Violence and abuse is never ok, says Wayne. However, that applies equally whether the perpetrator is a man, woman or child.

In a recent opinion piece, Rachel Stewart wrote "Sorry boys, but it's just not acceptable to trot out the tired old line that women hit men too". But is that ‘tired old line’ acceptable?

And more importantly, does it represent a more balanced view of what is happening within relationships and whānau?

The domestic violence and abuse debate in the media and public opinion is dominated by feminist and women’s perspectives. Often, explicitly or implicitly, based on or supporting the Duluth model.

In a nutshell, the Duluth model assumes that men use violence in relationships to exercise power and control. This domination is exemplified by erstwhile Labour Party leader David Cunliffe’s apology for being a man where he said "…family and sexual violence is perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children."

READ MORE:

* NZ world number one in domestic violence

* Calls to include animals in family violence legislation

* Jeremy Kyle berates audience for laughing at family violence

* A movement of men against violence

Cunliffe’s perception that family violence is a problem that men do to women is no doubt consistent with both the impression that governmental and non-governmental organisations like: Its Not Ok Campaign; Are You That Someone (both Ministry of Social Development initiatives); Shine; White Ribbon New Zealand; and Women’s Refuge etc, like to portray and with the general public perception.

However, is it an accurate view of the frequency of perpetration and victimisation of family violence?

Those organisations frequently use police data to support their numbers. The problem is that police data is biased. Bias is a technical statistical term that simply says the reported measure is not accurately measuring what is purported to be measured.

The police themselves estimate that only a small fraction of incidents are reported to them. In this case, the police numbers do not measure the frequency of ‘domestic violence’ but rather they measure the frequency of ‘reported domestic violence’.

GENDER BIAS

There are many reasons why men and women will not report, or will misreport, violence.

Domestic violence and abuse is a complex issue and to measure it we need to examine what actually happens within relationships and whānau. It is not enough to report clearly biased police and court data and assume it is representative.

On a recent Police Ten Seven programme, I saw a woman describe an incident in which there had been mutual pushing and the man tried to walk away but she said "I kept on going [at him]". However, it was the man who was dragged away in handcuffs. Similarly, our courts punish men more often and more severely.

Some laws are gender biased. There is not even a crime equivalent to "male assaults female" with the genders reversed. Rape is a crime that only a man can commit – despite the Family Violence Statistics Report (2009) showing similar numbers of male and female victims of forced sexual intercourse.

READ MORE:

* We need to make it easier for domestic violence victims to speak out

* Two women's stories highlight dangers of domestic violence

* Don't forget male victims of violence

There are numerous studies that have investigated intimate partner violence. In Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say, Dr Warren Farrell lists over 50 studies where it was found there was relative gender symmetry, or that women were more often violent than men.

In 2010, Dr Murray Straus wrote a paper examining why there had been 30 years of denial of gender symmetry and what impact that has on combating the problem of domestic violence. In New Zealand, there have been two multi-disciplinary cohort studies which are lauded for their insights into many aspects of our lives. Those studies have covered domestic violence.

Professor David Fergusson, Joseph Boden and Dannette Marie from a Christchurch cohort found there was no statistical difference in both perpetration and victimisation for women and men.

Professor Lynn Magdol and others from a Dunedin cohort found nearly twice as many women perpetrated violence as men. When the violence was severe, this ballooned to more than three times the rate.

Straus, in a New Zealand sample in an international study of dating violence, found very similar numbers to Magdol.

This year, Shelley Johnson reported surprise at finding that 38 per cent of victims in Canterbury were male.

DIFFERENT PERCEPTIONS

When it comes to child abuse, the Family Violence Clearinghouse Annual Death Review reports that half of the perpetrators are women.

Fergusson has claimed that women are more frequently the perpetrators of child abuse.

Why is there a discrepancy between these data and the police numbers? We know that many incidents are not reported to police. The Ministry of Justice Crime and Safety Survey (2009) provides some insight into those unreported incidents.

When male and female victims of family violence crime (whether reported or not) were asked about the crime, nearly half of all male victims reported that it was "just something that happened" and nearly half reported it was "wrong but not a crime", leaving fewer than 10 per cent who acknowledged it was in fact a crime.

For women the perception was reversed, even though the threshold to be a victim of crime was the same.

It is questionable whether the Duluth model, based on an assumption of patriarchal violence as a means of maintaining power, is valid. In 2014, Dr Elizabeth Bates found that women were more controlling and physically aggressive than men in intimate partnerships.

NO EXCUSES

It is not new information that women can be violent and abusive. As noted above, studies have found this for decades.

In the 1970s, Erin Pizzey, the founder of women’s refuges in the United Kingdom, found that over 60 per cent of the women seeking refuge were as violent or more violent than the men they were fleeing.

In 2009, based on samples out of the United States, Dr Deborah Capaldi reported that women’s own propensity to initiate violence was as significant as a man’s violence history in predicting the women’s victimisation.

That is not to excuse those male perpetrators victimising women. As the Women’s Refuge state, violence and abuse is never ok.

However, that statement applies equally whether the perpetrator is a man or a woman or a child.

We need to investigate and deal with the problem within the relationships and whānau where the abuse occurs. All women and all men need to learn ways to deal with conflict without resorting to violence or abuse.

Until our emphasis is on that and not on blaming "overwhelmingly" one gender, I believe we will not make significant inroads into dealing with this scourge on our society.