Although there are women-can-do-no-wrong feminists, the view that women are not capable of male partners who are “real men” was not one ushered in with the women’s rights movement. That is the traditional view, the one that can make a man embarrassed to admit that his wife does not stop with words when it comes to abuse.
It may be a little on the ironic side, but one of the things that is highlighting that women can be domestic abusers is the prevalence of abuse among lesbians. According to one study, anywhere from 17-45% of lesbians report having been the victim of a least one act of physical violence perpetrated by a lesbian partner, depending on what survey you want to believe (
musc.edu/vawprevention/lesbianrx/factsheet.shtml). The abuser is not always the bigger, stronger, or “butch” partner, either.
In other words, lesbians can tell you that other women, even the quite small ones, are very much capable of abusing their partners.
I think this makes sense. Self-control has to be learned. If you are a big strong young man with a hot temper and quick fists, your parents are more likely to see to it that you don’t deal with your frustration by hitting people. They want to keep you out of prison! If you are a four-foot-nothing adolescent girl, this is a character fault that might be ignored…“she’s just a little bit of a thing. Who is she going to hurt?” By the time the foolishness of that bit of denial is realized, it may be too late.
Anybody can be dangerous, if she has a cast iron skillet and a worldview that calls for controlling everyone but herself. Psychologists are quite aware that manipulative and controlling people, whether heterosexual or homosexual, male or female, are often willing to lie without qualms in order to get what they want. They believe that abuse of those who frustrate or upset them is their right…“he made me hit him”. A husband who is abused may find that, as a child, his wife was allowed to abuse his brother-in-law, too! (“A big boy like you can protect yourself from a little
girl”.) In some families, too, of course, physical abuse is the norm. It is how the pecking order works. It is how you get your way.
In lesbian couples, the abusing partners sometimes even seek the services of domestic violence organizations in order to give themselves leverage for manipulation within the relationship. It doesn’t take a crystal ball for shelter workers to realize that a heterosexual woman could be taking pages out of that playbook!
I don’t think that the ability of women to be abusers is any surprise to people in the mental health care field. I think the facts about lesbian couples are coming as a surprise to some laypeople in the feminist movement, though.
