Feminism has deliberately pushed for the gendered dimension of domestic violence, that women are always the victim and men the aggressor. Erin Prizzy opened the first women's shelter for domestic violence in Britain. Her book "Prone to Violence" suggested domestic violence could also be perpetuated by women against their partners and that some of these women in her shelter were violent towards their own children as a result. The conclusion that some victims of domestic violence could fit into a pattern of violence, that is they engaged in domestic violence (i.e not as a result of defending themselves or another individual but as aggressors) was completely rejected by mainstream feminism. Erin Prizzey views were so anti-feminist and controversial, that as a result of a series of threats made to herself and her family she decided to leave the country.

Erin's views are very insightful considering her interaction with the early development of the industry involving women's shelters, which she has claimed that feminists co-opted the idea to be completely about patriarchy and domestic violence against women which is now a multi-million dollar industry throughout the West through state funding and maintaining a feminist institution (along with its ideology as the dominant paradigm of domestic violence theory). Whereas male shelters of domestic violence throughout the West are very small in comparison. Along with mainstream feminist thought focusing on the Duluth model, some domestic violence helplines refer to men seeking help as exclusively being the aggressors who need counselling to control their violent ways. Feminism has fed into this notion of stereotypes about violence and gender. In fact I recall a feminist book claiming that to argue that men can also be domestic violence victims is along the radical "MRA" thinking. In essence it stated that male victims are claiming victimhood on the basis that they have beat up their partner so badly that they ended up bruising their own knuckles, and as a result have claimed to be a victim also. In fact this line of feminist thought of gender imbalance and domestic violence has become so dominant that we forget that same-sex relationships are also troubled by domestic violence that does not fit into the feminist model. Some studies have suggested same-sex relationships have higher incidences of domestic violence than heterosexuals. The mainstream feminist paradigm of domestic violence through gender and patriarchy has prevented further discussions on the complex reasons of why domestic violence occurs and it's preventing the development of how best to help the victims and their families, and how to deal with violent partners legally or through counselling without the stereotypes of women always as victim, men always the aggressor.