Women can initiate divorce now. I'd say that explains it pretty well.

And whilst there is concrete evidence that women initiate divorce more often than men, and are more financially independent now than they were in the 70's, there is no evidence to suggest that men behave any "better" now than they did back then. Now women just have a better way to escape than murder.

Over that time, there has been a significant increase in awareness of domestic violence issues. It's not socially acceptable to abuse another person anymore (not that it ever was in my world, but it was much more accepted decades back).

That allows women to leave a relationship more readily (especially since no-fault divorce was created and shelters are available) and it sends a clear message to men (or other abusers) that what they have been doing is wrong.

I'm sure there's more to it than that since these are not simple issues to create nor to solve.

Sarah - huzzah for blaming the victim, then. Did anyone bother to find out the correlation between wife abuse and husband-murdering? No, you're just assuming it, because it fits your world view. That women will be violent not in self-defense? That just boggles the mind!

Here's how to get a lead on what explains this decline: look for the means of murdering the spouse through the years. You might find that means that were popular amongst women in the 70's became less available to them today, or that they became less fatal through medical advancement.

Dubi, you don't know what you're talking about. Did you know that most women imprisoned for murder DID kill husbands/boyfriends/exes in self-defense or to defend the lives of their children? It's not the only reason but the decline in husband-murders can be attributed to women's lib.

1) Great, it's okay to blame the victims if the victims are men. I learn something new on this blog every day.

2) Domestic violence is tragic whether initiated by the man or by the woman.

3) SarahMC, cite studies or GTFO.

4) I would definitely be interested in learning more about this issue. Perhaps whichever factors were responsible for decreasing intimate murders by women could also be leveraged to help women victims, too.

Glenn Sacks offers another theory: women use less easily detectable methods, such as contract killings and poison.

#2 here: http://www.hisside.com/something_you_didnt_know_about_men.htm

WOW! pn6 That guy's a piece of work! He is just one giant chip on a shoulder. I am not sure he has the ability to present unbiased data, especially while citing himself.

Ellen, look at the article to which we're replying. There's no lack of bias when one possibility for the decrease in murders of males by females is,

"1. Men Behaving Better. Men have stopped doing those things that made women want to kill them."

And supposing that the second reason:

2. Women Having Options, including counseling and dv shelters

is a major factor, shouldn't counseling and dv shelters also be available to men?

First, these are presented as suppositions, not facts. Suppositions are not rants against men or feminists. They are possible ideas that can be discussed and explored further.

While I agree with that guy, that men are often portrayed badly in the media, and that family law needs to take into account the changing roles of men and women, and that men sometimes get the shaft when it comes to seeing their children after divorce, I think he is holding up exceptions as a rule because he does not like vocal women. And he has a problem with women who want equality. Yes, there are some decent men who get screwed, but it is still in such small numbers in comparison to women, that the law is not really addressing it yet. As women gain equality, that will probably change. But I have a feeling he still won't be happy.

He was presenting limitations to data as proof that the data is bogus which is just not true. The magnitude of the effect can be called into question, but the general trend is still valid.

No, I certainly don't think every wife that murdered her husband was abused, but self-defense does make up a significant portion of those who do. Which makes it reasonable to conclude that women are not needing to defend themselves as much as they used to.

Also, men are behaving better. You can't ignore the fact that the social norms surrounding domestic violence have changed over the past thirty years. It really did used to be acceptable to beat your wife.

And while I disagree with number 2, I think it is reasonable that women don't need to defend themselves as much as they used to because they have other options. I just happen to think those other options have more to do with being financially independent.

And no, I do not think that straight men need dv shelters (although I think everyone should have access to decent affordable counseling). The main reason is because men don't end up in the hospital or dead as often as women do when they have a violent partner. This does not mean that I am saying a woman abusing a partner is acceptable. But because of physical strength, the physical consequences are not usually as tragic. Also, men are usually financially independent, making a dv shelter unnecessary. If we ever end up in an egalitarian society where a significant amount of men decide to put their careers on hold to take care of the family, then I will re-think that position. The main reason a woman would need a dv shelter is because she was financially dependent on a man who beat her and has no where else to go and no resources.

I think the fact that women are not trapped in bad marriages the way they used to be is certainly plausible. I don't think that accounts for all of the murders, but it probably accounts for a significant number of the murders that were committed in self defense. I do not think acknowledging that women kill in self defense is victim blaming. While domestic violence against straight men happens, and it is wrong, it is not nearly in the numbers that it happens to women. And because men can defend themselves more easily, it does not have the same consequences.

Because we can get divorced more easily, and women are less financially dependent on men, and marriage has evolved to be about love instead of survival, dependence, and family obligations, our relationships have improved. We are all behaving better.

However, you have to admit, men are socialized to express themselves with violence much more than women.

Dubi, I disagree about the means. Gun violence is a leading cause of death for men between the ages of 15 and 39. If anything, guns have become more readily available.

And Duran, is it really necessary to tell someone to GTFO? There is a way to respectfully disagree with someone which continues an interesting discussion. That is not it.

>I think he is holding up exceptions as a rule because he does not like vocal women.

ad-hom

>Yes, there are some decent men who get screwed, but it is still in such small numbers in comparison to women, that the law is not really addressing it yet.

a supposition on your part.

>As women gain equality,

Women outnumbered men at the polls these last two elections; more women than men are in college; more women than men graduate high school and college.

>And no, I do not think that straight men need dv shelters (although I think everyone should have access to decent affordable counseling). The main reason is because men don’t end up in the hospital or dead as often as women do when they have a violent partner.

1 every 38 seconds.

http://www.batteredmen.com/gjdvdata.htm

Battering isn't only beating someone to death - it is also psychological abuse, including statements such statements as "men don't need help -they have all the power" as a justification for refusing assistance to a man that's being assaulted or psychologically tortured by his intimate partner.

>Also, men are usually financially independent, making a dv shelter unnecessary.

divorce, alimony, and child support laws shatter mens' financial independence. And in this economy, more men have been laid off than women.

>While domestic violence against straight men happens, and it is wrong, it is not nearly in the numbers that it happens to women.

This bibliography examines 247 scholarly investigations: 188 empirical studies and 59 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 240,200.

http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

>And because men can defend themselves more easily, it does not have the same consequences.

legally, they cannot. A false report is just as effective in getting a man immediately jailed as a true one. Even if it doesn't come to jail, the onus for "hitting a woman" is so great that many men suffer intense shame for years of slaps, kicks, assaults on their groin (though they won't be acknowledged ass sexual assaults) that, because they come from a woman "just aren't as bad."

This blog is totally infested by MRA types. It's almost not worth it to comment.

"It really did used to be acceptable to beat your wife."

IT STILL IS.

Haven't you read some of the things people have said about Chris Brown / Rihanna? They're not married but you better believe a whole lot of people (men and women alike) believe in male superiority and that there are times when a woman has it coming.

Here you go, ass.

As many as 90% of the women in jail for killing men had been battered by those men. (Allison Bass, "Women far less likely to kill than men; no one sure why," The Boston Globe, February 24, 1992, p. 27)

okay, Sarah, now look at this Oprah snippet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZJLl9gx2V0

Having watched that, can you really expect men to believe that women take men's pain seriously?

"This blog is totally infested by MRA types. It’s almost not worth it to comment."

indeed. How dare we come post responses to an article blaming men for the evils of the world, and remind people that there are female domestic and sexual abusers, and female serial killers.

"Female serial killers are literally more likely to get away with murder than male serial killers are."

http://psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/female_serial_killers

"75% of sexual predators are male and 25% are female.

86% of the victims of female sexual predators aren't believed, so the crimes go unreported and don't get prosecuted."

http://www.canadiancrc.com/female_sexual_predators_awareness.aspx

"3 in 4 B.C. boys on street sexually exploited by women

The Vancouver Sun, Gerry Bellett, Canwest News Service, Tuesday, May 27, 2008

http://www.canadiancrc.com/Newspaper_Articles/Vancouver_Sun_3_in_4_Boys_on_Street_Sexually_Exploited_by_Women_27MAY08.aspx

"Haven’t you read some of the things people have said about Chris Brown / Rihanna? They’re not married but you better believe a whole lot of people (men and women alike) believe in male superiority and that there are times when a woman has it coming."

Ever heard of Phil Harman?

http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/h/Phil%20Hartman/phil_hartman.htm

You're a piece of work, pn6.
Why do you conflate "wife beaters" and "all men?" The post is about both male and female killers, yet you immediately jump on the defensive and claim everyone blames men for the ills of the world. Maybe you doth protest too much.

The website you refer to is a joke. It’s an MRA site about how women are all evil, murderous liars who steal men’s sperm and go after their money. Yawn. Anyway…

Now to address the idiocy in your comments.

What is your point re: female serial killers? That doesn't surprise me. It also has nothing to do with the post, nor does it "prove" anything.

Same thing re: percentage of female sex abusers. If that stat is accurate (which I doubt, considering the source), so? A quarter of sex abusers are women. Obviously you’re not here to discuss the topic at hand but to cry “Women do bad things too!” Your point?
Re: street children, “The study found 94 per cent of females reported they had been sexually exploited by men.” I wonder how many of the boy children had been exploited by men.
I laughed out loud at your Phil Hartman site. What does that have to do with the victim-blaming that followed the Brown / Rihanna incident? Or any other incident in which a man beats his intimate partner? Oh right, nothing, you are just attempting to deflect attention away from men behaving badly.

other famous male victims of domestic violence:

http://www.safe4all.org/essays/victims

>The website you refer to is a joke. It’s an MRA site about how women are all evil, murderous liars who steal men’s sperm and go after their money. Yawn. Anyway…

which? the glennsacks site? I'm assuming that's the one you prefer to attack, rather than the Canadian Childrens' Rights Council, safe4all, or psychology.suite101.com.

>Oh right, nothing, you are just attempting to deflect attention away from men behaving badly.

and that's the issue for the post. no need to acknowledge that women behave badly as well. if you did that, you'd have to acknowledge that men might need shelter.

If men want shelter from domestic violence they can do exactly what female victims did: establish them.

Sarah, it's not like citing a Boston Globe story from almost two decades ago is such a debate-ender...

Now, I hope we can get this discussion a bit off the of "oh YEAH?!" track (btw, pn6, you're doing a disservice to your side of the argument), and talk a bit more calmly about the issues.

a. A majority of cases of domestic violence is reciprocal. That is, we're not really discussing, more of the time, the TV movie image of a lone woman cowering in the corner as her abusive husband threatens to whip her. We could, of course, argue that it is "men who start it", and the women's violence is merely self-defense, but I'll leave it to you to argue that if you wish, and merely maintain for now that this sounds like an unlikely assertion.

Let's look, for example, at this study by the CDC: http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/15/31-a . What they found is that ~25% of relationships involved violence. Of these, half involved reciprocal violence, whereas half involved only one-sided violence. Of the one-sided violence relationships, about 70% involved violence perpetrated by women, and only 30% violence perpetrated by men. There's some more statistics in the linked report, and even more in the actual paper (there's a link at the bottom of the article).
I'll just say that this isn't the final word - this study is limited because it was done on people aged 18-28. We could certainly say this subgroup is not representative of the entire population. If you have similar studies encompassing a larger population, let us know.

b. "Self-defense" is a defense in a court of law. I would expect many women in a situation of reciprocal violence would cite self-defense to argue against an indictment. They wouldn't even be lying. Still, it does change the context of the situation.

c. Domestic violence was, indeed, much more accepted in the past. In fact, nobody even thought it was worthy of a definition until Erin Pizzey started the first ever women's shelter in the UK in 1971, and came up with the definition of "battered women" (which has gone through several changes since). It's interesting that Pizzey herself was eventually blamed by feminists of condoning male violence because she refused to see domestic violence as something only women suffered at the hands of men. (see, for a discussion on the topic: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=a41532d6-d4df-46a2-a784-f6499938f3b0&k=49786&p=1 ).

I think it is ridiculous to suggest that domestic violence is as acceptable today as it was 40 years ago. This is not to say that some old-school ways of thought persist, but to say that no change has occurred is simply ignoring the reality and belittling the harshness of the situation in the past.

d. You're still using a double-standard of blaming the victim when the victim is male, but denying that the victim ever has anything to do with the crime when the victim is female. Again - having something to do with a crime doesn't need to imply guilt. I can play at this game too. Since women can now more easily leave a marriage, and since they are more commonly awarded guardianship over the children, a man who fears his wife is about to leave him might fear losing his kids, and this might drive him to commit crimes.
See? It's easy! Even makes sense. Doesn't in any way mean that these crimes should be condoned, but it does EXPLAIN why things happen. Nor should it mean that we need to change our justice system or make it harder for women to get custody over their children after a divorce (we don't need more tools for men to threaten their wives with so they don't walk out; and I certainly wouldn't want the kids to go with a husband capable of murder).

Ellen - are firearms the most common reasons for fatality amongst men in domestic violence during the 70's? I doubt that.

Sarah: (much longer response awaiting moderation because of links) You're ignoring the serious social pressure against men showing weakness by moving to a shelter. A man who would seek help for being abused by his wife will be (a) not believed, and (b) when they do believe him finally, mocked.
I realize your response will be "boo hoo, oh noes, teh poor menz!", but, well, there you have it.

No, I am not ignoring or denying that, Dubi. I am responding to pn6's comments that seem to express a strong desire to see shelters for men established. I told him how men should go about doing so if they are so concerned about it.

funding would be nice.

As recently as a year ago, men were specifically denied domestic violence funding at the State Level in California, the state with the most votes in the Electoral College.

California Law, as it stood before it was dragged through the courts:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cacodes/hsc/124250-124251.html

The women who established shelters and programs for battered women didn't have funding from outside sources either.

>The women who established shelters and programs for battered women didn’t have funding from outside sources either.

the first few may not have. later ones did.

Erin Pizzey, the first one, was kicked out of her own shelter.

I noticed. ;)

A cursory look at the DOJ website doesn't reveal stats before 1976. Seeing stats for earlier years would be interesting: the first shelters were started in the early '70s, but there really weren't that many until several years later. (One of the first shelters in the US was just two women declaring their apartment open to women who had been abused, for instance; it started in '74.) That means that a decline starting around '76 or so might well be due to the fact that women had options.

As I wrote in my post, I don't know that that is the explanation. I can think of others. That said, anecdotally: while I worked in shelters, I talked to maybe four or five women who were seriously thinking of killing their husbands. Uniformly, what they wanted was not so much that he be dead, but just a way out of what seemed to them to be an inescapable and unendurable situation. When they found out that there were alternative ways out, that was that, as far as homicide was concerned -- and I didn't see any news stories about women killing their husbands after talking to them, so I think they did not go on to do it. (Whether they would have or not, and whether knowing that there were alternatives caused them not to, I have no idea; however, they seemed quite serious to me, and did not go on to kill their husbands, and my sense, as I said, was that they just wanted out, and didn't know how else to achieve that.)

Sarah - just in case you missed it, my much longer response to some things you've said just appeared up in the discussion, before my previous comment.

Come on guys, this is getting close to turning into an actual discussion! Veer just a little bit & you'll be talking with each other instead of at each other. Wild!

Dubi, as you can see from the graph in Jay's post, 1200 women were killed by intimate partners in 2005 whilst only 330 men were. You seem to be claiming that domestic violence is woman > man more frequently than it is man > woman. Your stats don't say anything about the severity of the violence, either. So that's another factor. What I want to know is why we're even talking about this. What are you trying to prove? Do you deny that women's liberation was a big factor in the reduction in wife > husband homicides? Like you said, it's just an "explanation," not an assignment of "blame."

Severity is certainly a factor, and I suggested one avenue of research that might (might, I can't be sure, of course) be useful to find out why the "effectiveness" of female abuse of male partners has gone down. All I'm saying is that woman->man violence itself has not gone down, although its severity has. I think this is an important point in trying to figure out the mystery that this post raises.

I can't really see how denying to granting the women's lib had anything to do with homicides has anything to do with blame, but OK.

I can certainly agree that women having an alternative to staying in a relationship may help reduce the number of homicides (though I doubt this is the sole reason, because, like I said, violence in general has not necessarily declined). But then, it wasn't me who cried out against supposedly "blaming the victim" just because somebody suggested there might be a relationship between the actions of the victim and the crime committed. That was you, I believe.

Your very first comment: "Sarah - huzzah for blaming the victim, then."

Oh, come ON. I was trying to point out your own double-standard.

I find the tone of this article flippant and offensive toward spousal-murder-sensitive people. I also feel the arbitrary gender division in the diagram (and research) supports an unhealthy binary gender system. And will somebody get these MRA types a Coors or something? But srrrsly, this blog has gotten really out of hand with the feminist bend.

Please point out the double standard I used in the comments preceeding your own.

Thanks SarahMC, sorry I left you alone to argue by yourself, but it was just getting too tiresome.

"But srrrsly, this blog has gotten really out of hand with the feminist bend"

@Rrrriot Grrl, this is a sociology website. Show me a sociologist who is not a feminist. I mean, there are some dead ones like Parsons, but his theories are not held in very high regard anymore.

And WTF is wrong with feminism anyway. Do you really think women should not have equality?

"Now women just have a better way to escape than murder" as opposed to (not a direct quote) "how dare you suggest that the actions of the woman might have anything to do with the murder he committed?".

Maybe because of the increasing acceptability of women in sports? A way to vent anger.

Or perhaps internet/ home entertainment technology?

Or because more women work full time jobs and don't have time to beat up people?

Or because there is much more focus on women's sexual fulfillment?

Or because feminism is working and spouses get along better?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the decrease in alcholisim as a possible reason.

Drunken rages have been the cause of many accidental (or otherwise) deaths. Alcohol would have a body acting on things they wouldn't normally do. Perhaps all the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome advertising campaigns in the late 70's/early 80's and the knowledge that drinking harms the development of a baby convinced married women to lay off the heavy drinking at a steeper rate?

Almost everyone (men and women) drank to excess back in the day - now it's only socially acceptable for frat boys & military to be openly intoxicated. (Although, the new blogging mommies have been rebelling against this no drinking policy somewhat as of late.)

That's my theory.

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May also be that women are increasingly acquitted or found innocent at a higher rate than men. They certainly receive far lower sentences for the same crimes in every category. The last 40 years of feminism has encouraged this special treatment, & the depicting of women - even murderers - as 'victims'.

 How have suicide rates changed? If the murders are desperation linked, and murders are dropp0ing because there are other options, then you'd expect to see suicides in couples should change by the same amount, for each gender, especially after factoring for any changes in suicides of singles.

The fact that male suicides are about 3 times more common than female ones would seem to support the hypothesis, but I can't find statistics over time, particularly not separated into those who were in partnerships and those who were single.

This graph obviously means that women have divorced their husbands rather than killed them and that men still kill their wives rather than divorce them.  Why, the men probably took out insurance on the women and the women just wanted to get out of their marraige. 

If you look at the breakdown by race, intimate homicide of men (black and white) and black women has gone down steeply. The intimate homicide of white women has stayed practically flat. Also, all crime has gone down steeply in those years. There are several reasons for this drop in crime cited in the literature (just google it) - tough on crime policies that lead to more arrests and incarceration of criminals. My own theory is that the intimate homicide of white women doesn't follow the same pattern because of backlash against feminism, and because feminism is seen as a white woman thing. There is this popular cultural sense in which the white woman is a "bitch who deserves it".

Just thought of a third option: that the methods traditionally preferred by women are more tightly controlled now. That is, rather than (or as well as) having more options to resolve things peacefully, women now have fewer options to resolve them fatally. Poisons are now heavily regulated and easily identified in post-mortems, etc.

However, on checking, this hypothesis doesn't fit the facts AT ALL. Bang goes that idea. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6106a1.htm#tab12

1973 saw the opening of the first batered womens shelter in the united states. By 1979 there were 250 battered womens shelters in the U.S. 1983 there are 700 shelters in the U.S.

It only continues on from there.

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Jeeze, I think it would be obvious. Women would rather just leave a bad marriage, when divorce is acceptable they choose that option over violence. Men are less concerned with getting along and more concerned with ownership, so divorce does not solve their problem. They kill the women because they think they own them, regardless of laws. They don't want out, they want control.

I remembered from my days in the crim biz that the US was unique in that wives here killed their husbands almost as frequently as husbands killed wives.
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