by Nancy Updike

About the author: Nancy Updike is a producer for Public Radio International and WBEZ-Chicago’s “This American Life.”

A surprising fact has turned up in the grimly familiar world of domestic violence: Women report using violence in their relationships more often than men. This is not a crack by some antifeminist cad; the information . . . is contained in a . . . Justice Department . . . report summarizing the results of in-depth, face- to-face interviews with a representative sample of 860 men and women whom researchers have been following since birth. Conducted in New Zealand by Terrie Moffitt, a University of Wisconsin psychology professor, the study supports data published in 1980 indicating that wives hit their husbands at least as often as husbands hit their wives.

The Study of Domestic Violence Broadens

When the 1980 study was released, it...