VP Biden Charged with Misrepresentation: Abuse Statement Ignores Three Decades of Research, SAVE Says
Washington /August 1, 2012 – A leading victim-advocacy group is charging Vice President Joe Biden with spreading one-sided and false information regarding domestic violence. Stop Abusive and Violent Environments says Biden’s statement issued Tuesday (1) condones the cycle of violence by ignoring the widespread problem of female abusers and male victims.
Female-initiated aggression is the leading risk-factor for women becoming injured by an intimate partner, reveals a research summary by Sandra Stith, PhD (2). And according to Martin Fiebert, PhD of California State University, 286 research studies conducted over the last 30 years show “women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners” (3).
This past Monday an Ohio woman shot her husband in the back. Police found Terry Dear with “a hole in his back where he’d been shot, along with their two small children standing there” (4).
Last Wednesday Derrick Graham of Newport News, Virginia was struck by his wife as she was driving an SUV. “I kept trying to tell her to slow down. She was speeding up and by the time we got up to the 664 ramp, that’s all I remember,” Graham later explained from his hospital bed (5).
“Vice president Biden’s statement is filled with half-truths and Orwellian logic. It implies women are never aggressors, thus silencing lesbian and male victims of partner abuse,” according to SAVE spokesman Philip W. Cook. “Then it insists that the controversial policies in the Senate version of VAWA should be ‘beyond debate.’ Congressional debate over substantive issues that affect all Americans should not be condemned, but embraced. Reform of VAWA to improve fiscal accountability and delivery of services is urgently needed.”
According to a national survey, over six in 10 persons believe the Violence Against Women Act requires fundamental reforms (6).
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments is a victim-advocacy organization working for evidence-based solutions to partner violence: www.saveservices.org.
Citations:
- http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/31/158921/an-issue-beyond-debate-congress.html
- Stith S. Intimate partner physical abuse perpetration and victimization risk factors: A meta-analytic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior Vol. 10, 2004. pp. 65-98.
- http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/mommy-shot-daddy-ohio-woman-blasts-husband-back-kills-chase-cops-article-1.1125579#ixzz22EGZdL3e
- http://wtkr.com/2012/07/25/police-investigate-hit-and-run-accident-in-newport-news/
- http://www.saveservices.org/campaign-2012/national-survey-on-vawa-reform/
Contact: Teri Stoddard
Telephone: 301-801-0608
Email: tstoddard@saveservices.org
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