Florida Women Charged With Domestic Battery Reflect Violent Trend

HOLIDAY, FL — One woman is accused of squeezing her husband's genitals so hard he has problems walking. Another is accused of shoving lemon cake in her mother's face.

These are two of the domestic battery complaints involving violence by women that Pasco County Sheriff's deputies investigated during the past week. It's a trend experts say is becoming more common throughout the country.

The most recent occurred Tuesday when deputies were called to Country Club Drive in Hudson. According to deputies, Margaret Wren, 47, was charged with domestic battery after getting into a fight with her fiance during which deputies said she bit and scratched her fiance so hard she drew blood.

On Monday, deputies were called to Coldwell Drive in Holiday for another domestic violence incident. Anastacia Tasch, 44, was charged after her husband complained that, while he was sleeping on the couch, she grabbed his genitals so hard, he crumpled over in pain and had problems walking. Tasch claimed she was trying to arouse her husband.

A Port Richey woman is facing domestic battery charges as well after being accused of throwing a bucket of black paint and a paintbrush at her husband's head. Angela Lynn Yglesias, 41, of Nova Scotia Drive was arrested Friday.

A 21-year-old Holiday woman is facing multiple charges after she was accused of shoving lemon cake into her mother's face and then stealing her brother's cell phone, so he couldn't call 911, declaring, "Nobody is calling the cops today." Brittany Leeann Mapel of Truman Drive was charged with domestic battery and tampering with a witness Friday. Additionally, she was charged in an incident in June in which she was accused of chasing her boyfriend with a switchblade knife and slashing the tires on his truck. She was also arrested on a Pinellas County warrant for violation of her pretrial release in an aggravated animal cruelty case.

Although women, by far, are most often the victims of domestic violence, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence are finding an increasing number of cases of intimidation, physical assault, sexual assault and other abusive behavior committed by women against their domestic partners or family members.

In relationships involving chronic intimate partner violence, the coalition said it's often hard to determined who is the core abuser and who is the victim.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey:
• 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have been victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime.
• 1 in 5 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
• 1 in 7 women and 1 in 18 men have been stalked by an intimate partner during their lifetime to the point in which they felt very fearful or believed that they or someone close to them would be harmed or killed.

The reasons why more women are turning to violence in relationships is unclear, according to the coalition.

"Throughout our research, we were unable to find data that quantified how often women were identified as the primary abuser in the relationship," said the coalition. "Anecdotally, we know they exist, but we were unable to find statistics that clarified how prevalent they may be."

One reason for the lack of data is the increasing number of domestic violence incidents taking place in same-sex relationships in which both the abuser and victim is a woman.

The other reason may be the unwillingness of men to report that they've been abused. However, researchers say more men are now stepping forward to report violence.