On the November 16 edition of Fox News' Your World, during a discussion of women buying Tasers for self-defense, author Marc Rudov claimed that “women are equal-opportunity domestic abusers” and asserted that the websites for the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) feature statistics “showing women and men commit domestic violence equally.”

In fact, the CDC's 2006 Fact Sheet on Understanding Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) states that "[e]ach year, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes" while "[m]en are the victims of about 2.9 million intimate partner related physical assaults." In addition, the joint CDC/National Institute of Justice report cited on the fact sheet also reported: “Women living with female intimate partners experience less intimate partner violence than women living with male intimate partners”; “Men living with male intimate partners experience more intimate partner violence than do men who live with female intimate partners”; and concluded: “These findings ... provide further evidence that intimate partner violence is perpetrated primarily by men, whether against male or female intimates.” Further, while Media Matters for America could find no statistics at the HHS website “showing women and men commit domestic violence equally,” statistics from the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics are consistent with those cited by the CDC and indicate that women experience more nonfatal and fatal incidents of intimate partner violence.

Rudov's false assertion came during a recurring “Lis vs. Marc” segment on Your World, featuring Rudov, author of The Man's No-Nonsense Guide to Women (MHR Enterprises, 2004) and Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables, and Fox News legal analyst and University of Washington associate professor of law Lis Wiehl.

From the November 16 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:

CAVUTO: All right, well, forget Tupperware, women across the country are now gathering for Taser parties. I kid you not. And here's a shocker -- Marc Rudov is not happy about it. He says this is giving jealous wives and girlfriends a license to assault men. Lis Wiehl disagrees and might want to zap Marc with a Taser. She's the author of The 51 Percent Minority (Ballantine, February 2007), he the author of The Man's No-Nonsense Guide to Women. Marc, explain your position.

RUDOV: Well, Neil, as you know, in Vancouver airport this week, a Polish national died by being Tased. These are dangerous devices, and every time somebody dies we hear, “Oh, that wasn't supposed to happen.” And now what's happening, women are buying Tasers, and they're dangerous. They're like Jane Bonds with licenses to kill men and the reason is a lot of women want to use tasers for self-defense, which I understand, but there are a lot of other women who are going to use them out of spite and anger and revenge, and there's no way to separate the two because the the Violence Against Women Act gives women lopsided rights in hurting men with impunity. This makes it dangerous for men, and if a man meets a woman who has a Taser, he should be very, very afraid of her.

WIEHL: Marc, you know what? I really do want to tase you for this one. This is ridiculous. I mean, many hundreds of thousands, millions of women for years in their pocketbooks -- I'm one of them -- carry Mace and a whistle. This is one more protective --

CAVUTO: Do you really?

WIEHL. Absolutely. To be able to pull that thing out --

CAVUTO: Better be careful with you.

WIEHL: Be careful with me. You know, this is one more thing to protect yourself. I mean, Marc, four women -- four American women die every day at the hands of their husband or their boyfriend. You know, domestic violence is a bigger injury -- threat of injury to women than rape, mugging, cancer, breast cancer, all of those things combined. So, if women have a tool, a Taser, that they can use in a domestic violence situation or a rape situation, more power to 'em, Marc. You should be ashamed of yourself.

RUDOV: Well, Neil, the first thing you should realize is that Lis has threatened me. So that's already assault.

WIEHL: Oh, there you go. I'm 3,000 miles away from you.

RUDOV: So I'm already afraid of Lis. The second thing, Lis, is that you should stay off the National Organization for Women website where they have phony statistics and go onto the government websites like HHS and the Center for Disease Control where they show that women and men commit domestic violence equally. Don't shake your head -- it's true.

WIEHL:Mark, that's ridiculous.

RUDOV: It's not ridiculous --

WIEHL: Oh, that's absolutely ridiculous.

RUDOV: The problem is a lot of the men do not report domestic violence because they're too ashamed. The fact is that women are equal-opportunity domestic abusers and that they're often more violent than men. So when you have a woman who says, “I'd like to tase you,” I'd take that threat seriously. And you should not have a Taser, Lis.

WIEHL: Marc -- Marc --

CAVUTO: What do you think, Lis? There are a lot of these Tasers being sold.

WIEHL: Good. Good.

CAVUTO: An inordinate number. But there could be danger with that, right?

WIEHL: But look, is a woman --

RUDOV: And children can get into their mother's purse and take those Tasers, and those children can use the Tasers.

WIEHL: Keep the kids out for a second. Let's take another point you said. You say women are going to be -- jealous, petty women are going to go Tasing their boyfriends and husbands.

RUDOV: That's right.

WIEHL: If they do that, Mark, that's assault. They're going to jail for that, just like a guy would.

RUDOV: Oh, I'm glad you said that, Lis. Let's go back to Duke University. Crystal Gayle Mangham accused three men falsely of rape, and guess what happened to her? Nothing. And that's what happens to women who abuse men -- nothing happens.

WIEHL: Marc -- no -- no. If a woman assaults a man with a Taser, unwarranted -- he's just walking down the street and she tases him, she's going to be -- she's going to be sued or found guilty for assault. That's absolute.

CAVUTO: No, she can claim --

RUDOV: No she won't. All she has to do --

CAVUTO: -- no, she can claim that he did something to her, right?

RUDOV: Under the cloak of the Violence Against Women Act, which Joe Biden is responsible for, all she has to say, to use VAWA language, is, “He made me feel afraid.” And no cop is going to be able to prove she wasn't afraid. So she will be able to do it with impunity, Lis.

WIEHL: Excuse me. You know -- Marc, Marc, Marc. It used to be that a cop could not arrest someone unless he actually saw the assault happening in front of him. At least we gotten further away from then -- than that. I mean, these Tasers can't be used --

CAVUTO: All right.

WIEHL: They can be misused, but those women are going to jail for misuse of them.

RUDOV: No, you're totally off-base, Lis.

CAVUTO: Guys, guys, you stop now or I'll Taser the both of you, but

WIEHL: Now that's a threat.

CAVUTO: That is a threat.

RUDOV: Stay away from women with Tasers.

CAVUTO: Guys, thank you very, very much.