Family lawyer and men’s advocate David Pisarra aims to shine a light on the hidden side of domestic violence.
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Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a four-part series.
It’s October, and that means it’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The month that is set aside to raise awareness of the long term effects of emotional, psychological, and physical abuse on individuals.
Domestic Violence is usually spoken of in terms of women and children being abused by men—at least by those who are running the shelters, service providers, and lobbyists who have legislators write new law that is designed to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
There’s a very good reason for this; it’s effective. It raises a lot of money. It’s an easy ask to get wallets open, because who wants to be painted as unsupportive of mothers and children? No one.
As a society we have a societal preference for women and children. It’s a pain point for us. No one wants to see the bruised and battered face of a mother holding a child who is terrified of a raging man. No one will stand up for the man who is a batterer and say he’s right because he isn’t—he’s in need of help from therapists. Often times he’s grown up seeing the dynamic in his childhood and that is being replayed out in his adulthood. That’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation, which needs to be dealt with appropriately.
In our rush to stop the abusive man though, we lump all men into the same category of abusers, or at best, “potential abusers.”
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In our rush to stop the abusive man though, we lump all men into the same category of abusers, or at best, “potential abusers.” We rarely look at the possibility that a man could be a victim of an abusive woman even though highly respected studies like the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey demonstrate that about 50% of domestic violence should be classified as “mutual aggressor” meaning “they both started it.” That survey was conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services—Centers for Disease Control so it’s hardly a partisan study out to push an agenda.
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My family law practice has seen a tremendous increase in the number of domestic violence filings. As a consequence of that, I represent a great many men who are faced with losing their children, their homes and oftentimes their livelihoods for being an alleged “abusive spouse.” Sometimes they are abusers, and sometimes not. Sometimes they have been abused and done the “manly thing” and let it go, they’ve been chivalrous and just taken the emotional abuse or the physical hits, “because it wasn’t that bad.”
The problem with this thinking is that, domestic violence is like climbing a spiral staircase with each round of abuse getting more dangerous, more damaging and harder to escape. In the beginning, ignoring an over the top burst of anger at a parking attendant, may seem like a little thing, until that anger is directed at you. The non-aggressor is being groomed by the burst of anger, so that when it is eventually turned on them, they are already resigned to the fact that they will be the target of the anger. As the angry outbursts progress from verbal to throwing things, then slapping or punching, the increase in lethality is happening. Sometimes it results in mutual combat that turns deadly, as in the case of Daniel Crespo, the Bell Gardens Mayor who was killed last September by his wife.
The issue of male victims of domestic violence gets little publicity, but when I speak to both men and women, each acknowledges that it happens and it happens in greater numbers than is generally recognized.
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The issue of male victims of domestic violence gets little publicity, but when I speak to both men and women, each acknowledges that it happens and it happens in greater numbers than is generally recognized. Men don’t want to admit they are being abused, it’s an affront to their masculinity, but it does happen.
This is why I’m producing a documentary called What About the Men? Exploring the Hidden Side of Domestic Violence. The documentary has survivors of abusive relationships, psychologists, a law enforcement officer who minimized his own wife’s violent behavior, and a domestic violence shelter director. I’ve been amazed at the level of support I’ve received from men, women, service providers, and mental health experts who are pushing me to do this movie. I’ve been disappointed at the level of resistance I’ve found in some areas of the domestic violence community; areas that I thought it would be much more supportive of victims in general.
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The cycle of abuse continues until we speak up about it. It happens too often. It’s men dominating women, it’s women dominating men. It’s a parent dominating a child in inappropriate ways. Think about this—where does an abusive man who grew up in a single parent household, (that’s mostly moms these days) learn how to abuse? If dad wasn’t around to abuse mom, where did the lesson come from?
Men and boys are often the victims of emotional, and physical abuse. We need to recognize this and deal with it because until we do, we’re ignoring a large population of victims who need our help.
Throughout this month I’ll be doing articles on domestic violence and the documentary, What About the Men?. Later this month I’m launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise awareness of the subject because it is like a vampire, domestic violence cannot survive in the sunlight.
For more information on What About the Men? Exploring the Hidden Side of Domestic Violence, please visit www.whataboutthemen.com.
Photo—Andy Bullock/Flickr
” Passing sentence, Judge Tim Mousley QC said it was an exceptional case that allowed him to step outside the rigours of the sentencing guidelines.
He told Hatt: “Having read everything before me, it was quite clear he was a mature 11-year-old and you were an immature 20-year-old so that narrows the arithmetic age gap between you. ”
“Hatt, of Swindon, Wiltshire, was given a six-month jail term suspended for two years with supervision after pleading guilty to sexual activity with a child and told to register as a sex offender for seven years. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11918899/Mother-of-boy-11-sexually-abused-by-babysitter-21-to-appeal-disgusting-suspended-sentence.html
You’re correct and I believe it’s because the bigger taboo of the two is female perpetrators. We saw that with the 1in6 / Joyful Heart campaign. Yes, they looked at male abuse victims, but never identified the perpetrators. Why do I harp on it. Simply put I’ve spoken with male abuse victims. Those who were abused by women have said that they found it more difficult to accept that they were abused because there was no validation of their experience within society. I suspect this 1in6 / Joyful Heart campaign was deemed acceptable by some specifically because the perpetrators would… Read more »
The other issue that IMHO is missing if the abuse of children by women. When we talk about DV, we ONLY talk about children as victims of men, never of women and yet every stat out there shows that the majority of abusers of children are women.
One more thought. Why shouldn’t we focus specifically on the female abuser than the male victim? Why do we demand teach men not to rape. Don’t teach women not to be raped, but when it comes to male victims lets focus on the victims rather than preventing their victimization by addressing the victimizes. Why wouldn’t we push teacher women not to hit? Teach women not to abuse. Somehow I suspect that it’s because the person doing so would need a string of safe houses to survive the backlash.
I think one of the things being missed and I hope it gets covered in the later articles is that part of the reason that society does not want to deal with the man as victim is because they don’t want to deal with the woman as abuser. It strikes at the sugar and spice and everything nice stereotype. There is no clearer example than the FBI changing it’s definition of rape. The definition was changed to recognize the rape of men, but the rape of men by other men. It still refused to acknowledge the female rapist. Don’t take… Read more »
I asked the contact person at CJIS Division’s Crime Statistics Management Unit at FBI whether a female perpetrator and a male victim where the victim is made to penetrate the perpetrator would be included in their new definition of rape. I used a concrete example of a woman having a boy orally penetrate her – which was a variant (I altered who penetrated who) of one of the examples the FBI includes in the reporting guidelines for the reporting agencies. She answered that it would be included. Unfortunately they have not yet heeded our suggestion that they include such a… Read more »