Crack boffins in Kansas have exposed a new scourge sweeping US universities: that of male students being routinely handed savage thrashings by their co-ed girlfriends, and not in a cheery consensual S&M-hijinks sort of way, either.

"In our growing-up years, we teach boys not hit their sister, but we don't teach girls not to hit their brother," said Sandra Stith, who is a professor of "family studies and human services".

The prof says that the stereotypical image of boy-girl violence suggests that the male is always the perpetrator, but that this is far from the case at American universities.

"We need to address female violence, too," she said. "We need to say that when you're in a relationship with someone you care about, you don't hit and you don't kick."

Apparently scuffling among college boys and girls in America "is more likely to involve shoving and pushing by both men and women" than in similar cases involving married couples off campus. Binge drinking is said to be a big factor too.

America's two-fisted, grog-swilling female students also apparently have a double standard when it comes to drinking and alcoholism. Their own thirsty, aggressive habits are characterised as "just partying and participating in normal college life", but if an older adult behaved in the same way they would be seen as having problems.

"I think they might be normalizing their aggressive behaviors, too," says Stith. "They may think that when they're drinking and get angry and she slaps him and he grabs her, that it's not domestic violence. They may think that domestic violence is what happens in married people's lives."

It wasn't immediately apparent, but we feel sure that videogames and movies such as Tomb Raider, Charlie's Angels, Barbie and the Three Musketeers etc must be to blame in some way.

There's more from Kansas uni here. ®