A study presented at the American Psychological Association on Sunday
reported that 6% of both boys and girls report dating violence by the ninth
grade. This study shows that resulting emotional disorders were equally
likely for both boys and girls. I thought this was interesting for two
reasons:
1) This raises questions about the validity of the study of 4,163 students
in
Massachusetts reported in the Journal of the AMA since this report only
surveyed girls. On the surface, it appears that the authors of the Harvard
tudy have some sexist assumptions regarding dating violence.
2) The authors of the APA study also appear to have a sexist attitude.
They
attempted to explain the finding by noting that the study did not ask about
boys dates "So we don't know if it's boys dating boys, boys dating men, or
girls being more forceful." I would point out that neither of these two
studies asked about the dating habits of girls. So following this logic,
it
appears we can assume that the findings for girls may be the result of
girl-on-girl dating violence.
Something to think about.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Barlow
sabwestvir@aol.com
"Professional Devils Advocate"
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