Why Do So Many Men Die As A Result of Domestic Violence?

Earlier this week, The Washington City Paper's Blog The Sexist had a post about male victims of domestic violence. It featured a breakdown of the victims of domestic violence from July 2008-July 2009 according to the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence.

Of the 53 victims:

• 32 of the dead are female.
• 21 of the dead are male.
  

Of the 21 males who died as a result of domestic violence last year:

• 2 were children.
• 19 were adult men.

Of the 19 adult men:

• 9 were victims.
• 10 were domestic violence aggressors who died as a result of their own domestic violence—”males who killed themselves or were killed after committing murder/attempting to commit murder.”

Of the nine male victims:

• 2 were husbands or ex-husbands of the offender.
• 3 were boyfriends or ex-boyfriends of the offender.
• 3 were killed by their current partner’s ex.
• 1 was killed by his ex’s current partner.

Of the ten men who killed themselves or were killed after committing murder or attempting to commit murder:

• 1 man was killed by the police.
• 3 were killed by their partners in self-defense.
• 6 committed suicide.

People are quick to assume that because there is a fairly equal gender division among victims that means that that men are just as likely to be killed by a violent partner as women. Men are actually "more likely to be killed as a result of attempting to murder their own partners than as a result of their partner’s aggression".

This statistic reminds me of a documentary called "Defending Our Lives" about women who kill their domestic partners after years of abuse and are penalized harsher than the men who abused them ever would have been.

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Here's an online edit of the film. I highly suggest seeing the whole thing. It's really powerful.