[IMC-Editorial] USA Today echoes Disinformation Company

[The Disinformation Company]

USA Today Article Echoes EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG Report:
Studies Shatter Myth of Abuse

USA Today reported Sunday on the growing challenge to the widely-held
assumption that men are always initiators of domestic abuse. Researchers
from both academic and private institutions weighed in on the issue,
stating a growing concern about the often unreported role of women in
mutual violence with men.

The news is an endorsement of charges made by Philip W. Cook, author of
the book ABUSED MEN and contributor to Disinformation’s recent anthology,
EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG.

Cook’s essay, “The Whole Truth About Domestic Violence,” makes the case
that domestic violence is a human problem, not a gender problem. It rails
against the widely-held belief that women are always exclusively victims
of domestic violence, and that, despite the fact that there are large
numbers of male victims of domestic abuse, those male victims are often
written off as being to blame for the problem, or not having a problem at
all.

Among Cook’s most critical assertions, drawn from a collection of
research, evidence, and interviews with victims and experts alike, are:

* A woman is assaulted by a domestic partner every eighteen seconds; a
man, every fifteen seconds.

* Women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in
their relationships with their spouses or opposite-sex partners.

* Men suffer severe injuries more often than women do in domestic
encounters, and are four times as likely to be attacked with a deadly
weapon.

* Women hit first at about the same rate as men do. 

* 835,000 men are victimized by their partner every year.

* When one excludes stepfathers from the equation, men are less likely to
physically abuse their children than are women. Mothers are more likely to
kill or criminally neglect their children than fathers.

* Male victims of domestic abuse face ridicule and isolation. They have no
support network, and are unlikely to find sympathetic police or
therapists.

The article also charts the similarly violent reaction to men and women
involved in research into the domestic abuse of men or who have spoken out
against it. Researchers such as Suzanne Steinmetz, Murray Straus, Ph. D.,
and Richard Gelles, Ph. D. have all been the subject of death threats;
Steinmetz’s children’s lives were also threatened. Erin Pizzey, the
founder of the battered women’s movement, now requires a police escort for
speaking engagements after daring to speak out on the issue–her home has
been fired on as well.

Raging against this climate of silence and intimidation, Cook calls for
wider education on the problem. Most specifically, he suggests more
inclusive training and education for social workers, health care
providers, law enforcement, and legal professionals, especially in
discriminating between events involving primary perpetrators, single
victims, or mutual combat situations. Until the true nature of such
violence is recognized, he argues, women seeking help for their anger
problems, lesbians and gay men with partner problems, and heterosexual men
who are being abused will continue to be discriminated against and told
that their problem isn’t real.

Philip W. Cook, a highly sought-after speaker, workshop leader, and
television guest, is the author of ABUSED MEN. For more information on
Philip Cook or The Disinformation Company, please contact Ralph Bernardo
at 212-691-1605 (tel), 212-473-8096 (fax) or books at disinfo.com.

"The Whole Truth About Domestic Violence" is part of The Disinformation
Company's
EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG: THE DISINFORMATION GUIDE TO SECRETS AND
LIES.
Russ Kick, Editor.
Published by The Disinformation Company.
Oversized softcover (8.5" x 11") * 346pp * US$24.95 * ISBN 
0-9713942-0-2
Release date: June, 2002.
Distributed to the Trade in the US & Canada by Consortium Book Sales &
Distribution; in the UK & Europe by Turnaround Publisher Services.


ABUSE YOUR ILLUSIONS: THE DISINFORMATION GUIDE TO MEDIA MIRAGES AND
ESTABLISHMENT LIES, a follow-up to EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG, was
published in May 2003. Read about “minor details” that have been kept from
the public, such as:

* The most popular kinds of antidepressants can cause suicide.

* The nation of Panama was created as a get-rich scheme by Wall Street.

* Islamic groups are censoring critical material in America.

* Corporations have claimed the “right” to lie.

* The US and other Allies massacred German POWs and civilians during and
after WWII.

ABUSE YOUR ILLUSIONS: THE DISINFORMATION GUIDE TO MEDIA MIRAGES AND
ESTABLISHMENT LIES.
Russ Kick, Editor.
Published by The Disinformation Company.
Oversized softcover (8.5" x 11") * 352pp * US$24.95 * ISBN 
0-9713942-4-5
Release date: May 15, 2003.
Distributed to the Trade in the US & Canada by Consortium Book Sales &
Distribution; in the UK & Europe by Turnaround Publisher Services.


---
You are currently subscribed to disinfobookspr as: imc-editorial at indymedia.org
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-disinfobookspr-189962F at news.disinfo.com