Violence Against MenBillboards, radio and television advertisements across the country proclaim that "every fifteen seconds a woman is beaten by a man." Violence against women is clearly a problem of national importance, but has anyone ever wondered how often men are beaten by women? The unfortunate fact is that men are victims of domestic violence at least as often as women. Although the very idea of ​​men being beaten by their wives is contrary to many of our deeply held beliefs about men and women, female violence against men is a well-documented phenomenon, almost completely ignored by both the media and society. began pawing at him and tearing at him with his fingers, scratching his back and face..."From December 12, 1990 a police report detailing the beating of Stanley G. by his wife"...multiple bruises, abrasions and lacerations...chest wall contusion...psychological trauma..."From the hospital injury report of the same accidentThese reports are just a glimpse of what we find inconceivable that women do to men. But believe it or not, this happens. The first reaction for many people when they hear about the topic of battered men is that of disbelief. Battered husbands are almost a topic of jokes, like the cartoon image of a woman chasing her husband with a rolling pin. One researcher noted that wives were the perpetrators in 73% of depictions of domestic violence in newspaper comics (Gelles). Battered husbands have historically been ignored or subjected to ridicule and abuse. Even those of us who like to think of ourselves as free and open-minded often have difficulty even imagining that husband abuse could occur. Although feminism has opened many of our eyes to the existence of domestic violence, and newspaper articles often include incidents of wife abuse, husband abuse is a rarely discussed phenomenon. One reason researchers and others have not chosen to investigate husband beating is because it was thought to be a fairly rare event. Police reports seemed to confirm this, with in some cases a ratio of between 12 and 14.5 female victims for every male victim. But another reason is that, because women were seen as weaker and more helpless than men due to sexual roles, and men, on the other hand, were seen as more robust and self-sufficient, the study on battered husbands seemed relatively... middle of paper......collected in recent years are completely wrong and only one in 14 victims of spousal abuse are men, these are men who suffer and need services that are not available at the moment.Continuing to portray marital violence exclusively as a women's issue is not only wrong, but also counterproductive. And encouraging such unnecessary fragmentation and division will ultimately do more harm than good. No one has, or should have, control over pain and suffering. But until society as a whole addresses its deeply ingrained stereotypes and recognizes all victims of domestic violence, we will never be able to solve the problem. Domestic violence is a male or female issue: it is simply a human issue. References Richard Gelles. (1974). The violent home: A study of physical aggression between husbands and wives. Beverly Hills: Sage No More Silence http://www.panix.com/~holzman/maledv/Spousal Abuse Rates - Statistics by UCR and Straus, Gelles http://www.vix.com/men/battery/ucr-strauss -stat. htmlSusan Steintmetz, Men: the secret victims of