Abuse against Men ignored!

This sounds like it was an important conference.

Husbands and boyfriends are abused by their partners far more often than most Canadians realize, yet there is virtually no support for battered men, attendees of a two-day conference heard Saturday.

"All we hear about is violence against women and children," says Grant Brown, an Edmonton lawyer who helped organize the conference, held at the Edmonton Art Gallery.

"They just ignore the fact that men are just as likely to be victims of domestic violence. ... They just refuse to address the issue."

The conference, which highlighted the gender bias in Canadians' understanding of domestic violence, was organized by the Gender Issues Education Foundation, an Edmonton-based organization.

"Remember Wayne Bobbit? He actually became a comedy routine," said University of British Columbia forensic psychologist Donald Dutton.

"But we know that young women these days are more violent than their boyfriends. That's what the data shows."

While it is true that women are more often victims than men, Dutton says the number of men is not as small as many believe. According to his research, 4.2 per cent of abused women and 2.6 per cent of abused men report "repeated, severe battering."

He says researchers routinely ignore this fact because of pre-conceived ideas about domestic violence -- namely, that men are always the abusers and women are always the victims.

This unwitting bias in domestic violence research has influenced policing, custodial hearings and even public policy, Dutton says.