Ok, so I’m cheating now because I’m in a hurry and I’ve got a train to catch.
But I thought JenniferRuth’s comment on the Blokeosphere thread deserved better than to be buried in a row about “he said” “she said” whatever.
So here it is again:
“I would say that the attitudes demonstrated in these polls are at the root of DV. Society makes an awful lot of excuses for why someone did something. I think we need to start at the very bottom – violence is never acceptable. A lot of abusers come from abusive backgrounds themselves, an I think that counselling could be a great help for them, but never at the expense of the women they are abusing. I think women need to be taken more seriously when they suffer from DV and we need to recognise that it isn’t as easy as saying “well just leave them” – abusers usually start off as the nicest man you’ll ever met. Great listeners, very sweet and they gain the trust of women. The abuse usually starts as little digs, ways to undermine the self-confidence of their partner – subtle stuff, which is laid on a groundwork of love and trust. So when that first violent attack comes the victim has already had so much of their self-esteem eroded that they will listen when the abuser promises never to do it again, when they say how much they love them and how sorry they are. And the cycle continues.
We need people to understand this cycle in order to reduce victim blaming. We need people to put the blame on the abuser – this does not mean that I don’t think the abuser should not get help, because god knows it takes a certain kind of fucked up psychology to do that. The first time a woman looks for support for DV then the police and courts need to take that seriously. The woman needs to know she has an out. The abuser needs to know that violence will not be accepted. It should not take a woman calling the police 3 or 4 times to be taken seriously. The most dangerous time for a woman who is suffering from DV is when she tries to leave. That is when most victims die.
At the moment we are almost willing to overlook what is regarded as “minor” incidents. It is changing this attitude that will allow us to help women break out of the cycle – and abusers too. We need to be there for that first incident of DV, without victim blaming, without analysing to death the whys or wheres, without asking who started it, and say that it is not acceptable. If we can do that, then I think we can help both men and women destroy the cycle of abuse.
I’m not saying that this won’t take a lot of work – like you, I feel it is a huge wall. But I have a lot of faith in men and women and I think it is possible.
I welcome other peoples thoughts.”
So do I.
Too Much To Say For Myself 
This is all complete common sense to me and it makes me thankful and hopeful to read it. As a previous DV victim I lost count of the times well meaning people said well just leave him then. Unless you’ve been there you don’t know how, without any confidence, it’s very hard to do anything apart from stay there because you believe the lie that it’s all your fault. Yes abusers do come from abusive backgrounds and yes the cycle must be broken, blaming must stop, counselling must start, children need to be taught how to respect others in relationships and yes above all any violence is wrong. 25% of rape victims go on to develop depression or other mental illness (I was one who did) they must be believed and helped the first time they ask. Ending DV has to be a priority for all political parties.
I agree, JR. The sad thing is that it seems to me that just as the police response to DV – although not rape – is starting to shift, albeit ever so slowly and creakily (automatic arrests for DV etc), the public response seems to have taken two steps backwards.
I refer to the recent survey where one in seven thought it was OK to hit a woman for ‘nagging’, and so on.
I think this issue should be dealt with in schools in a similar way as sex education, but realistically. Children tend to be less aware of or able to conceive of the full consequences of actions. They see violent films and games, and even on the news, they learn about the fact of violence but not the aftermath. Perhaps this needs to be addressed with education?
Very well said. It’s so simple, I don’t know why people have so much trouble with these ideas.
I think it is a very good post too. I agree with much of it.
I think where I would urge caution on a couple of points though. First is the section that begins “abusers usually start off as the nicest man you’ll ever meet…”
This is the type of stereotyping we need to get away from, IMO. Some abusers doubtless fit the caricature, but many do not. Some of them, to be frank, are violent, aggressive swine from the word go, with rampaging drug and alcohol problems and a criminal record that goes halfway down the street. And of course there every point in between.
I believe that we need to recognise that domestic violence and abuse take many forms, and happen for many reasons. There are undoubtedly some male abusers who are coercive, controlling bullies, they may have psychopathic personalities, they may have a sense of patriarchal entitlement, or they may just be old-fashioned violent bastards. Their female partners may be entirely blameless victims.
However the great majority of DV situations are not that clear cut. It’s often a mess of psychopathology, habitual violence, contributory alcohol and substance abuse, provocation, emotional and psychological abuse and more. Just to give one anecdote, I thought this comment over on Cif (it’s OK, just the one comment) was quite illustrative of how complex these situations often are.
And that leads me on to my other slight quibble with Jennifer’s post. I think we need to get away from the blame the victim / blame the abuser dichotomy.
There is never any excuse for interpersonal violence, and it should never be considered acceptable. But I think the very word (or concept) of ‘blame’ is often unhelpful and counter-productive. I’d rather we talked about responsibility.
In the real, messy world of domestic abuse, we have relationships in which violence is used. It might be unidirectional or it might be reciprocal, it doesn’t matter. If the relationship is to continue, then the aim must be to stop the violence, or at the very least reduce it to the minimum. It is the responsibility of both (or all) parties to adapt their behaviour to stop violence occurring. In some cases only the violent abuser has that power – to stop abusing, but in many other cases both parties can accept some responsibility for, say, controlling excess drinking or controlling expressions of anger and
oops – to finish
…anger and abusiveness within the relationship.
In summary, I think we need a debate that reflects the reality of violent relationships as they are, not a Disneyfied caricature of heroes and villains, innocent victims and evil abusers.
If we can get to grips with all of that, there is a chance we can actually make a difference to the levels of domestic violence in society.
Anyway, Jennifer, many thanks for the opportunity for some serious discussion.
It sounds to me like you are saying that victims of abuse have 1) the power and 2) the responsibility to stop the abuse. Say what? Am I misunderstanding you? It sounds like someone saying “well, rape victims just need to stop dressing so dang sexy.”
Domestic violence is a crime and the perpetrators need to be locked up for it as they would for any other violent crime. This isn’t happening at the moment. Courts often decided that because the perp is the breadwinner he needs to remain free to support the family, thus he can go back to the woman he’s abusing, with the added rage that she dared to try to hold him accountable for his actions. You can imagine how that turns out for her.
There isn’t much evidence that therapy works. Lundy Bancroft, who has been working with male abusers for twenty years or so, says they are very unlikely to change. What does work is total social condemnation, particularly from those nearest to him. You’ll often find a whole group of family and friends acting as enablers for the male batterers’ criminal activities. The person needing therapy and support and who will actually be helped by it is the victim.
There are some cultures where if a man is suspected of DV, the rest of the men in the community/family will basically do an intervention with him and call him out and make him answer for what he did, tell him to stop, etc. I love this idea- make it mens’ responsibility to call out other men.
Buggle76:
“It sounds to me like you are saying that victims of abuse have 1) the power and 2) the responsibility to stop the abuse. Say what? Am I misunderstanding you?”
Yes, you are.
Principally I’m saying that victims of abuse are no more monolithic than perpetrators are, and so long as we attempt to squeeze their circumstances and situation into a rigid explanatory paradigm then we risk misunderstanding the problem and offering inappropriate responses.
——
delphyne
“There isn’t much evidence that therapy works. Lundy Bancroft, who has been working with male abusers for twenty years or so, says they are very unlikely to change. What does work is total social condemnation, particularly from those nearest to him.”
From what I know of Lundy Bancroft, he writes about a specific category of abuser, normally known as “coercive controllers” or “intimate terrorists.” Such people are, by common consent, particularly hard to treat. However (depending whose research you prefer) such perpetrators probably represent somewhere between 10 and 30% of DV cases.
It’s important to stress that ‘treating’ DV perpetrators is only one small part of possible clinical and social interventions. There are lots of other interventions available. I’d strongly recommend Hamel & Nicholls, Family Interventions in Domestic Violence, for a more extensive overview of the issues.
oh, and buggle76:
“There are some cultures where if a man is suspected of DV, the rest of the men in the community/family will basically do an intervention with him and call him out and make him answer for what he did, tell him to stop, etc. I love this idea- make it mens’ responsibility to call out other men.”
I like this idea – although I see no reason to restrict it to men.
See the wonderful work by Linda G Mills on restorative justice and healing circles, particularly as outlined in her book Violent Partners.
Ally, can you expand on what you mean when you say this:
“…victims of abuse are no more monolithic than perpetrators are, and so long as we attempt to squeeze their circumstances and situation into a rigid explanatory paradigm then we risk misunderstanding the problem and offering inappropriate responses.”
I’m wondering a few things:
1) Who says that victims of abuse are all the same? I’m not familiar with this idea.
2) What is this rigid explanatory paradigm that you speak of?
3) What do you think are the “inappropriate responses?”
Oh, never mind Ally. I just read this post:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/10/women-domestic-violence
And it told me all I needed to know. We disagree on a fundamental level. Your motives are to prove that violence against women isn’t about patriarchy or sexism, but about individuals making their own bad choices.
buggle76
“Your motives are to prove that violence against women isn’t about patriarchy or sexism, but about individuals making their own bad choices.”
I wouldn’t use the phrase ‘bad choices’ because I don’t think it is often as simple as people ‘choosing’ to be violent (although that can happen.) It’s about preventing or discouraging individuals from being violent.
I’d also point out that you’re describing my means to an end, not an end in itself. I have no interest in proving that VAW isn’t about patriarchy or sexism just so that I can win an intellectual, ideological debate.
My motive, in all honesty, is to explore and highlight alternative policy options that could help us reduce violence against women (and against everyone else.) That’s the ultimate aim.
I get grumpy whenever men come into threads about the epidemic of violence against women, and start talking about how women are abusers too, and how some victims aren’t so innocent. That sends up a lot of red flags for me. If you truly care about violence against women, then cool, but you have to be aware of how you are coming across on a feminist blog.
I pretty much stopped reading below the line on a lot of CiF threads cos I’ve gotten so sick of Misandry Watch leaping on every article about women and directing the discussion away from the issue at hand. Of course I don’t think violence or sexual abuse against men, domestic or otherwise, is non-existant or unworthy of attention, but I do believe that fundamentally much violence aginst women by men is a gendered crime and is worth considering separately. Not to say that issues like drug and alcohol misuse or a generally tempestuous relationship should be entirely discounted in terms of their influence, but when you’re dealing with someone’s fundamental, deep-seated assumptions about half the population and about their relationships with that half, you really need to get stuck in, and often for the long haul.
I hasten to add I don’t see AllyF as part of Misandry Watch – I find him frequently informative, and/or entertaining and his posts well-thought out and serious where seriousness is needed. But (and you could prob see that word coming) I did utterly despair of the last AllyF-penned CiF piece, disagreeing with it fundamentally for the reasons I’ve stated above. It was just depressing to see all the triumphant t*ssers jumping on it as part of a great new wave of journalism telling the TRUTH finally about the oppression of men at the hands of the feminist government (seriously, WTF??) – clearly misunderstanding the piece, wilfully or otherwise, but the dismissal of the gendered aspect to male-on-female DV that came across in the piece (though AllyF clarified his view later in the thread, the piece didn’t convey the greater balance of that all that well) did rather feed the trolls in my humble opinion.
As anyone who vaguely remembers my CiF postings might recall, I am a probation officer, and am hence in a position which seems to be somewhat unusual if not unique in the bloggers and posters I’ve read: for years it’s been my job to sit down with abusive men and discuss with them, or confront and challenge them on, why they do/did it, and try to tackle the problems. I’ll keep things brief as my comment is rambling enough but even those for whom there was some evidence of a genuinely mutual degree of antagonism, aggression and violence in the relationship these things were true:
– the men always went further in the violence than their partners, including some charmers who thought pinning her to the ground with a knife to her throat was necessary and proportionate to her slapping his face. Also, I have never heard of a case of any woman who has hogtied a partner and inflicted dozens of burns or cut off a part of their body on grounds that they suspected infidelity. Not that common among men either, to be fair, but this kind of thing happens way more often than anyone believes, and the guys I’ve met who have done that were not ravening monsters – would be an easier job for me if they were, trust me!
– the women in such relationships generally had convictions for more wide-ranging low-level public disorder, linked to substance misuse or mental health problems (I often knew this cos they were on probation too, with another officer). In my experience men who are violent in relationships do not very often have a generalised anger management problem or many if any convictions for violence or aggression outside the home or relationship. Something tells them they have ‘permission’ in there or against her.
– Women assaulting male partners (never came across any F-on-F so can’t comment there) related their actions to a wider mood or period of depression or anger at something else which they then (wrongly, of course) took out on him. Not that this excuses violence at all, but compare it to the men’s stories: I’d say 7 times out of 10 they came down to ‘she shouldn’t have done/said that’. Expectations of conduct in relationships play a bigger part in M-on-F DV than vice versa in my submission. Could this possibly be related to the fact that men have historically been in charge in the family, their house is their castle, etc? Or does this suggestion make me a rabid misandrist??
Just three factors off the top of my head, and some stuff to get off my chest. It makes me head hurt that people don’t get this. Will stop hogging the comment box now Cath. Sorry. Big fan btw, long-time read first-time commenter [can I get my ‘Down With Men’ tshirt and pen now? ;o)].
vi
I think we need to get away from the blame the victim / blame the abuser dichotomy.
Gosh that good old dichotomy eh? So apparent in the reporting of most crimes. A man is mugged in the street. Oh who should we blame? It’s so hard…..I mean he had a bulging wallet, he was probably asking for it.
How about we blame the abuser? Since they’re the one who’s done something wrong……
And re the suppposed epidemic of female perpetrated domestic violence. (I think it’s like the squillions of female rapists I was reading about elsewhere). Sometimes there’s racially motivated violence against white people. Does that mean racism doesn’t exist?
“the men always went further in the violence than their partners, including some charmers who thought pinning her to the ground with a knife to her throat was necessary and proportionate to her slapping his face.”
That’s common with abusers though, to take some very minor misdeed by their victim and use it as an excuse for using massive destructive force against her.
We actually saw that in the video Cath linked to of the girl getting beaten up in the police station. She did something minorly aggressive – kicking her shoes at him – so he launched her across the room, smashed her into a wall, knocked her out by the looks of it and wrestled her on to the ground. Then he went back after she’d been dragged semi-conscious out of the cell to see if there was any blood or evidence left behind by what he’d done – totally in control and aware of his crimes. He’d have used her very minor aggression as justification and excuse in his head for the violence that he was just waiting for the opportunity to use against her. She doesn’t know it’s coming, but he’s already planning it, he’s just waiting for something to “allow” him to do it.
You hear similar things like a violent man who will tell his wife that it’s OK for her to go to the shops, but he won’t tell her she has a time limit (probably an unreasonable one) so if she breaks the time limit, as she is likely to, he will assault her to punish her.
What these men believe is that they *own* women which is why they think they can treat them like this. Men literally did own women up until very recently, in some countries like Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, fathers and husbands do still own women and are able to totally control their lives. Men set up laws and systems for themselves to justify and legalise their ownership of women. It’s only women fighting back that has changed any of this. On their own men would have kept the status quo, and they fought women every step of the way. Pointing this kind of thing out will get a woman called stupid names like “misandrist” or “Feminazi” to take the focus off the fact that it is men who wanted this state of affairs and men who have fought to keep it like that.
“In my experience men who are violent in relationships do not very often have a generalised anger management problem or many if any convictions for violence or aggression outside the home or relationship.”
Yes. That is true of all the abusers I know of. They are all respectable middle-class men who ‘just’ lash out at home.
I am aware that they are often unhappy themselves, or insecure, or have their own problems. What differentiates them from other people (women, just to pick an example at random) is the fact that they take it out on the closest people to them who they know can’t/won’t fight back, and the reason for that is this:
“What these men believe is that they *own* women which is why they think they can treat them like this.”
I once heard a woman telling a jokey anecdote about her nine-year-old son’s resemblance to his father, in that he had told her off (yep, this is the *son*) for wearing too short a skirt because ‘men were looking at her’. AFAIK it wasn’t a violent relationship, but for me it really demonstrates just how deeply ingrained these beliefs are.
Erich Fromm says that in any authoritarian relationship, the greatest crime, the one which is ALWAYS punished with deliberate and vicious ruthlessness, is to challenge the authority figure. The authoritarian relationships he was referring to were God/believer, parent/child, and master/slave. However, the similarities with violent male/abused female are striking.
Any woman who hasn’t read Lundy Bancroft’s “Why does he do that: Inside the minds of angry and controlling men” would be well advised to get a copy.
Bancroft spills the beans on male controllers. Most of the myths we hear about domestic violence come direct from the lips of batterers themselves – like the idea that responsibility for the violence is 50-50, like the claim that the batterer is somehow out of control, like the idea that he is somehow mentally disturbed or has been hurt in the past which is why he is behaving like this now (Josef Fritzl is claiming his mummy was nasty to him). Most batterers don’t have mental health issues – what they have is a distorted belief (although one which society backs up) that because they are men they have the right to treat their female partners like this. It’s all done on a very conscious basis.
In Siddharth Kara’s buzzy new book on sexual slavery, he makes a point to dissuade readers from trying to solve the problem by educating pimps and johns.
The men knew they were doing something shameful and hurting people but they didn’t care because they didn’t suffer the consequences, their victims did.
hi Delphyne –
I haven’t seen Bancroft’s work but will try to find it, thanks. “to take some very minor misdeed by their victim and use it as an excuse for using massive destructive force against her.” Absolutely. I know this could be seen as a bit horrid but this is how we have to get through our day sometimes, when we hear the same awful stuff so often it becomes a bit surreal (like the black humour common to the medical profession): myself and some of my colleagues sometimes joked about our score on a ‘bullshit bingo’ for DV interviews, items including:
“She’s a fiery woman!”
“You don’t know what she’s like when she goes on about something”
“It must’ve been that time of the month for her, you know what they’re like” (to female officers too, they seem to forget we’re women sometimes for some reason, though for others it really sticks in the craw)
“She knows how to push my buttons”
“She kept on about it, she knew I’d react”
“She made me so angry”
Re the latter point and Finisterre’s post about “men who ‘just’ lash out at home”, that’s a justification where challenging and interrogating it can be really effective in my experience, usually over a few sessions. My approach is, ok, you were angry, talk a bit about how that feels, then move on to other situations in which the chap gets angry, where his ‘buttons’ are ‘pushed’, for example his annoying boss, queue jumpers, unfair treatment or indifference in the benefits office, your mum ‘nagging’, someone being ruse or insulting to you. Lots of guys described the same feelings of anger, physical signs like gritting his teeth, increased heart rate, nasty thoughts about the person etc, BUT crucially most of them didn’t go on to assault that person. Ergo, there is no anger management problem as the person can manage themselves fine in every other situation. There’s an entitlement felt with her. That’s often been the turning point with a victim-blaming punter for me, and can lead to a productive look at their attitudes to women and relationships, wherever those fall on the scale of awfulness.
Shame lots of defence lawyers (male and female) encourage the use of the anger management excuse in court cases, as mitigation that they hope can affect the sentence. Magistrates and judges are getting way better at examining the actual evidence for this, thankfully, but I still do see some rare plonkers sentence DV perpetrators to attend anger management – an intervention which stands a good chance of actually increasing the risk to known victims by encouraging their delusion that she’s deliberately ‘triggering’ their ‘condition’. Also once had a case where the violent partner was curfewed to the victim’s address while awaiting sentence, and this wasn’t the most minor matter – the two children witnessed the offence and lived in that home too, for a start.
What a lot of interesting comments.
Violet – thank you for that thoughtful and thought-provoking post. I don’t dispute anything you say (other than disagreeing just slightly about my article, obviously!)
It should be borne in mind though, that as a probation officer you are seeing a small subset of violent abusers. As we all know, it is a small (too small) proportion of DV cases that ever result in a prosecution, and those that do are inevitably the most persistent, brutal and dangerous offenders.
As I said in the original thread here, I agree that as violence becomes more extreme, the gender differential increases. Males are significantly more prone to the most serious acts of violence, sadism and cruelty, there’s no doubt about that, both in domestic violence and other violent crime too.
But this is where the typology of DV becomes crucial, and where it becomes really important to define what we are talking about. I don’t believe that only the most extreme violence is “domestic violence” or that only the most extreme cases are of concern. There are a hell of a lot of people living in physical danger from violence, along with all the fear and depression and consequences for kids etc, whose cases will never get anywhere near a court, and they need help too – not least because without intervention, their circumstances can become increasingly dangerous.
And it is at that level – the great majority of (forgive the phrase) “common or garden” violent relationships – where we are letting people down. One of the reasons for that, I believe, is that they commonly do not fit the ideological template of an innocent female victim and violent controlling male abuser. The picture is much more messy, and (sorry, but this is simply true) includes unidirectional female violence against men, among all the other combinations, of course. People suffering in these relationships need help too, and it is simply unacceptable to brush these complexities under the carpet because they don’t fit the agenda.
What you said here, I think is fascinating:
“Expectations of conduct in relationships play a bigger part in M-on-F DV than vice versa in my submission. Could this possibly be related to the fact that men have historically been in charge in the family, their house is their castle, etc?”
I don’t deny for a second that men and women are different (tho’ equal, of course!) Part of that is that men and women (statistically, not necessarily individually) respond to different triggers and stimuli in different ways. However there’s a fairly well observed phenomenon in psychology that people tend to act at a much more impulsive level than they rationalise. I’ve momentarily forgotten the jargon of the theory (tired!) but people in many situations act quite impulsively and then find rationalisations afterwards. Those rationalisations will be in keeping with social expectations of conduct, self-image, all that kinda thing. My point is that perhaps there are bigger differences between the explanations given (by self or others) for female and male behaviour than there are for the actual behaviour itself – which might be a much more impulsive, learned response. Having said that, I don’t deny that socialisation is a factor in male violence, socialisation is a mechanism of patriarchy, and so to that extent some DV probably does stem from cultural misogyny etc. I don’t have a problem with that. It’s the absolutism of the ideological feminist position on DV that I have issues with, and I hope I’ve made that clear on many occasions.
Sheesh, knackered now.
Will try to respond to the other points from other ppl when I’ve had a rest!
Polly
“Sometimes there’s racially motivated violence against white people. Does that mean racism doesn’t exist?”
Good analogy. I don’t say that sexism doesn’t exist, that misogyny doesn’t exist, any more than I think racism doesn’t exist. But I don’t believe that if a black person hits a white person or vice versa it is necessarily racially-motivated. It might be, but it could happen for lots of other reasons too.
———-
Finisterre
“Erich Fromm says that in any authoritarian relationship, the greatest crime, the one which is ALWAYS punished with deliberate and vicious ruthlessness, is to challenge the authority figure. The authoritarian relationships he was referring to were God/believer, parent/child, and master/slave. However, the similarities with violent male/abused female are striking.”
I agree with Fromm (and you) on that. It’s a very good description of the coercive controller. But I keep coming back to the same point – not all DV cases fit that description, and those that don’t are not irrelevant.
Family/relationship dynamics are very varied. Many are marked by constant jostling for control. Most of us don’t live in a 1950s cliche of working husband and stay-at-home domesticated stepford wife. The British psychologist Nicola Graham-Kevan has done a lot of research on violent women recently, and has found a similar typography to that seen in violent men – ie that it includes a significant minority who don’t just lash out in anger or respond in fear, but who are coercive controllers. The big difference is in the extremity of the violence, which may be largely but not entirely down to physicality – men are bigger etc, but also more prone to acts of extreme brutality.
Again, I stress I’m not saying that as many men as women are at risk, or that women as a sex are just as violent as men. They are not. Far more men than women are violent thugs. But they are violent in all sorts of ways, and it’s not a numbers game. If we take on board the fact that women can be violent and abusive sometimes too, it actually gives us a lot of insight into why *people* are violent in any circumstances.
There is much more to explain violent behaviour of all sorts than just gender. By focussing on that one aspect of violent crime and abuse, we lose track of others that I believe are far more urgent.
None of the DV situations I know of personally have involved any violence from the women; they were simply too terrified and too busy trying not to do anything to provoke further wrath.
None of them would have shocked anyone with any awareness of the levels of DV in this country, either; they weren’t ‘extreme cases’, just the punches and the forced sex and the dead legs and the tube of foundation always ready to hide the bruises, and of course, the walking on eggshells and the daily grind of fear, tension and verbal abuse.
What seems to be missing from analyses that seek to share the blame is the fact that sustained DV is usually accompanied by verbal and emotional abuse that renders the woman unable to speak up for herself, let alone raise a hand to defend herself.
I don’t have an ideological template for this, nor do I have any investment in casting men as the irredeemable villains of the piece or ‘brushing complexities under the carpet’. I am just speaking from my knowledge of women who couldn’t even defy their partners *when they weren’t there*, such was the fear, let alone participating in some kind of Punch’n’Judyfest when he came home.
Hi Ally. I posted my last before I saw your post addressed to me. I appreciate your efforts to engage, and you seem to know a lot more than me about female violence. I sympathise with all victims of violence and applaud any efforts you make to combat any form of it.
However, I have a different perspective from you. In the same way that you perceive male-on-female DV as part of a backdrop of violence in general, mostly but *not all* carried out by men, which cannot be understood without reference to that backdrop, I perceive male-on-female DV as part of a backdrop of patriarchal oppression of women, mostly but not all carried out by men, which cannot be understood without reference to that backdrop.
Therefore, since I believe that objectification of women via porn, stripping, prostitution and trafficking, and oppression, torture and murder of women in the name of religion, and pressure on women to starve and mutilate and endlessly criticise themselves are inextricably intertwined with male-on-female domestic violence, and since this is part of the raison d’etre of patriarchy, I am more than happy to leave the issue of female-on-male violence to those, like you, who wish to pursue it.
As far as I am aware (I think I have seen you say this, but apols if not), you don’t even believe the patriarchy exists. I do, and I believe that one of its effects is to divide and rule women and subject those of us who seek to find strength in solidarity to ridicule and insults, and if those don’t succeed, to violence and death.
I am not asking you to agree with me. However, I do ask you to accept that those of us who believe in it simply do not agree that MoF and FoM DV *must* be considered in tandem.
delphyne
I’ll admit I haven’t read any of Lundy’s work, but I have seen his name come up often in contexts like this, and I knew the titles of his books etc.
I’ve just been googling him. I don’t doubt that he is an experienced counsellor and perfectly entitled to his views, but he doesn’t appear to have any peer-reviewed research to his name; he has developed his own unique, patented brand of therapy with a catchy name (which rings a lot of alarm bells for me) and above all, he doesn’t actually seem to have any qualifications beyond a BA.
His books don’t appear to have been reviewed by (m)any clinicians or academics, and seem to be marketed as self-helf pulp. (I should know, I used to be a self-help bookseller for my sins.)
None of that means he’s wrong, of course, I’m not much better qualified myself. But it does mean that I’m rather less inclined to pay attention to him than say, Donald Dutton, whose book The Abusive Personality paints a rather different story, and who has an academic and clinical CV stretching from here to Toronto.
Ally – sometimes twenty years as a counsellor and working with a specific group can offer more insight and knowledge than a plethora of academic qualifications. However, staying with the academic credentials – counsellors have extensive particular training and very often experience working with people in therapeutic environments on top of their B.A. or whatever. So for you to say “I’m not much better qualified myself” is not relevant as I imagine that Lundy’s experience and training are specific to counselling.
One more for now…
Finisterre:
However, I have a different perspective from you… I perceive male-on-female DV as part of a backdrop of patriarchal oppression of women, mostly but not all carried out by men…
Therefore, since I believe that objectification of women via porn…
… are inextricably intertwined with male-on-female domestic violence”
This does take us to the point where we’ll have to agree to differ!
I just don’t quite see it. I don’t accept the grand social narrative theory of human behaviour, instead I think our actions are determined and shaped by a vast interlinked, contradictory, unpredictable web of influences and experiences.
Prevailing social attitudes towards sex, sexuality, gender, violence etc do have an influence on us, of course they do. But only as part of a complex soup.
But let’s suppose for a moment you are right, OK?
Violence against women is inextricably linked to all other elements and manifestations of patriarchal gender power.
The only way we can stop violence against women is by smashing the patriarchy, gender revolution, call it what you will.
Is that not a bit, well, disempowering? It’s a bit like the revolutionary socialists telling the feminists to wait for the glorious revolution as the solution to gender inequalities, isn’t it?
In the meantime, isn’t it still encumbent on us to find the best possible (stopgap) solutions to maybe prevent people being hurt and killed now?
If so, surely we have to still look at all the evidence without prejudice or blinkers, which means we shouldn’t be afraid of alternative practices that might help for now?
That is really all I’m asking for in everything I write about this topic.
——–
Have to chill out now or I’ll never get to sleep, but to Cath and everyone else, in the context of the past few days (which have been really weird and embarrassing and on balance unpleasant all round) can I say what a useful and rewarding exchange this has been tonight – this really has been the debate I said I wanted at the beginning of all the shit. Thank you.
I’m going to be offline most of tomorrow (I’m way behind on real work!) but tonight has (almost) made it all worthwhile.
——-
ps. Just read back my post about Lundy Bancroft. That really was appallingly snooty. Apologies, delphyne, it really wasn’t meant to come out that patronising and supercilious, I’ve obviously been thinking about this stuff *way* too much. But hey, I deserve a right kicking for that one.
Go on, let fly 😉
Gosh – I had to go out yesterday and I didn’t realise that there was a new thread starting from my comment. I apologise for not being around – it seems I have missed most of the debate now!
AllyF, you say –
“Good analogy. I don’t say that sexism doesn’t exist, that misogyny doesn’t exist, any more than I think racism doesn’t exist. But I don’t believe that if a black person hits a white person or vice versa it is necessarily racially-motivated. It might be, but it could happen for lots of other reasons too.”
Yes, but racism will always be present in that type of situation. Nothing we do can exist in a vacuum – we live in an institutionally racist society and until that isn’t true then race will always be a factor in inter-racial violence. It is the same with violence between men and women – sexism will always be a factor in the violence because we live in an institutionally sexist society. We can’t take incidents of violence against women and put them in a bubble where sexism doesn’t touch them.
Having said that, I don’t really like comparing sexism to racism because they are not separate entities. Some women are of colour. Same with any other form of oppression, we must realise that intersectionality always occurs.
So, due to intersectionality I agree with you that
“our actions are determined and shaped by a vast interlinked, contradictory, unpredictable web of influences and experiences.”
but I don’t always think that they are completely unpredictable. I do believe that porn and the general objectification of women contributes to how we all see the value of women.
Yes, there are many, many things that influence our lives, but I think it is a bit of a cop out to say that we can’t possibly pick out the things that negatively effect us. I agree that we can’t all just wait around for a gender revolution and need immediate solutions that can impact lives now. However, I think that talking about and exposing patriarchal gender power is part of that solution and a huge step on the road towards that revolution (if that is what you want to call it!).
JenniferRuth:
“Yes, but racism will always be present in that type of situation. Nothing we do can exist in a vacuum – we live in an institutionally racist society and until that isn’t true then race will always be a factor in inter-racial violence.”
I disagree, a white person can be violent towards a black person or a man can be violent towards a woman without it necessarily being racist/sexist.
A is a man and B is a woman:
If A hits B just because she’s a woman then the violence is sexist.
If A hits B because B insulted him, and he wouldn’t have hit a man who insulted him, then it’s sexist.
BUT
If A hits B because B insulted him, AND he would’ve hit a man who insulted him, then it’s NOT sexist.
Let me be clear: it’s still not right, but it’s not sexist.
Among my friends we have a great tradition of mercilessly taking the mickey out of each other.
Where J is a white male, D is a black male and A is a white female (Assuming the “mickey taking” was based on something stupid the “victim” said that was nothing to do with race or sex):
If A takes the mickey out of D is she being racist?
If J takes the mickey out of A is he sexist?
Are we really saying that everyone has to take the mickey out of J, and it can’t go the other way?
If “taking the mickey” is different from violence, in that it can be above and beyond race or sex, how, and why?
Just to be clear I DO NOT think “taking the mickey” is as bad as, or somehow the same as, violence. I’m just saying if “good” or “neutral” interactions between people of different races/sexes can happen without racism/sexism being present, why can’t “bad” things, like violence?
I don’t think it’s all that helpful to think of the issue in terms of the patriarchy, or even necessarily in terms of responsibility and blame. (Those last two are important in an overall approach, of course). For me, the key problem appears to be people who have to come to believe that physical/emotional violence is an acceptable way of dealing with their frustrations or exerting control over the world.
That doesn’t happen by itself, obviously, and culture inevitably plays a part, but a child also learns that behaviour by observing the personal relationships it sees around it, especially in the home. It is not as simple as a child learning that ‘it’s okay for a man to hit a woman’. Abused children are equally likely to have suffered at the hands of their mother as the hands of their father; it’s about interactions involving power, but not necessarily based on or motivated by gender. The overall effect of those ‘lessons’ includes problems with their peer group, their education, and then their own relationships as they grow older.
And so I would focus more on early intervention, especially with affected children, but also across the board. Put simply, it isn’t just about teaching children that violence against women is wrong, as that’s only one symptom of the underlying problem. It’s about teaching them that physical aggression isn’t an acceptable way of dealing with their emotions and troubles.
I’ve put that very simply, I know. And I’m perfectly willing to be corrected.
“What differentiates them from other people (women, just to pick an example at random) is the fact that they take it out on the closest people to them who they know can’t/won’t fight back”
The thing is… as a woman, a (hopefully) strong woman, a woman who believes that women are capable of so much more than they’re widely given credit for… it’s statements like these that make me despair. I think it’s incredibly patronising to suggest that women are all gentle paragons of sugar-spiced virtue who never pick on anyone, exercise undue authority or generally abuse and manipulate.
Equality means an equal ability to own and take blame, as well as an equal right to a life free of suffering.
Two women I know were abused – both sexually and physically, and to an extreme and protracted degree – by their mothers (and their fathers were not involved, except to play the role – common to these situations – of denial). And of course we can all tell stories of mothers, female colleagues, sisters and friends taking their frustrations out “on people close to them, who they know can’t fight back.”
To suggest that women are immune from this kind of crime is just incredibly unhelpful when it comes to analysing these crimes and looking for solutions. It’s also dishonest.
All of which is not to say that women don’t suffer at the hands of abusers, or to make any kind of claim or comparison about whose suffering is worse, whose crime is worse. Each crime is individual, and the individual sufferers gain nothing from statistical comparisons. But they lose a lot if solutions are based around denial and false claims.
And no, I’m not saying that just because women (as well as men) are capable of behaving badly, therefore they must be somehow to blame when they come on the sharp end of it. Of course not. But if we want to fight against sexism and misogyny we have to be honest, and fearless, and prepared to acknowledge that the world is a lot more complex than an ongoing fight between one half of the population (the sweet half, the gentle half, the saintly half) and the other (the violent fucking bastards).
P.S. I’m not sure what the relevance is, that there are male abusers who outside of their abuse appear to be reasonable gentle men. I think that just tells you something about a human capability to hide crime and turmoil, and a societal tendency to sweep problems under the carpet and encourage secrecy and subterfuge. Both mothers mentioned above were (are) apparently normal pleasant women. One of them was a social worker. And no, there is no danger of them being somehow outed by my posts here, although I can’t explain why without outing them!
Hello, just a quick comment as it’s nearly hometime and I’ve only just discovered that somehow this blog escapes the anoying content filters my employers put on Work Interweb!
Hello AllyF: I acknowledge that my ‘sample’ (!) comes only from those who have had to make it through all the hoops of getting reported, getting arrested, charged, convicted, sentenced to probation etc. However, they’re by no means ‘only the most brutal and dangerous.’ I supervise a wide range of people, from a Common Assault perp on a Community Order for his first conviction, who has a history of DV callouts indicating a pattern of offending making him qualify for Probation taking a look, to someone released from prison after many years for a GBH or attempted murder. I also interview people pre-sentence to conduct an in-depth analysis of their offending, and they can run the whole gamut from minor criminal damage and battery to rape and murder (a specialist team get the murders though… not that I have any twisted professional jealousy over that or anything… hmph).
So nowhere near every DV case the probation service deals with is a textbook coerce-and-control male DV perpetrator. Nooo, that’d be much to easy for us, they’ve all got to go and be human beings and all complicated! ;o) If views on gender and women’s roles seem to be a factor, I’ll get stuck in – I will do the same with whatever seems to be linked to their offending to the best of my ability given our shocking resources and double- or triple-figures caseloads (ok, whinge on that over, promise). If a man claims mutual violence, it’s sometimes a case of trying to convince him to report it (SO difficult), and certainly to avoid dealing with it by returning or escalating violence.
One thing I will say though, is that a lot of blokes claiming mutual violence seemed to laugh off their partner’s ‘violence’: strange to see someone laughing through a pantomime impression of a woman going for him with her fingernails two seconds after he was claiming it justified putting her in hospital. I know some blokes do minimise women’s violence to save their egos – I can’t be a ‘victim of DV’, I’m a bloke, of course some little woman isn’t going to hurt me. Got to try to unpick that. But plenty of claims of mutual violence I have heard I think were utterly spurious, with the slightest thing from her used as an excuse for serious violence and sometimes brought up to humiliate her about how useless she is at even trying to hit him. One thing that’s clear seems to be that views of masculinity are a problem whether men are perpetrators or victims of whatever kind of violence: broadly, commit it and it;s kind of an expected part of your gender identity, sometimes even impressive, admit suffering it and complain and you’re a sissy.
As I said in my second post re the ‘anger management’ issue, some DV perpetrators do act in what seems to be an impulsive way, without any or much of the ongoing psychological abuse and control: BUT crucially a large percentage of the hundreds I’ve dealt with had not ‘lashed out in anger’ in ANY other circumstance despite describing almost identical feelings of anger and rage in other situations. There’s something going on there, and my view is most times it comes down to a view on a man’s rights over a partner (as I said, all F-on-M DV cases i dealt with or heard of exhibited a wider pattern of impulsive aggression). Sometimes blokes say as much outright, helpfully, but very rarely!
I like your point about the justifications afterwards being sometimes different from the actual motivations at the time, but justification is what helps people go on to behave in the same way again, and avoid the real problem, so it’s important to work on. As I’m sure you know, someone in my line ‘o work doesn’t just take what someone says at face value, the analysis of motivation is based on much more: and in that respect I give a lot of thought to whether my own views prejudice me against people. I hope they don’t and I certainly didn’t start DV work expecting to find so many men who have anachronistic attitudes to women deep down: I hadn’t even heard of Catharine MacKinnon back then, for gawd’s sake ;o) This is partly why I’ve become more interested in this kind of explanation, and like to discuss it (as you mighta noticed).
In conclusion to my ramblings (it’s been a looong day of dispensing justice, ok folks??), I think we probably fundamentally agree that any attempt to tackle an individual’s violence must be, for want of a less silly word, ‘holistic’ rather than focussing narrowly on any one potential explanation. I believe that the views of a significant number of men on women in general influence their offending against women in a significant fashion and that needs to be addressed on its own merits. I agree with another poster (sorry, can’t recall name) who talked about early intervention to try to influence kids’ views on violence and their ability to empathise with others: that’s the kind of thing one should be doing in citizenship classes, or PSE as it used to be when I were a lass. Not ‘presentation skills’ that are ‘valued by many businesses’ as my PSE teacher liked to focus on. Sod business, you’re shaping human beings here, not just employees!
‘Just a quick comment’ eh… note to self, get a life :o)
Evening all!
vi
x
How many women do you see in the course of your work on probation for violence against their male partners Violet?
“One thing I will say though, is that a lot of blokes claiming mutual violence seemed to laugh off their partner’s ‘violence’: strange to see someone laughing through a pantomime impression of a woman going for him with her fingernails two seconds after he was claiming it justified putting her in hospital. I know some blokes do minimise women’s violence to save their egos – I can’t be a ‘victim of DV’, I’m a bloke, of course some little woman isn’t going to hurt me. Got to try to unpick that.”
Well the simplest explanation would be that they are lying. Also if a woman defends herself when she is being violently attacked, for some reason people seem to think that that is “mutual violence” rather than self-defence.
I do think people like to overcomplicate things.
No, don’t get a life Violet, not if it’s going to get in the way of you posting on t’Internet anyway 🙂
Many thanks for your posts here.
Incidentally, did anyone else watch the Danielle Lloyd programme about DV last night? If so, what did you think?
Violet – just a quick post to say thank you very much for your posts here: they’re really informative and thought-provoking.
I think JenniferRuth’s comment is a fantastic piece of common sense.
I feel that we live in a society where violence against women has become almost systematic. It isn’t just actual physical violence: just switching on the TV I can see that there is a lot of violent and sexist language used in reference to women. Like others have pointed out, there needs to be complete overhaul of how men and women relate to each other in a society that has been founded upon the idea that women are somehow inferior. It is the same assumption people make about deaf people (I am deaf, lipread and speak) – apparently sign language is seen as an inferior language, and therefore by default all deaf people are meant to be mute/stupid/incapable of reason or thought. I guess it’s a strange comparison, but does make sense to me since I am both deaf and a woman, and have seen how people treat deaf women (in literature, tv, in society, in the media, etc).
I know for a fact that hearing and deaf men have abused signing Deaf women and taken advantage of the fact that there are some things that are easy to cover up if a Deaf woman feels alienated from her hearing family or doesn’t feel that DV shelters will take her in if they don’t have sign interpreters. Ally’s thought that if a black person and a white person are involved in an incident doesn’t mean it is racially motivated is indeed a fallacy because all our interactions with each other don’t exist in a vacuum (like JenniferRuth explained) . We are all prejudiced to some extent, even if we don’t admit this to ourselves.
People treat me differently (no matter how subtle) because I am deaf. I know I have treated others differently even though I try very hard not to. Getting over prejudice is half the battle – we will never have an equal society when prejudice changes the balance of power. So even if an attack is not racist or sexist – the power differentiations are still playing a part in the interaction.
Hmmm.
Thinking.
I can sort of relate my own defensiveness when non-white (someone correct me if non-white is incorrect terminology but I am not saying the col…word ;-)) feminists accuse feminism of being racist, to what AllyF must have felt.
I third, or whatever, the point that was made; even if someone isn’t remotely sexist/ racist in the deliberate *ha ha ha I hate women/ black people* sense, they may unintentionally and unconsciosly propagate the system that is
Which isn’t their fault,
I did think about how *some* (not me, and not Cath, of course!) feminists may sound when we rant about men, and I try not to sound as if I think *all* men are evil misogynists, saying ‘some men tend to’ and so on. I actually don’t think bitterness at men/ white people is constructive (well-placed anger can be).
On the other hand, I’m not watering down my writing to nothing because someone may take offence.
It cuts both ways.
I don’t think AllyF is a big misogynist (from CiF. Yeah. Another one who got fed up with it).
I do think he is wrong on the DV issue. I may post on it soon.
(I THINK I’ve done the hyperlink thing right…! Please fix if not, Cath!)
Meh. Should finish sentences.
And check my posts. Unconsciously.
Should be ‘propagate the system that is misogynist/ racist’ and ‘Which isn’t their fault, but if they want to claim to be progressive and an ally, they need
to actively learn, and question, and work against that system’.
Oh & Clare – I like your point that feminism isn’t about women being perfect angels. Of course some women are downright nasty.
That said, I don’t think talking about solely male on female DV actually implies that. It isn’t saying that all/ most men are violent, or all/ most women are saints.
Whenever the issue of intimate male violence against a female partner is raised, enormous effort is used to try and deflect attention away from the male perpetrator and on to the actions/behaviour/character of the woman. Time and again I hear the oft repeated claim ‘but women are equally as violent as men’ or ‘women provoke men and so they must be held partially responsible.’ But decades of research show it is men as a group who are the ones committing violence against women and predominantly with impunity.
Lundy Bancroft’s book is not a ‘self-help book’ but it is very easy to claim ‘oh it has not been peer reviewed so it must not be valid.’ Bancroft has spent over 20 years working with men who have committed violence against female partners/girlfriends. Bancroft in his introduction acknowledges many professional academic women and men who have provided professional insight and support. But most importantly Bancroft firstly acknowledges the women survivors of men’s violence who have shared their stories and realities with him. Are all these women simply telling a one-sided biased story? Because, of course there is no such thing as truth only different perspectives, depending on whether or not one is male or female. (Sic)
Bancroft practices in Massachusetts and also trains various state and judicial agencies in dealing with male violence within family situations. Bancroft carefully analyses the various ways male abusers manipulate, control and dominate female partners. What is often overlooked is the fact many male abusers use similar methods of psychological control and threats of physical violence in order to ensure their total control of the female partner. So, the question then becomes why do so many men enact the same methods? Could it be because of how men are socialised into what is widely believed to be ‘normal masculine behaviour.’ I know many women who have read Bundy’s book and said ‘but my abusive male partner did similar things/said similar things to me.’
Is all the decades of feminist research on male violence against women worthless then because we all supposedly have lives wherein all women and all men have the same social and economic power? Is the social construction of gender non-existent because violence within family units is just a case of individual men and women enacting their power and control over other individual women and men? Are women and men equally held responsible for committing violence? Are men constantly being told they should enact certain behaviours and actions in order to meet the approval of (male-dominant) society? Or is it women who are subjected to a continuous barrage of negative comments, admonishments and punishments if they so much as deviate from patriarchal defined myths concerning female behaviour and actions. Which group benefits when only one gender is subjected to surveillance, monitoring and criticism in respect of their behaviour etc? Is it women or is it men?
Lundy Bancroft’s book is invaluable in demonstrating how clever, manipulative men operate in order to retain their pseudo belief it is their right to control, dominate and own a woman/women. Likewise Evan Stark’s book ‘Coercive Control’ provides an insight into how violent and abusive men control female partners/girl friends. Chapter 8 of Stark’s book ‘The Technology of Coercive control’ provides an insight to men’s common methods of using pyschological control over female partners.
Yes, some women are abusive and violent to male partners and feminists have never denied this fact, but overwhelmingly the real issue is why and how male violence against women is allowed to continue unabated and why it is commonly excused/justified or if all else fails simply denied.
No one lives in isolation and no one is not affected by societal norms and pressures on conforming to patriarchal myths concerning supposedly appropriate feminine and masculine behaviour. Our society is constructed on a hierarchy with men as a group at the top and women, depending on their class, ethnicity, ableness etc. further down the hierarchy. But irrespective of a woman’s class, ethnicity etc. this in itself does not protect any woman from men’s violence. The reason is because men’s violence is commonly trivialised or excused unless it is so extreme as to merit some form of judgement or punishment.
Such is the case with Fritzl and Worboys. Both of these men enacted the most extreme form of masculine behaviour and male sexual entitlement, but many other abusive men do not and their actions and behaviours are excused and justified in various ways.
One of the hardest issues for men as a group is to accept men as a group are the ones responsible for violence against women. But many men and women too, reinterpret this to mean ‘all men are violent’ and immediately there is a cacophony of ‘but my male partner/brother/husband etc is not violent.’ In fact what is commonly said is ‘most of the violence around the world is committed by men.’ This is not the same as all men are violent. Now imagine if the situation were reversed and it was ‘most of the violence around the world is committed by women.’ Immediately there would be an outcry of ‘what is wrong with all these women?’ ‘Are they all crazy?’ The reason there would be such claims is because our culture is defined from the male standpoint and this means men as a group are central and women are on the peripherary. It is men’s viewpoint which is dominant and since it is men who are the dominant group, it is their viewpoint which is seen as normal and rational.
Dominant groups cannot self-examine themselves instead they view other groups critically and compare them in relation to the dominant group. This is why men as a group do not perceive themselves as a ‘gender’ because they are simply human. Now women are viewed in relation to men and therefore women’s actions are compared and analysed from the male perspective. So, when a woman reports she has been subjected to violence from her male partner, immediately the common reaction is ‘what did she do to cause this?’ Or, ‘why did she not leave him?’ Both of which are from the male perspective because men as a group have more social and economic power than women as a group.
Jackson Katz in his book The Macho Paradox clearly explains the complexities of how and why male violence against women and children is not only condoned but also justified and excused unless of course such actions are at the most extreme of a continuum.
So, instead of blaming women for causing men’s violence we need to analyse and examine how social and economic power operates. Which group has it and which groups do not. But instead it is far easier to dichtomise women and men wherein if a woman does not conform to dominant ideas concerning female behaviour she is perceived as being at least partially responsible for the male perpetrator’s behaviour.
Men as a group have a vested interest in keeping ‘domestic violence’ gender neutral which in fact means defined from the male-dominant stance.
“Men as a group have a vested interest in keeping ‘domestic violence’ gender neutral which in fact means defined from the male-dominant stance”.
Which is exactly what AllyF and others continue to do.
Many thanks Jennifer Drew – excellent piece.
“Men as a group have a vested interest in keeping ‘domestic violence’ gender neutral which in fact means defined from the male-dominant stance”.
Which is exactly what AllyF and others continue to do.”
Yup, to bolster the ‘non-existent’ patriarchy, which also, apparently is a feminist myth.
It does seem an odd thing that one cannot attempt to discuss the 97% of violence perpetrated by men without someone insisting that the 3% perpetrated by women complicates the matter so much that we must address that 3% as though it were the same as the 97%.
AllyF, could you tell us a bit about the research you have been involved in or the direct work you’ve done around domestic abuse and sexual violence?
The thing I always found totally fascinating when DV is discussed is the assumption that both parties are equal. Physically. And so any kind of physical provocation from the ‘victim’ somehow justifies what happens to them. I think violetforthemoment was saying something similar about the men laughing when describing their partner’s efforts to hurt them.
Me – 5’2, chubby, limited muscle. Him, 6’2 and a weight lifter. Typical behaviour – him taunting me verbally and then physically placing himself blocking a doorway I wanted to go through. If I touched or pushed him, it was on, and it was my fault cause ‘I started it’. Guess who came off worse?
The other thing was the assumption that somehow the responsibility was shared. That I’d done something to deserve it. I do genuinely believe that the abusers cannot abuse without a reason. It’s just that the reason is so incredibly small – it can be anything, and you don’t have to know what it is in advance. I finally realised how stupid the whole thing was, when he had taunted me, wanting me to say the wrong thing so that he could start in on me, and I decided not to bite (I was on antidepressants by this stage and totally zoned out so ignoring his screaming and name calling was possible). So I said nothing. The result? Pinned on my back on the bed with him screaming in my face. He needed me transgress one of his little rules so that he could start. When I didn’t, I got it for NOT saying something. Because suddenly there was a rule for that too. That was his big mistake because right then I realised that actually it didn’t matter what I said or did, he was going to do what he wanted anyway. Hmm, I think I contradicted myself somewhere there.
I guess what I mean is – they like to make it out that it’s the victim’s fault because of something they did or said. But as was explained, they don’t tell you the rules. So there’s always a reason for why you’re getting hurt, even while they’re telling you it’s your fault. While you think you can avoid it somehow through your behaviour, that illusion of equal responsibility is maintained.
Sorry for ramble 🙂
Yes the idea that men and women are physically equal is completely bizarre but that’s another abusers’ lie that has filtered into the mainstream in order to let men who use violence against women off the hook.
Men generally have huge size and strength advantages over women, women can’t fight back. If we could men wouldn’t be attacking us to the extent they are.
Sorry for what you went through Jehanna.
The weirdest thing is that my current boyfriend was in a similar situation, with a woman. She had done martial arts and he’s a very gentle person.
The cycle was similar – undermine his confidence, tell him he’s not good enough for her and so lucky to have her, start the verbal abuse for random reasons, and finally the physical when he didn’t follow the rules. I know that women are a tiny proportion of the perpetrators of domestic violence, and what was really astonishing about his experience was that the technique was almost identical.
Thanks for the sympathy – I find it absolutely amazing to read all these things about DV and find out that what I went through was almost ‘textbook’ in the way it was carried out. Maybe this is something that really needs to be focussed on when discussing DV – what are the early warning signs?
And sorry I didn’t mean to do the ‘what about the menz’ thing – I just find it really interesting that in my bf’s case, the control-power cycle was very similar to the cases of the women I know who’ve been in the same situation.
But he’s the only guy I’ve ever met who’s experienced that, as opposed to every second woman I know having experienced it.
Sorry if example was bad form.
I bow to Jennifer Drew. Awesome comment.
Jehenna’s comment really illustrates this dynamic so well- and the way that women are blamed and called abusive and “responsible” and said to be making “bad choice” when really it’s the man who is the abuser.
I too bow to Jennifer Drew.
Other great comments too – make me think. Thanks.
Sorry to hear what you went through, Jehenna.
Yeah – men are larger and stronger than women on average.
Even if the violence is mutual, the man will do more damage.
And so-called ‘mutual’ violence often isn’t.
Exactly what delphyne said, a minor act by the victim becomes an excuse for her abuser to beat her.
And AllyF – yes, some abusers probably are just all-round violent arseholes, some are charming to everyone other than their victim, some are in-between.
Doesn’t matter much to the 5ft4 woman being battered by a 6ft man, does it? The result is the same.
(Btw, yes, my comment on the other thread was somewhat harsher to Ally than my earlier one above…I don’t think he is a deliberate misogynist, but as we’ve all agreed, he doesn’t *have* to be to perpetuate misogyny.
And yesh, he’s progressively annoying me more and more. He is acting like an idiot.)
exactly. i used to work in child protection and i remember the despair and frustration of social workers having to deal over years with five or six families all affected by the same man after he moved onto each new partner. some DV re-education classes (much like trying to “counsel” psychopaths) just give the offenders tools to carry on doing it, but far more thorough assessment must be done to identify those who could be rehabilitated.
buggle76:
You asked AllyF:
1) Who says that victims of abuse are all the same? I’m not familiar with this idea.
2) What is this rigid explanatory paradigm that you speak of?
3) What do you think are the “inappropriate responses?”
And naturally he has declined to provide an answer, as once again he is using a device that another poster has called ‘disassociation’. When he comes up against something or someone who challengs his ideas, he uses complex language to change the subject. His argument is:
1 The Home Office, feminist groups and domestic violence charities use patriarchy to explain male violence against women. This he says is a ‘false dogma’ – what he used to call an ‘explanatory framework’ and what he now calls an ‘explanatory paradigm’.
2 Pure patriarchy no longer exists (did it ever?)
3. Therefore to argue that patriarchy explains male on female violence is wrong.
4. So we need a new ‘theory’ of why men beat women.
5. As there is some female violence on men, the new theory must be able to explain male on female violence as well as the relatively smaller amount of female on male violence.
6. Because the patriarchy ‘theory’ is wrong, those that previously accepted it and based their activity on it are also wrong. To put it more bluntly, the feminists are wrong. And despite all the good work they have done they would work more effectively if they adopted his new theory and they would no longer offer the victims of violence the ‘inappropriate responses’ they’ve been offering for forty years. Or to use his own words ‘we can gratefully acknowledge all this, (work the feminists have done) but that does not mean that our understanding the issues has to remain frozen sometime around 1975’.
7. And the his theory will start from the assumption that, as you say buggle76, ‘victims of abuse are all the same’. Or as Jennifer Drew says, ‘gender neutral’.
So why the change from ‘framework’ to ‘paradigm’?
The term ‘paradigm shift’ was used to describe how revolutionary changes occur in the natural sciences, the most important and well known being the shift from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics. I suspect that AllyF sees himself as the Einstein of the domestic violence world and his ‘theoretical framework’ as the new ‘paradigm’ we must all now accept.
As Jennifer Drew says in her excellent post:
‘Men as a group have a vested interest in keeping ‘domestic violence’ gender neutral which in fact means defined from the male-dominant stance.’
And as Butterflywings says:
‘I don’t think he is a deliberate misogynist, but as we’ve all agreed, he doesn’t *have* to be to perpetuate misogyny.’
I see AllyF as a coloniser of other peolple’s threads and ideas – the goal: building castles in the paltry empire of faux-celebrity. Notice how he always appropriates his wife’s history of feminist activism and lesbianism as HIS history by association.
In an earlier era he would have probably worked for the East India Co.
AllyF, i’d like to ask you again about any research you have been involved in or any direct work you’ve done around domestic abuse.
I also have further questions for you:
What alternative practices do you think would work?
What is your understanding of current practice around domestic abuse?
How should women ‘adapt their behaviour’ to avoid being abused (in my experience women adapt their behaviour all the time and it makes no difference but i’m keen to hear your ideas)?
What are the many forms of domestic abuse that you speak of and what are the reasons why you think it happens?
Can you explain why men vastly outnumber female perpetrators of domestic abuse?
What problems are we misunderstanding and what are the inappropriate responses to those problems that you referred to?
Why is it counterproductive to blame a perpetrator for whatever abuses they have carried out?
On what do you base your assertion that most cases of domestic abuse are not clear cut and what are the complexities that those of us who have worked in the field for significant portions of our lives missing?
Could you tell us a bit more about your ‘complex soup’ theory and why the concept of a white supremecist capitalist patriarchy doesn’t fit for you as an explanation of abuses of power by men?
You mentioned 3 women close to you who have experienced sexual violence and harassment. I expect there are other incidences that you’re aware of for other women. How does your complex soup theory explain their experiences? Should they have adapted their behaviours to avoid those experiences? How?
Another one who thought JenniferDrew’s post was excellent. Oh, and violetforthemoment, please don’t get a life! 🙂
AllyF
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” “objectification of women via porn is inextricably intertwined with male-on-female domestic violence”
… I just don’t quite see it. I don’t accept the grand social narrative theory of human behaviour, instead I think our actions are determined and shaped by a vast interlinked, contradictory, unpredictable web of influences and experiences.
Prevailing social attitudes towards sex, sexuality, gender, violence etc do have an influence on us, of course they do. But only as part of a complex soup.”
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Yes, but none of that really contradicts what I said. I didn’t say men/people are *motivated* by the patriarchy, my point was that the patriarchy dictates the power (im)balance between men and women and thereby creates the circumstances in which men feel – and ARE, effectively – entitled to objectify, buy, beat and rape women.
Objectification of women, and beating them up, are both expressions of power over them. In both cases, the woman is treated as something less than the man; in other words, something less than human.
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“But let’s suppose for a moment you are right, OK?
… The only way we can stop violence against women is by smashing the patriarchy, gender revolution, call it what you will.
Is that not a bit, well, disempowering?”
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But again, that’s not what I said. I don’t understand why you chose to put words into my mouth along the lines of ‘revolution or nothing’. Could you, by any chance, be second-guessing me based on your own prejudices about feminism?
After all, if you look at my first post to this thread, I was advocating somewhat less than bloody revolution. Unless ‘I think we need to educate children in schools about violence’ is equivalent to a call to barricade the streets and burn all the premises of Spearmint Rhino.
(Although… *strokes beard*)
Ha, I haven’t read AllyF’s comments because they are clearly the usual MRA dross (funny how a man can just claim not to be a misogynist and everybody will take him at his word, despite all the evidence to the contrary) but that is very funny that women calling for a revolution against male supremacy should be described as “disempowering”.
I suppose given that empowerment is the opposite of real power, which is why it is what women get left with, he’s right in a way. All the empowerful stuff will go by the wayside – lipstick, high-heeled shoes, poledancing, pornography, sucking up to men – you name it, they are all on their way out.
But real power does come through revolutions, pretending otherwise is just a reversal and an attempt to discourage women and frighten us away from taking care of our own interests. The women’s revolution, which is in progress now, is the revolution that has been longest in coming and the one will have the most widespread and noticeable effects despite its lack of violence. The smashing of the patriarchy will turn everything upside down. In Ally’s individual case it will mean that he will no longer have his teenage fanclub, and the women whose private lives he broadcast across this blog to score a cheap point in a discussion, will be able to tell him that he was out of line, rather than having to continue to stroke the dominant male and tend to his feelings. No wonder he doesn’t fancy the idea.
“I suspect that AllyF sees himself as the Einstein of the domestic violence world” This had me laughing out loud, it is so true! Thank you.
My head hurts. Can somebody please explain how removing male power (patriarchy) is disempowering?
Stoooopid me! It’s disempowering for men.
Ally F explains racist violence:
The majority of those who experience racist violence are BME people attacked by white people.
However some times BME people attack other BME people.
And sometimes BME people attack white people.
And sometimes people are attacked for being Scots, Welsh, Irish, or English.
Therefore racism is a complex soup and nothing to do with a racist society where power is held by white people!
(sorry I haven’t read all the comments, trying to think happy thoughts in between random sarkiness, so apologies if anyone else has already said this).
NB I really don’t care if people on the internetz think I’m horrid. Thorry. Believe me I can be much meaner in person.
Polly, they’ve made you into a one woman moral panic, even worse than ’single mums’ and ‘drug pushers’
I have informed the Daily Mail to get ’em to whip it up a bit.
And I’m sure someone will make sure “people” are informed.
I also heard the whispering grass has told the trees, but that could just be a rumour.
BME?
Catholics have suffered the most incidents of serious hate crime in the UK over three or four decades.
As it happens, more than all the other groups combined, it is racism to ignore that.
According to the EU that is.
It is also (despite the EU) perfectly true.
Tazia
“It does seem an odd thing that one cannot attempt to discuss the 97% of violence perpetrated by men without someone insisting that the 3% perpetrated by women complicates the matter so much that we must address that 3% as though it were the same as the 97%.”
i totally agree. no one would say f to m violence isn’t important. but in terms of scale, they aren’t the same.
i’m tired of the debate on DV always going this way. it always seems to be a debate about women that ends up with people going – well it happens to men too. debates on other kinds of crime (esp crime that chiefly happens to men) – oh but it happens to women to. it makes me cross! why is it not ok to sometimes talk about how women are affected?
catherine redfern wrote an excelletn piece on the f word btw about why it is ok for feminists to talk about women.