Tag: male survivors

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On a day dedicated to celebrating the achievements of women everywhere, for me to be writing about male victims of domestic abuse instead may sound odd. Some may not understand how that correlates with feminism. As always, the movement has a knack of highlighting inequalities you never knew existed, and I’d like this blog to be one example.

As a feminist, I don’t seek to oppress men, but to eliminate the oppression of women. I may be stating the obvious. But in light of the misogyny that has grown exponentially in recent months in the run-up to – and following – the election of the present Republican administration, it’s also unfortunately become necessary.

Likewise, actress Emma Watson was ‘quietly stunned’ by the backlash to a cover that she posed nearly topless in and shared earlier this week. Her response was to counter with, ‘Feminism is about giving women choice…It’s not a stick with which to beat women with. It’s about freedom, it’s about liberation, it’s about equality.’

That speaks directly to me. Not just because I’m a binary female, but also because I believe that in liberating women, feminism also liberates men.

How so? Fundamentally it boils down to embracing your feminine side, that bit that so terrifies men and women get picked on for espousing. ‘You run like a girl.’ ‘You dress like a woman.’ ‘Leave the touchy-feely stuff to the ladies.’

The irony of such vilification is how it reflects men’s insecurities about themselves, rather than the perceived weaknesses of the people they mock. Even they know that femininity and masculinity is inherent in all of us, to varying degrees; like yin and yang, you can’t have one without the other. Masculinity isn’t some fragile male construct that’s going to vaporise like Boss cologne when your female colleagues start punching above their weight on a regular basis.

Rather, it exists as an opportunity for men to get in touch with their ‘feminine side’ – their emotions – and try to reach some sort of inner equilibrium that way.

By that I don’t mean indulging in froufrou blouses and high heels if that’s not what you want to do. Rather, it’s a matter of taking a long, hard look at yourself and identifying what it is about you that embarrasses other men. Have you ever been picked on for showing respect towards women, or the way you run? Do you harbour a secret predilection for pink shirts? Do you have pigeon toes? If you say ‘yes’ to all of those and follow that up with ‘…and I don’t even care’, then kudos to you.

Otherwise, trivial though these questions are, they’re a way of flagging up society’s expectations of you as a man, and how these impact on your own behaviour. That women wrestle with unrealistic and often contradictory expectations every day is well-documented. But expectations of men are also unrealistic, and that’s why patterns of abusive behaviour and shame prevail more among them.

Statistics for male victims of domestic violence are hazy, but that is not unique to them. Female victims suffer in silence too. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing how many men, and how many women, are prevented from reporting intimate partner abuse due to oppression, stigma and prejudice. To put it bluntly, you can’t record silence.

However, reported statistics show that the vast majority of perpetrators are male. More men are responsible for the abuse of other men and women – and children – than women. Much of the scarce press coverage surrounding male survivors feeds off the misogynistic belief that a man wouldn’t even allow himself to get in the kind of situation that a woman would.

So prevalent is this attitude, that it even affects how the press frames domestic abuse of LGBTQ people. ‘Well, if they’re less than men’, crow the bigots, ‘it would happen to them, wouldn’t it?’

Yet the oft-touted statistic that domestic abuse affects one in four women and one in six men is not straightforward. Refuge’s own statistics reveal that a significant majority of men reporting abuse have themselves perpetuated violence against their partners, and are more likely to report one-off incidents. When the abuse is limited to four or more recurring incidents, the percentage of victims who are female jumps to 89%.

Unfortunately, it is a common tactic of perpetuators to claim victimhood as a way of covering up their own crime. They’re also far less likely to blame recurring abuse on the real victims, for the practical reason that it’s easier to remember the truth.

Where does that leave the genuine male victims? Following my own coming-out as a domestic abuse survivor three years ago, one unexpected development was the coming forward of male survivors. Although smaller in number to the female survivors who also confided in me, they had the greater impact as an illustration of how convoluted domestic abuse really is.

These straight men had been abused by their ex-partners. They demonstrated respect for women, and couldn’t understand how that could have made them victims.

What these guys highlighted was the notion that turning the table on male perpetuators simply because they’re male doesn’t redress the balance in any way – it simply redirects the misogyny without a solution. Far fewer women than men perpetuate domestic abuse – but are three times more likely to be arrested for it. How is that proportional to the numerous crimes perpetuated by men who escape arrest? 

Men suffer from domestic violence in silence due to their own stigma, imposed by other men in society. They’re less likely to report ongoing partner abuse to the police because ‘it’s too trivial or not worth reporting’. Yet the choice impacts adversely on their psychological wellbeing in the long term, and doesn’t really further the feminist cause enough if we don’t address it.

So if we’re to promote true gender equality, we need to recognise that men also suffer from domestic abuse (albeit in smaller numbers), and support them without judgement. We need to be reminding them that showing vulnerability takes courage, misogyny is primarily male self-disgust projected onto another person, and that frank admittance to their own quirks and flaws is as much a display of respect for the whole human race as it is for themselves.

Happy International Women’s Day.