Originally Posted by
timetohealguy 
Yes I understand and respect what you are saying.
I am absolutely not having a go in any way whatsoever at, nor genderizing, nor minimizing in any way, any of the comments that people have posted in this thread about abuse they have experienced. Abuse is wrong. Period. By males or by females.
All I am saying is that IMHO, it would help everyone, as the human species, to treat the problem of emotional, verbal and physical abuse of family members by alcoholics as primarily an alcoholism problem, and not primarily a gender based problem. ANY abuse of family members as a result of alcohol abuse, by women or by men, is a massive problem, and as a species, humankind needs to have a zero tolerance policy towards abuse of family members by male alcoholics and towards abuse of family members by female alcoholics - it is incredibly damaging to both male and female family members.
A simple way to test that hypothesis, regardless of the gender of the abuser, is to ask ... "if not for the alcoholism, would this abuse be occurring ?"
If the answer to that question is "no, without the alcoholism this abuse would not be occurring", then it is an alcoholism problem - the alcoholism is a causal factor.
If the answer to that question is "yes, without the alcoholism this abuse would still be occurring", then it is a behavioral or personality disorder problem.
Of course you can also get into the overlap between personality disorders and substance abuse, and that is a very long discussion topic indeed !