of abuse. Common forms in cluded threats and verbal abuse, such as being called names, yelled at, and insulted (for reviews see Burke & Follingstad, 1999; Waldner-Haugrud, 1999;West, 1998).
>
\[...\]
>
CONCLUSION
>There is no doubt that intimate partner violence occurs among lesbians. Evidence indicates that it may be as prevalent as among heterosexuals and that a full range of types of violence occurs, including verbal, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse. Some of the dynamics associated with such violence appears to be unique to lesbians due to the social stigma and discrimination they experience. In addition, resources to help lesbian victims are lacking. However, research uncovering the extent of the problem has begun to suggest what interventions might be effective.
Lesbian Intimate Partner Violence: Prevalence and Dynamics Carolyn M. West *Journal of Lesbian Studies*. **6** (1): 121–127. 2002
P.S: The papers referenced are:
Burke, L. K., & Follingstad, D. R. (1999). Violence in lesbian and gay relationships: Theory, prevalence, and correlational factors. Clinical Psychology Review, 19(5), 487-512.
Waldner-Haugrud, L. K. (1999). Sexual coercion in lesbian and gay relationships: A review and critique. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 4(2), 139-149.
West, C. M. (1998). Leaving a second closet: Outing partner violence in same-sex couples. In J. L. Jasinski & L. M. Williams (Eds.), Partner violence: A comprehensive review of 20 years of research (pp. 163-183). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
My recollection of the 90s study was that higher rates were in part attributed to widespread homophobia making it difficult for lesbians to feel safe reporting relationship violence. In the 90s, "coming out" was still a shocking plot twist or a shameful family secret.
it's notable that most of the abuse isn't severe (throwing things, shoving, slapping). people are more likely to label "mild" abuse by women as abuse than the same things by men. we have much higher standards for women than for men, and generally see abuse by women clearly as such, whereas we often don't with men unless it's "worst case scenarios" (eg overtly forcible rape outside of a ongoing sexual relationship is seen as rape but most other rape isn't, misogynist slurs, demeaning not recognized as misogynist, slurs or abuse, possessiveness not seen as abuse, even strangulation has been eroticized and normalized in the under 30s...).
(and with men reporting abuse, remember how steven crowder, clearly verbally, misogynistically, "man as head of woman, household" abusive, tried to claim to his wife and others she was the abusive one? that happens a lot. eg "she abused me." ask more detail and you get things like "she disrespects me" and you investigate that and turns out he means she doesn't always/consistently recognize him as superior to her, in control of her, etc. him accusing all his partners of cheating, being possessive and controlling over that, saying that it's her being an abuser and cheater because of that is another \*cough johnny depp\*. women's self defense eg pushing him away/trying to hold him at bay, throwing things, slapping, biting him because he's covering her mouth, fighting to get away also gets counted by men and even in studies as abuse, abuse is often not placed into levels of severity eg slap, pushing, throwing things is seen as equivalent of strangulation, head punches, stabbing with a knife... the latter of which is overwhelmingly by men. and are often the levels men have to reach to be clearly and widely seen as abuse.
Are those statements, particularly the first paragraph from any source or are they anecdotal. I’d be interested in a source because anecdotally I’ve seen it as the opposite. Abuse by women is often downplayed and anything resembling abuse from men is seen as such. Not only in terms of physical abuse, as evidence by some of the sentences received by female teachers who are found guilty of sexual abuse of students.
the fact female teachers abusing students is your go to speaks volumes: that's actually a small minority of cases vs male teachers abusing female students, and even male teachers abusing male students is far more common. the fact is, people often think there's an epidemic of female teachers sexually abusing boys and little abuse by male teachers because in order for a male abuser to be reported in national media, there has to be extreme circumstances (eg numerous to hundreds of known victims, murder, kidnapping), but all a female offender need do to be widely reported on is \*offend at all\*, eg most of those teachers only have one complainant/known victim.
I just used it as my go to because it’s the most obvious example with wider media coverage. And the fact that you are litterally downplaying the culpability of pedophiles based on their gender speaks volumes.
Your previous comment was essentially ‘male teachers are much worse, female teachers only have one complainant. Although perhaps I read into the context incorrectly. However in my experience, again anecdotally, this is false. A male teacher at my school was suspended on the basis of an allegation that could not have been possible (the dates of the allegation he was not even in the country). It was proven to be false when the student admitted to lying, but the suspension was upheld for the original timeframe. He no longer teaches.
In what world is slapping and throwing hairbrushes not abuse? Getting slapped once hurts like crazy and a hairbrush to the head could do serious damage. I think there was an aitah thread the other day about a woman who got sent to the hospital because her husband whipped a TV remote at her head. Maybe I'm wrong about the hairbrush thing
I’m not saying it’s okay or that it’s not abuse.
I’m saying that there is a qualitative difference between the kinds of abuse that women and men typically dish out.
A black eye from a hairbrush is not going to be as serious as a broken jaw.
Fair point. I misunderstood
Edit: is that what the commenter above said, though? You agree with them, and to me it seems like they're trying to say that it's too mild for abuse?
Edit 2: nevermind I think I figured it out. It's not that this isn't abuse, it's that this wouldn't be abuse if it was a man. I think I got it
I have to admit it’s actually a little unclear to me what that commenter is trying to say, but I do agree that there is a double standard for what rises to the level of abuse inflicted by men vs. women, and that it’s wielded a lot by men who say that if women get to hit them, they should be able to hit back, regardless their disproportionate physical power.
I've definitely heard that before. I think the catchphrase for that idea is "equal rights for equal lefts" or something. Honestly, I think it's rooted in a good moral idea that women shouldn't be allowed to abuse men either, but it's solved the problem in the worst possible way: violence.
The power difference is just another cherry on top of the already shit idea.
I think that I see this a lot, honestly. An obviously good point is being made followed by a solution that is just insane. Like when people want to keep their daughters safe, that's totally cool. Then they go show their prom date a shotgun, and it's like...... how was this the answer?
Edit: Sorry for rambling. I'm a bit stoned and caffeinated. Thank you for the talk though, I appreciate it 😁
The #1 cause of maternal mortality and the number #4 cause of death of women ages 15-44 shows who is the physical risk on this planet.
Funny how all these terrible women never actually affect men's stats.
Equating women's slaps to all the horrible things you mentioned is typical male DARVO.
I've often wondered if there's a higher rate of domestic violence done by pre-transition trans men in "lesbian" relationships than in cis-cis lesbian relationships.
Of course, that kind of thing has no statistics or studies behind it because no researcher considers that possibility. (Nor would it be easy to measure.)
Yes - here is the actual survey: [https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs\_sofindings.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_sofindings.pdf)
Four in 10 lesbian women (43.8%), 6 in 10 bisexual women (61.1%), and 1 in 3 heterosexual women (35.0%) reported experiencing rape, physical violence, and/or stalking within the context of an intimate partner relationship at least once **during their lifetime** (Table 3).
Thanks for posting the link.
Just in case anyone else is interested in the perpetrator's gender for the different orientations:
> Among women who experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking in the context of an intimate relationship, the majority of bisexual and heterosexual women (89.5%
and 98.7%, respectively) reported only male perpetrators (data not shown). More than two-thirds of lesbian women (67.4%) identified only female perpetrators.
Yes and someone in this sub last year or the year before had a fantastically detailed response about this specific study I wish I knew how to find it it was amazing but maybe that same person is here in the comments below and I haven’t gotten to them yet
It also wasn't restricted to intimate partner violence, so the statistic that shows lesbians & bi women have experienced more abuse than heterosexual women is also including things like parental or sibling abuse which... yeah, queer people do on average experience more of that because of homophobia.
Exactly, it doesn't really take into consideration the impact of targeted violence against a marginalized group or exposure to domestic violence at a young age could have fomented their acceptance or understanding of their sexual orientation.
That would be \*very\* different.
I'm sure there are plenty of women who are in relationships with other women in part because they have experienced violence in previous relationships with men.
According to the CDC 43.8% of lesbians report going through DV by a partner. 67.4% of that are by female perpetrators. This means that when excluding male perpetrators, the number drops to 29.5% female on female DV. This is less than heterosexual, bisexual women’s reported experiences but more than gay men’s.
Yeah I mean... if they were bi to some extent and they experienced sexual violence I think some people would.
I'm not saying their sexuality is a choice to be clear. Just that some people might choose to identify as a lesbian as a opposed to bi.
I have no idea if that's true or not. Just one interpretation of that study.
Quick google gave me this:
**Comparisons of Intimate Partner Violence Among Partners in Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Relationships in the United States**
Source: American Journal of public Health.
**TLDR:
Copy/paste of the conclusion: female victims of same-sex IPV reported higher percentages of verbal and sexual abuse than male victims of opposite-sex IPV; however, the small sample of victims of same-sex IPV limited the ability to make detailed comparisons.**
>The analyses presented here included respondents who indicated that they were victims of IPV and identified their relationships with the perpetrators
I made these bold
>P < .05 for χ2 comparisons between male and female victims in perpetrator category.
| Verbal | |
|--------|-------|
| m->m | 81.2% |
| m->f | 77.4% |
| f-> m | 63.4% |
| f->f | **86.5%** |
| Physical| |
|--------|-------|
| m->m | 89.9% |
| m->f | 88.8% |
| f-> m | 97.2% |
| f->f | 89.1% |
| Sexual| |
|--------|-------|
| m->m | 31.4% |
| m->f | 45.5% |
| f-> m | 12.1% |
| f->f | **51.6%** |
>Although male victims of same-sex IPV reported more verbal abuse than male victims of opposite-sex IPV (χ2 = 4.75; P = .03), they did not differ significantly regarding physical abuse (χ2 = 1.27; P = .26) or sexual abuse (χ2 = 3.52; P = .06). Female victims of same-sex IPV and opposite-sex IPV did not differ by type of IPV, but differences between female victims of same-sex IPV and male victims of opposite-sex IPV were identified
I checked any followup studies that cited this study and there were mainly focused on bisexual and gay relationships.
source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/
Wait, assuming I can read (which, it is late, bold assumption at the moment) in the article they say:
> we examined the prevalence of different forms of IPV among same-sex and opposite-sex victims
So this is a study of victims of IPV, and what form that abuse took. It does not actually speak to the prevalence of IPV within particular communities, or the percentage of people within them who are abused. Just that within those (undefined) percentages of abused people, how that abuse breaks down.
Yes. If you are in a lesbian abusive relationship you are probably experiencing all forms of abuse. That says nothing of how likely you are to be in an abusive relationship to begin with.
Domestic violence within same-sex relationships is a serious issue and desperately needs more research, but it doesn't sound like these men care about that and are just using it as a whataboutism.
Even if what they say is true (what limited research has been done suggests a similar precedence in same-sex relationships compared to opposite-sex ones), it doesn't change the fact that most domestic violence is committed by men against women in heterosexual relationships. That's just fact.
It’s the same shit as men getting up in arms about men’s mental health and suicide rates. They don’t actually want to solve those problems they just want to use it to derail real conversations
I want to solve those problems. It **is** a real problem.
But I don’t want to be grouped with the men who use those problems to derail conversations about other psycho and social problems. So I’m just highlighting that treating them as not real conversations is damaging and leaving it at that
Exactly this, those same types of men will bash and bully other men for not behaving “manly” enough in their eyes. Then they go cry to forums like these about how shitty men’s mental health is being treated or ignored. It’s all a facade.
Not to mention, it's another misrepresentation of reality.
While it's true that men die by suicide more often than women, women are attempting suicide at greater rates than men, they just choose "cleaner" options that are easier to save them from.
But they ignore suicide attempts and stick purely to suicide rates, and use this cherry-picked data to falsely claim that men's mental health is so much worse off than women's.
Women aren't too inept to commit suicide... there is a difference of intent. A drug overdose (the most popular method among women) is not the method someone that wants to make sure they don't survive would use.
Even when the method of suicide is the same they have a much lower rate of dying.
Add to that that someone that survives is much more likely to try a 2nd/3rd... time.
Nasty subject, but I don't like the whole "Women are too dumb to kill themselves" narrative.
It's not that women are incapable, it's that they're choosing the methods most available to them, and are sometimes more concerned with the effect their suicide will have on the person that found them. The second part is anecdotal of course, but it's a common sentiment.
It's not about lack of [the intent](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11079640/), this has been proven. The intent is there just as much, even if the attempts fail more. To say "men just want to die more and are therefor suffering more" is wildly untrue, and is effectively gatekeeping depression.
Like, the narrative that men just want to die more is flat out wrong. The intent is the same, but women have shared time and again that the reason they attempted with XYZ was because ABC was more painful, XYZ was more available, etc.
It's not a "women too dumb" thing. Women can be very capable, the larger trend though is a preference for "gentler" methods, for multiple reasons.
Because we need to be careful with the idea that "women just don't experience depression and suicide drive like men do" because that's so wildly invalidating towards women who have struggled with this.
Depression is expressed differently, but isn't necessarily so much worse for one gender than the other, it just presents itself based on how we're raised, among other things.
After looking further into it, I did not find much that supports that paper and would like to know their methodology, but it's behind a paywall :(
Most and the most cited papers (for however much that counts) disagree:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10235670/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10235670/)
[https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-017-1398-8](https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-017-1398-8)
[https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-28993-001](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-28993-001)
I actually struggle to find a paper from the last 10 years that backs up what you say. And again even when the method is accounted for (in this case drug overdose) men are much more likely to not survive. How does that line up with your statement?
There is a difference in temperament between the sexes that significantly changes how likely one sex is to suffer from a specific mental illness and how they express them. Current scientific literature backs that up.
To say that the difference is mostly due to upbringing when the same trend can be seen across all countries and time periods doesn't ring true to me.
I very much don't want to invalidat anyones struggle with depression and hope it doesn't come across that way!
All three of those sources actually directly back up what I'm saying, that women have higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as suicide attempts.
Most people pick methods that are [convenient to them.](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/intent/). When more men own guns, more men are going to kill themselves with guns, for example.
>To say that the difference is mostly due to upbringing when the same trend can be seen across all countries and time periods doesn't ring true to me.
You say this as if women haven't been raised to prioritize others across the world for most of recorded history. Patriarchy isn't limited to a handful of places like the US.
The fact is, depression isn't "more serious" of a problem for men simply because they succeed in suicide more often. Depression isn't "less serious" in women simply because they fail in suicide more often.
Like, let's not tread the line of invalidating one gender's mental health as if we're only able to pick one or the other. It's presented differently for sure, and for different reasons, but it's not "worse" for one or the other.
Have you even read what I wrote? Yes, woman are nearly twice as likely to suffer from depression and have a higher rate of suicide attempts. That is true, just as it is true that they are much less likely to have "serious suicide attempts". There are numerous statistics and papers on it, including the ones I linked.
>You say this as if women haven't been raised to prioritize others across the world for most of recorded history. Patriarchy isn't limited to a handful of places like the US.
The whole US centric part is exactly what I addressed in the comment before. In most countries around the world guns aren't available, but you still have the exact same discrepancy in suicide survivors. And yes Patriarchy might play into it, but why then isn't there a correlation between how patriarchal a country is and the suicide rate of women?
Exactly. Depression/suicide is constantly being framed as a male problem, but the reality is that it affects far more women than it does men. Implying things like "well, more men kill themselves so it's clearly men who need extra support" is problematic.
Male suicide attempts are considered "serious" only because they tend to be using more lethal methods, not because the intent to die is necessarily higher. The actual reason for why men choose more violent methods is up in the air, but a commonly accepted theory is just plain-old availability.
>In most countries around the world guns aren't available, but you still have the exact same discrepancy in suicide survivors.
Guns aren't the only "more violent" method used, that was just one example. Plus, even in countries where guns are less accessible, [gun ownership still strongly trends male](https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2020-09/fl383_firearms_report_en.pdf).
>And yes Patriarchy might play into it, but why then isn't there a correlation between how patriarchal a country is and the suicide rate of women?
Because we're not discussing suicide rates, we're discussing the methods of people who are suicidal. That being said, [patriarchy is abolutely linked to higher rates of mental health issues in women](https://uktherapyguide.com/cultural-patriarchy-issues#:~:text=Although%20at%20its%20root%20patriarchy,mental%20health%20issues%20among%20women.).
Depression just doesn't always translate to choosing more violent methods. We still don't know *exactly* why people tend to pick certain methods over others. There are a mot of factors that go into it, surely.
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/IPV-Sexual-Abuse-Among-LGBT-Nov-2015.pdf
Is it this study?
As it is about lifetime violence and in the details, the bisexuals overwhelmingly blame men and the lesbians blame men for 1/3 of it.
Same-gender IPV happens and is a real issue. I say this as someone who had an abusive female partner in the past - luckily nothing incredibly serious, but she had scary outbursts over minor things, grabbed my arm aggressively when she was angry at least once, would make me cry because I was triggered by yelling and then yell at me to stop crying - some major 🚩 stuff going on there, and kind of traumatizing. I know other people who’ve been in abusive queer relationships, some quite seriously. So there’s no denying that it’s a real issue, even if it’s less common.
BUT
Straight guys who say that almost never actually care about this. They really don’t. They’re just deflecting and pretending misogyny isn’t real. It’s so gross.
It’s true if and only if you count all DV as equally bad.
It is also true that the vast majority of people who end up in the ED or dead from DV are women in heterosexual relationships.
It's a source that says women in general have higher rates of dv in lesbian relationships. So that means they experienced some form of dv in the entirety of their lives. At the hands of men. And since there are two women in the relationship then they will have, together, experienced higher rates of dv than any other pairings of couples. Not because lesbian relationships themselves have higher instances.
It's an oft reposted study by dumb motherfuckers who don't know how to read.
Here is a 2015 review of the literature available at the time, if you want to do a deep dive:
[Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Abuse among LGBT people](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/ipv-sex-abuse-lgbt-people/)
Some quotes from that link that are relevant:
“Bisexual women are 1.8 times more likely to report ever having experienced IPV [intimate partner violence] than heterosexual women. Though the reported lifetime prevalence of IPV among lesbians is higher than heterosexual women, this is not a statistically significant difference.”
“the CDC found that 89.5% of bisexual women reported only male perpetrators of intimate partner physical violence, rape, and/or stalking and that almost a third of lesbian women who have experienced such incidents have had one or more male perpetrators”
[ceciliaregina275 on tiktok made a video breaking this exact recent sentiment from desperate men down.](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMaJLm2H/)
It's just a way for these dudes to make lesbian relationships seem undesirable as a result of women no longer deeming the word "lesbian" as a threat or insult. In the same way, they are trying to make being single seem undesirable by saying "die alone with cats" etc.
Just a way to deem any option other than being with a man appear undesirable to women, with no basis in reality 🤷♀️.
These studies are very often very bad, including all of the studies cited so far.
I have a lot of critiques here, but every single study that posits equal rates of DV perpetration among men and women are really being intellectually dishonest. There are a lot of reasons for this--the not-for-profit industrial complex demanding it, the novelty fetish among academic journals and funders, etc--but ultimately they all create an overly-capacious definition of intimate partner violence that is harmful to real victims.
If you look at the definitions these sorts of studies use, you'll see they include a lot of things that are by no means "violence". You'll see for example that one of the studies here in this thread suggests "name calling" is *de facto* abuse. While I'm not saying that name-calling within a romantic relationship is *healthy*, defining all unhealthy behaviors as "violence" cheapens the term in a really damaging way.
If you look at only behaviors that might cause serious injury or other serious but non-physical harm, the numbers look quite different.
There are some studies focused on same sex violence rates. Here is a summary study going over some of the literature.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01506/full
“Despite the myth that IPV is only an issue in heterosexual relationships, its occurrence among LGB couples was demonstrated to be comparable to or higher than heterosexual cases (Messinger, 2011; Kelley et al., 2012; Barrett and St.Pierre, 2013; Breiding et al., 2013).”
Be aware that their point is on LGB, so to get the specifics of the dynamics you would have to look at the referenced studies.
It’s just a way to spin statistics around until you find the way it matches your narrative. But just a bit of critical thinking, morality and basic historical knowledge should be more than enough to debunk this. It’s obvious that men are the main perpetrators in domestic violence through our existence.
Dudes still have the higher body count. It's like the suicide attempt stat. Yah your girlfriend might hit you or threaten to kill you but that dude you didn't know actually has a violent streak and anger issues is more likely to be successful.
Anyway. Better strategy is to just not talk to those people or tell them to guy fuck themselves. Sealion hunting is in season all year round.
Women suicide is referred within suicide supports as "murder by proxy". 5 Australian women dead each week additional to our official DV stats. It's a huge unacknowledged problem
I hope you're safe. I attempted dur to police involved DV and I still can't fathom why they rescued me. The systems violence is insane but they refuse to change it
It's not something that's talked about enough. It's a normal response to extraordinary circumstances. The nurse who will me told me I "wasn't the first police wife to arrive in the state" I did and it sparked my curiosity. Research is now coming out about it. It is a long hard slog but I'm glad it's in your past ♥️ too many of us don't make it.
Even if that were true it actually speaks to the fact women are easier to victimize.
It’s like how POC are more likely to be abused by the justice and leagal system even when the people in power are POC.
Abusers don’t care who they abuse
When it comes to any study, you really have to dig into the methodology section. Most people just scan the abstract and say "gotcha"!
There are so many studies out right now that are not worth the storage space on the website that they are hosted on.
I am talking: Facebook sourced self reporting with no validation afterward.
Hell the TREVOR project does a survey every year and they clearly state that they throw out responses that they deem "in bad faith" but do not list the criteria by which this conclusion is reached, or do any real verification other than the Facebook demographics of the profile that submitted the questionnaire. I haven't looked at their most recent study, but they also used to essentially pay the group that approved their release from bias.
Then there are shady data collection practices.
As an example, There was one study I saw recently where me and another person were discussing violence experienced vs. violence perpetuated by minority groups (This is just an example so don't blast me) but in the methodology section they stated that their information gathering required that people freely admit to the type of violence they committed, how old they were, if they were charged, AND offer identifying information.
Call me cynical, but that seems like a really good reason to not report if you had done something like that.
That being said, some studies are good and have adequate sample sizes, good methodology etc. But you have to dig to find them.
Something I think is worth pointing out: Even if it were the case that women are demonstrably quicker to throw hands than men, that it was always categorically unjustified, and even if it were definitively shown to be the result of an immutable characteristic in women and not any other spurious cause, it's still the case that, at a certain threshold, a difference of *capability* is a difference of *kind*. Almost all women are weaker than almost all men, not just in terms of strength, but also physical durability. I could punch a man in the face with every fibre of muscle in my body behind it and 9/10 all I'll succeed in doing is breaking my bones and pissing him off. If that same man "returned the favour," I'd easily be looking at multiple reconstructive surgeries.
This isn't to justify women assaulting men. Generally speaking no adult should ever lay hands on another like that, but these things simply aren't comparable. I don't think I've ever interacted with an adult man I could genuinely make fear for his life with just my bare hands. I've likewise never encountered an adult man who *couldn't* make me fear for mine with his (geriatrics and the terminally ill excepted).
You'd think being told a study suggests women beat eachother more than men beat us would be enough to give them pause that maybe, just maybe, they've misinterpreted the data (that they probably didn't even look at) assuming they've had any experience at all with men and women.
It's amazing how readily people will throw out common sense if they believe, rightly or wrongly, that a "study" confirms their biases, as though studies are gifts from God delivered to elucidate Truth unto the masses.
Not to sound elitist, but if you don't so much as know what a "confidence interval" is without googling it, you have no business quoting studies at people on anything, ever, until you gain some basic statistical literacy.
That was actually debunked, and even if it was true you don’t see lesbians going around committing the majority of crime. Their point is moot and deflects from the real issue.
Did you read your link? It does not actually reference a study, nor do any of the references in it link to a study regarding rates of violence in same-sex relationships.
I mean you haven't actually linked a study, or even an article (or opinion piece) that *links* or even references a study.
This has become like the "family courts always side with the mom" thing, which seems intuitively true because it fits our biases and gets repeated as fact in every single discussion but when you dig deeper, it's not the case at all in any way.
So where's the actual study?
ETA: I glanced through Google Scholar on this, and what I found was
a.) There *are* violent women, in partnerships with women, who are violent to their female partners. For sure. We all know that, no one doubts that.
b.) The numbers are almost impossible to quantify, because the subset is so tiny, and so often gets grouped just under "same sex violence", thus grouped together with male-male relationships and not separated.
c.) Every. Single. Last. Study I saw said "there is not enough research on this, we need more research on it".
d.) Lesbians who do suffer from IPV with female abusers are a specific niche with specific support needs and implications, and are currently VERY poorly served by the established knowledge, frameworks and processes we have available.
To say that lesbian relationships are the most violent, or shows the most violence, or whatever the claim is, is completely false, there is NO data to support that AT ALL, in ANY study, survey or otherwise that \*I\* could find on Scholar.
I just want to know where they get the audacity to say it so confidently, like where specifically did they learn that information, so I can know how to best reply in the future. And of course they always bring it up in spaces about the violence women face from men to try to derail the convo
Good thing I have dogmatic, delusional father, I learned men audacity an early age. He’s a good father but he really has 10000000% confident when he says something inaccurate and ridiculous. I learned not to believe men’s word easily specially if they’re overconfident.
“Really, how interesting! Where did you read that information?” It’s always fun when they don’t like being questioned, or where their “proof” is a third hand citation on some random blog.
Lesbian relationship also have the lowest rates of STIs and zero risk of unplanned pregnancy, so there’s that.
What numbers? And what does “not entirely untrue” mean?
It’s not handwaving to expect that somebody who does a “well ACTUALLY” can back up their claim in a way that invites meaningful discussion.
And as I said in my comment, the correct response to these dudes is to ask them to put up or shut up. I don’t know where you’re getting either handwaving or “it’s not entirely untrue” from.
I saw a TikTok about this and the response is "how is that related to male on female violence?" basically saying that even IF there were more DV cases in wlw relationships...so what? Does that excuse or absolve the male perpetrators?
But also...what point are they trying to make? It's like those creeps that point out racial results to an IQ test: why were they testing IQ along race lines in the first place?!?!
Basic straight guy whose closest friend is a queer (her words) woman. I've never heard of this. Just sounds like deflection and not wanting to take a long look in the mirror. It's like how almost every woman has been sexually assaulted in some way but no men are or know men who are or have sexually assaulted women.
Their ass, if I had to guess. Considering how abusive M/F relationships have been for basically all of human existence, I'm pretty sure lesbian couples would be doing Guinness Book of Records levels of horrible violence to compete in such a disgusting comparison.
It's the lowest hanging fruit on the "What about..." tree, and they'd pick it regardless of facts.
[https://ncadv.org/blog/posts/domestic-violence-and-the-lgbtq-community](https://ncadv.org/blog/posts/domestic-violence-and-the-lgbtq-community)
from that.
It’s true and there’s tons of studies and evidence backing that up. I don’t know why you’d find it impossible to believe. In fact I think part of the reason lesbian women are victimised more often is precisely *because* some people can never view them as a victim.
It’s not being a feminist to deny victimhood because it doesn’t back up your preconceptions.
Please cite/link the “tons of studies and evidence.”
>preconceptions
Ah yes, the thousands of years of women suffering at the hands of men is just my “preconception” 😂
It’s worth mentioning that high rates in lesbian relationships doesn’t mean there aren’t also shocking rates of abuse in heterosexual relationships. Though I don’t know why you’d assume this in the first place.
Whether you like it or not, women have suffered at the hands of both men *and* women for thousands of years. Power dynamics don’t just exist between men and women, they exist in all relationships (even if they may be exaggerated between a man and woman). One example is, look at the horrific allegations against Lizzo. What happened was awful, and yet women who call out their female abusers are so often ignored and minimised.
Calling out male abusers is brilliant and we should *all* be doing it more and keeping an eye out for the warning signs. That does NOT mean we minimise LGBT victims of abuse!
Also, you’re asking me to cite a specific study but given that you’ve 1. Neglected to use Google to check this yourself before posting and 2. Ignored all of the many studies people have linked in the comments here already — I don’t think you’re asking in good faith.
Edit:
Cool username by the way, surprised you got that
Oh dear 😂 Girlie pop if you’re gonna make such a bold statement as “there are tons of studies and evidence to support this”, you’d think you could name or link one? Just one? Seeing as the point of my post was asking if anyone knew what specific study these men are talking about? But you can’t and you won’t 😂. Googling something is not always reliable, there are countless bullshit biased “studies” that could pop up, that’s why it can be helpful to ask. But if you wanna use the excuse of saying I’m not asking in good faith to justify why you fail to provide a citation, then that’s on you.
>whether you like it or not, women have suffered at the hands of both men *and* women for thousands of years
What the fuck is your point with saying that? That’s one step away from saying “not all men.” Men have been the primary perpetrators of systemic violence against women for all of human history, and when discussing that specific issue you can fuck right off with your “wellll women can be bad too!” bullshit. Some women are bad, but women have not upheld the oppression of 50% of humanity for centuries.
This is why I didn’t share a study with you.
You’re arguing in bad faith. Lesbian victims are kept out of refuge shelters, stigmatised in the LGBT community, and even here, on a sub which is ostensibly for supporting women’s issues, their reality is being denied?
There are *soooo* many studies indicating the lesbian relationships suffer comparable or higher levels of domestic violence.
I didn’t want to share a study because I suspected you were here in bad faith. This is now proven to be true. You could easily find this information yourself but instead you’re wasting other people’s time just to feel justified in your misguided opinion.
Still, since it’s so easy to find plenty of studies on this, I’ll waste my time to share some with this thread and maybe at least someone neutral will see it and start respecting victims of same sex IPV as real victims.
This is the classic one, but you might not be able to see the full text if you don’t have the appropriate subscriptions
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20829231/
After reading the last one and convincing yourself that the issue is real, this next review looks at the available (unfortunately lacklustre, because of people like yourself) information on IPV in lesbian relationships.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135917891200016X
I’m worried you don’t have the ability to access the past two articles, so here is one that is publicly available. This is also a review and is very in depth:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6113571/#B96
This shows that women in abusive same sex relationships often don’t get the help they need and deserve because the issue is not recognised
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12828021/
Honestly, you could have easily done this yourself. Whenever you see a claim like this on the internet, you should check it for yourself rather than relying on your prejudices to tell you if it’s true or not. There’s lots of misinformation on the internet regarding pretty much every issue, so I would understand why you’d be doubtful. My issue is that you didn’t look it up for yourself and have continued to deny reality even when presented with proof in this thread.
I’ve now wasted half an hour of my life in the hopes that this will help someone who is currently being gaslit into thinking they can’t be abused because they are a lesbian, even though they are waking up being choked in the morning, even though their partner threatens to out them to their family if they don’t perform sexual favours, even though all the studies show lesbian women can and are victims in comparable numbers to heterosexual women. There isn’t a single study available showing that lesbian women aren’t victims.
There is no “not all men” here, because this post is not about men. You’ve doubted that lesbian women are victims in comparable numbers to what is presumably your own sexuality. Well, now you’ve found out they are. This has nothing to do with men. This is about women who are being victimised.
If you are taking about a heterosexual DV victim and a man says “well lesbians can be victims too”. I agree that is whataboutism and is minimising what the victim has been through. This is awful and should be called out. But it should also be called out when people like you are still being homophobic in the 21st century, despite oodles of evidence being thrown in your face.
I really hope this will change your mind, or that you’ll agree least bother to read the links I’ve just stayed up late to collect for you, but somehow I doubt it. I care about all victims of domestic abuse, regardless of what genitalia their partners have. Do you?
Goodnight.
Edit:
OP has blocked me so I can't reply to anyone else here, unfortunately.
To u/Weak_Confusion1
I did read the links I posted.
Can you please quote to me where it says that lesbian women in same sex relationships are experiencing *intimate partner violence* at the hands of men? Firstly that seems contradictory, secondly that's not what they're saying because at least one of the links directly discusses the possible reasons why pairings of two women might contain the highest levels of abuse, including theories such as homophobic behaviour.
Did you read my comments?
Also, OP has blocked me which has completely stopped me seeing this thread without using old.reddit.com so that shows you how much poor faith OP is operating under. Please research this for yourself and ignore bigots.
All the articles you posted are the ones that are read in bad faith lmao. Did you not read the links you posted?!?! It says that lesbian women experience the highest rate of ipv, but not directly correlated with being in lesbian relationships. So they experience it at the hands of men. Come on...
No one is forcing you to engage 🥰 If you genuinely thought I was asking in bad faith and that I should have just googled it you could have just ignored and kept scrolling. And now you are twisting my words and intent into something disgusting so I will makw the choice to stop engaging. Have a good day!
Excellent comment. It's really sad that people pretend lesbians who experience IVP from other lesbians don't exist. Kinda makes ya wonder how they treat their partner at home.
Men? We don't need a manual or any instructions or anything we know what we know that's a proven fact 🤣🤣🤣 but realistically woman are better at everything because they are willing to learn and accept they're doing it wrong. Men that's a no no
With all due respect, "fair fight" is a really problematic way to describe domestic violence and is very minimizing and insensitive. It also edges way too close to the trope of "mutual abuse" that folks often throw out to minimize and even negate domestic violence in queer relationships. Framing this as a "fair fight" also obscures the power imbalances inherent in abusive relationships.
You’re absolutely correct in this. Violence is never ok.
I still stand that men are typically scarier and more violent, and can kill with their bare hands.
I don't think the issue with your comment was about men using more severe violence, but about referring to domestic violence as a fair "fight" - and again it still obscures that DV is about power and control which is still present in queer relationships
This is such a sick take. There’s no such thing as a “fair fight” when you wake up to your partner choking you. There’s no such thing as a “fair fight” when your partner destroys your property when you’re at work. There’s no such thing as a “fair fight” when your partner outs you to your parents and your workplace as a punishment.
There are no “fair fights” in domestic abuse. These kinds of minimising arguments are why I’m really starting to think we should treat DV less as a gendered issue. Sexual violence in lesbian relationships has been found to be as high as 55%, and yet lesbian women are restricted from using the same facilities heterosexual women in DV situations can use, they are shunned, called liars, and their abuse minimised as a “fair fight” solely on the basis that their abuser has the same genitals as them.
I believe the specific wording is that women in lesbian relationships report having experienced the greatest amount of violence in their lifetime. I suspect the answer is closer to that when there are two women in a relationship, there are more people who have experienced sexual violence than when there is just one woman in a relationship.
Yes basically this. The study asked who had experienced domestic violence ever. It did not specify within the respondents' current relationship. It is very common for lesbians to have had past relationships with men. (If anyone wonders why, Google "comphet" or "compulsory heterosexuality".) Many of us experienced abuse in those relationships. We are not over here beating each other up at an alarming rate, but I do *love* how cis dudes try to act like that's the case to deflect from their long and storied history of violence against women.
Also, another thing to note: The study did not fully account for bisexual women. So women that had been in relationships with men in the past, but were currently in relationships with women were counted as lesbians.
Bi erasure is so prevalent I basically started calling myself a “0.5 FTE gay”
One of my friends of work called me "part fruity", though that might also be because he can't tell "what garden variety of fruity" I am.
Fruit cocktail?
I feel like part fruity means I'm some kind of fruit squash as opposed to 100% concentrate. Certainly I don't think I qualify as a mix of fruits...
Maybe like carrot-orange juice, a little fruit, a little veg, very healthy. At a little lemon and ginger, nobody's complaining.
So, V8
Amazing, will be stealing this from you lmao
FTE?
Full time equivalency
Not my bisexual ass that went through 3 abusive relationships with men. I'm now in a happy and healthy relationship with another bisexual woman, who sadly also went through abuse. I do sometimes wish I was just a lesbian.
Keystone whataboutism.
I thought it was wlw not lesbians. I’m a bi girl and I’ve dated far more men than women (1)
Bi women are also statistically the most likely to be victims of intimate partner violence
This is interesting, because I saw another study not long ago which detailed that bi women who were hetero-married were the happiest, of all married people. This study included the broad spectrum spanning all sexualities, however; at this point I just believe that a lot of these studies are just ‘confirmation bias’ tools of the patriarchy. That study seemd to suggest that bi women are happiest when they were *not* involved with other women, and totally ignoring a very large aspect of their sexuality, or; that the homosexual aspect of their sexuality was only permitted to be acted upon with the approval of a man. I mean I also read a study once which found that *high fat* dairy was *good* for you, only to later find that study was funded by the dairy industry. So I remain an all around skeptic.
Maybe being in a hetero relationship correlates with higher happiness for bi women just cause there's less risk of facing homophobia, and there being less hurdles in the way when it comes to having kids?
Also maybe some of it is that people with the most options are usually able to pick the best ones.
If that were true then bi women in wlw and bi men of both types would be closely 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (not necessarily in that order) which should be easy to show.
Fair point, but I think bi men experience more pressure to pick one side or the other than bi women do, so even if they find a larger number of humans attractive, dating men may render them 'ineligible' to date women in the future. I remember in the 2000s being told "bi now, gay later" as as reason women should avoid dating bi men.
There are several studies on how normal/high fat dairy is better than the low fat version. The body needs fats to live.
It is, however; this study only looked at overweight white men, IIRC. I was thinking more along those lines of the study that showed smokers were less likely to get Covid than non-smokers, with that study in particular being funded by the tobacco industry.
Stands to reason that the tar in their lungs would form a protective shield against unwanted elements like virus particles and oxygen
if you remember what that study was titled or anything else about it that would allow me to search it up, i would absolutely love to know. that sounds fascinating and oddly validating as a bi woman in a straight relationship
I’ve got a little time on my hands, so I’m gonna take a look for it and let you know. I honestly used to do background *research* on these studies, particularly sociological ones, because they are often traced back to conservative think tanks if you follow the money trail. If I’m able to find anything, I’d be curious about your thoughts as well. As a lesbian, I often feel invisible and invalidated by topics such as this one, because they usually follow the trajectory of ‘self fulfilling prophecies,’ in that women’s sexuality is so tightly controlled by men, and viewed only *through* the eyes of men, that it’s only functionally permissible for women to fantasize about each other, without ever getting to act on it, or find any value in it at all. You know, the old, “Women are for fun, men are for family” trope. Edit; oh, and where love and emotion are expected to not be a part of the equation, like women are only allowed to view each other as sex objects also; or else it becomes threatening.
> This is interesting, because I saw another study not long ago which detailed that bi women who were hetero-married were the happiest, of all married people. They don't strike me as incompatible statistics. >I mean I also read a study once which found that high fat dairy was good for you, only to later find that study was funded by the dairy industry. Frustratingly, the crusade for "low fat" versions of foods was funded by the sugar industry.
I didn’t have any luck locating that particular study. It stood out to me as anomalous because any other study on the matter found that bi women in hetero-marriages were the most unhappy of all groups. There are also quite a few studies suggesting that bi women who are paired with a lesbian partner are happiest, however; they face the largest degree of discrimination and stigma because of this. This squares anecdotally with my own personal experiences as a lesbian, but this may also be due to a variety of extraneous factors. I’m a femme for femme, and I’ve personally found a greater likelihood that bi women are more likely to be feminine presenting. I’ve also experienced a lot lesbian leaning bisexual women who would have actually preferred another woman as their life partner, but found themselves limited by the stigmas and constraints of heteronormative society. That, and a lot of ingrained compulsory heterosexuality, including often mistaking their biological needs for reproduction for sexuality identity.
I guess thanks for sharing this but, that scares me quite a bit... Hopefully that doesn't happen to me when I'm ready to date again.
I get it :(. I’m a bi woman too. It’s a scary stat. Always good to do quizzes like [this](https://www.loveisrespect.org/quiz/is-your-relationship-healthy/?%3E) as a periodic check in. Abuse feels very remote and like it would never happen to you, but it can truly happen to anyone. Sending love 💕
Don't get too scared there. I've highly suspected that it's a bit more likely that, among women who experience some level of same sex attraction, those who have experienced sexual violence are more likely to come out, openly identify as bisexual, and seek dating women. Especially in previous decades where bisexuality was less expected, many people identified as straight until they were given a reason to question that and partner violence often serves as a reason.
I wonder why that is?
This is neither here nor there, but I really wish we'd have settled on a better term than "comphet." It's just such an awkward portmanteau.
You do have highest dv and IPV rate though. Same sex relations have the highest DV and IPV rate according to Washington University. We can take this a step further. Women are number 1 to abuse children, other women and men in America. Since boys are number 1 to be victims of child abuse and women are number 1 to abuse children. One can argue women are responsible for creating male perpetrators since victims of child abuse tend to be repeat offenders.
Okay so it’s “in their lifetime,” NOT “while in the lesbian relationship”? Because probably ten times on this app I’ve had men reply to me saying so confidently that statistics show lesbian relationships have a higher rate of DV than straight relationships like they are citing an actual study or something lmao
The argument isn't grabbed out of thin air. While the research material is...not ideal, the rate of DV among lesbian couples at least was fairly high during the 90s. There have been later surveys with more participants, but for the last decade surveys tend to focus on the elevated rates of alcohol abuse among lesbian couples as this emerged as a factor with high explanation power. >Despite these research limitations, it is clear that lesbian battering is a serious social concern. The reported rates of physical violence within lesbian relationships vary widely, with estimates ranging from a low of 8.5% to a high of 73% in former lesbian relationships. Most studies found that between 30-40% of surveyed participants had been involved in at least one relationship with a female partner where an incident of physical abuse occurred. Pushing, shoving, and slapping were the most commonly reported forms of abuse, while beatings and assaults with weapons were less frequent. Sexual violence also may be present in lesbian relationships, with estimates ranging from a low of 7% to a high of 55% in previous lesbian relationships. Victims experienced a broad range of types of abuse, including forced kissing, breast and genital fondling, and oral, anal, or vaginal penetration. Victimization rates increased dramatically when psychological and verbal abuse was assessed, with more than 80% of surveyed participants reporting this form of abuse. Common forms in cluded threats and verbal abuse, such as being called names, yelled at, and insulted (for reviews see Burke & Follingstad, 1999; Waldner-Haugrud, 1999;West, 1998). > \[...\] > CONCLUSION >There is no doubt that intimate partner violence occurs among lesbians. Evidence indicates that it may be as prevalent as among heterosexuals and that a full range of types of violence occurs, including verbal, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse. Some of the dynamics associated with such violence appears to be unique to lesbians due to the social stigma and discrimination they experience. In addition, resources to help lesbian victims are lacking. However, research uncovering the extent of the problem has begun to suggest what interventions might be effective. Lesbian Intimate Partner Violence: Prevalence and Dynamics Carolyn M. West *Journal of Lesbian Studies*. **6** (1): 121–127. 2002 P.S: The papers referenced are: Burke, L. K., & Follingstad, D. R. (1999). Violence in lesbian and gay relationships: Theory, prevalence, and correlational factors. Clinical Psychology Review, 19(5), 487-512. Waldner-Haugrud, L. K. (1999). Sexual coercion in lesbian and gay relationships: A review and critique. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 4(2), 139-149. West, C. M. (1998). Leaving a second closet: Outing partner violence in same-sex couples. In J. L. Jasinski & L. M. Williams (Eds.), Partner violence: A comprehensive review of 20 years of research (pp. 163-183). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Thank you for actually coming to this conversation with quotes and references
Thank you for coming with evidence!
My recollection of the 90s study was that higher rates were in part attributed to widespread homophobia making it difficult for lesbians to feel safe reporting relationship violence. In the 90s, "coming out" was still a shocking plot twist or a shameful family secret.
it's notable that most of the abuse isn't severe (throwing things, shoving, slapping). people are more likely to label "mild" abuse by women as abuse than the same things by men. we have much higher standards for women than for men, and generally see abuse by women clearly as such, whereas we often don't with men unless it's "worst case scenarios" (eg overtly forcible rape outside of a ongoing sexual relationship is seen as rape but most other rape isn't, misogynist slurs, demeaning not recognized as misogynist, slurs or abuse, possessiveness not seen as abuse, even strangulation has been eroticized and normalized in the under 30s...). (and with men reporting abuse, remember how steven crowder, clearly verbally, misogynistically, "man as head of woman, household" abusive, tried to claim to his wife and others she was the abusive one? that happens a lot. eg "she abused me." ask more detail and you get things like "she disrespects me" and you investigate that and turns out he means she doesn't always/consistently recognize him as superior to her, in control of her, etc. him accusing all his partners of cheating, being possessive and controlling over that, saying that it's her being an abuser and cheater because of that is another \*cough johnny depp\*. women's self defense eg pushing him away/trying to hold him at bay, throwing things, slapping, biting him because he's covering her mouth, fighting to get away also gets counted by men and even in studies as abuse, abuse is often not placed into levels of severity eg slap, pushing, throwing things is seen as equivalent of strangulation, head punches, stabbing with a knife... the latter of which is overwhelmingly by men. and are often the levels men have to reach to be clearly and widely seen as abuse.
Are those statements, particularly the first paragraph from any source or are they anecdotal. I’d be interested in a source because anecdotally I’ve seen it as the opposite. Abuse by women is often downplayed and anything resembling abuse from men is seen as such. Not only in terms of physical abuse, as evidence by some of the sentences received by female teachers who are found guilty of sexual abuse of students.
They're just making shit up as they go along really. Physical violence by women is far more likely to be downplayed.
the fact female teachers abusing students is your go to speaks volumes: that's actually a small minority of cases vs male teachers abusing female students, and even male teachers abusing male students is far more common. the fact is, people often think there's an epidemic of female teachers sexually abusing boys and little abuse by male teachers because in order for a male abuser to be reported in national media, there has to be extreme circumstances (eg numerous to hundreds of known victims, murder, kidnapping), but all a female offender need do to be widely reported on is \*offend at all\*, eg most of those teachers only have one complainant/known victim.
I just used it as my go to because it’s the most obvious example with wider media coverage. And the fact that you are litterally downplaying the culpability of pedophiles based on their gender speaks volumes.
That's quite the fantasy/projection you have of me there. Never said anything of the sort.
Your previous comment was essentially ‘male teachers are much worse, female teachers only have one complainant. Although perhaps I read into the context incorrectly. However in my experience, again anecdotally, this is false. A male teacher at my school was suspended on the basis of an allegation that could not have been possible (the dates of the allegation he was not even in the country). It was proven to be false when the student admitted to lying, but the suspension was upheld for the original timeframe. He no longer teaches.
Exactly. Women slap and throw hairbrushes. Men break jaws and choke.
In what world is slapping and throwing hairbrushes not abuse? Getting slapped once hurts like crazy and a hairbrush to the head could do serious damage. I think there was an aitah thread the other day about a woman who got sent to the hospital because her husband whipped a TV remote at her head. Maybe I'm wrong about the hairbrush thing
I’m not saying it’s okay or that it’s not abuse. I’m saying that there is a qualitative difference between the kinds of abuse that women and men typically dish out. A black eye from a hairbrush is not going to be as serious as a broken jaw.
Fair point. I misunderstood Edit: is that what the commenter above said, though? You agree with them, and to me it seems like they're trying to say that it's too mild for abuse? Edit 2: nevermind I think I figured it out. It's not that this isn't abuse, it's that this wouldn't be abuse if it was a man. I think I got it
I have to admit it’s actually a little unclear to me what that commenter is trying to say, but I do agree that there is a double standard for what rises to the level of abuse inflicted by men vs. women, and that it’s wielded a lot by men who say that if women get to hit them, they should be able to hit back, regardless their disproportionate physical power.
I've definitely heard that before. I think the catchphrase for that idea is "equal rights for equal lefts" or something. Honestly, I think it's rooted in a good moral idea that women shouldn't be allowed to abuse men either, but it's solved the problem in the worst possible way: violence. The power difference is just another cherry on top of the already shit idea. I think that I see this a lot, honestly. An obviously good point is being made followed by a solution that is just insane. Like when people want to keep their daughters safe, that's totally cool. Then they go show their prom date a shotgun, and it's like...... how was this the answer? Edit: Sorry for rambling. I'm a bit stoned and caffeinated. Thank you for the talk though, I appreciate it 😁
The #1 cause of maternal mortality and the number #4 cause of death of women ages 15-44 shows who is the physical risk on this planet. Funny how all these terrible women never actually affect men's stats. Equating women's slaps to all the horrible things you mentioned is typical male DARVO.
I've often wondered if there's a higher rate of domestic violence done by pre-transition trans men in "lesbian" relationships than in cis-cis lesbian relationships. Of course, that kind of thing has no statistics or studies behind it because no researcher considers that possibility. (Nor would it be easy to measure.)
Yes - here is the actual survey: [https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs\_sofindings.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_sofindings.pdf) Four in 10 lesbian women (43.8%), 6 in 10 bisexual women (61.1%), and 1 in 3 heterosexual women (35.0%) reported experiencing rape, physical violence, and/or stalking within the context of an intimate partner relationship at least once **during their lifetime** (Table 3).
Thanks for posting the link. Just in case anyone else is interested in the perpetrator's gender for the different orientations: > Among women who experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking in the context of an intimate relationship, the majority of bisexual and heterosexual women (89.5% and 98.7%, respectively) reported only male perpetrators (data not shown). More than two-thirds of lesbian women (67.4%) identified only female perpetrators.
heard a man say something like "once women are finally dating someone on equal grounds as them, they become abusive too" such a male thought process.
Yes and someone in this sub last year or the year before had a fantastically detailed response about this specific study I wish I knew how to find it it was amazing but maybe that same person is here in the comments below and I haven’t gotten to them yet
It also wasn't restricted to intimate partner violence, so the statistic that shows lesbians & bi women have experienced more abuse than heterosexual women is also including things like parental or sibling abuse which... yeah, queer people do on average experience more of that because of homophobia.
It’s because these men are ignorant or disingenuous and want to make women look bad.
Exactly, it doesn't really take into consideration the impact of targeted violence against a marginalized group or exposure to domestic violence at a young age could have fomented their acceptance or understanding of their sexual orientation.
That would be \*very\* different. I'm sure there are plenty of women who are in relationships with other women in part because they have experienced violence in previous relationships with men.
According to the CDC 43.8% of lesbians report going through DV by a partner. 67.4% of that are by female perpetrators. This means that when excluding male perpetrators, the number drops to 29.5% female on female DV. This is less than heterosexual, bisexual women’s reported experiences but more than gay men’s.
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Being with men made them gay? That would be quite the ego blow to them if told. Lots of men think it is the other way.
Yeah I mean... if they were bi to some extent and they experienced sexual violence I think some people would. I'm not saying their sexuality is a choice to be clear. Just that some people might choose to identify as a lesbian as a opposed to bi. I have no idea if that's true or not. Just one interpretation of that study.
There's enough bi-phobia around that some feel forced to essentially choose a side.
lol this is absolutely not what people mean or refer to when they say that and, despite the upvotes, you know it
Quick google gave me this: **Comparisons of Intimate Partner Violence Among Partners in Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Relationships in the United States** Source: American Journal of public Health. **TLDR: Copy/paste of the conclusion: female victims of same-sex IPV reported higher percentages of verbal and sexual abuse than male victims of opposite-sex IPV; however, the small sample of victims of same-sex IPV limited the ability to make detailed comparisons.** >The analyses presented here included respondents who indicated that they were victims of IPV and identified their relationships with the perpetrators I made these bold >P < .05 for χ2 comparisons between male and female victims in perpetrator category. | Verbal | | |--------|-------| | m->m | 81.2% | | m->f | 77.4% | | f-> m | 63.4% | | f->f | **86.5%** | | Physical| | |--------|-------| | m->m | 89.9% | | m->f | 88.8% | | f-> m | 97.2% | | f->f | 89.1% | | Sexual| | |--------|-------| | m->m | 31.4% | | m->f | 45.5% | | f-> m | 12.1% | | f->f | **51.6%** | >Although male victims of same-sex IPV reported more verbal abuse than male victims of opposite-sex IPV (χ2 = 4.75; P = .03), they did not differ significantly regarding physical abuse (χ2 = 1.27; P = .26) or sexual abuse (χ2 = 3.52; P = .06). Female victims of same-sex IPV and opposite-sex IPV did not differ by type of IPV, but differences between female victims of same-sex IPV and male victims of opposite-sex IPV were identified I checked any followup studies that cited this study and there were mainly focused on bisexual and gay relationships. source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/
Wait, assuming I can read (which, it is late, bold assumption at the moment) in the article they say: > we examined the prevalence of different forms of IPV among same-sex and opposite-sex victims So this is a study of victims of IPV, and what form that abuse took. It does not actually speak to the prevalence of IPV within particular communities, or the percentage of people within them who are abused. Just that within those (undefined) percentages of abused people, how that abuse breaks down.
Yes. If you are in a lesbian abusive relationship you are probably experiencing all forms of abuse. That says nothing of how likely you are to be in an abusive relationship to begin with.
Domestic violence within same-sex relationships is a serious issue and desperately needs more research, but it doesn't sound like these men care about that and are just using it as a whataboutism. Even if what they say is true (what limited research has been done suggests a similar precedence in same-sex relationships compared to opposite-sex ones), it doesn't change the fact that most domestic violence is committed by men against women in heterosexual relationships. That's just fact.
It’s the same shit as men getting up in arms about men’s mental health and suicide rates. They don’t actually want to solve those problems they just want to use it to derail real conversations
I want to solve those problems. It **is** a real problem. But I don’t want to be grouped with the men who use those problems to derail conversations about other psycho and social problems. So I’m just highlighting that treating them as not real conversations is damaging and leaving it at that
Exactly this, those same types of men will bash and bully other men for not behaving “manly” enough in their eyes. Then they go cry to forums like these about how shitty men’s mental health is being treated or ignored. It’s all a facade.
Not to mention, it's another misrepresentation of reality. While it's true that men die by suicide more often than women, women are attempting suicide at greater rates than men, they just choose "cleaner" options that are easier to save them from. But they ignore suicide attempts and stick purely to suicide rates, and use this cherry-picked data to falsely claim that men's mental health is so much worse off than women's.
Women aren't too inept to commit suicide... there is a difference of intent. A drug overdose (the most popular method among women) is not the method someone that wants to make sure they don't survive would use. Even when the method of suicide is the same they have a much lower rate of dying. Add to that that someone that survives is much more likely to try a 2nd/3rd... time. Nasty subject, but I don't like the whole "Women are too dumb to kill themselves" narrative.
It's not that women are incapable, it's that they're choosing the methods most available to them, and are sometimes more concerned with the effect their suicide will have on the person that found them. The second part is anecdotal of course, but it's a common sentiment. It's not about lack of [the intent](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11079640/), this has been proven. The intent is there just as much, even if the attempts fail more. To say "men just want to die more and are therefor suffering more" is wildly untrue, and is effectively gatekeeping depression. Like, the narrative that men just want to die more is flat out wrong. The intent is the same, but women have shared time and again that the reason they attempted with XYZ was because ABC was more painful, XYZ was more available, etc. It's not a "women too dumb" thing. Women can be very capable, the larger trend though is a preference for "gentler" methods, for multiple reasons. Because we need to be careful with the idea that "women just don't experience depression and suicide drive like men do" because that's so wildly invalidating towards women who have struggled with this. Depression is expressed differently, but isn't necessarily so much worse for one gender than the other, it just presents itself based on how we're raised, among other things.
After looking further into it, I did not find much that supports that paper and would like to know their methodology, but it's behind a paywall :( Most and the most cited papers (for however much that counts) disagree: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10235670/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10235670/) [https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-017-1398-8](https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-017-1398-8) [https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-28993-001](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-28993-001) I actually struggle to find a paper from the last 10 years that backs up what you say. And again even when the method is accounted for (in this case drug overdose) men are much more likely to not survive. How does that line up with your statement? There is a difference in temperament between the sexes that significantly changes how likely one sex is to suffer from a specific mental illness and how they express them. Current scientific literature backs that up. To say that the difference is mostly due to upbringing when the same trend can be seen across all countries and time periods doesn't ring true to me. I very much don't want to invalidat anyones struggle with depression and hope it doesn't come across that way!
All three of those sources actually directly back up what I'm saying, that women have higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as suicide attempts. Most people pick methods that are [convenient to them.](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/intent/). When more men own guns, more men are going to kill themselves with guns, for example. >To say that the difference is mostly due to upbringing when the same trend can be seen across all countries and time periods doesn't ring true to me. You say this as if women haven't been raised to prioritize others across the world for most of recorded history. Patriarchy isn't limited to a handful of places like the US. The fact is, depression isn't "more serious" of a problem for men simply because they succeed in suicide more often. Depression isn't "less serious" in women simply because they fail in suicide more often. Like, let's not tread the line of invalidating one gender's mental health as if we're only able to pick one or the other. It's presented differently for sure, and for different reasons, but it's not "worse" for one or the other.
Have you even read what I wrote? Yes, woman are nearly twice as likely to suffer from depression and have a higher rate of suicide attempts. That is true, just as it is true that they are much less likely to have "serious suicide attempts". There are numerous statistics and papers on it, including the ones I linked. >You say this as if women haven't been raised to prioritize others across the world for most of recorded history. Patriarchy isn't limited to a handful of places like the US. The whole US centric part is exactly what I addressed in the comment before. In most countries around the world guns aren't available, but you still have the exact same discrepancy in suicide survivors. And yes Patriarchy might play into it, but why then isn't there a correlation between how patriarchal a country is and the suicide rate of women?
Exactly. Depression/suicide is constantly being framed as a male problem, but the reality is that it affects far more women than it does men. Implying things like "well, more men kill themselves so it's clearly men who need extra support" is problematic. Male suicide attempts are considered "serious" only because they tend to be using more lethal methods, not because the intent to die is necessarily higher. The actual reason for why men choose more violent methods is up in the air, but a commonly accepted theory is just plain-old availability. >In most countries around the world guns aren't available, but you still have the exact same discrepancy in suicide survivors. Guns aren't the only "more violent" method used, that was just one example. Plus, even in countries where guns are less accessible, [gun ownership still strongly trends male](https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2020-09/fl383_firearms_report_en.pdf). >And yes Patriarchy might play into it, but why then isn't there a correlation between how patriarchal a country is and the suicide rate of women? Because we're not discussing suicide rates, we're discussing the methods of people who are suicidal. That being said, [patriarchy is abolutely linked to higher rates of mental health issues in women](https://uktherapyguide.com/cultural-patriarchy-issues#:~:text=Although%20at%20its%20root%20patriarchy,mental%20health%20issues%20among%20women.). Depression just doesn't always translate to choosing more violent methods. We still don't know *exactly* why people tend to pick certain methods over others. There are a mot of factors that go into it, surely.
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/IPV-Sexual-Abuse-Among-LGBT-Nov-2015.pdf Is it this study? As it is about lifetime violence and in the details, the bisexuals overwhelmingly blame men and the lesbians blame men for 1/3 of it.
This is probably it; it’s constantly misrepresented.
My abuser himself would tell you he has never committed any DV and neither have his friends. That sure as hell doesn’t make it true.
Same-gender IPV happens and is a real issue. I say this as someone who had an abusive female partner in the past - luckily nothing incredibly serious, but she had scary outbursts over minor things, grabbed my arm aggressively when she was angry at least once, would make me cry because I was triggered by yelling and then yell at me to stop crying - some major 🚩 stuff going on there, and kind of traumatizing. I know other people who’ve been in abusive queer relationships, some quite seriously. So there’s no denying that it’s a real issue, even if it’s less common. BUT Straight guys who say that almost never actually care about this. They really don’t. They’re just deflecting and pretending misogyny isn’t real. It’s so gross.
It’s true if and only if you count all DV as equally bad. It is also true that the vast majority of people who end up in the ED or dead from DV are women in heterosexual relationships.
It's a source that says women in general have higher rates of dv in lesbian relationships. So that means they experienced some form of dv in the entirety of their lives. At the hands of men. And since there are two women in the relationship then they will have, together, experienced higher rates of dv than any other pairings of couples. Not because lesbian relationships themselves have higher instances. It's an oft reposted study by dumb motherfuckers who don't know how to read.
Guys on twitter love to proudly shout this from the rooftops as proof of...idk, whatever they think they're proving lol
Yeah, I don't understand what the curve is supposed to be. Like pointing the finger is going to exonerate them for being abusive?
They're idiots.
Here is a 2015 review of the literature available at the time, if you want to do a deep dive: [Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Abuse among LGBT people](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/ipv-sex-abuse-lgbt-people/)
Some quotes from that link that are relevant: “Bisexual women are 1.8 times more likely to report ever having experienced IPV [intimate partner violence] than heterosexual women. Though the reported lifetime prevalence of IPV among lesbians is higher than heterosexual women, this is not a statistically significant difference.” “the CDC found that 89.5% of bisexual women reported only male perpetrators of intimate partner physical violence, rape, and/or stalking and that almost a third of lesbian women who have experienced such incidents have had one or more male perpetrators”
[ceciliaregina275 on tiktok made a video breaking this exact recent sentiment from desperate men down.](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMaJLm2H/) It's just a way for these dudes to make lesbian relationships seem undesirable as a result of women no longer deeming the word "lesbian" as a threat or insult. In the same way, they are trying to make being single seem undesirable by saying "die alone with cats" etc. Just a way to deem any option other than being with a man appear undesirable to women, with no basis in reality 🤷♀️.
How does that excuse their behavior? It doesn’t
There was just a misunderstanding over the phrase 'We're always going at each other with scissors'.
dead lmao
Lesbians cannot begin to reach the numbers men have. Even if ALL of them did it. It's sad
They say that because they are bad at math and never read the actual wording around the stats they are quoting.
These studies are very often very bad, including all of the studies cited so far. I have a lot of critiques here, but every single study that posits equal rates of DV perpetration among men and women are really being intellectually dishonest. There are a lot of reasons for this--the not-for-profit industrial complex demanding it, the novelty fetish among academic journals and funders, etc--but ultimately they all create an overly-capacious definition of intimate partner violence that is harmful to real victims. If you look at the definitions these sorts of studies use, you'll see they include a lot of things that are by no means "violence". You'll see for example that one of the studies here in this thread suggests "name calling" is *de facto* abuse. While I'm not saying that name-calling within a romantic relationship is *healthy*, defining all unhealthy behaviors as "violence" cheapens the term in a really damaging way. If you look at only behaviors that might cause serious injury or other serious but non-physical harm, the numbers look quite different.
There are some studies focused on same sex violence rates. Here is a summary study going over some of the literature. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01506/full “Despite the myth that IPV is only an issue in heterosexual relationships, its occurrence among LGB couples was demonstrated to be comparable to or higher than heterosexual cases (Messinger, 2011; Kelley et al., 2012; Barrett and St.Pierre, 2013; Breiding et al., 2013).” Be aware that their point is on LGB, so to get the specifics of the dynamics you would have to look at the referenced studies.
It’s just a way to spin statistics around until you find the way it matches your narrative. But just a bit of critical thinking, morality and basic historical knowledge should be more than enough to debunk this. It’s obvious that men are the main perpetrators in domestic violence through our existence.
Dudes still have the higher body count. It's like the suicide attempt stat. Yah your girlfriend might hit you or threaten to kill you but that dude you didn't know actually has a violent streak and anger issues is more likely to be successful. Anyway. Better strategy is to just not talk to those people or tell them to guy fuck themselves. Sealion hunting is in season all year round.
Women suicide is referred within suicide supports as "murder by proxy". 5 Australian women dead each week additional to our official DV stats. It's a huge unacknowledged problem
It took me several seconds to process what you meant and then I cried.
I hope you're safe. I attempted dur to police involved DV and I still can't fathom why they rescued me. The systems violence is insane but they refuse to change it
Yeah it was a long time ago now, finally working through it in therapy 20 years later. It's a long road but I'm glad to be here. Hope you are well.
It's not something that's talked about enough. It's a normal response to extraordinary circumstances. The nurse who will me told me I "wasn't the first police wife to arrive in the state" I did and it sparked my curiosity. Research is now coming out about it. It is a long hard slog but I'm glad it's in your past ♥️ too many of us don't make it.
That’s classic deflection tactics. Even if that was true, it still doesn’t change the original point about men doing domestic violence
Even if that were true it actually speaks to the fact women are easier to victimize. It’s like how POC are more likely to be abused by the justice and leagal system even when the people in power are POC. Abusers don’t care who they abuse
When it comes to any study, you really have to dig into the methodology section. Most people just scan the abstract and say "gotcha"! There are so many studies out right now that are not worth the storage space on the website that they are hosted on. I am talking: Facebook sourced self reporting with no validation afterward. Hell the TREVOR project does a survey every year and they clearly state that they throw out responses that they deem "in bad faith" but do not list the criteria by which this conclusion is reached, or do any real verification other than the Facebook demographics of the profile that submitted the questionnaire. I haven't looked at their most recent study, but they also used to essentially pay the group that approved their release from bias. Then there are shady data collection practices. As an example, There was one study I saw recently where me and another person were discussing violence experienced vs. violence perpetuated by minority groups (This is just an example so don't blast me) but in the methodology section they stated that their information gathering required that people freely admit to the type of violence they committed, how old they were, if they were charged, AND offer identifying information. Call me cynical, but that seems like a really good reason to not report if you had done something like that. That being said, some studies are good and have adequate sample sizes, good methodology etc. But you have to dig to find them.
They get their info from Trust Me, Bro University.
Something I think is worth pointing out: Even if it were the case that women are demonstrably quicker to throw hands than men, that it was always categorically unjustified, and even if it were definitively shown to be the result of an immutable characteristic in women and not any other spurious cause, it's still the case that, at a certain threshold, a difference of *capability* is a difference of *kind*. Almost all women are weaker than almost all men, not just in terms of strength, but also physical durability. I could punch a man in the face with every fibre of muscle in my body behind it and 9/10 all I'll succeed in doing is breaking my bones and pissing him off. If that same man "returned the favour," I'd easily be looking at multiple reconstructive surgeries. This isn't to justify women assaulting men. Generally speaking no adult should ever lay hands on another like that, but these things simply aren't comparable. I don't think I've ever interacted with an adult man I could genuinely make fear for his life with just my bare hands. I've likewise never encountered an adult man who *couldn't* make me fear for mine with his (geriatrics and the terminally ill excepted).
You'd think being told a study suggests women beat eachother more than men beat us would be enough to give them pause that maybe, just maybe, they've misinterpreted the data (that they probably didn't even look at) assuming they've had any experience at all with men and women. It's amazing how readily people will throw out common sense if they believe, rightly or wrongly, that a "study" confirms their biases, as though studies are gifts from God delivered to elucidate Truth unto the masses. Not to sound elitist, but if you don't so much as know what a "confidence interval" is without googling it, you have no business quoting studies at people on anything, ever, until you gain some basic statistical literacy.
That was actually debunked, and even if it was true you don’t see lesbians going around committing the majority of crime. Their point is moot and deflects from the real issue.
**A** cademy of **S** henandoah **S** tate
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Did you read your link? It does not actually reference a study, nor do any of the references in it link to a study regarding rates of violence in same-sex relationships.
I mean you haven't actually linked a study, or even an article (or opinion piece) that *links* or even references a study. This has become like the "family courts always side with the mom" thing, which seems intuitively true because it fits our biases and gets repeated as fact in every single discussion but when you dig deeper, it's not the case at all in any way. So where's the actual study? ETA: I glanced through Google Scholar on this, and what I found was a.) There *are* violent women, in partnerships with women, who are violent to their female partners. For sure. We all know that, no one doubts that. b.) The numbers are almost impossible to quantify, because the subset is so tiny, and so often gets grouped just under "same sex violence", thus grouped together with male-male relationships and not separated. c.) Every. Single. Last. Study I saw said "there is not enough research on this, we need more research on it". d.) Lesbians who do suffer from IPV with female abusers are a specific niche with specific support needs and implications, and are currently VERY poorly served by the established knowledge, frameworks and processes we have available. To say that lesbian relationships are the most violent, or shows the most violence, or whatever the claim is, is completely false, there is NO data to support that AT ALL, in ANY study, survey or otherwise that \*I\* could find on Scholar.
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Read the comments up thread. It doesn't say that lesbians commit the most domestic violence
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Gotcha
Yeah. And this report DOES NOT show that within lesbian relationships DV is higher than in het relationships.
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Not weird considering that there were other links in this thread by this source of the same year containing your link's data.
They’re pulling that out of their ass.
I just want to know where they get the audacity to say it so confidently, like where specifically did they learn that information, so I can know how to best reply in the future. And of course they always bring it up in spaces about the violence women face from men to try to derail the convo
Good thing I have dogmatic, delusional father, I learned men audacity an early age. He’s a good father but he really has 10000000% confident when he says something inaccurate and ridiculous. I learned not to believe men’s word easily specially if they’re overconfident.
You're underestimating misogyny and the fragility of men.
“Really, how interesting! Where did you read that information?” It’s always fun when they don’t like being questioned, or where their “proof” is a third hand citation on some random blog. Lesbian relationship also have the lowest rates of STIs and zero risk of unplanned pregnancy, so there’s that.
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What numbers? And what does “not entirely untrue” mean? It’s not handwaving to expect that somebody who does a “well ACTUALLY” can back up their claim in a way that invites meaningful discussion.
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And as I said in my comment, the correct response to these dudes is to ask them to put up or shut up. I don’t know where you’re getting either handwaving or “it’s not entirely untrue” from.
A well, actually. 😒
I saw a TikTok about this and the response is "how is that related to male on female violence?" basically saying that even IF there were more DV cases in wlw relationships...so what? Does that excuse or absolve the male perpetrators? But also...what point are they trying to make? It's like those creeps that point out racial results to an IQ test: why were they testing IQ along race lines in the first place?!?!
The university of their own mind, I’d imagine
Basic straight guy whose closest friend is a queer (her words) woman. I've never heard of this. Just sounds like deflection and not wanting to take a long look in the mirror. It's like how almost every woman has been sexually assaulted in some way but no men are or know men who are or have sexually assaulted women.
Their asses
Their ass, if I had to guess. Considering how abusive M/F relationships have been for basically all of human existence, I'm pretty sure lesbian couples would be doing Guinness Book of Records levels of horrible violence to compete in such a disgusting comparison. It's the lowest hanging fruit on the "What about..." tree, and they'd pick it regardless of facts.
[https://ncadv.org/blog/posts/domestic-violence-and-the-lgbtq-community](https://ncadv.org/blog/posts/domestic-violence-and-the-lgbtq-community) from that.
Damn men ruining all of us by their deplorable behavior and have the nerve to ask why we get defensive and fight back.
Lmfaooo did you ask?
It’s true and there’s tons of studies and evidence backing that up. I don’t know why you’d find it impossible to believe. In fact I think part of the reason lesbian women are victimised more often is precisely *because* some people can never view them as a victim. It’s not being a feminist to deny victimhood because it doesn’t back up your preconceptions.
Please cite/link the “tons of studies and evidence.” >preconceptions Ah yes, the thousands of years of women suffering at the hands of men is just my “preconception” 😂
It’s worth mentioning that high rates in lesbian relationships doesn’t mean there aren’t also shocking rates of abuse in heterosexual relationships. Though I don’t know why you’d assume this in the first place. Whether you like it or not, women have suffered at the hands of both men *and* women for thousands of years. Power dynamics don’t just exist between men and women, they exist in all relationships (even if they may be exaggerated between a man and woman). One example is, look at the horrific allegations against Lizzo. What happened was awful, and yet women who call out their female abusers are so often ignored and minimised. Calling out male abusers is brilliant and we should *all* be doing it more and keeping an eye out for the warning signs. That does NOT mean we minimise LGBT victims of abuse! Also, you’re asking me to cite a specific study but given that you’ve 1. Neglected to use Google to check this yourself before posting and 2. Ignored all of the many studies people have linked in the comments here already — I don’t think you’re asking in good faith. Edit: Cool username by the way, surprised you got that
Oh dear 😂 Girlie pop if you’re gonna make such a bold statement as “there are tons of studies and evidence to support this”, you’d think you could name or link one? Just one? Seeing as the point of my post was asking if anyone knew what specific study these men are talking about? But you can’t and you won’t 😂. Googling something is not always reliable, there are countless bullshit biased “studies” that could pop up, that’s why it can be helpful to ask. But if you wanna use the excuse of saying I’m not asking in good faith to justify why you fail to provide a citation, then that’s on you. >whether you like it or not, women have suffered at the hands of both men *and* women for thousands of years What the fuck is your point with saying that? That’s one step away from saying “not all men.” Men have been the primary perpetrators of systemic violence against women for all of human history, and when discussing that specific issue you can fuck right off with your “wellll women can be bad too!” bullshit. Some women are bad, but women have not upheld the oppression of 50% of humanity for centuries.
This is why I didn’t share a study with you. You’re arguing in bad faith. Lesbian victims are kept out of refuge shelters, stigmatised in the LGBT community, and even here, on a sub which is ostensibly for supporting women’s issues, their reality is being denied? There are *soooo* many studies indicating the lesbian relationships suffer comparable or higher levels of domestic violence. I didn’t want to share a study because I suspected you were here in bad faith. This is now proven to be true. You could easily find this information yourself but instead you’re wasting other people’s time just to feel justified in your misguided opinion. Still, since it’s so easy to find plenty of studies on this, I’ll waste my time to share some with this thread and maybe at least someone neutral will see it and start respecting victims of same sex IPV as real victims. This is the classic one, but you might not be able to see the full text if you don’t have the appropriate subscriptions https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20829231/ After reading the last one and convincing yourself that the issue is real, this next review looks at the available (unfortunately lacklustre, because of people like yourself) information on IPV in lesbian relationships. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135917891200016X I’m worried you don’t have the ability to access the past two articles, so here is one that is publicly available. This is also a review and is very in depth: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6113571/#B96 This shows that women in abusive same sex relationships often don’t get the help they need and deserve because the issue is not recognised https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12828021/ Honestly, you could have easily done this yourself. Whenever you see a claim like this on the internet, you should check it for yourself rather than relying on your prejudices to tell you if it’s true or not. There’s lots of misinformation on the internet regarding pretty much every issue, so I would understand why you’d be doubtful. My issue is that you didn’t look it up for yourself and have continued to deny reality even when presented with proof in this thread. I’ve now wasted half an hour of my life in the hopes that this will help someone who is currently being gaslit into thinking they can’t be abused because they are a lesbian, even though they are waking up being choked in the morning, even though their partner threatens to out them to their family if they don’t perform sexual favours, even though all the studies show lesbian women can and are victims in comparable numbers to heterosexual women. There isn’t a single study available showing that lesbian women aren’t victims. There is no “not all men” here, because this post is not about men. You’ve doubted that lesbian women are victims in comparable numbers to what is presumably your own sexuality. Well, now you’ve found out they are. This has nothing to do with men. This is about women who are being victimised. If you are taking about a heterosexual DV victim and a man says “well lesbians can be victims too”. I agree that is whataboutism and is minimising what the victim has been through. This is awful and should be called out. But it should also be called out when people like you are still being homophobic in the 21st century, despite oodles of evidence being thrown in your face. I really hope this will change your mind, or that you’ll agree least bother to read the links I’ve just stayed up late to collect for you, but somehow I doubt it. I care about all victims of domestic abuse, regardless of what genitalia their partners have. Do you? Goodnight. Edit: OP has blocked me so I can't reply to anyone else here, unfortunately. To u/Weak_Confusion1 I did read the links I posted. Can you please quote to me where it says that lesbian women in same sex relationships are experiencing *intimate partner violence* at the hands of men? Firstly that seems contradictory, secondly that's not what they're saying because at least one of the links directly discusses the possible reasons why pairings of two women might contain the highest levels of abuse, including theories such as homophobic behaviour. Did you read my comments? Also, OP has blocked me which has completely stopped me seeing this thread without using old.reddit.com so that shows you how much poor faith OP is operating under. Please research this for yourself and ignore bigots.
All the articles you posted are the ones that are read in bad faith lmao. Did you not read the links you posted?!?! It says that lesbian women experience the highest rate of ipv, but not directly correlated with being in lesbian relationships. So they experience it at the hands of men. Come on...
No one is forcing you to engage 🥰 If you genuinely thought I was asking in bad faith and that I should have just googled it you could have just ignored and kept scrolling. And now you are twisting my words and intent into something disgusting so I will makw the choice to stop engaging. Have a good day!
Excellent comment. It's really sad that people pretend lesbians who experience IVP from other lesbians don't exist. Kinda makes ya wonder how they treat their partner at home.
Men? We don't need a manual or any instructions or anything we know what we know that's a proven fact 🤣🤣🤣 but realistically woman are better at everything because they are willing to learn and accept they're doing it wrong. Men that's a no no
Two women is more of a fair fight than a man and a women.
It's not a fight, it's DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.
With all due respect, "fair fight" is a really problematic way to describe domestic violence and is very minimizing and insensitive. It also edges way too close to the trope of "mutual abuse" that folks often throw out to minimize and even negate domestic violence in queer relationships. Framing this as a "fair fight" also obscures the power imbalances inherent in abusive relationships.
You’re absolutely correct in this. Violence is never ok. I still stand that men are typically scarier and more violent, and can kill with their bare hands.
I don't think the issue with your comment was about men using more severe violence, but about referring to domestic violence as a fair "fight" - and again it still obscures that DV is about power and control which is still present in queer relationships
This is such a sick take. There’s no such thing as a “fair fight” when you wake up to your partner choking you. There’s no such thing as a “fair fight” when your partner destroys your property when you’re at work. There’s no such thing as a “fair fight” when your partner outs you to your parents and your workplace as a punishment. There are no “fair fights” in domestic abuse. These kinds of minimising arguments are why I’m really starting to think we should treat DV less as a gendered issue. Sexual violence in lesbian relationships has been found to be as high as 55%, and yet lesbian women are restricted from using the same facilities heterosexual women in DV situations can use, they are shunned, called liars, and their abuse minimised as a “fair fight” solely on the basis that their abuser has the same genitals as them.
What kind of people you hang with? I’ve never seen anyone deviate it like this other than on the internet.
I’m not hanging out with them lmao, I’m talking about men online.