MenAreGood
Maryland Commission for Men's Health Report on Domestic Violence (2010)
July 23, 2024

I wrote this report when I was the vice-chair of the Maryland Commission for Men’s Health in 2008-2010. This was one of three reports that The Maryland Department of Health tried to deep six. It took us a year to track down what they had done and the reports finally made their way to the legislators. (The story of this event was a chapter in Janice Fiamengo’s excellent book Sons of Feminism: Men Have Their Say.) They really didn’t want this to get out and they succeeded since it was a year late. It was written with the idea of giving legislators a good sense of the bigoted path the domestic violence industry had taken in Maryland. It continues to be a good summary of how the feminists have built a lethal anti-male industry. It is amazing and shocking how little has changed since that time. Sad too.

The attached image was not a part of the original report. lol I couldn’t resist.😀

 

 

Perhaps the most confusing, perplexing, and controversial area in which men’s health needs are overlooked is the issue of male victims of domestic violence. One immediately noticeable trend is the strong tendency to focus solely on female victims and ignore male victims. This tendency is seen repeatedly.  Most media, whether print or electronic, focuses on female victims of domestic violence and all too often fails to mention male victims. Almost every article in the newspaper and every program on TV about domestic violence focuses on female victims.  We see the same focus in academia: courses in sociology and women’s studies repeat the message that women are the primary victims of domestic violence and rarely mention male victims. If you look on the internet at web sites of domestic violence agencies you will likely see a similar bias.1 One oft-quoted statistic is that according to a Department of Justice report, there are 1.5 million women each year in the United States who are victims of domestic violence.  What you don’t see is that the same report also found that there are 834,000 male victims of domestic violence each year in the United States.2  Rather than adding the two and saying 2.3 million Americans suffer from domestic violence each year, all too often the only statistic highlighted is the one about women. One side of the story is told and the other side is ignored, as 834,000 men are omitted. Nationally, we have the “Violence Against Women Act” which boldly excludes men from its name. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (a national group that teaches judges on the issue of domestic violence) offers a typical description which includes women but seems to minimize men: “Domestic violence puts millions of women and their families at risk each year and is one of the single greatest social ills impacting the nation.”3 There is no mention of men who might be at risk.  Most organizations promote the idea that females are the overwhelming majority of victims of domestic violence.  The general public has heard that message for decades and believes it to be the sole truth.  But is it?

The National Council Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) offers a similar message that women are the vast majority of the victims of domestic violence. According to their definition of domestic violence: “There is not a typical woman who will be battered – the risk factor is being born female.”4 If “the” risk factor is being born female, that seems to exclude men from sharing the risk. But a look at their own statistics compiled from state governments tells a very different story. In the state of Maryland, according to NCADV statistics, men comprise 23% of the victims of domestic violence, and women are 23% of the perpetrators.5 Maryland State Police statistics reveal similar estimates, listing men as 25% of all victims of domestic violence.6 These numbers are confirmed and even exceeded when compared with peer-reviewed research. What you find is that men are a sizable portion of the victims of domestic violence, a much larger portion than is usually mentioned through a variety of sources. In fact, peer-reviewed research reveals that most domestic violence is characterized not by one person abusing the other, but by what is termed as “reciprocal” violence: a brawl between two partners.7 The bulk of the research also suggests that women are more often the initiators of the violence.8  This sharp contrast between the commonly-held public view of women as the vast majority of domestic violence victims with men as the sole perpetrators, versus the research and statistics compiled by authoritative sources, paint pictures that are hard to reconcile.

The domestic violence agencies in Maryland are obviously comprised of a compassionate group of people dedicated to fighting a horrible problem.  The Maryland Commission for Men’s Health wholeheartedly agrees with them that domestic violence needs our attention and our resources. The issue that the commission finds worrisome is that it appears that only a part of the problem of domestic violence is being addressed in earnest: the female victims. The other parts are taking a back seat: male victims and female perpetrators. Due to this imbalance, some Marylanders go unserved and left in great pain.

There is a saying among NASA engineers that “an ounce of thrust at takeoff can mean thousands of miles down course.”  The ounce of thrust that has thrown the domestic violence industry off course is the idea of holding men and masculinity solely responsible for the incidence of domestic violence. In its early years as a cause, many of those working in domestic violence assumed that men were the sole cause of domestic violence and, of course, women were seen as the only victims.  It was this contention that has limited their vision to see the complexity of domestic violence and its many victims both male and female, heterosexual and homosexual. Over the years, various organizations and individuals have tried to offer feedback that males are in need of treatment as victims and females are in need of attention as perpetrators, but all too often their voices go noticably unheard.

 

How did things get to this point?

When domestic violence activism first started in the 1970’s, the leaders were mostly feminists who were rightly concerned about the lives and safety of women. What they saw was shocking: situations where muscular men were beating innocent women. Very quickly these stories started making their way to the media. People were shocked and outraged. The activists kept the stories flowing to the media and the media continued to alert the public to the truly awful horror stories. The feminist activists applied their ideological template to the issues of domestic violence. In the 1970’s, the feminist template presumed men were a major cause of women’s problems and were a large inhibiting factor holding women back from a variety of opportunities.  Phrases like “all men are rapists” and “men are pigs” were commonplace.  Men were routinely disdained and blamed.  The horror of males committing domestic violence gave some reason to believe that these early misandrist stereotypes of men might hold some truth.  Uncaring men, using their power to control and beat women, were observed repeatedly in these domestic violence situations, and this led to the assumption that it was men who were the underlying cause of a grievous social problem.  Sadly, we now know that this idea of men being the underlying cause of the problem represents a truth but simply not the whole truth.  What we now know is that although the stories of women being beaten by bullying men were certainly true, they told only part of the story.  Researchers today characterize domestic violence as being 25% men beating women, 25% women beating men and 50% being more of a brawl between the two people.9  The brawling and the violent women had been overshadowed by the more shocking and outrageous examples of helpless women being beaten by bullying men.

This statistical breakdown of 25%-25%-50% is a shock to many and very difficult to believe.   However, we have already seen how the premier national domestic violence organization, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), verifies that in Maryland, for example, men comprise 23% of the victims and females 23% of the perpetrators of domestic violence.  Why would people not believe this to be the case?  Could it be that an ideology that holds men as the primary culprits in incidences of domestic violence continues to inhibit them from seeing situations in which men are victimized by abusive women?

The feminist idea that men are wholly responsible for domestic violence found immediate traction.  The horrible situations that were being reported were all of abusive men terrorizing defenseless women.  This sort of scenario struck a chord in both men and women who heard these reports.  The women were moved due to their own compassion for other women and children who might be vulnerable and in need.  The men were moved since an important part of the man’s biological and social sex role is to provide and protect for women and children.  Seeing women abused by out-of-control men was a very strong call to action for most men.  It is little wonder then that most states quickly developed laws and the beginnings of support for these female victims.  By the 1980s, only a few short years from the early activism of the 1970s, many states had already put domestic violence laws on their books. That’s moving pretty fast, for legislative bodies, who are known for their tendency to be circumspect when introducing whole new classes of penal laws.

What prevented evidence of other forms of domestic violence from coming to the surface? One answer to this question comes from one of the original domestic violence activists, Ellen Pence. Pence was the author of an important book about domestic violence and the influential Duluth Model (discussed below). She was also the founder of the Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project.  Pence admits that there was an effort to avoid issues related to women’s violence and highlights the neglect of female abusers:

In many ways, we turned a blind eye to many women’s use of violence, their drug use and alcoholism, and their often harsh and violent treatment of their own children.10

Why would the original activists “turn a blind eye?”  Did they not see that turning a blind eye put many innocent people in jeopardy?  One of the reasons was surely that the theoretical framework of men being the “only abusers” left no room to see women as anything but victims.  The norm for viewing female abusers came to be that a female abuser was considered to have been “abused in the past” and was acting this way out of hurt and self-defense, not evil or anything else. Their view of domestic violence simply did not allow room for the possibility of the woman as the abuser, plain and simple.  As in all things, if your theoretical framework doesn’t account for a phenomenon to exist, it is much less likely to be recognized.  It is also probably true that the media showed more interest in the stories where women were abused by men.  These stories touched a cultural nerve and therefore sold more papers and air time.  People wanted to read about female victims, but were not so interested in hearing about males who were abused by women. The early activists must have found that they could get the word out much more quickly and more powerfully by focusing on stories about men beating women.

The focus on male batterers and female victims has left us knowing a good deal less about female batterers. How could the less-physically powerful women ever batter or intimidate men?   What we have since found out through research is that violent women make up for their lack of physical strength by using weapons and the tactic of surprise.11  In domestic violence situations, women will often use weapons when men are vulnerable.  Think of Lorena Bobbitt who severed her husband’s penis while he slept or Mary Winkler who shot her husband in the back with a shotgun while he was sleeping, or Clara Harris who ran over her husband with her car as her daughter sat next to her.  All are examples of women committing domestic violence by using the element of surprise paired with lethal weapons. Interestingly, none of these murders or incidents was ever portrayed by the media as domestic violence.  The words “domestic violence” seem to be reserved exclusively for male-on-female violence only.  When women do choose to be violent as in the above examples, muscles simply don’t matter.  A shotgun will beat muscles every time.  The national figures for the United States show that 30% of spousal murders, the most lethal form of domestic violence, are committed by women against their husbands or partners.12

It wasn’t just the domestic violence activists who intentionally ignored women’s violence.  Our culture also tends to look the other way.  For whatever reasons, a woman’s violence is simply not as upsetting to see.  Just watch television shows or movies to see the frequency of women hitting or kicking men. In today’s world it is a given for women to hit men on TV but not the other way around.  Everyone sees this but few seem to get upset or to protest.  We are living with a huge double-standard where a woman’s violence against a man is something we see in cartoons, movies, commercials, or TV as innocuous or even comical. We see plenty of violence from men towards other men but when we see violence from men towards women it is seen as anything but comical or innocuous; it is seen as deadly.  This double-standard likely increases the chances for women’s violence in relationships to be overlooked by the media, the general public and by domestic violence workers.

It is also likely true that once these activists were looking for funding for their endeavors from the government or private institutions, the stories about “vulnerable women in great need of safety” brought much more attention and promises of funding than did a similar story of a man being abused by his wife.  Every politician wanted to be seen as the one helping solve this problem by “making women safe in their own homes”.  Those stories about men as victims simply didn’t have the same traction.  No politician wanted to touch those.  For them, rather than help male victims in their lobbying for funds, the stories of abused men would likely muddy the waters and detract from the powerful images of women-in-need.  The stories about men-in-need were also completely counter to the growing ideology that men were the source of all domestic violence.  An abused man simply didn’t fit into that framework and would likely have decreased the success of any unisex funding efforts.

It is easy to see how the ideology of men as the source of the domestic violence problem likely developed over the initial years of domestic violence activism.  It fit with the image that the media was helping to portray. It fit with the feminist idea that men were “the problem” and it surely helped in advocating for domestic violence funding.  There were good reasons simply to not bring up men-as-victims.

 

The Duluth Model

In the early 1980s an important event transpired in the history of domestic violence prevention.  A group of domestic violence activists met in Duluth, Minnesota after a particularly gruesome murder of a wife by a husband.  The group started to put together what would eventually become the “Duluth Model”, which has since become a staple ideological protocol for most domestic violence agencies in the US.  In some states, its use is mandated.  In many ways it has become the handbook for those working with domestic violence victims and situations.  It is important to understand the initial questions asked by the Duluth gathering at the inception of the Duluth Model theory.  Here are questions asked by those at the initial gathering: “Why is she the target of his violence”  “Why does he think he is entitled to have power?”  “How does the community support his violence?”13  As you can see from the questions, the Duluth Model at its very beginnings was only about male violence towards women.  It was never about mutual violence or a woman’s violence towards a man. It was only about men beating women.  It had no remarks or suggestions for abused men or about female perpetrators.  The flagship theory of the industry only focused on women as victims and men as perpetrators.  Australian author Tom Graves has evaluated the Duluth Model and lists its major problems.  Here are the first three:

1.  It believes that violence is masculine and that men are responsible for violence
2.  It refuses to remark or address the fact that men can be the recipients of violence
3.  It holds only men responsible as change agents.14

These three errors play a huge part in the failure of the Duluth Model to address the needs of male victims and the needs of female perpetrators.  Let’s hypothesize a possible example of the damage that can occur from stereotyping victims of domestic violence:  Imagine both wife and husband have been drinking.  The wife, in a burst of anger, throws a wine bottle at her husband who was hit on the arm as he blocked the bottle.  The wife next comes after him with a wine glass and tries to throw wine in his face.  He blocked that also and in the process, the wine glass breaks and cuts his wife.  The police arrive.  They find a bleeding and crying wife and a husband who claimed that he had been attacked.  Their Duluth Model training has taught them that the vast majority of victims of domestic violence are female and so, what do they do? Arrest the man and put him in jail!  No matter how much the man might try to explain his actions, the police would likely refuse to listen.  In fact, once the wife realizes her husband was going to jail, she would probably start to tell the truth, that she was the attacker.  The police would of course hear none of it and off to jail the man would go.

This man would be placed into a mandatory Duluth Model domestic violence “educational” group.  He would not be allowed to speak the truth of what had happened. When he would try to explain that it was his wife who had attacked him, he would be told to be quiet and focus on his violence. The truth of his being abused would be seen by the group leaders as an “excuse” that keeps him from taking responsibility for his violence.  He would be forced never to mention his wife’s violence.  He would have two choices.  One would be to tell the truth and not “graduate” from the educational sessions, which would leave him legally vulnerable.  The other would be to lie and say he was the abuser.  We could guess that this man would choose to lie simply in order to ”graduate” from the “training”.

This sort of example shows how the system can take on the role of what is being called a “third party” abuser.  The spouse no longer has a need to batter.  The police and community agencies are now taking over that role by treating the falsely-accused man in a manner that lacks respect for him as a human being who has been abused or as a citizen with the right to be presumed innocent or to have his side of a given unwitnessed incident fairly considererd.  This is what can happen when pre-judgments arising from stereotypes are used instead of impartial mindsets coupled with factual analysis.

Since its inception, the Duluth Model has been reworked and made more “gender neutral”, but it continues to fail miserably in its capacity to address the needs of men who are victimized and of women who are violent.

If you visit the Duluth Model web site, you can see that their primary focus on female victims continues to this day.  The Duluth site claims that women account for as many as 97% of the victims of domestic violence.15  We know from both police reports and from peer-reviewed research that this is far from the truth.  It does however show that the Duluth Model continues to be focused on female victims and has failed in taking current thinking and research into account, thus placing male victims at risk and allowing female perpetrators to go unchecked or psychiatrically untreated for their abusiveness.

 

The Duluth Model spreads to the community

As the domestic violence industry grew, the Duluth Model took a greater and greater hold on the theoretical practices of domestic violence agencies.  As it took this greater hold, the ideas of domestic violence being only about men beating women spread farther.  As funding grew for domestic violence agencies, the funding for trainings grew correspondingly.  The 1994 federal Violence Against Women Act started pouring about one billion dollars per year into domestic violence endeavors.  A part of that money was spent on trainings given to the court systems, judges, police, lawyers and domestic violence workers.  The message the workshops broadcast was founded on the Duluth Model ideology that women were the vast majority of domestic violence victims and men were only a tiny minority.  More and more, the ideas of the Duluth Model became the standard.  It was presented as fact that domestic violence is pretty much only about women being abused by men.  That ideology is now set firmly in place.  The early work of the activists has focused exclusively on abused women and now the theoretical framework that guided their work is firmly planted in an ideology that focuses on female victims but ignores the needs of male victims and the actions of female perpetrators.  Now these ideas have been spread successfully into our community agencies and public institutions.

 

Opposing Voices to the Duluth Model — Researchers

Murray Straus, Richard Gelles, and Susan Steinmetz are early researchers on issues of domestic violence.  This group published a book in 1982 that ran counter to the feminist ideology.  The book, Behind Closed Doors,16 said clearly that domestic violence was a two-way street with both men and women responsible as perpetrators and victims.  The response was swift and powerful.  Upon publication, Straus, Gelles and Steinmetz were immediately seen as enemies. Prior to their findings that there is gender symmetry in domestic violence, they had been praised and held in high esteem as instrumental in the early research on domestic violence.  But once they found data that contradicted the feminist belief that men were the only perpetrators and women the only victims, things changed drastically.  At that point, they lost their glow and became villains to those who supported the ideas of women as the only victims of domestic violence.  Death threats and other avenues of intimidation were used to try to silence them.  Murray Straus, Ph.D., describes his struggle with intimidation and explains his own reluctance to publish his results that went counter to the feminist domestic violence ideology:

Researchers who have an ideological commitment to the idea that men are almost always the sole perpetrator often conceal evidence that contradicts this belief. Among researchers not committed to that ideology, many (including me and some of my colleagues) have withheld results showing gender symmetry to avoid becoming victims of the vitriolic denunciations and ostracism. Thus, many researchers have published only the data on male perpetrators or female victims, deliberately omitting the data on female perpetrators and male victims.17

In essence, these researchers were being bullied. In fact, Straus published a paper in 2006 that describes not only the intimidation they suffered but also chronicles the specific ways that the feminist researchers made certain that their own data only produced the desired results that reflected the ideology that women were the primary victims of domestic violence.18

The research by Straus, Gelles, Steinmetz, and many others which clearly shows that men are victims has been available through journal articles for years.19   Some activists have drawn from the statistics and findings and tried to use this information to change the system to encourage existing services to include focus on male victims of domestic violence.  When activists make such attempts, they are usually met with the same results most every time:  the domestic violence industry claims that the peer-reviewed research is inaccurate and cites numbers from their own clinical settings, hospital settings, and emergency rooms.  The numbers they cite are very different from the research numbers and clearly show that domestic violence is indeed primarily a “men beat women” problem.  So who is correct?  The quick answer is BOTH.  The research numbers from scientists such as Strauss, Gelles, and Steinmetz are correct from their perspective and from the populations they studied.  These numbers were usually drawn from the general population and reflect the “average” person or family.

But how about the domestic violence agencies numbers?  Well, they are correct also, but one must note that the sample they draw from is very biased.  They draw from a population that has been utilizing services specifically built for women who were abused.  It is little wonder that they would therefore be more likely to show greater numbers of female victims.  Imagine a hospital that was built specifically for the treatment of caucasian diabetics.  When they look at their own numbers and stats they would assuredly say that the majority of victims of diabetes are white!  Since their services are built to serve whites, that is exactly what their stats will show.  One would also assume that they would be teaching in the community about whites and diabetes and also do Public Service Announcements for whites who might have diabetes.  The same thing happens within the domestic violence industry.  The entire system was originally built for women.  The name of the law the Violence Against Women Act makes that very clear.  It is little wonder that the statistics they compile and the research done within the domestic violence industry on their own populations would reflect that women were the primary victims.  You see this idea filter down to the clinical level where almost every group for domestic violence victims in Maryland is for women only.  The treatment groups are almost always built for male perpetrators and female victims. The overwhelming majority of public service announcements on domestic violence are focused on female victims.  When you solicit for a certain type of victim, it is no surprise that your statistics, trainings and treatment will center around that particular type of client.

 

Opposing Voices to the Duluth Model — Clinicians

While the peer-reviewed research has been noting male victims for years, the clinical side of the equation has now started getting noticed.   In 2007, the American Psychiatric Association published an article in the August issue of Psychiatric News titled: “Men Shouldn’t be Overlooked as Victims of Partner Violence.”20  The article cited some of the research findings about women being more likely then men in relationship to initiate domestic violence and focused on issues of reciprocal interpersonal violence versus nonreciprocal violence. Here is a quote from the article:

Regarding perpetration of violence, more women than men (25 percent versus 11 percent) were responsible. In fact, 71 percent of the instigators in nonreciprocal partner violence were women.

And another:

As for physical injury due to intimate partner violence, it was more likely to occur when the violence was reciprocal than nonreciprocal. And while injury was more likely when violence was perpetrated by men, in relationships with reciprocal violence it was the men who were injured more often (25 percent of the time) than were women (20 percent of the time). “This is important as violence perpetrated by women is often seen as not serious,” Whitaker and his group stressed.

The word is getting out that both men and women are perpetrators and victims of domestic violence.

 

Opposing Voices to the Duluth Model — The Courts

The courts are also starting to take notice of the discrimination that men face in the domestic violence industry.  In the Woods et. al. vs California case in 2008, a Superior Court in Sacramento, ruled that male domestic violence victims had been unconstitutionally denied services.  The court held that state laws violated men’s equal protection rights by excluding male victims from state-funded domestic violence services.  The court found: “domestic violence is a serious problem for both women and men” and that “men experience significant levels of domestic violence as victims.”21  The court also found a percentage of state-funded programs deny men services they are entitled to receive.

Then, in October 2009, a West Virginia judge struck down state rules for regulating domestic violence shelters because they operate “on the premise that only men can be batterers and only women can be victims” and “exclude adult and adolescent males from their statutory right to safety and security free from domestic violence based only on their gender.”22

 

Are there men who fall through the cracks?

We have seen how the domestic violence industry has had a history of blaming men and masculinity for domestic violence. This sort of theoretical assumption has a negative impact on the willingness of men to seek help. The men, not unlike the early female victims of domestic violence in the 1970’s who were very reluctant to seek treatment, are certain that no one cares about their situation and are highly unlikely to seek out services when not invited. What compounds this problem for men is that their gender is blamed for the original problem.

We have learned from Maryland State Police statistics that men comprise about 25% of the victims of domestic violence in Maryland.23 What we don’t know is the percentage of males seeking treatment as victims of domestic violence.  In checking with a number of Maryland Domestic Violence agencies, they often say that the number of male victims is very small.  Some of the treatment centers claim that men are only 4% of their clients.  If the State Police count men as 25% of the 20,000 victims of domestic violence recorded annually in Maryland and the agencies that offer treatment for domestic violence say that men are only 4% of the victims that request treatment, that seems to leave a huge number of men who are untreated victims.  It seems likely that a large percentage of the 5000+ men who are reported by State Police as victims of domestic violence in Maryland are falling through the cracks and not getting the help they need and are entitled to as citizens and residents.

What once started as a righteous cause to help battered women has evolved over the years to be something that seems to help battered women but also seems to neglect the needs of violent women and battered men and ignores the imperatives that the fundamental demands our tradition of justice holds dear.  Both the media and academia seem to focus solely on female victims of domestic violence, with a much smaller focus or none at all on male victims.  Researchers doing peer-reviewed research have consistently found evidence that men and women are both victims of domestic violence, but this finding has not been translated to changing the treatment that men receive in domestic violence agencies. Clinical groups such as the American Psychiatric Association are beginning to alert the public and clinicians that men are indeed a sizable percentage of domestic violence victims.  The courts have also started pointing out the discrimination that is present in many domestic violence agencies that treat men and women differently.
This report is not claiming that men are never served through domestic violence agencies in the state of Maryland.  It is however claiming that Maryland’s domestic violence services have traditionally been created for women only and this has a chilling effect on men’s usage of these facilities.

 

A Proposal For Practical Change

There is a domestic violence group named “Safe For All” that offers trainings nationwide and is particularly aware of the many issues around domestic violence, including those of male victims and of people in homosexual relationships, also an under-recognized and under-served group.   Their web address is http://safe4all.org/24 The National Family Law Legislative Resource Center, www.nfvlrc.org25 represents the nation’s leading authorties, clinicians, and researchers on domestic violence and could also offer trainings and consultations.26

Although calls to Maryland shelters and crisis lines to test for discriminatory handling of reports have at the present time not been conducted, there is no question such testing can be conducted and most likely will be conducted in order to support lawsuits similar to the successful ones used in the legal cases in California and West Virginia cited above. The results of such testing in Maryland would likely mirror these results: In a national poll by Clark University, female researchers studied 302 abused men who sought help. Their key findings were that 63.9% of men who called hotlines were told they only helped women, and 68.7% said the hotlines were not at all helpful. Of those that contacted a local domestic violence (shelter) program, 95.3% said the program gave the impression that they were biased against men, 78.3% said they don’t help male victims, and 63.9% suggested the male caller was the batterer. (See; http://clarku.edu/faculty/dhines/results.htm.27 )

Therefore, in order to avoid costly and time-consuming lawsuits, it behooves the State of Maryland to require all domestic violence service organizations that receive pass-through federal funding or state funding of any type to receive training in non-discriminatory but practical approaches and techniques for handling domestic violence cases and suspected or reported cases. Such training is available via the two organizations referenced above, and also from others.

Whether or not gay and heterosexual men represent a small minority, a large minority, or an equal number of such victims as compared to women in the population is immaterial. The State of Maryland  by its policies and procedures is obligated to encourage and support only those organizations that practice inclusion, diversity and non-discrimination. However, not even very large urban areas can financially support “separate but equal” domestic violence facilities and services for men and women. Not only is it not practical, but such a policy does little to combat discrimination and only encourages conflict over funding resources.  1. The purpose of this training is to provide guidance and directives in how to implement a non-discrimination policy in all service areas.  2. As part of this training program, a compliance coordination methodology shall be developed to assure that the non-discrimination policy is being carried out by agencies who participated in the training. 3. The training will provide cost-effective, implementable, and practical steps that each agency or organization can take to eliminate discrimination and incorporate gender and sexual orientation inclusive policies.

We respectfully request the Office of The Governor to immediately begin the implementation of such a training program.

 

 

REFERENCES

1 One example is the Allstate page <http://www.clicktoempower.org/> linked from the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence (MNADV) web page that rightly claims that 3 women each day (actually it is closer to 4) die of domestic violence in the United States. They fail to mention that nearly 2 men die each day due to being murdered by their female partner. This is a glaring omission. In 2007 1640 women were murdered by their male intimates and 700 men were murdered by their female partners. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=971 Why are the male victims omitted?

2 “Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey | National Institute of Justice.” Office of Justice Programs. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2009. <http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/172837.htm>.

3 “Family Violence.” National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges . N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2009. <www.ncjfcj.org/content/view/20/94/>.

4 “National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.” National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2009. <http://www.ncadv.org/learn/TheProblem.php>.

5 “Domestic Violence Facts: Maryland.” National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2009. <www.ncadv.org/files/Maryland.pdf>.

6 “Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence (MNADV).” Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence (MNADV). N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2009. <http://mnadv.org/DV_Stats/ucr_stats.html>.

7  Whitaker, Daniel. “Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships With Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence.” Journal of Public Health 97.May (2007): 941-947. Print.

8  Ibid.

9  Ibid.

10 Pence E. Some thoughts on philosophy. In Shepard M and Pence E (eds.): Coordinating Community Responses to Domestic Violence: Lessons from Duluth and Beyond. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers, 1999, p. 30.

11  McNeely, R. L., Cook,  P. W. & Torres, J. B.  (2001).  Is domestic violence a gender issue or a human issue?  Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 4 (4), 227-251.

12  “Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) – Intimate partner violence.” Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) . N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2010. <http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=971>.

13 Paymar, Michael, and Ellen Pence. Education Groups for Men Who Batter: The Duluth Model. 1 ed. New York: Springer Publishing Company, 1993. Print.

14 Graves, Tom. Power and Response-ability: the human side of systems. London: Tetradian, 2008. Print.

15 Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, Home of the Duluth Model.” Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, Home of the Duluth Model. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2009. <http://www.theduluthmodel.org/wheelgallery.php>.

16 Gelles, Richard J., and Murray Straus. Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family. New Ed ed. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2006. Print.

17 “Processes Explaining the Concealment and Distortion of Evidence on Gender Symetry in Partner Violence.” University of New Hampshire. N.p., n.d. Web.18 Dec. 2009. <pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V74-gender-symmetry-with-gramham-Kevan-Method%208-.pdf>.

18 Ibid.

19 “REFERENCES EXAMINING ASSAULTS BY WOMEN ON THEIR SPOUSES OR MALE PARTNERS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY.” California State University, Long Beach. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2009. <http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm>.

20 Arehart-Treichel, Joan. “Men Shouldn’t Be Overlooked as Victims of Partner Violence.” APA Psychiatric News 42.15 (2007): 31-33. Print.

21  “Appeals court decision supports battered men.” San Francisco Bay Area — News, Sports, Business, Entertainment, Classifieds: SFGate. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2009. <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/15/BA3S13HOLS.DTL>.

22 Press, The Associated. “W.Va. domestic-violence program regulations voided  – News – The Charleston Gazette – West Virginia News and Sports.” – – The Charleston Gazette – West Virginia News and Sports. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2009. <http://www.wvgazette.com/News/200910080509>.

23 “Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence (MNADV).” Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence (MNADV). N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2009. <http://www.mnadv.org/DV_Stats/ucr_stats.html>.

24 “Welcome!.” Stop Abuse for Everyone. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2009. <safe4all.org>.

25 Robinson, Michael. “National Family Violence Legislative Resource Center.” National Family Violence Legislative Resource Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2010. <http://www.nfvlrc.org/>.

26 Please consult with the Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the Maryland Commission for Men’s Health for more information on these organizations.

27 “Results from Study on Men’s Experiences of Partner Aggression.” Clark University | One of 40 “Colleges that Change Lives”. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2010. <http://clarku.edu/faculty/dhines/results.htm>.

 
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October 02, 2025
Father Custody: The Solution to Injustices Against Men?

In this conversation, I sit down with Stephen Baskerville and Rick Bradford to explore a provocative idea: could father custody be the key to addressing many of the injustices men face? Both men are leading experts in this area, and together they examine some fascinating angles. One insight is that the legal contract of marriage doesn’t just unite two people — it’s also the mechanism that legally creates fathers. Yet when that contract is dissolved through divorce, the law often strips fathers of their rights, reducing them to mere “visitors” in their children’s lives. This and much more is unpacked in our discussion.

We also point to Rick’s and Stephen’s books (linked below) and to AI tools that allow you to interact with their work directly. (also linked below)

If you’ve ever wondered why custody is such a defining issue — not just for fathers but for the future of men’s rights and well-being — this dialogue offers insights you won’t want to miss.

Men are good, as are you.

Books...

01:18:10
September 25, 2025
Dr. James Nuzzo Cancelled for Challenging Feminism and DEI

Join me as I talk with Janice Fiamengo and researcher Dr. James Nuzzo about the shocking story of his academic cancellation. What begins as one man’s ordeal soon reveals how woke ideology and radical feminism are undermining science, silencing dissent, and eroding academic freedom. Thoughtful, eye-opening, and at times heartbreaking, this video exposes what really happens when universities put politics before truth.

Dr. Nuzzo's GoFundMe
https://www.gofundme.com/f/ChildStrengthResearch

Dr. Nuzzo's Donorbox
https://donorbox.org/the-nuzzo-letter

https://jameslnuzzo.substack.com/

Previous Interviews with Dr. Nuzzo on MenAreGood
grip strength https://menaregood.substack.com/p/childhood-sex-differences-in-grip

sex differences in strength https://menaregood.substack.com/p/sex-differences-in-strength-and-exercise

bias against women in exercise research? https://menaregood.substack.com/p/bias-against-women-in-exercise-research

childhood sex differences in strength ...

01:01:31
September 10, 2025
Diary of a CEO's Debate on Feminism: Our Response

This video will be presented in two parts and is a joint venture between MenAreGood and Hannah Spier’s Psychobabble. Hannah’s standard approach is to make the first half free for everyone, with the second half reserved for paid subscribers. To align with her process, I’m setting aside my usual practice of making all new posts free and following the same format for this release.


Janice Fiamengo, Hannah Spier, and Tom Golden respond to a YouTube video on The Diary of a CEO channel, which features three feminists debating the question: “Has modern feminism betrayed the very women it promised to empower?”In their response, Hannah, Janice, and Tom have a lively discussion, highlighting inconsistencies, omissions, and a variety of other notable observations.

Men Are Good

00:36:02
February 07, 2023
The Way Boys Play and the Biological Underpinnings

My apologies for the last empty post. My mistake. Let's hope this one works.

Tom takes a stab at using the podcast function. Let's see how it goes.

The Way Boys Play and the Biological Underpinnings
May 13, 2022
Boys and Rough Play

This is a short excerpt from Helping Mothers be Closer to their Sons. The book was meant for single mothers who really don't know much about boy's nature. They also don't have a man in the house who can stand up for the boy and his unique nature. It tries to give them some ideas about how boys and girls are different. This excerpt is about play behaviors.

Boys and Rough Play

New voice that did her PHD theses on female psychopaths. She has some good stuff

September 18, 2025
Jim Nuzzo Cancelled

I’m sure many of you are familiar with Jim Nuzzo’s work on exercise and strength training. A frequent guest on this channel, Jim offers valuable insights into exercise science. I often call him my favorite researcher—and he truly is!

Jim studies boys’ uniqueness and the differences between boys and girls in exercise approaches and physical traits. He has also exposed distortions in claims that past research was biased against women. In doing so, he broke two “rules” of the woke: celebrating boys’ strengths and challenging feminist disinformation. For this, he was effectively cancelled.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, Jim obtained emails revealing the hate behind his cancellation. This post details that story, and Janice and I will do a video with him next week—so there’s more to come.


https://jameslnuzzo.substack.com/p/my-academic-cancellation-story

October 16, 2025
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The Engineered Isolation of Men
 


The Engineered Isolation of Men

For decades, society has been dismantling the three foundations that once anchored men: work, identity, and family. What we call a “men’s crisis” isn’t just about depression or suicide—it’s about systematic disconnection. When a man loses his place to contribute, his right to belong, and the respect that once gave him pride, he doesn’t merely suffer; he disappears.


1. The First Cut: Economic Displacement

For most men, work is more than a paycheck—it’s proof of worth. Through skill, labor, and persistence, men find identity and belonging. But modern economies have quietly stripped that away. Factories closed, trades devalued, and risk-taking jobs replaced by automation or overseas labor.

Men were told to “adapt,” but few noticed what they were adapting to: a world that no longer needs them in the ways that once gave them purpose. Unemployment doesn’t just steal income—it steals function. And when function vanishes, meaning follows close behind.

History bears this out. During the Great Depression, when millions of men were cut off from productive work, suicide rates climbed to record highs. A man’s worth had been tied to his usefulness, and when society no longer needed that usefulness, despair filled the vacuum. Yet during the world wars, when men were again called upon to serve, build, and defend, suicide rates fell sharply—even in the face of danger and loss. The difference wasn’t comfort, but purpose.

Research confirms what common sense already knows: long-term unemployment raises men’s suicide risk several-fold. Not because men are fragile, but because usefulness was the thread holding their lives together. When that thread breaks, they fall—not from weakness, but from the weight of purposelessness.

A culture that robs men of purpose is a culture engineering their isolation.


2. The Second Cut: Moral Displacement Through Shame

Even men who keep their jobs often lose something deeper—the right to feel proud of being men.

The term toxic masculinity didn’t just critique bad behavior; it redefined maleness itself as suspect. Strength, stoicism, leadership, and competitiveness—traits once considered virtues—became moral liabilities. Men were told that their instincts were dangerous, their achievements oppressive, their nature defective.

This isn’t self-improvement; it’s cultural shaming.
When a man is told his strength makes him unsafe, he hides it. When he’s told his logic makes him cold, he doubts it. Over time, he disconnects—not only from others but from his own nature.

And shame is the most isolating emotion of all. It tells a person, you don’t belong anymore.
A shamed man withdraws, not because he doesn’t care, but because every gesture of care risks being misinterpreted. His silence isn’t indifference—it’s self-protection in a culture that punishes his voice.


3. The Third Cut: The Forced Separation of Divorce

Then there is the wound that goes straight to the heart: divorce.

In countless cases, it’s not just a separation of spouses—it’s the erasure of fatherhood. Courts presume maternal virtue and paternal suspicion. Even loving, stable fathers are reduced to “visitors,” permitted only fragments of the lives they helped create.

For a man whose identity revolves around providing, protecting, and mentoring, losing daily contact with his children is devastating. It is grief without a funeral—a living bereavement he’s expected to endure without complaint.

The statistics are grim: divorced men have some of the highest suicide rates of any demographic. Not because they’ve failed as fathers, but because the system has forbidden them to succeed. When the law itself enforces separation, the message is unmistakable: you’re no longer needed.


4. The Result: A Culture of Quiet Exile

Take these three together—economic displacement, moral shaming, and family loss—and you get the blueprint for male disconnection.
Each cut severs a man from one of the three bonds that make life meaningful:

  • Work (purpose)

  • Identity (dignity)

  • Family (love)

A man without purpose feels restless.
A man without dignity feels ashamed.
A man without love feels invisible.
And when all three disappear at once, the result isn’t just sadness—it’s annihilation.


5. What the Culture Gets Wrong

Modern culture mistakes this for fragility: “Men just need to talk more.”
But talking doesn’t rebuild meaning.
What men need isn’t therapy in isolation—it’s reconnection to the structures that once made their lives coherent.

A man can’t talk his way out of being unnecessary.
He can only live his way back into usefulness, belonging, and respect.

That requires social systems that recognize men as contributors, not relics; as protectors, not problems.


6. The Way Back

The solution isn’t to “save” men—it’s to restore their place in the human story:

  • Rebuild economic paths that value masculine work.

  • Reclaim cultural respect for masculine virtues.

  • Reform family law so fatherhood is a right, not a privilege.

  • Speak openly about the moral injury of being labeled toxic for existing.

Men don’t need saving — they need a place to stand again.
Give them that, and they’ll rebuild everything else.

Men Are Good.

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October 13, 2025
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Why Dads in Family Court Need tp Learn From Father X

I’d like to introduce FatherX, a man who has turned hard-earned experience in the family court system into practical guidance for fathers. He teaches the fundamentals that most men are never told — how custody works, how to navigate the courtroom, how to read case law, and how to keep your emotional balance through it all. His work equips dads not only with knowledge but with strategy and calm confidence in one of the most painful arenas a man can face. Tom Golden

 

Good Morning! I’m Father X, the creator of the Youtube series “Father X - How Fathers Can Win Child Custody” at YouTube.com/@FatherX2022.

My video series should be required viewing for every dad going through family court. I often get comments like this from dads:

I can’t possibly express enough gratitude to you, Father X! Thank God I found your video series. I followed all of your steps and took all of your advice and it SAVED ME AND MY CHILD!

During my 3 years in family court, I learned the system isn’t designed to determine the actual best interests of the child. Instead, their process is designed to produce a standard factory output: the mother must get custody, and the dad must pay child support. I managed to get primary custody of our son, but it took superhuman effort to break the family court machine.

How did all this come to pass? It started in real life, before family court got involved, when I lived with my ex-girlfriend for over a year. We moved in together when she became pregnant and I immediately became a male victim of her domestic violence. The second time she assaulted me, I called the police, who told me it didn’t matter what I said because they only believe the woman. They told me they could just have me arrested based on her word alone, and I should just leave our home for the night...even though I was the one who called 911! Obviously, that’s not a competent process.

When I tried to file a police report a couple of weeks later, a police lady told me I wasn’t allowed to file a report because the mother had already filed one. Days later, I learned this police officer lied to me. I had a lawyer call the police station to tell them I was coming to file a police report against my ex-girlfriend, and only then was I able to do so. You can see the barriers created for men.

I also called the domestic violence hotline, who confirmed the police would always just arrest the man, maybe unless he was bleeding from the skull. I learned the police and domestic violence hotline only exist to help women, whether the woman is guilty or innocent.

In addition, I considered leaving my son’s mother. When I researched family court, I learned that mothers get primary custody about 85% of the time. But I wanted to raise our son, and I had no interest in leaving him in the hands of a violent and abusive mother. Thus, I had to stay in that abusive relationship if I wanted to continue raising our son. The legal system, end to end, provided no relief for a male victim of domestic violence and his child.

The day I finally moved out of our home, because it was too dangerous for me to live with my son’s mom, she went to court and got a restraining order based on false allegations against me. And a couple of hours later, she went to the police to file a false report, and the police started the process of having me arrested. For her, it was as easy as ordering a Big Mac at McDonald’s. And then the Dominoe’s fell into place...starting the standard process where the government agencies all avoid learning the facts, so they can rubber stamp everything the mother wants and enable and reward her false allegations.

To see the incompetence of the government agencies starting on Day 1, you have to know that after 3 years in family court, after a full trial, after I testified 14 times for a total of 28 hours, after I “politely forced reality down my judge’s throat”, the court decided it was in the best interests of our son for me to have primary custody. And I proved the allegations of domestic violence that I made in my petitions on Day 1. The mother’s restraining order against me was cancelled. And my restraining order against her was extended for 2 years because she was found guilty of assaulting me.

So, knowing that end result, the questions are, starting on Day 1, how does family court handle this scenario, where the father is a better parent, and the mother is an abusive, unfit parent? And does the court have a competent process for figuring out the correct answer when it comes to domestic violence allegations and child custody disputes?

With every new government agency involved, the starting point is “supposed” to be neutral. But there was an obvious pattern that each new government actor started by giving the mother whatever she asked for. And these government actors never started by conducting intelligent analysis to figure out the truth. I had to force the truth upon them, one at a time.

When the mother filed her false police report and restraining order, this started the feeding frenzy where these government actors took their shots at me one at a time and I was fighting a war on multiple fronts.

Police and District Attorney: The police arrested me based on the mother’s allegation alone. They never asked for my side of the story to see if I had evidence to contradict her. The district attorney told the police to arrest me even though the DA didn’t investigate either - because any investigation would have involved me. That’s not a competent process.

Bail Judge: After I was arrested, I appeared in front of a bail judge. He was complaining to me about how terrible it was for an infant child to see his father assaulting his mother. It never occurred to the bail judge that the mother was lying in order to get custody. Or that she was the one punching me in front of our child. That judge was just using stereotypes, disconnected from reality. Another incompetent actor in this game.

Custody Judge: Next, we appeared in front of a custody judge. I already submitted my own petitions for custody and an order of protection, where I stated the mother assaulted me multiple times, I showed police reports against her, and I shared that she had anger management problems and was suicidal. But this judge never bothered to read my petition. So, she started off by giving the mother temporary primary custody, only because the mother was unemployed and available to parent, but I had a job. The judge ignored all the other best interest factors that the appellate courts required to be addressed. That’s not a legitimate process.

This judge also denied me an order of protection, even though I talked about how the mother assaulted me. My lawyer started yelling at this judge because my allegations against the mother were greater than her allegations against me...and the mother was getting an order of protection! Only then did the judge read my petitions and gave me a temporary order of protection against the mother. Then I told the judge that since she hadn’t read my petitions, she needed to reassess her custody order because she was giving primary custody to a violent, suicidal mother. This judge denied my request, ignored the issues, and kept the mother as the primary custodial parent...without stating why that was an intelligent decision.

I saw how courts make temporary custody and restraining orders based on whatever reason they need to rubber stamp the mother. And remember that I ultimately got primary custody and a final restraining order. They could have made a correct custody decision on Day 1, but they chose to ignore everything the man said.

It’s possible the judge was thinking I was arrested, therefore I must be guilty, so it must be safer to give the mother custody. But we know the police arrested me without any actual intelligent thought – that’s their standard “process”. But the judge wasn’t questioning the validity of the police work. So now you have one incompetent agency feeding another agency...and incompetent decisions are building on incompetent actions. That’s a central pillar of the family court culture.

Child Protective Services: Next, we had Child Protective Services investigate us. The CPS worker wrote a report where she stated she had no idea which of us committed domestic violence. However, we had couple’s therapists, while we lived together, who all knew the mother had anger management problems and the mother was the violent one. The CPS worker spoke to them, and this information was at her fingertips. But because she was incompetent and/or biased, she didn’t provide the judge with a view of reality. So, we had another layer of incompetence building on incompetence.

Child Support: Next, the child support agency ordered me to pay about $16,000 per year of support to the mother, even though the actual cost of raising our infant son was $4,000 a year. The mother was making a profit from child support. This made my net income negative, and I was bleeding cash every month. I had to pay my criminal defense lawyer, my custody lawyer, and the forensic evaluator. I ended up with over $100,000 of debt and no assets. So even though the priority question is figuring out who committed domestic violence and who should have custody of the child, the child support agency makes it extremely difficult for any man to proceed with a trial to figure out the truth to these questions. And if you quit because you can’t afford a trial, then the mother wins automatically…because she was given temporary custody to start, without any fact finding, without any intelligent analysis.

With all these agencies taking their turn siding with the mother, without any intelligent thought, you can see how demoralizing it is for any man to face all of this. And, too often, dads have to settle for whatever the mother or the courts offer them. It’s emotionally and financially draining. Many men quit and many others kill themselves.

And this is all standard operating procedure in family court. This is how you get the end result where about 85% of moms get primary custody.

Ultimately, I was able to overcome the gender bias and incompetence of family court. It took superhuman effort for me to overcome family court and get primary custody of our son. I quickly recognized that most fathers can’t do this and are destined to be railroaded by the system. I promised myself that I would do something to expose this system. As a result, I now create educational videos on YouTube, teaching dads the flaws of family court and how to overcome those flaws. I teach dads everything that I learned the hard way, over 3 years.

I teach the basics of primary custody, sole custody, restraining orders, and legal custody. We discuss whether you need a lawyer and how to interview lawyers by asking the hard questions. I teach strategic behaviors in the courtroom. I teach how to handle your first day in family court, as well as the overall family court process. I teach how judges make bad decisions…so you can anticipate where they’ll go wrong and how you can counter maneuver. I teach dads how to read case law to learn the real laws. I teach dads how to correctly analyze the best interests of the child so you can present the best possible case for your kid. We discuss how to handle the enormous emotional burden on fathers. And for those parents that can mediate, I teach you exactly what a fair parenting plan looks like.

It’s important to recognize that nobody is coming to save you or your kids. You must be your own advocate. I teach you how. Find me on YouTube or get my family court guides at FatherX.LemonSqueezy.com…before it’s too late.

https://www.youtube.com/@FatherX2022

https://x.com/FatherX2022

https://fatherx.lemonsqueezy.com/

___________________________________________________________

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October 09, 2025
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How a Biased Classroom Shapes the Future of Boys
 
 

One of the least-discussed but most consequential issues in education is the quiet, consistent bias boys face in the classroom when it comes to grading. For decades we’ve been told that ​girls are soaring, and boys underachieve in school because they are careless, disruptive, or simply not as diligent as girls.​ The implication is that maybe they are just not as smart as the girls. But the research suggests something ​even more troubling: part of the gap is not about effort or ability at all — it’s about teacher bias.

Evidence from Blind Grading

The best way to test bias is to compare blind evaluations — where teachers don’t know the student’s identity — with everyday classroom grades. Several studies across different countries have done just this, and the results are consistent: teachers tend to grade boys more harshly than girls, even when their performance is the same.

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  • A large French study led by Camille Terrier compared blind test scores with teacher-assigned grades in middle schools. She found that boys consistently received lower grades from teachers than their anonymous test scores would predict. Strikingly, she estimated that about 20% of the math achievement gap that emerges during middle school could be explained by gender-biased grading. Even more telling, Terrier concluded that without this bias in favor of girls, the gender gap in choosing a science track would be 12.5% larger in favor of boys. In other words, bias wasn’t just present — it was actively reshaping the pipeline of who goes on to advanced study in math and science, with long-term consequences for boys’ educational and career paths.

  • Similar evidence from Israel, the U.S., and Northern Europe confirms the same pattern: when the work is graded blindly, the boy–girl gap shrinks or disappears. When names are attached, boys lose ground.

Which Teachers Are More Biased?

You might think male teachers would favor boys and female teachers would favor girls. But the evidence paints a more nuanced picture.

  • Female teachers tend to show stronger pro-girl bias, especially in language and reading. This bias often reflects the stereotype that girls are more diligent and boys are more disruptive, so girls “deserve” higher marks.

  • Male teachers, on average, are less biased. Some hold traditional stereotypes about boys being better at math or science, but the grading effects are weaker and less consistent.

  • A Dutch experimental study showed that the biggest driver wasn’t male vs female teachers — it was the strength of the teacher’s gendered beliefs. Teachers with strong stereotypes (regardless of sex) were the ones who showed the most bias.

Still, because most teachers in primary and secondary schools are women — and because women have been found to be more likely to display grading bias and act on gendered stereotypes — the aggregate effect in the system tends to tilt ​strongly against boys.

Behavior vs. Knowledge

Another factor often at play is behavior. Boys are, on average, more restless and less compliant in the classroom. Research shows teachers sometimes fold these behavioral impressions into grades — rewarding neatness, punctuality, and compliance. This might seem harmless, but it means grades measure more than knowledge or skill: they also reflect how much a student fits the teacher’s ideal. And since boys more often fall outside those expectations, they get marked down.


a group of children sitting at desks in a classroom
Photo by Mario Heller on Unsplash

The Mismatch Between Grades and Tests

It is telling that in almost every developed country, girls now outperform boys in teacher-assigned grades, while boys do just as well — and in some cases better — on blind, standardized tests. This pattern has been documented across Europe, North America, and beyond. In the U.S., for example, boys consistently score higher than girls on the SAT math section, yet girls often finish high school with higher GPAs. In France, Terrier’s research showed that gender bias in grading alone could account for as much as one-fifth of the math achievement gap that emerges in middle school. The contradiction is hard to miss: when evaluation is objective and anonymous, boys hold their ground; when evaluation depends on teacher judgment, boys slip behind. That mismatch should raise alarms because it means the system isn’t only measuring knowledge or ability — it is embedding adult perceptions and stereotypes directly into the record that determines children’s futures.

This bias doesn’t just stop at the classroom door. Grades are the passport to opportunity: they determine who gets into advanced classes, who qualifies for scholarships, and who gains admission to selective universities. A boy who consistently earns lower grades than his test scores warrant is effectively being nudged onto a different trajectory than his female peers. Over time, this means fewer boys in honors programs, fewer in elite universities, and ultimately fewer in high-status professions. The irony is stark — boys demonstrate equal or greater competence on standardized measures, yet are slowly tracked downward by a system that confuses compliance with ability. When entire cohorts of boys are quietly edged out of opportunity in this way, it becomes more than a private injustice. It’s a cultural blind spot with consequences for the workforce, higher education, and even the pool of future leaders.

A Needed Conversation

We’ve had endless debates about girls and STEM. But the evidence is just as clear that boys are being penalized in grading systems that reward compliance and reinforce teacher stereotypes. Acknowledging this is not about putting boys over girls, but about ensuring fairness. A boy who turns in the same quality of work as a girl should receive the same grade.

Anonymous grading, clearer rubrics, and awareness of implicit bias could all help. But the first step is cultural honesty: admitting that boys are often graded down not because they lack ability, but because they don’t conform to ​the teacher’s expectations.

​Boys Are Good and deserve fair treatment.


References

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