Anyone experiencing domestic violence is a victim, including children who witness violence or live with its ongoing effects. Victims can be women, men, young or old, from any cultural or socioeconomic background. Yet the evidence is clear: the most common pattern is a man abusing a woman.
What does gender have to do with violence?
Research and evidence internationally and in Australia overwhelmingly shows that one of the key drivers of domestic and family violence is gender inequality.
Violence is rarely about anger alone — it is often about power and control. Societies and communities that value men’s authority, over women’s autonomy, create conditions where coercive control and abuse by men towards women is more likely.
Cultural and social norms also matter. Ideas that men should dominate women, that “discipline” is acceptable, or that male authority should go unquestioned increase the risk of violence. These norms exist across communities, cultures, and even faith spaces. When these beliefs are unchallenged, violence can become normalised, sometimes across generations.
Gender intersects with other forms of inequality too. Indigenous women, women with disabilities, and women from migrant or refugee backgrounds experience higher rates of domestic violence. Children who witness abuse may internalise unhealthy models of relationships, continuing cycles of harm.
Even within churches, harmful gender models can be found. Interpretations of scripture or church practices that emphasise male authority can unintentionally give abusive people power to manipulate, intimidate, or control.
By naming these gendered power differences, we can more clearly support survivors, provide accountability and opportunities for change for perpetrators, and advocate for the large-scale changes that end violence against women.
What about men?
Violence against men also occurs and is never acceptable. Men who experience domestic and family violence deserve safety, care, and access to support. But the evidence is clear: women and children are overwhelmingly the victims of domestic and family violence, and most violent crimes are committed by men. Understanding this helps communities respond effectively while supporting all survivors.
While men remain the primary victims of overall violence, ABS statistics show they're not being murdered by women. The violence against men is being perpetrated overwhelmingly by other men.
Although women sometimes do use violence, it is unusual for a woman to use the same pattern of domineering control and terrifying intimidation over a man that perpetrators of violence typically exert over their victims – usually women and children. Studies show that the majority of women’s violence against men is in public while the majority of men’s violence against women is in private. Research also shows that the majority of female perpetrators of domestic violence have at some time been a victim of their partner’s violence.
Women’s violence against men is rarely a mirror image of men’s violence against women.
Conversations about ‘which violence is worse’ or ‘what about men?’ distract people from enacting solutions, and downplay the seriousness of the current national crisis that is violence against women.
