Oh that's definitely true based on my casual research, in fact many studies suggest that women are just as likely to engage in physical and psychological aggression as men. Which seems to counter-intuitive but its because we have a bit of a black and white view of DV. Sure in many cases its a woman cowering under the threat of some nutjob male but in many cases both partners are violent towards each other and in cases where you get serious injury or death that's even more likely. I remember I once found a meta study on DV of something like 250 studies that generally showed it was a 50/50 split. Of course when it comes to hospitalizations and deaths from DV women are over-represented at least 2:1. Men are also more likely to engage in stalking and sexual abuse. So basically men are more likely to be the outliers who engage in extreme violence but in terms of more casual abuse its actually pretty even.
I remember I had a friend who was involved in something like this. She lived with her boyfriend and his family and got into a huge fight. She admitted to me that she pulled his little sister's hair and throw a laptop at him and then tried to fish for sympathy by saying "t-then he held me by my wrists and I was bruised!"
I listened to her since she was in the middle of a suicide attempt by OD via pills but normally I'd call my friends out for shit like that and in my head I was thinking, "Bitch, if you pulled my little sister's hair and threw a laptop at me you'd be getting Munoz'd"
Sure which is why women are more likely to be hospitalized and killed in cases of domestic violence. But like I said in terms of the more common, less extreme cases of DV its pretty even and IIRC some studies show that women are more likely to initiate violence. That's probably because its more normalized for women to hit men than the other way around. Which is wrong, don't slap a dude if you ain't ready to start throwing hands. Its something men learn early on that women never do.
And one pernicious fact is that unsurprisingly there are fewer resources for male victims and a stigma, both real and perceived on the part of the victims, that inhibits their getting help. And if a man tries to seek help the women can just as easily accuse him and in cases of domestic violence where its he said, she said people tend to listen to what she said.
