Texas is particularly interesting, where a long history of gender-feminist activism has resulted in a pattern of almost-instant ex parte TROs and protective orders, and "must arrest" policies designed to remove the man from the house. The ex parte orders disregard the pattern of abuse in the family and, instead, rely solely on the stated wishes of one parent (the mother). No collaborative proof is needed to obtain, and retain, the order. As their use (or misuse) has increased, so has the incidence of child abuse perpetrated by the mother, from 64% in 1987 to 68.5% in 1994.
| State | Abuser - Mother | Abuser - Father |
| Ohio - 1993 | 68.4% | 31.2% |
| Texas - 1994 | 68.5% | 31.5% |
While some researchers have examined the relative level of injury between warring spouses (men being larger, generally, are able to inflict more severe injuries, unless a weapon is used by the woman), they have failed to examine the sex differential effect of abuse on children, particularly very young children. A 125 woman is just as dangerous to a 5 year old child as is a 160 pound man.
It becomes self-evident that ex parte protective orders, issued without collaborative evidence, and gender specific "must arrest" policies are a contributing factor to increased level of child abuse among mothers.
Why do some men choose SEXUAL aggression against women? Research shows us that batterers and rapists are very similar in their belief systems and background characteristics.The following may be of interest because some of it appears to go against this "common wisdom". It is taken from an article "The Causes of Criminal Behaviour - why do they do it?", Criminal Justice Quarterly, Department of Justice, New Zealand, 1993, Issue 3, pages 5-7.
" ... Dr Meryl McKay is a Senior Psychologist with the Department of Justice Psychological Services Division (Palmerston North). The following article gives an overview of her PhD thesis which examined what offenders see as the causes of their own offending, and also discusses practical applications for providing treatment programmes for offenders.
Dr McKay interviewed 200 offenders in prison - 50 sex offenders against children, 50 rapists, 50 violent offenders, and 50 offenders against property. the offenders were all being assessed by her as part of her usual clinical work and were given the option of also being involved in the study.
In general, child sex offenders and violent offenders attributed the causes of their offending behaviour to internal, stable and uncontrollable dimensions. In other words, they saw their behaviour as caused by strong urges from within themselves which they could not control and which always happened that way.
Rapists and property offenders attributed the causes of their offending behaviour to external, unstable and controllable dimensions. That is, they saw the causes as originating outside themselves, as varying over time, and as under their control.
Rapists reported urges for sex with an adult woman as a major cause of offending. They gave no consideration to women's concerns, often had distorted views of their victims' attitudes towards force and violence being used as part of sex, and so saw rape as an acceptable way of meeting sexual needs. Other researchers have identified power and anger as being major causes of rape behaviour. However these causes were of minor importance in the present study. Rather, the important conclusion of this study in regard to rape is that in future it may be necessary to address other issues, and avoid preoccupation with anger management solutions.
Violent offenders seemed often to be offending not for reasons of anger, but for various other emotional reasons. While anger management courses have a definite place in therapy, simply sending all violent offenders on them would be inappropriate. Rather than focusing on anger as the major problem for these offenders, programmes should focus on violent offenders' thoughts, in particular their attributions for their offending behaviour. ... Domestic violence may involve a wide variety of emotions (including feelings of rejection and jealousy) which act as a trigger for anger, as well as alcohol abuse in many cases. their treatment needs to address all these emotions an factors, not just the anger. Offenders need to be taught non-violent problem solving for a range of emotions."