Indigenous Rituals and What They Tell Us About Men

Excerpt - Swallowed by a Snake Chapter Nine

August 26, 2024

Cross-Cultural Grief

This is chapter nine of Swallowed by a Snake: The Gift of the Masculine Side of Healing. In the late 1980’s I was confused about men’s ways of healing and bumped into the anthropological research on cross cultural grief. It was this research that clearly showed the tendency of indigenous people to give men activities following a loss. The more I studied the more I saw that men relied on action as a mode of healing. It was easy to admire the grief rituals these folks offered to both men and women. See what you think.

Chapter Nine - Cross Cultural Grief

Indigenous people around the world have highly developed rituals and mechanisms in place in their cultures to aid the resolution of grief. These rituals are an important part of life for these people. Their cultures are fertile ground for grief to be nourished. In many ways we are the primitives, because we have very few mechanisms in our culture that function in a similar way. By studying the way indigenous people grieve we can begin to get some idea about the state of grief in our own culture and our inadequate rituals. Using the analogy of a business or a sports team that is not doing well compared to the competition, we can examine a successful party and learn from their achievement. We will probably not adopt a specific grief ritual from another culture, but we will be able to see how these cultures have incorporated grief into their daily lives and how they have developed different rituals for men and women.

These cultures have implemented action-oriented rituals that allow both men and women tasks that connect them with their grief. In our own culture we have no such thing. We are left to our own devices to heal our grief, many times without the support of a caring community. Given this void of ritual, men and women are put into a precarious state. Often, women are able to overcome this void by using their skills of relating and their natural tendency towards verbally sharing their grief with others, but men, usually with strengths of a different nature, are at more of a disadvantage. Without culturally-endorsed rituals men are left with nothing to do following a death. It has been my clinical observation that men in our culture grieve through task, that is, they find activities that allow them to access and heal their grief. Through studying the cross-cultural literature we can begin to get a glimpse of the possible root of a man’s tendency in our own culture to connect his grief with action.

The least we can expect is to stimulate our own thinking about different ways to express grief. Our own weakness in dealing with grief can be strengthened by observing the strength of the tribal culture’s ritual that is so effective in helping their communities come to terms with their loss. With that said, let’s look at what can be learned from grief around the world.

Community

One of the first things we notice is the difference between the social structure of indigenous people and our own way of life. Tribal cultures live in communities of intimately interconnected people who are closely affected in some way by the death of any member. They live in close proximity, rely on each other for the necessities of life, and usually have a common history and world view. There is a bond between them that is amplified by the feeling of “us” and “we” that develops when a group of people share such interdependence. The people of these cultures have ritual structures in place that are designed to support those in grief. There is usually a strong expectation and a sense of responsibility that the community will lend its support to those in pain. There is a sense that each death is a loss of the community, not a loss that is isolated.

We can contrast this with our own situation, where there is a certain invisibility in our interdependence. We live together in neighborhoods but not necessarily communities. Many times the neighbors who live three doors down the street have little attachment to or connection with our family. We shop in different places and work in different settings. When a member of a tribe dies, it is a person who was connected in many ways to the community. When a member of a neighborhood in North America dies, too often it is merely someone who lived down the street.

The interdependence of the tribal cultures can be better compared in some ways to the family unit in the United States. Families are interdependent in a similar kind of way, with each member having prescribed roles and duties and interacting on a daily basis. In many ways our families have become our communities. But without the embrace of a larger community we are left with fewer places to receive support for our grief. Our primary means of support frequently is limited to the members of our family. A table with many legs is not affected by one leg being sawed off, but a table with three or four legs is crippled by a similar loss. This is one of the reasons for the emergence of grief counseling in our culture.

World View

Another difference we notice is that the world view of the indigenous people in some way brings meaning to grief. Many times grief is seen as food for the soul of the dead person. The Minianka tribe in Africa see the tears of grief as being nourishment to the newborn soul of the person being grieved. Without the tears the soul could not move beyond the land of the living. In this way the mourners see their grief as a benefit to the person who has died. The variations of this theme are many, but they all incorporate the idea that grief is a necessary process and without it there is some sort of trouble. It is easy to see the contrast to our own culture where people tend to feel that their grief has no purpose or meaning, or worse yet, that it is a selfish act.

Marking the Griever

There are many common themes in the grief rituals among indigenous people. One of these is the tendency to mark the griever. All sorts of mechanisms are used, but one that is found in many cultures is hair. For many tribal people hair is a symbol of life. It marks the passage of time and is therefore connected with life and death. Many times the grievers either cut off their hair or allow their hair and (in the case of the men) beard to grow in response to a death. This is done as a symbolic act and as a part of a ritual process prescribed by the community, but it also functions as a way to mark the mourners. All the people of the community are aware that a certain haircut means a person is grieving. There are many variations on this theme, including special cuts where only a part of the hair is cut or all hair is sheared. The hair can be cut with all sorts of instruments, such as sharpened seashells, or it may be burned off. Sometimes the cut hair is saved as a memorial, to become part of a necklace or be used in a ritual. The important message of the special hair cut is that this is a person in pain, a person who is grieving, and the treatment he receives is altered due to his status as a griever.

Other ways of marking the griever include covering oneself with ashes or oil or certain colors of paint. In one African tribe there is a complex system of designating the colors of grief paint to alert the community to the type of loss that has been suffered. For instance, a man whose father died would wear a certain color of paint in a certain place on the body. If it had been his mother who died, the paint would have been a different color and painted in a different design. This simple system not only alerts the community to the fact that this man is grieving, it also clearly marks the type of loss that has occurred.

Bark

Bark is used in some cultures both as a way to mark the griever and as a symbol of grief. The Karanga people of Africa wear bark to mark themselves as grieving. Women wear a bark necklace, and men wear a woven bark chain around the head. The bark serves also as a symbol of loss, indicating that an individual has been stripped away from the community as bark has been stripped from the tree.

The story of Jaque, also related in a previous chapter, is another example of bark used as a symbol of loss. When his brother died suddenly, Jaque was torn by sadness and anger. Following ancient custom, he went into the forest, selected a tree and, after uttering a prayer, stripped away a piece of the bark. Now the tree, like Jaque, had lost something whose loss caused deep pain. Many times over the following months he returned to visit the tree. As the seasons passed, the wound in the tree healed. So did the wound in Jaque’s heart. With the tree as a visible reflection of his loss, Jaque was reminded that he, too, was healing. Jaque is a Native American, a Cree.

In this example, the bark of the tree was used as a symbol of the pain that the man was experiencing. As the bark is a covering of the tree, it is almost as if the man had his own covering sliced away in a similar manner. A part of him was taken—not his core, which still exists—but something that was a part of him all the same. The tree stood as a symbol for his loss; it was wounded in a similar way. Each time he visited that site the tree could remind him of his own wound and, as he watched the tree heal, of his own healing.

These are some of the ways native people have used to mark the griever. Marking gives the griever a public role to play and, in essence, permission to publicly and privately grieve. We can contrast this with the invisibility of grief in our culture. One of the last markings to be discarded in our culture was the black arm band. We now have no overt way to differentiate the people in our community who are grieving from those who are not. The men and women who are grieving can feel this invisibility and the accompanying lack of permission to grieve. Indigenous cultures prescribe specific behaviors and roles for the bereaved, the grief “norm” as it were. This can be contrasted with our own situation where there is confusion over where and when to express grief, or how much grief and of what duration is normal. This lack of “norm” leaves everyone guessing. The people I have worked with have all had the same question, “Is what I’m going through normal?” We are left untethered with a great deal of pain but no box to put it in.

When Does Grief End?

In some tribal communities, it is the responsibility of the community to clearly state when the time of official grief has ended. An example might be that a grieving man was marked by being forbidden to eat a certain type of food. When the community members feel it is the right time, they will offer the particular food to the grieving man as a symbol that he is now ready to re-enter the community as a non- grieving person. There are examples other than food—a certain way of dressing or different behavior—but the essence is the same: the community clearly marks the boundaries of grief for the griever. This contrasts with our own culture where there is great confusion about when and how much grief is appropriate. We live in a near vacuum of social indicators about the time needed to grieve. The most prevalent guideline we have is that many people don’t think you should be grieving at all.

Separating Men and Women in Grief

Another form of marking the griever is the separation of men and women in the grief rituals. By separating the grievers these cultures are honoring the differences in grieving between men and women and setting up different containers for healing. An example is the Bara people of southern Madagascar who designate two huts when a death occurs. One hut is the Tranadahy, which means “male house;” the other is the Trano Be Ranomaso, which means the “house of many tears.” During the period of time after the death these huts are used for congregating and receiving condolences. The men’s hut is the center of activity regarding the death. The men plan and initiate the rituals, receive condolences from the male guests, and take responsibility for the body. The women’s hut is more the center of emotional expression, with the women keening, wailing, and crying as they receive condolences from the female guests. These people literally have different places for men and women to be following a death. In this way, men and women are among their own sex and are in a position to be healed by their same-sex community members. It also honors the difference in grieving styles between men and women by allowing the opportunity for each to be near those who grieve as they do.

Tribal people have found a box in which to put grief. That box is ritual. The ritual that is used is both a container for the effects of grief and a norm that shows people the way to grieve. It can be any number of activities. For women the ritual many times is related to sharing their pain with each other, crying or keening. Men, on the other hand, usually have a ritual that includes some sort of action—singing sacred songs, drumming, dancing, tree wounding, etc. When Rosenblatt examined grief in 87 different cultures, he did not find a single culture in which men expressed tears more than women. In nine of the cultures studied the men didn’t cry at all, and in most of the cases studied the men cried less than the women.24 This points to a significant difference among men and women: men don’t use tears as much as women when dealing with their grief. This finding is not limited to western cultures, as many of the cultures Rosenblatt studied were tribal people who still maintained their grief rituals from their cultural heritage. From this we can see that even in cultures where there is an adequate container for grief the men tend to use tears less often than women. This finding seems to verify the research, regarding a man’s decreased levels of prolactin and the increased difficulty for men to access their tears.

What we find when we examine the cross-cultural literature is that men many times have active rituals that help them move into their grief. There is a tribe in Africa where the men literally face the women who are crying and keening in order to get into the mood of grief. They use this activity of watching the women to bring forth their own sense of loss. Even these tribal men with the luxury of intricate and beautiful grief rituals acknowledge that it is not an easy task for them to move into their feeling state. By their actions of facing the women they do something that puts them closer to their own grief.

Drumming

Another active ritual used around the world is that of drumming. The men of the Yoruba in Africa use drumming as an active means to deal with their grief.25 They have a variety of rhythms for different parts of the funeral service; a rhythm for washing the body, a rhythm for lowering the body into the grave, etc. After the death of a chief the men start playing a specific monotonous grief rhythm over and over. This rhythm is played continuously for three days. The men of the tribe are responsible for keeping the rhythm going and do not allow it to stop. They drum day and night, sleeping in shifts and then drumming for long periods. It is through this ritual, and many others, that the men have something to do after the death, and this activity helps them engage feelings of grief. The rhythm signals to the tribe that a state of mourning exists and is a constant reminder of the loss to the community.

Externalization of Pain

Another aspect of active ritual is the externalization of pain. This is accomplished in a great variety of ways, from lacerating the body, scratching oneself until the blood flows, knocking out a tooth, or even cutting off a finger. Anthropologists tell us the reasons for these mutilations are related to a number of factors encompassed in their world view, including rendering the ghost of the deceased harmless, convincing the soul of the dead of the sincerity of the grief, establishing a corporal union between the living and the dead, strengthening the departed, as an offering, or purification. A few anthropologists have seen the core of these actions: they are outward acts that express inner states. By wounding the body in some way, the inner pain has an outer parallel. This is similar to Jaque who wounded a tree as a symbol; it is just that these people are wounding themselves. As their wounds heal, they will have an outer symbol for the healing of their inner wounds. They will also have physical scars to remind them for some time of the loss that occurred. One Australian tribe has a name for grief that literally translated means “bad guts.” That is probably the best description of grief I have ever heard. The mutilations cut away at the “bad guts” and let them flow. There is a ritual among the Aborigines where the blood that is dripping from the mutilated griever is allowed to drip onto the corpse, apparently in an effort to merge the living and the dead and to strengthen the dead person. I am certainly not suggesting that we adopt these rituals as a means to facilitate our own grief. However, they are honest and effective means that these people have found to externalize their pain and “bad guts.”

Let’s turn now to looking in more detail at the way a particular tribal culture deals with grief. We can examine closely the grief rituals and the mechanisms that the men use in dealing with their grief.

The Yolngu

Our first example is an Aborigine people of Australia, the Yolngu.26 The men of this tribe begin to work with their grief before a death occurs. As a person becomes seriously ill, the men respond by singing sacred songs. Groups of men gather around the bedside of the ailing person and sing the sacred songs of the tribe. This is not a “let’s sing a song and go” routine. The men will sing continuously as the person lies ill. The purpose of the songs is to comfort the dying person, to keep him alert, to insure that the person will die in the right “Manikay” (sacred song cycle), to alert the ancestors that this person is coming to them, and to insure that his soul will be oriented towards its “home” after death. As the men do this, the women of the tribe are responsible for the care of the sick person and feeding the men who are singing. If there is consensus that the person is dying, the women will also cry or keen along with the songs. This crying or keening by the women is called “ngathi.” Both the crying and keening and the songs by the men are accompanied by traditional Aborigine instruments, the clapsticks and the didgeridoo. Sometimes the ailing person recovers, and if this happens the singers disperse and life goes on. If death occurs, quiet covers the camp, uncharacteristic of the usual hustle and bustle.

At the ritual announcement of the death, which is made by a man, the women of the tribe keen and wail and throw themselves to the ground. At times they will strike themselves with sharp objects. It is expected that the men of the community will restrain the women from seriously injuring themselves. The men step forward and pull the weapons from the women’s hands and throw them out of reach. The women usually respond to this by ceasing their attempts at self-injury. This action of protecting the women is seen as a sign of protection for the grievers, and a show of community support for those who are most affected by the death. It is an action that men can take that is both protecting their loved ones and an indication of their own grief.

The men of the tribe will also keen at times, particularly if the dead person was a close relative, but the more common emotional expression of the men is venting anger by dancing. It is said that the men will dance in an “energetic and violent” manner that signifies hostility. According to Rosenblatt, this expression of hostility directed outward is a common masculine activity following a death. Many times a man’s anger will open the door into his other feelings of grief.27

Tribal Ritual in the 20th Century

The Yolngu people are in many ways between two worlds. Although they have maintained many of their rituals, they also live in the midst of twentieth century technology. If a member of their tribe has died in the nearby hospital, the body is retrieved in ritual fashion. The community goes to the hospital and obtains the body, then forms a “slow, emotional, and ritualized” procession back to their camp. The body, moved with accompanying dancing and singing, is taken to a shelter where it will lie until burial. It is said that even the cars take part in the ritual, slowing, stopping, starting, and reversing as they mimic the movements of the dancers.

The coffin of the dead person is painted with sacred symbols by the initiated men of the Yolngu. These symbols are secret and are not allowed to be viewed by women and children. The purpose of the sacred symbols is to mediate between the soul of the dead person and the ancestors who will help this newly born soul along his way. Prior to the use of coffins, the Yolngu men would paint the body of the deceased with red ochre and then paint on the sacred symbols.

Singing the Grief

Throughout the days of the ceremonies grief is openly expressed, many times through song. These songs communicate many things: a wish for the return of the dead person, memories of the events in the life of the one who died, and the hope of a safe passageway for the soul to the ancestors. The men often will be singing day and night, and will sleep in shifts as the songs continue. The singing of songs by the men is an important part of the funeral service. They are accompanied by the dancing of the women who enact the stories that the songs are depicting.

The grief that is felt and expressed at the funeral ceremonies can continue for some time. It is said that late at night after the day is done and the tasks of the community are completed, you can sometimes hear the keening of a solitary mourner. The sound is heard throughout the quiet of the community and is accepted as a reminder of the pain and grief that the mourner still feels.

The men are responsible for the ritual activities of their community, and in many ways become like stage managers or directors, making the ritual preparations, rehearsing the songs, and making sure the process runs smoothly. The Yolngu men are active in working with their grief, with very specific activities assigned to them. These activities of singing, dancing, and directing the rituals give the men a framework in which their feelings can emerge and be honored and acknowledged. The women are also busy in keening, crying, dancing, caring for the children, and feeding the men. The men and women of this tribe have very specific roles to play, and both support each other through the difficult period of grief.

The Dagura People

We now turn to another example of indigenous grief rituals, that of the Dagura people of Africa.28 When a death occurs the women of the village begin to grieve. Their grief is somewhat muted, however, until the men have ritually announced the death. This announcement cannot occur until the men have created a “sacred space” for the grief of the village to emerge, and no man is allowed to show signs of grief until after this ritual space has been created. This is done by invoking the aid of the spirits through a private ritual performed only by the men. The invoking of the spirits is partly designed to elicit enough grief from the mourners to allow the dead person to move into the world of the ancestors. The Dagura believe that the soul’s journey into the next world is dependent in some ways upon the grief expressed by the mourners. Without adequate grief, the soul is thought to be stuck on this plane of existence and unable to leave the world. They have thus connected their grief with a purpose, that being the birth of the soul of the newly dead. The creation of ritual space, a safe container for the expression of grief, is seen as essential to the birthing of the spirit of the person who died. A part of this creation of sacred space involves throwing ashes around the house of the deceased and the ritual preparation of an actual physical space for the grief ritual. The announcement states that there has been a death, the ritual space is ready, and it is now time to grieve.

The Dagura Grief Ritual

The grief ritual itself is complex and beautiful. The grieving space is divided into different sections. The body of the dead person is dressed ceremonially and seated on a stool in the section called the “shrine.” Two women elders are seated next to the body and are charged with the duty to collect the grief that is being expressed and to “load it on” to the dead person to help him or her in the journey toward the ancestors. The shrine is colorfully decorated and contains some of the important possessions of the dead person. There is a boundary around the shrine which symbolically marks the separation between the living and the dead, and outside of the two women tending to the body, no one is allowed to enter the shrine, for to do so would mean entering the realm of the dead.

Between the shrine and the mourners is an empty space that represents chaos. Within this space people are allowed to express any form of grief they want, as long as it is related to their feelings about the death. Crying, dancing, or any expression of emotion is accepted and expected to take place within this space. There are people who are designated as “containers.” These people are often relatives who have come from afar. Their job is to insure the safety of the space for the grievers, making sure that no harm comes to those who are actively grieving. The Dagura believe in releasing grief with all its intensity, but they have also developed a system in which the intensity does not exceed the capacity of the mourners. It is like a system of checks and balances. The containers follow the grievers as they mourn and if they stray out of the ritual space, will gently tap them on the shoulder to remind them to come back into the contained space.

On one side of the shrine are the men of the village and on the other side are the women. Each group consists of mourners and containers. The mourners are further divided by the “kotuosob,” a small piece of rope tied around the wrist of the griever. The rope designates a person who was particularly close to the deceased, perhaps a family member. This marking alerts all the participants that someone who is wearing the “kotuosob” is what they call a “center of the heat” person, that is, a person who is more likely to be in danger of “grieving himself to death.” The Dagura see grief as food for the psyche, necessary to maintain a healthy psychological balance. But they also see its danger—too much grief and a person will “lose their center” and, they believe, can grieve to death. Thus the Dagura designate specific containers to follow closely behind the tagged person and do exactly as they do, including dancing, jumping to the beat of the drum, or pounding the ground. Sometimes when a tagged griever is experiencing a great deal of grief, a group of containers and mourners will form a line behind him or her with each person in the line doing the same action as the primary griever. It is understood that this transmits the feeling of the primary griever into all of those down the line. This type of process is viewed as a form of silent and physical support to the person who is grieving. It is important to point out that among the Dagura the healing of grief is gender specific. That is, no woman will approach a man in trying to help him with his grief, and no man would do the same for a woman. They believe that it takes a man to help release and heal the grief of another man, and a woman to reflect the grief of a woman.

Music

Music plays an integral part of the ritual. The ceremony is accompanied by xylophones and drums and two singers. The xylophones are divided into male and female. The male xylophone follows the mood of the singers and the female xylophone accompanies the male xylophone with a redundant set of notes. The singers are charged with the responsibility of singing (chanting) the life of the dead person. They sing the joy and sorrow of the family history and the events which led up to the death. This spontaneous singing is done in order to emphasize and direct the grief of the community.

Everyone in the community is expected to take part in this ritual. It is held as a solemn responsibility. Anyone who happens to be near the village during the ritual is expected to participate. It is as if death stops life for a while, all other activities coming to a halt. In the words of one singer, “We are trapped in a world in which we are not in control because of the mighty power of death.”

In the Yolngu and Dagura cultures, and in others around the world, grief is vented at the funeral in a very intensive fashion. The rituals of both last about three full days. During that time grief is given all the attention of the community, and it flows and flows. It should also be noted that in both cultures the support for a person’s grief does not stop after the funeral. Most indigenous people have post- funeral rituals that provide further opportunity to express grief. Rituals are practiced throughout the year, often marking important dates such as the one-year anniversary of the death. The community expects the grief to continue for some time, and in both the Yolngu and Dagura cultures grief can be released after the funeral and at the next funeral, if need be. This can be compared with our own culture where there is usually very little expression of grief during the funeral services, and few, if any, culturally-endorsed occasions for expressing grief thereafter.

Both the Yolngu and Dagura examples begin to give us an idea of how our culture lacks sufficient contained space to process the emotions that follow a death. Both have woven grief into the fabric of their lives and into their world view. Both cultures have linked a person’s grief with the purpose of aiding the soul in its journey. These cultures are very explicit in providing markers of who are the grievers and actions and roles to be played. We have very little of this. Both give men specific things to do following a death, activities that help them in connecting to their grief. Among the Yolngu, men have the responsibility of singing, and with the Dagura, men are responsible for the ritual and the healing of other men.

Imagine just for a moment that the people of the Dagura and the Yolngu suddenly lost their active grief rituals. What would happen to their men and women? What would the men of the Yolngu do without their songs? In some ways this is a parallel of what is happening in our culture. We have much to learn from indigenous people about the resolution of grief. We can use this knowledge to find creative mechanisms that are right for us.

24. Rosenblatt, P.C., R.P. Walsh, and D.A. Jackson. Grief and Mourning in Cross-Cultural Perspective. 1976, H.R.A.F. Press.
25. Diallo, Yaya, and Mitchell Hall. The Healing Drum: African WisdomTeachings. Rochester, Vermont. 1989, Destiny Books.
26. Reed, Janice “A Time to Live a Time to Grieve: Patterns and Processes of Mourning Among the Yolngu of Australia.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 3, 1979.
27. Rosenblatt.
28. Some, Malidoma. Ritual: Power, Healing and Community. Portland. 1993, Swan Raven and Company.

If you are interested in this book you can find it here.

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tgolden@tgolden

November 29, 2025

Teen Violence — When Ideology Trumps Data

3 - Bias Against Men and Boys in Psychological Research

This post is part of an ongoing series originally published around 2010, examining the misandry embedded in mental health research. It’s the first of three research projects covered in that series. This one looks at a report from Great Britain’s NSPCC on teen violence — and it’s astonishingly misandrist. It’s worth reading just to see how deftly they twist language to push their narrative. I’ve included links at the end, along with images of media articles that dutifully echoed their claims. It’s remarkable how easily the media amplifies these lies and half-truths — and has been doing so for years. The remaining two posts in the series will be published over the next two Saturdays.
— Tom

Teen Violence — When Ideology Trumps Data

The first project we’ll look at is a study from Great Britain on teen relationship violence. The research included both a written survey and in-depth interviews with selected teens. The survey results were clear: both boys and girls experienced relationship violence.

Yet, the public ad campaign that followed told a very different story. It focused entirely on helping girls as victims and portrayed boys only as perpetrators. This stunning disregard for male victims — and for the girls identified as perpetrators — stood in sharp contrast to the study’s own data. Those numbers showed that many boys were victims of teen relationship violence, and that girls, too, could be perpetrators.

Let’s start at the beginning — with how this issue first caught my attention.

A friend emailed me a link a couple of months ago to an article from Great Britain about teen violence. The friend was worried that the article was biased against boys. Here’s how it started:

A new government campaign launched today urges teenage boys not to abuse their girlfriends.
TV, radio, internet, and poster ads will target boys aged 13 to 18, aiming to show the consequences of abusive relationships.
Officials describe it as part of a broader effort to reduce domestic violence against women and younger girls.'

The campaign was inspired by research published last year by the NSPCC, which reported that:

One in four teenage girls said they had been physically abused by a boyfriend.
One in six said they had been pressured into sex.
One in three said they had gone further sexually than they wanted to.

I was a bit taken aback by the article, especially given the recent research on teen relationship violence showing that it tends to be fairly symmetrical — with both boys and girls acting as perpetrators and victims. Yet this article presented a very different picture. It assumed from the outset that girls were the primary victims and boys the primary perpetrators, reflecting an outdated stereotype about domestic violence.

That disconnect made me wonder what was really going on. I read several more articles about the ad campaign mentioned in the piece, and was surprised — even shocked — to find that the campaign’s entire focus was on helping girls while “teaching” boys not to abuse their girlfriends.

Each of these articles cited the same research as the basis for the campaign. So I decided to go straight to the source and see what the original study actually found.

The original study was sponsored by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) of Great Britain and was in two parts. The first part was the “full report” and was a detailed 209 page research report explaining methodology, results, implications and conclusions. The next was the Executive Summary which was a 10 page summation of the findings of the full report. It was a quick read meant to give people the essence of the larger document. I read through the “full report” and then the executive summary. It was striking to me that the data in the full report actually showed that boys were victims of teen violence. The original news article I had read had mentioned that the research had found that 25% of girls said they had been physically abused by their boyfriends. What the news article omitted saying was that the same research had also found that 18% of boys had said that they had been physically abused by their girlfriends. This meant that this research found that almost half of the victims of teen relationship violence were boys! Somehow this important fact had been omitted from the news report.

There were plenty of other headlines that could have been drawn from the data of the full report that showed the boys to have been victims and the girls perpetrators but they were nowhere to be seen in any of the news articles. Here are a couple of examples of headlines that could be written from the data of the full report:

25% of those reporting physically forcing their partners into having sexual intercourse were girls – Table 15 page 82 full report
Nearly three times as many girls reported using SEVERE violence in relationships. table 11 – page 75 full report
Over three times as many girls reported using partner violence in their relationships table 10 page 74 full report
Over 1/3 of those reporting being pressured into kissing, touching or something else were boys. table 6 page 66 full report–
Nearly half (42%) of the victims of teen relationship violence were boys  Table 3 page 44 full report
Nearly one third of the victims of severe violence were boys Table 4 page 45 full report
Twice as many girls reported physically forcing their partners into “kissing, touching, or something else” more than a few times. Table 13 page 82 full report

This is just a sampling of the findings from the full report. It’s clear that the survey showed teen relationship violence was not gender-based — both boys and girls were represented among the victims and perpetrators. However, after reading both the full report and the executive summary, I noticed a striking difference. The full report included data showing boys as victims and girls as perpetrators, but the executive summary contained far less information about male victims and female perpetrators. In fact, the executive summary seemed to focus almost entirely on female victims and male perpetrators.

I began to wonder how such a shift could occur. The original study had shown boys as victims — not as frequently as girls, but still in significant numbers. Boys accounted for roughly 25–42% of victims, certainly not the majority, but far too many to ignore. Yet ignore them they did.

The NSPCC introduced this research to the public through a press release, and once again, we can see the same pattern — a steady move away from acknowledging boys. What began as an apparently balanced investigation into teen relationship violence in the full report became less so in the executive summary, and by the time it reached the press release, the focus had shifted almost entirely to girls. Here’s the opening of that release. Note the “girls only” framing in both the headline and the opening paragraphs:

Teen girls abused by boyfriends warns NSPCC Press releases 01 September 2009 A third of teenage girls in a relationship suffer unwanted sexual acts and a quarter physical violence, reveals new research(1) launched today (01 September 2009) by the NSPCC(2) and the University of Bristol(3). The survey of 13 to 17-year-olds found that nearly nine out of ten girls had been in an intimate relationship. Of these, one in six said they had been pressured into sexual intercourse and 1 in 16 said they had been raped. Others had been pressured or forced to kiss or sexually touch. A quarter of girls had suffered physical violence such as being slapped, punched, or beaten by their boyfriends.

Girls are highlighted repeatedly in the press release. If one only read the press release you might assume that the boys were incidental and that the girls were clearly the identified victims of teen relationship violence. The boys actually did get mentioned in one paragraph (one out of 18 paragraphs, eleven of which were about girls). Here it is:

Nearly nine out of ten boys also said they had been in a relationship. A smaller number reported pressure or violence from girls. (Only one in seventeen boys in a relationship reported being pressured or forced into sexual activity and almost one in five suffered physical violence in a relationship).

Note how the boys victimization is minimized with words like “a smaller number” and “only one in seventeen.” Keep in mind that the “smaller number” referred to in the second sentence was 18% versus 25% which had been the figure for girls. While 18 is smaller than 25, it is not that much smaller. Another important difference is that the girls 25% stat was mentioned in the opening sentence of the document (and indirectly in the headline) while the boys 18% stat was mentioned as an afterthought in parentheses. Yes, the boys percentage was smaller but it seems very obvious that this press release is trying to marginalize the victimization of boys.

Note that the press release mentions that one in 17 girls had been raped. This works out to about 5.8% of the females surveyed. What they don’t mention is that the same table in the full report that showed that 5.8% of girls were raped also showed that 3.3% of the boys were also raped. This stat never made it beyond the full report. The press release mentions the rape of girls but is completely silent on the shocking statistic that 3.3% of the boys were raped. The fact is that their data from the full report shows boys comprised over one third of the rape victims. Not a word about this.

It now seems easy to understand how the media articles focused so exclusively on girls and ignored the needs of boys. They likely only read the press release and maybe a part of the executive summary. The press release might very well have been the only document they read about the study and it clearly focused almost exclusively on girls while ignoring the needs of boys. How bad did it get in focusing on just girls? Here is a sampling of typical headlines from actual news articles on this research and ad campaign: Many Girls’ Abused by Boyfriends Third of teenage girls forced into sex,
NSPCC survey finds  1 in 3 Teenage Girls Tell of Sexual Abuse by Their Boyfriends 
Teen Girls Abused by Boyfriends Warns NSPCC  

Almost every headline I found focused on girls as victims. Not one centered on boys. The articles occasionally mentioned that boys could also be vulnerable, but the main narrative was always about girls’ vulnerability and victimhood.

The ad campaign represented the real-world application of this research — TV, radio, internet, and poster ads aimed at changing teen relationship behaviors. It marked the point where theory ended and where public messaging — and taxpayer funding — began.

Inexplicably, the campaign’s focus was entirely on girls as victims of relationship violence, while boys were portrayed as the problem and instructed not to abuse their girlfriends. Somehow, the original research had shown that both boys and girls experienced relationship violence, yet by the time the findings reached the media — and then the public through the ad campaign — the data on male victims had all but disappeared.

How did this happen?

The Full Report and then boys disappear

The full report offers an abundance of data that shows that boys are victims of teen partner violence but somehow the recommendations of both the full report and the executive summary seem to focus primarily on girls. Here’s a quick summary extrapolated from the full report:

According to their survey:

*** 72% girls reported experiencing emotional violence 51% of boys reported emotional violence BOYS WERE 41% of the victims of emotional violence in teen relationships

*** 25% of girls experienced physical partner violence 18% of the boys experienced physical partner violence BOYS WERE 42% of the victims of physical partner violence in teen relationships

*** 31% of girls experienced sexual partner violence 16% of boys experienced sexual partner violence BOYS WERE 34% of the victims of sexual partner violence in teen relationships.

According to the survey, boys made up between 34% and 42% of the victims. The full report stated this clearly in the data. Yet, as the findings moved from the full report to the executive summary and then to the press release, boys seemed to vanish. Why could that be?

The researchers never directly explained this omission, but reading between the lines, two possible reasons emerge.

The first is that the survey results suggested girls were more “impacted” by relationship violence than boys. One question on the survey asked about emotional reactions to the violence. Girls were far more likely to select responses indicating they felt scared, upset, or humiliated. Boys, on the other hand, were more likely to report feeling angry, annoyed, or unaffected.

The researchers appear to have interpreted these emotional differences to mean that girls suffered more deeply from relationship violence — and therefore should be the primary focus of attention and services. This assumption is implied in several places throughout the full report. Here’s one example:

This research has demonstrated that a fundamental divide exists in relation to how girls and boys are affected by partner violence, and this divide needs to be a central component in the development of professional responses to this issue.

What exactly does “professional responses to this issue” mean? The authors never explain, but it seems reasonable to assume they’re suggesting that girls should receive more attention and services because they were more emotionally affected by the violence. Given that the report’s recommendations focus almost exclusively on girls while ignoring the needs of boys, this interpretation seems well-founded — though I’d be happy to be corrected if that assumption is wrong.

The researchers appear willing to overlook their own substantial evidence that boys were also victims of relationship violence — simply because girls reported stronger emotional reactions. Here’s another example:

These findings are further elaborated on in the interview data where girls consistently described the harmful impact that the violence had on their welfare, often long term, while boy victims routinely stated they were unaffected or, at the very worst, annoyed. These results provide the wider context in which teenage partner violence needs to be viewed.

It’s important to remember that the interview data quoted above — which we’ll examine in more detail later — included only 62 hand-selected girls and 29 similarly chosen boys. Notably, only one of those 29 boys was a victim of non-reciprocal violence. That makes it highly questionable to draw broad conclusions from such a small and uneven sample, especially when the survey itself included over 1,300 teens.

Also worth noting is the phrase “the wider context in which teenage partner violence needs to be viewed.” We can reasonably assume the researchers are again implying that girls should receive priority in services and support. What’s clear, however, is that the data on violence against boys is ignored — both in the recommendation sections and in the resulting ad campaign. The following quote offers further insight into the researchers’ perspective:

Intervention programmes need to reflect this fundamental difference by ensuring that the significant impact of violence on girls’ wellbeing is recognised and responded to, while enabling boys to recognise the implications of partner violence for their partners and themselves.

This statement clearly shows that the researchers believe that the girls should be treated differently and intervention programs need to “reflect” the difference that girls are more impacted by the violence.

But are girls more impacted? I am not so sure. Let’s start by looking at the actual question on the survey:

3 How did it make you feel when force was used against you?   scared/frightened  angry/annoyed  humiliated  upset/unhappy  loved/protected  thought it was funny  no effect

The researchers noted that boys and girls gave markedly different responses when asked how the violence had affected them. However, they didn’t provide the raw data — no breakdown of how many boys or girls chose each option — only a summary stating that girls were much more “impacted.”

There are good reasons for this difference. The question itself was flawed — practically designed to produce a gender gap. Boys and girls are socialized, and often biologically inclined, to respond to emotional threat differently. The creators of this survey question seemed unaware of boys’ deep-seated reluctance to show vulnerability or dependence — a reflection of their hierarchical nature and their drive for independence.

For a boy to check boxes like “scared/frightened,” “humiliated,” or “upset/unhappy” would mean admitting weakness, something most boys instinctively avoid. Instead, they are far more likely to select “angry/annoyed” or even “no effect” to maintain an image of strength. As Warren Farrell aptly said, “The weakness of men is the facade of strength; the strength of women is the facade of weakness.” Boys and men are far more likely to choose responses that convey control and toughness.

If this is true, then boys’ responses in the survey may not accurately reflect their true emotional impact. It’s entirely possible that those who checked “no effect” were just as hurt or disturbed as their female counterparts. With questions framed this way, we’re left not knowing the real story. Basing future services on such data would be risky — and likely lead to deeply flawed conclusions.

Consider this: would the researchers dismiss a rape victim who said she felt “no impact” and decide she didn’t need support? Of course not. Would clinicians ignore domestic violence victims who claimed they were unaffected? Hardly. So why dismiss the pain of boys simply because they reported fewer signs of distress on a survey? Emotional reactions vary widely from person to person, and not showing immediate or visible distress doesn’t mean the trauma isn’t real.

Having worked with trauma victims for many years, I know that emotional impact often emerges slowly — sometimes months or even years after the event. To deny services based on someone’s initial emotional response, or apparent lack thereof, is one of the most misguided ideas imaginable. And to deny those services to an entire group — in this case, boys — on that basis isn’t just poor reasoning. It’s prejudice, plain and simple.

Are the researchers biased against boys?

There are numerous indications, in addition to what has already been described, that the researchers have an anti-boy bias. There are the obvious dismissals of the survey data that shows boys to be victims of partner violence and the complete focus on girls as victims. But there are a number of more subtle clues in the study that seem to indicate a disdain for boys.

When they did mention boys as victims the report tended to minimize their experience. Here is a quote:

Boys’ experiences of violence - Little evidence existed to support the possibility that boys, although they were negatively affected by their partner’s violence, felt unable either to voice or to recognise their vulnerability. Boys minimised their own use of violence as “messing around”. Boys also reported the violence as mutual, although they often used disproportionate force compared to their female partners.

Rather than addressing boys’ actual experiences of violence, the researchers focused on whether the boys could “give voice” to the negative effects of their partners’ aggression. This seems like a weak attempt to suggest that boys were able to articulate their experiences — and therefore must not have been “held back” by traditional masculinity from expressing vulnerability. The unspoken implication is that because boys could talk about their victimization, they must not have been deeply affected by it. In other words, it didn’t really matter for them — whereas for girls, it did.

This framing distracts from the central reality: the boys were victims of violence. Reading the researchers’ words makes it clear how differently boys were treated in this study. Their pain was minimized and rationalized away, reduced to the notion that they simply weren’t as impacted. The underlying message was that yes, boys experience violence from their female partners, but they don’t suffer from it in the same way.

That conclusion runs counter to everything we know about male psychology. It’s well established that men and boys often minimize their pain, hide their injuries, and strive to maintain an appearance of independence. This doesn’t mean they’re unaffected — it means they’re reluctant to show it. Precisely because of this tendency, we need a different approach when addressing victimization among boys.

Unfortunately, this study chose another route: it largely ignored boys’ pain and focused its empathy and attention almost exclusively on girls.

Messing Around

The quote above states that “boys minimised their own use of violence as ‘messing around.’” According to the full report, boys described their behavior this way 56% of the time. This finding is later cited in the recommendations section as justification for teaching boys to recognize and take responsibility for their violence. (See below.)

But what about the girls? You might assume that since boys were singled out for this attitude, girls must have responded differently. Not so — at least not in the curious, upside-down logic of this study. By the researchers’ own data, girls described their own violence as “messing around” 43% of the time — only 13 percentage points less than the boys.

Given that both sexes minimized their aggression in similar ways, it would make sense that both boys and girls should be encouraged to recognize and take responsibility for their actions. Yet the recommendations focus solely on boys. That’s not sound reasoning — it’s bias. Specifically, an anti-boy bias.

Here is the quote:

“However, although intervention programmes should ensure that the needs of both girls and boys are recognised, it is important that the wider experiences of girls remain a focus. In addition, boys’ minimisation of their own use of violence – by dismissing it as “messing around” and justifications based on mutual aggression – needs to be challenged.”

Why would the boys need to be challenged about this and the girls not? The boys said their violence was “messing around” 56% of the time and the girls said their violence was a slightly lower “messing around” 43% of the time. Clearly a strong bias in favor of girls and against the boys.

The researchers went a step farther than just recommending that girls victimization should be the focus. The researchers made the claim that boys lower scores on the impact question actually made them more dangerous to their female partners. Here is a quote:

If boys view the impact of their victimisation as negligible, they may also apply this understanding to their own actions. Thus, they may believe that their partners are also unaffected by their use of violence.

The implication here is that boys’ supposed insensitivity to the violence done to them makes them less sensitive to the violence they might commit. I find that hard to believe — especially considering that nearly every boy grows up hearing, over and over, that he must never hit a girl.

Let’s apply the same reasoning to girls. According to the survey, girls reported being far more emotionally affected by relationship violence than boys. Yet those same girls also admitted to using violence three times more often than boys did. If we follow the researchers’ logic, this would suggest that girls are well aware of how hurtful violence can be — and still choose to use it far more frequently. That hardly paints them in a positive light, does it?

The researchers conclude:

Thus, from these findings it seems conclusive that partner sexual violence represents a problem for girls, while boys report being unaffected.

That sums it up rather neatly — and disturbingly.

Boys are More Violent? When the Subjective Trumps the Objective

While the survey was supposed to be the main source of data, the researchers seemed to place far more weight on the subjective material gathered through interviews. The full report’s survey data clearly showed that girls were three times more likely to report using violence in relationships. Yet, somehow, the researchers claim there was “a clear consensus” among the girls that boys were more physically violent toward their partners than girls were.

Here’s the quote:

“There was a clear consensus within girls’ accounts that boys used physical violence in relationships more often than girls. This common understanding regarding the gendered nature of physical violence was reported by almost all girls, whether they themselves had experienced violence or not.”

This excerpt from page 94 of the full report summarizes the researchers’ evaluation of the girls’ interviews. The most striking aspect is the sharp contradiction between the survey data and the interview findings. The survey clearly showed that girls were three to six times more likely than boys to report being violent in relationships. Yet the subjective data from the interviews claimed that there was a “common understanding regarding the gendered nature of physical violence” — that “almost all girls” believed “boys used physical violence in relationships more often than girls.”

That’s a major discrepancy. One half of the study shows girls admitting to much higher rates of violence, while the other half asserts that boys are the primary aggressors. Such a contradiction demands an explanation, but the report offers little. The closest the researchers come is to suggest that girls’ higher rates of reported violence were due to acts of self-defense — an all-too-familiar claim.

However, the numbers tell a different story. According to the data, 25% of girls and 8% of boys reported being violent in relationships. When we subtract the portion attributed to self-defense — 44% for girls and 30% for boys — we find that 14% of girls and 5.6% of boys used violence for reasons other than self-defense. That means girls were nearly three times more likely than boys to commit non–self-defense violence.

This difference is substantial and should have been a central point in the report. Instead, it was ignored. The researchers’ conclusion — that girls viewed boys as more violent and therefore girls need services while boys need behavior correction — is baffling. It defies their own data and reveals a clear bias. In short, this isn’t just poor analysis. It’s misandry disguised as research.

One partial explanation of this is shown in the following quote:

Only 6 per cent of boys, compared to a third of girls, claimed that they were negatively affected by the emotional violence they experienced. This gendered impact disparity upholds Stark’s (2007) contention that coercive control, which many of our components of emotional violence reflect, is made meaningful only when placed within a gendered power understanding of intimate violence. Thus, although girls had used emotional violence, without it being underpinned by other forms of inequality and power, their attempts were rendered largely ineffectual.

Incredibly, this section seems to be giving girls a pass for their emotional violence. The pattern continues: When girls are perpetrators they are given excuses, when boys are victims they are ignored and minimized.

Reporting oddities

When you look closely at the section about girls reporting more frequent perpetration of violence in relationship you notice something very odd. Look at the following paragraph and note the researchers choice of words. Note that girls “report” and boys “admit” (emphasis mine):

Page 74 More girls reported using physical violence against their partner than did boys; this represented a significant difference (x2 (1) = 60.804, p<.001). A quarter (n=148) of girls compared to 8 per cent (n=44) of boys stated that they had used some form of physical violence against their partner. Looking first at less severe physical violence (see table 10), the vast majority of girls (89 per cent) reporting the use of physical violence had used it once or a few times. Only a few (11 per cent) used it more frequently. Similarly, the small proportion of boys who admitted using physical violence also generally used it infrequently (83 per cent).

Perhaps the words “report” and “admit” have different meanings in Great Britain but here in the US they aren’t usually the same. Report generally means to make a statement or announcement. The word admit however has a different spin. Often it has more to do with conceding or confessing. One assumption from the wording the researchers have chosen would be to think that they simply didn’t believe what the boys reported. In other words they would only concede or admit to a certain amount of violence. Basically, implying that they are not telling the entire story. This is of course conjecture on my part but it simply seems like more anti-boy bias.

The Interview Section

As was previously explained the research had both a quantitative section and qualitative section. The qualitative section consisted of semi-structured interviews which included the utilization of five vignettes. The vignettes were stories that were told to the participant and then the stories relevance was discussed as a part of the interview. The stated goals of the researchers was to use the quantitative survey to gain data and use the interviews to enhance their understanding.

The researchers claimed that they had problems in getting participants for the interviews in the manner they had originally planned so they switched mid-stream to a different approach described below:

“We therefore moved to a system whereby researchers observed which young people seemed to be engaging with the survey. They then asked those young people if they would like to take part in the interview stage.”

So they hand picked the interview participants based on their own subjective impression of whether the young person was “engaging with the survey.” This sounds to me to be a direct invitation to a very biased sample. Then you find out that the choices they made of those who were “engaging in the survey” were 62 girls but only 29 boys. You also find that of the 29 boys only one had experienced being a victim of non reciprocal violence in relationship! Makes you wonder about their ideas of “engaging in the survey.” Needless to say the boys section describing the interviews was only 22 pages long while the section about the girls was over 60 pages. Even with such a short section for the boys, most of the writing was about boys violence not their reaction to being victims of violence. Girls victimization was highlighted as was boys violence. Even in the section on boys as victims.

The Vignettes

When I first began examining this survey, I emailed the NSPCC to request copies of the original questionnaire and the vignettes used in the study. To their credit, they kindly sent both. I had suspected that the vignettes would be biased toward portraying girls as victims — and I wasn’t disappointed.

Of the five vignettes, most centered on boys’ possessiveness, shouting, name-calling, violence, or sexual pressuring. Only one story depicted a girl as the perpetrator, and even then, her behavior was relatively mild: she and her friends stole a boy’s cell phone, made unkind comments, and the next day apologized. In contrast, the other four stories featured boys engaging in clearly abusive or coercive behavior, including physical aggression and unwanted sexual advances. In one case, a girl used violence — but only in self-defense.

To the researchers’ credit, the first three vignettes included a follow-up question asking whether similar behavior might also occur with the opposite sex. But inexplicably, that question was omitted from the final two vignettes — the ones dealing with sexual pressure. This omission is telling. It suggests a possible ideological bias that prevented the researchers from viewing boys as potential sexual victims or girls as possible perpetrators. This is especially puzzling since the full report’s own data showed that many girls freely admitted to sexually pressuring their boyfriends. So why exclude the question in the interview phase?

Imagine if the situation were reversed — if 80% of the perpetrators in the vignettes had been female, and the only male perpetrator had merely stolen a cell phone and apologized. There would no doubt be loud outcries about bias, marginalization, and the lack of inclusivity — and rightly so. Yet this imbalance seems to have gone unnoticed. These vignettes marginalized the boys in the study, likely leaving them feeling misunderstood and excluded, since their experiences were neither portrayed nor acknowledged.

It wouldn’t have been difficult to design a more balanced approach. The researchers could have kept the same five stories but reversed the genders for half the participants — telling the same scenarios from both male and female perspectives. That small change alone would have ensured that both boys and girls saw their realities reflected. Alternatively, they could have used gender-neutral names for all participants, leaving the sex of the offender and victim unspecified, or created six vignettes — three with male perpetrators and three with female perpetrators — each covering different types of violence.

Any of these approaches would have been far superior to what was used.

The fact that four out of five vignettes portrayed girls primarily as victims and boys as perpetrators — and that any mention of girls as sexual aggressors was entirely absent — is further evidence of ideological bias. This project clearly reflects a worldview that insists on seeing women and girls as victims and men and boys as oppressors. Allowing such bias to persist does a disservice to everyone. It fails our boys by denying their experiences — and fails our girls by teaching them a distorted view of reality. If this kind of bias is allowed to continue in the social sciences, the credibility of the field itself is at risk.

Recommendation Section

Here’s a brief look at the recommendations section of the executive summary. There is only one paragraph in the recommendation section that mentions boys. Here it is:

Impact of teenage partner violence – the gender divide The impact of partner violence is indisputably differentiated by gender; girl victims report much higher levels of negative impact than do boys. This is not to imply that boys’ experiences of victimisation should be ignored. It may be that boys minimise the impact of the violence due to the need to portray a certain form of masculinity. However, although intervention programmes should ensure that the needs of both girls and boys are recognised, it is important that the wider experiences of girls remain a focus. In addition, boys’ minimisation of their own use of violence – by dismissing it as “messing around” and justifications based on mutual aggression – needs to be challenged.

This paragraph is baffling. Let’s break it down. Here is the first section:

The impact of partner violence is indisputably differentiated by gender; girl victims report much higher levels of negative impact than do boys. This is not to imply that boys’ experiences of victimization should be ignored.

It first makes a claim that partner violence is differentiated by gender and that girls experience more negative impact, implying that boys should be ignored. Then they deny that they mean to ignore boys.

It may be that boys minimise the impact of the violence due to the need to portray a certain form of masculinity.

They offer a possibility for an explanation.

However, although intervention programmes should ensure that the needs of both girls and boys are recognised, it is important that the wider experiences of girls remain a focus

Then they ignore their own explanation and aver that the “wider experiences of girls” (whatever that means) should take precedence.

In addition, boys’ minimization of their own use of violence – by dismissing it as “messing around” and justifications based on mutual aggression – needs to be challenged.

The researchers conclude by emphasizing that the focus should be on boys — specifically, their use of violence and their tendency to minimize it, as discussed earlier.

I find this paragraph deliberately vague. My guess is that the ambiguity is intentional. They can’t quite say what they mean — that girls are seen as worthy victims and boys are not — because putting that bias into words would make it too obvious. Vagueness, then, becomes a safer strategy: it conceals the prejudice while still advancing it. What’s clear after reading is that, for whatever reason, girls are portrayed as deserving the lion’s share of help and services, while boys are told to “shape up.”

Is Ideology Driving the Research?

Viewed purely from a marketing standpoint, these researchers achieved something remarkable. They managed to produce a document labeled as a “study,” gather objective data, then draw conclusions that contradicted their own findings — and still have those conclusions echoed across major media outlets. The result: millions of people were presented with half-truths packaged as scientific fact. That’s quite an accomplishment, if one’s goal is persuasion rather than truth.

It’s hard to escape the impression that the researchers are clinging to a dated feminist narrative — one that insists domestic violence is a story of male perpetrators and female victims. Yet as Murray Straus and many others have shown, that model has long been disproven. The persistence of this bias shows how far some are willing to go to preserve a comforting ideology rather than face complex realities.

Science, at its best, collects data and adjusts theory based on what is discovered. But in this case, ideology appears to be steering the science. The researchers seem to have decided in advance that girls were the victims and boys the aggressors. When their data failed to confirm that assumption, they reinterpreted it to fit the narrative. Their central claim — that girls should be the focus of attention because they are “more impacted” — is a hollow one. Emotional distress does not determine moral worth or entitlement to support. No ethical researcher would argue that some victims deserve less services simply because they express less visible pain.

Many parts of this study struck me as blatantly misandrist — so much so that I could easily write another twenty or thirty pages dissecting them. I’ll spare the reader that, but suffice it to say this study stands as a cautionary example of what happens when ideology guides research, shapes public policy, and filters what the public is told.

This is precisely the danger of allowing ideological zealots to shape public opinion under the banner of “science.” We need to be far more discerning about what qualifies as legitimate research, and far quicker to expose studies compromised by bias. Any high school science student could point out the flaws in this one — yet our media and governments either can’t, or won’t. That failure has consequences for everyone who depends on honest science, balanced reporting, and fair treatment of all victims.

Men Are Good.