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Re: Male vs Female Abuse towards children
Did the NIS data involve allegations or substantiations? The rate of
substantiations is often much less than that of allegations. In addition,
the retrospective data, while suspect in itself due to selective memory and
reporting, would report only situations that could have been substantiated.
Patricia Sherman
Department of Social Work
Kean University
Union, NJ
_________________________________________
What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
Author Unknown
----- Original Message -----
From: "Becky Bolen" <bbolen@bu.edu>
To: "Child Maltreatment Researchers"
<CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 4:18 PM
Subject: RE: Male vs Female Abuse towards children
> Actually, I just looked at this data for child sexual abuse. I used those
> random community, state, or national prevalence studies that categorized
> child sexual abuse by both relation and gender of the offender. I
compared
> their aggregated information to the NCANDS done in 1998. Here is an
excerpt
> that addresses this:
>
> The third NIS conducted in 1993 found that 87% of abuse committed by
> parents involved a male and 28% involved a female (Sedlak & Broadhurst,
> 1996). This finding implies that 13% of all abuse was perpetrated solely
by
> mothers and that another 15% of all abuse involved both a mother and
> father. In the most recent national incident study done through the NCANDS
> in 1998, 51% of child sexual abuse cases identified by child protective
> services were committed by parents (U.S. Department of Health and Human
> Services, 2000c). In more than half of these cases, mothers were charged
as
> the sole offender (4% of all abuse) or as co-offenders (23% of all abuse).
> Yet in her random community prevalence study of 930 women, Russell (1983)
> found that only one respondent was abused by her mother, whereas 44
> respondents were abused by their fathers. Thus, only 2% of all parental
> abuse was committed by mothers (or 0.2% of all abuse). Further, no mothers
> were reported as offenders in Wyatt's (1985) or Saunders et al.'s (1999)
> studies or the Los Angeles Times Poll survey (Finkelhor, Hotaling, Lewis,
&
> Smith, 1990). Of the 7812 respondents across these combined studies, 1971
> incidents of abuse were reported. Of these, 163 were cases of paternal
> abuse and one was a case of maternal abuse. Thus, the prevalence of
> maternal abuse for the combined samples was 0.01%. Further, mothers
> accounted for only 0.6% of all parental abuse and 0.05% of all abuse.
Given
> the random nature of these retrospective studies and their community- or
> nation-wide focus, it is difficult to believe that the much larger
> percentage of abusive mothers in the NIS-3 (28%) and the NCANDS (27%) does
> not imply some type of bias.
>
> This excerpt is taken from: Bolen, R. M. (in press). Child sexual abuse:
> Its scope and our failure. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
>
> Becky Bolen
>
>
> At 12:59 PM 12/5/00 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >I'd also caution that you keep in mind the following potential caveat
with
> >any analysis of administrative data on the subject: Is there any bias in
the
> >reporting of child maltreatment that would skew perceptions of the
identity
> >of perpetrators? In other words, are women more likely than men to be
> >reported even though the incidence of female vs. male perpetration may be
> >closer to equal? Further, to what extent do perceptions of gender roles
> >influence one's reporting of child maltreatment? I'm not sure of the
answers
> >to the above, but perhaps another member of the listserv could address
that.
> >
> >Dana Hollinshead, M.P.A., M.A.
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: lfontes@mail.javanet.com [mailto:lfontes@mail.javanet.com]
> >Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 12:36 PM
> >To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
> >Subject: Re: Male vs Female Abuse towards children
> >
> >
> >In this discussion of male versus female abuse of children, Let's not
forget
> >sexual abuse, inducing terror (through abusing the other parent) and
child
> >abandonment (having no or only sporadic contact with a child might be
> >considered a form of indirect neglect)
> >Lisa fontes, Ph.D.
> >
> >
> >
> >Original Message:
> >-----------------
> >From: Joseph A Vorrasi jav9@cornell.edu
> >Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2000 13:03:07 -0500
> >Subject: Re: Male vs Female Abuse towards children
> >
> >
> >Jeannine,
> >
> >
> >National surveys indicate that, relative to fathers, mothers use more
> >physical aggression against children. This trend can be partially
> >explained by the simple fact that, on average, mothers have a greater
> >*opportunity* to abuse their children, given the propensity for children
> >to spend more time with their mothers than with their fathers. The
> >statistics you seek, along with a discussion of them, can be found in the
> >following book:
> >
> >
> >Straus, M. A., & Gelles, R. J. (Eds.). (1990). <underline>Physical
> >violence in American families: Risk factors and adaptations to violence
> >in 8,145 families</underline>. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
> >
> >
> >Good luck,
> >
> >
> >Joe Vorrasi
> >
> >
> >
> >At 11:23 AM 12/5/00 -0500, jeannine turchiano wrote:
> >
> > >In all of the research I have been doing I cannot find any statistics
on
> >who does more of the child abusing in the US is it women or men?? Do you
> >have any stats of perhaps you can direct me to a website that would have
> >this information.
> >
> > >
> >
> > >Thank you very much- Jeannine
> >
> > >
> >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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>
> Becky Bolen, Ph.D.
> School of Social Work
> 264 Bay State Road
> Boston University
> Boston, MA 02215
> bbolen@bu.edu
> 617-353-3925
>
>