Every year, 1,510,455 women and 834,732 men are victims of physical violence by an intimate. This is according to a Nov. 2000 Department of Justice report on the National Violence Against Women Survey. What does that mean? Every 37.8 seconds, somewhere in America a man is battered. Every 20.9 seconds, somewhere in America a woman is battered.

Below are facts, charts and graphs from the Full Report of the National Violence Against Women survey.

National Violence Against Women Survey—Full Report
Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women

Click on highlighted fact to see larger, readable exhibit

1,510,455 women and 834,732 men victims of domestic violence1.5% vs. 0.8% in one year, 22.1% vs. 7.4% lifetime—why the discrepancy? Annual physical assault rate—44.2/1000 women, 31.5/1000 men Average 3.5 victimizations per male victim, 3.4 per female victim 1.1% of married/co-habiting women and 0.6% of men assaulted annually About twice as many male victims has a knife used on them (10.8% to 4.1%), were threatened with a knife (21.6% to 12.7%), or were hit with an object likely to cause harm (43.2% to 22.6%. Exhibit 11 shows percentage of subjects surveyed, not percentage of subjects assaulted. See below. For example, "threw something" is 8% of the 8,000 women surveyed, not 8% of the 1,768 surveyed women who were assaulted. 36.7% of the assaulted women surveyed had something thrown at them, and 59.5% of the assaulted men. 96.8% of women and 90.5% of men assaulted experienced one of the more serious forms of assault. Well over half the men, but only 40% of the women, were physically assaulted by an adult caretaker as a child. As children: mother (alone or with other) the physical abuser in 43% of cases, responsible for 48% of fatalities. Father (alone or with other) physical abuser in 28% of cases, responsible for 12%. U.S. DHHS Children's Bureau, Child Maltreatment 1999

The data from Exhibit 11, above, show that men are more likely to have a knife used on them or to be threatened with a knife, hit with an object, kicked, bitten or have something thrown at them. Women are more likely to beaten up, threatened with a gun, choked, victims of drowning attempts, have their hair pulled or be pushed, grabbed or shoved.

Table 1 below uses the data from Exhibit 11 of Tjaden & Thoennes (2000), which reports the "percentage of persons physically assaulted by an intimate partner in lifetime by type of assault and sex of victim." (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000, exhibit 11) The first two numerical columns, from Tjaden & Thoennes, report the percentage of persons sampled who experienced each form of assault. The second two numerical columns show the percentage of persons assaulted who experienced each form of assault.

Table 1
Type of Assault by an Intimate
as Percentage Surveyed and Percentage Assaulted, by Gender
Re-analysis of data from NVAW Survey, Tjaden & Thoennes (2000), Exhibit 11

	Lifetime
	Percentage		Number in US
Type of Violence	Women	Men	Women	Men
Rape	7.7%	0.3%	7,753,669	278,244
Physical Assault	22.1%	7.4%	22,254,037	6,863,352
Rape and/or Physical Assault	24.8%	7.6%	24,972,856	7,048,848
			76.5%	23.5%

Type of Assault	Women	Men	Women	Men
Total	22.1	7.4	100%	100%
Threw something	8.1	4.4	36.7%	59.5%
Pushed, grabbed, shoved	18.1	5.4	81.9%	73.0%
Pulled hair	9.1	2.3	41.2%	31.1%
Slapped, hit	16	5.5	72.4%	74.3%
Kicked, bit	5.5	2.6	24.9%	35.1%
Choked, tried to drown	6.1	0.5	27.6%	6.8%
Hit with object	5	3.2	22.6%	43.2%
Beat up	8.5	0.6	38.5%	8.1%
Threatened with gun	3.5	0.4	15.8%	5.4%
Threatened with knife	2.8	1.6	12.7%	21.6%
Used gun	0.7	0.1	3.2%	1.4%
Used knife	0.9	0.8	4.1%	10.8%

Source: National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Full Report of Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Exhibits 9,11
(Tjaden, P. G., & Thoennes, N.) U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice & Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Research Report, 2000. NCJ 183781

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