Citation

Gondolf EW. Violence Against Women 2014; 20(12): 1539-1546.

Affiliation

Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA egondolf@iup.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1077801214563348

PMID

25502417

Abstract

This article refutes Straus's reinterpretation of our study, "Physical Tactics of Female Partners Against Male Batterer Program Participants," drawing on our extended follow-up of batterer program participants and their partners in four cities (Gondolf, 2002). Straus claims that the rate of women's violence in the sample is "high" and asserts the need to address women's violence to reduce the men's violence, which is the opposite of our findings and interpretation. We contend that our focus on the men and women who both used tactics in the total sample addresses the research question. We elaborate why our regression analyses to "explain" the women's violence are sound, despite Straus's unsubstantiated speculations. We argue further that the evidence points to women's "violent resistance" against severe, repeated violence, and that those cases do not fit the "both victim" dyad type that Straus promotes. Moreover, they are inappropriate for couples counseling. Finally, we revisit the limitations of the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS) as a sufficient measure of the women's experience of male violence and raise concern about the implications of Straus's claims.

Language: en