Aug 6, 2009, 13:17 GMT
Sydney - It's the emancipation of women: they drink and drive more than they used to, they get sent to prison more and, it seems, they batter their partners more.
Women have always been perpetrators of domestic violence as well as victims. Figures from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research in Western Australia, the country's biggest state, show a 159-per-cent rise in women before the courts over the past eight years on charges stemming from violent arguments in the home.
'It's possible that people are becoming less tolerant of violence by females than they used to be,' said bureau director Don Weatherburn. 'More women are also being arrested for assault not related to domestic violence, which some attribute to a rise in alcohol abuse.'
It's also possible that more women are fighting back - and, mistakenly or not, are being arrested and charged for doing so. The figures show that whereas over half of cases involving men reached the courts only a third of those involving women did - meaning that the charges against the women were more likely to be dropped.
Greg Andresen, spokesman for lobby group Men's Health Australia, notes that society hasn't caught up with the trends plotted by the bureau. There aren't refuges for battered blokes. Sympathy for male victims of domestic violence is lacking - particularly when the violence is within a same-sex relationship.
'Don't all victims of violence deserve assistance whether they are female or male?' Andresen asks.
Parallel with the emancipation of women is the greater readiness of men to reject stereotypical roles. They become house husbands, claim custody of children after a divorce - and, it follows, they have the courage to ring the police when they are on the receiving end of violence.
Sue Price, who along with partner Reg, runs the Men's Rights Agency lobby group, argues that things have not changed all that much and abused husbands are still unlikely to seek redress in the criminal justice system.
'It's much harder for a man to actually admit that his wife is beating him up,' she said. 'They seem to regard it as a shameful issue. And a lot of police actually say to men 'What did you do to make your wife hit you?' or 'Can't you handle your missus?''
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