Michael Kaufman says there is no presumption of male guilt. Here’s why.
Before I rant, let me say:
- I do not believe all men are bad and all women are good.
- I intensely dislike any collective blame of men (or women, or, well, any group).
- I think that both men and women can be emotionally stunted, emotionally abusive, and have the capacity to commit acts of violence.
- I do not believe that the presence of a dangling bit of flesh between our legs turns males into monsters.
- I believe men can be great dads, great coaches, and great primary school teachers.
- I do know that some groups of men (such as Black men in the U.S.) often are targeted as guilty unless they can prove otherwise.
- I believe there are sexist assumptions about men, just as there are about women (although both are in the context of societies of unequal men’s power and privilege).
- I’m 100% proud to be a man (although, I admit, I’m not proud of many things done in the name of men.)
- And, against much evidence to the contrary, I stubbornly cling to the belief that men and women are basically good.
Now, let me rant against this silly myth: “the presumption of male guilt.”
Myth One: “Feminists (or Whoever) Say All Men Are Violent. People Always Assume That if Violence Happens, It’s Been Done by a Man.”
Uh, in case you missed the newsflash: most violent acts around the world are committed by men. By far. Overwhelmingly. Off the charts. The vast majority of the world’s violent acts are:
- Violence among men (from homophobic bullying and fighting in schoolyards to armed robbery, from sexual assault of boys/other men to murder and war).
- Violence by men against women (domestic assault, sexual assault, stalking, trafficking into prostitution, etc.).
- Violence by men against children (most sexual violence against children, more of the physical violence—although in that area women give men a run for their money).
I can hear a few of you winge and whine: “Are you saying all men are violent?” Why does that follow? That’s like saying “most cases of breast cancer occur in women,” only to have someone respond, “are you saying all women have breast cancer?”
Just to give a loving hand to any insecure guy who feels I’m attacking him: most men do not use violence in their lives, certainly not as adults. I don’t. Chances are you don’t either. (Although far too many of us do.)
Saying that “most violence is committed by men” does NOT mean that most men commit violence. It does NOT mean that all violence is committed by men. (In fact, in North American schools, violence committed by girls is increasing faster than violence by boys, although there is still more of the latter.) No one presumes male guilt.
Myth Two: “There Is as Much Violence by Women Against Men as Men Against Women.”
There’s a mini-industry of men’s rights types who amass an impressive bibliography to prove this myth solely by quoting each other back and forth.
Here are the facts: in countries (such as Canada) where we have high-quality national statistics on physical violence in domestic relationships (married and living together), if you ask males and females if they’d ever experienced anything along a continuum of physically violent acts—from being pushed or slapped right up to being punched, strangled, or stabbed—you actually do get “gender parity”.
If you stop there, you create a myth. If you dig deeper, you find this:
- True, all relationship violence is bad, but when it comes to measurably more serious violence that requires medical treatment or causes lost work time, there is no symmetry: such violence is far more likely to be committed by a man against a woman than vice-versa.
- Men who experience emotional or physical violence in relationships at the hands of a women are less likely to live in fear of that violence than the other way around. Men might not like it, men might know they’re stuck in a crappy and abusive relationship, but they’re less likely to be living in terror compared to women. In other words, the impact of the violence is not symmetrical and that’s because the level of the violence is not symmetrical.
- These statistics leave out sexual violence in relationships which, when it happens, is disproportionately committed by men.
- In many (but not all) cases, the more serious acts of violence by a woman against a man are either in self-defense or are a final, desperate retaliation for years of abuse. (That’s why women’s shelters and better policing to end men’s violence against women are life-savers for men: they help a terrorized, trapped woman get out of her marriage without thinking the only way out is through killing her spouse.)
Myth Three: “Men Are Presumed Guilty Until Proven Innocent”
Huh? Ever see the statistics for how many sexual assault charges lead to a conviction? Ever see estimates of what percentage of sexual assaults actually lead to an arrest? If anything, when it comes to sexual assault, the sad assumption is still either that “she asked for it,” “she was dressed provocatively,” “she should have known what she was getting into when she went to that party,” or “she had sex and then changed her mind.” The real presumption is of a woman’s guilt or, at least, duplicity.
Myth Four: “Women Win, Men Lose In Custody Battles”
A hundred years ago, in rare cases of divorce, men almost always got custody. After all, both the wife and children were his property. By the 1950s, women usually got custody on the assumption that women were the more natural parents and, anyway, the man was off at his job and the woman was working as a housewife. But, you ask, has the pendulum swung too far? Is it now presumed that men, if not guilty of something, are, at least, less capable of being loving, caring parents?
Four things to say on that:
- I believe that if a man (or woman) has committed serious or ongoing abuse of his children or such abuse against his spouse (which, research tells us, when witnessed by children, has as negative an impact on the child as if it was directed against the child) he has forfeited his right to custody. It is not emotionally healthy and often not safe for the children if he has custody. That accounts for some cases.
- Yes, there are still sexist judges (both men and women) who stupidly think women are the natural parent and that men are not. On the other hand, sadly, there are still too many of our brothers who seem to have done their best to prove they are not capable of being nurturing parents: when they were married, they only did a small fraction of the childcare and domestic work even when both parents worked outside the home. In other words, courts sometimes might get it right in cases where they say the man doesn’t seem to be a capable parent. (Again, so I don’t hurt feelings: huge numbers of men are great parents. An increasing number of men are in totally gender-equitable relationships when it comes to equally dividing childcare and housework.)
- It is true that some men have gotten a raw deal in custody, alimony, and child support cases. It’s also true that some women get a raw deal. (And it’s also true in the U.S. that men don’t pay 24% of court-ordered child-support payments and only partially pay another 30%, depriving our children of $13 billion a year in support. As good men, that really should piss us off!)
- Most divorcing parents actually get the custody arrangements they want. Except in cases where there has been abuse, both women and men usually want to share custody. (That desire by men to share custody is one of the great gifts of feminism to men: that encouragement and assumption that we can as good parents as women.)
So, let’s not waste time perpetuating a myth that society now presumes men are guilty (or incapable of being good men). Rather, let’s put our energy into:
- helping parents and teachers figure out how we can do a better job raising our sons;
- learning how we as adult men can transform our own masculinity in ways that will be emotionally and physically healthier both for ourselves and those around us;
- working hard to ensure not only that men live lives of gender equality and full respect for the women and men around us, but work in our offices, factories, schools, places of worship, and communities to bring about gender equality and an end to narrow definitions of womanhood and manhood that hurt us all.
—Photo KellyB./Flickr
Your …comments about non-custodial parents (which are usually men) failing to support their childrer does not consider either parents ability to share the responsibility for providing for their children’s needs. It takes two people to create a child, therefore providing for that child’s care and maintenance should be a shared responsiblity, not a requirement for a non-custodial parent to provide a government mandated lifestyle for the children, and by inference, the custodial parent. To fix this problem, a NET income support reserve should be added to all child support guidelines to allow courts to identify ‘deadbroke’ parents. This would then… Read more »
“Saying that “most violence is committed by men” does NOT mean that most men commit violence. It does NOT mean that all violence is committed by men. But feminists do use the fact that men commit more violence overall to imply that women are non-violent and only men are and they also ignore that men commit violence against other men more than they do against women, sexual violence is the only violence that has victims that are women more than men, all other violence aphas more male victims yet the feminist narrative is that women are most at risk from… Read more »
I kinda liked this article. It’s nice to see a presumption of male guilt debunked. But here are the two I would like to discuss more: “Uh, in case you missed the newsflash: most violent acts around the world are committed by men. By far. Overwhelmingly. Off the charts.” “Men who experience emotional or physical violence in relationships at the hands of a women are less likely to live in fear of that violence than the other way around.” These two actually cover the majority of my involvement in the men’s movement. And let me change things around a bit.… Read more »
Actually, if virtually all violence is toward men, and society approves/doesn’t care, there is something wrong with how society treats and socializes men; not a problem within masculinity itself.
Well, that’s kinda what I meant. We talk about the “problems in masculinity” a lot and I suppose that phrase is rather ambiguous. By “problems in men” I refer to problematic behaviors that are symptoms of a higher problem. In my meaning, it implies a question: “Why do men dominate the world of violence?”, “Why don’t men band together to get their issues taken care of as much?”,”Why are men doing poorly in schools”. In a lot of cases, like the news, “problems in masculinity” implies a statement: “Men are violent creatures”, “Men are worse at organizing groups than women.”,… Read more »
Actually, these things aren’t politically charged. Feminism is right, men are ignored is status quo, there is no political charge anywhere. Feminist, however, ideologues have been caught outright lying, or sucking numbers out of their thumb. Indeed, Michael as all feminists name numbers – that aren’t even numbers! They claim shit about how women are the majority of victims, and but a tiny number or no number at all – then when you check the numbers, you find the named numbers are false. In the few times the feminists did do a study, or a group that is friendly with… Read more »
I have the following to say: The data is bad. Not just your data. All of it. Every piece of data from every study on any issue this politically charged. It’s not bad because of a conspiracy or an organized cover up or a cabal of wizards. It’s bad because the surveys which produce this data are drawn up by people with politics, people who are emotionally to close the issues at hand, instead of people who actually care about data. I have autism. I know what it means to care about data and I can spot someone who doesn’t… Read more »
Men are also purveyors of the idea of men as predators. If you worry about your wife or girlfriend or daughter walking alone at night, are you worried about her being assaulted by women or men? If she says she felt creeped out by male stranger, what are the thoughts that go through your head? In my case, the way I think, sounds like an assumption of male guilt to me….
I’m not saying it’s justified or not, just that the presumption of guilt is clearly there, and internalized in men as well as women.
> Men who experience emotional or physical violence in relationships at the hands of a women are > less likely to live in fear of that violence than the other way around. And you call that a sign of how bad women have it. Oh, Michael, let me enlighten you. Have you ever heard the phrase (big) boys don’t cry? The reason why experience less fear even when they should by hiding in a corner shivering with it, is because they are taught from when they are little to ignore and suppress their wants, needs, pain, and fear. Every time… Read more »
Amen, with exclamation marks!!!
Quick question, can you provide research that supports the claims that the Myths above are in fact Myths?
I’m responding directly to the article without taking the time to read all of the posts before mine. I state that so we all know I may restate a point already made. I have first hand experience from several attempts to get my Autistic son out of an abusive household. My ex has been investigated 13 times, and had charges of child abuse substantiated against her. Multiple custody evaluators have stated in court that my son should be with me. My ex has violated the visitation schedule a dozen times costing me thousands of dollars. This has been acknowledged and… Read more »
> Violence among men (from homophobic bullying and fighting in schoolyards to armed robbery, from > sexual assault of boys/other men to murder and war). Why do you think gay men are so much more vilified than lesbians? Because two gay men means two less men than can provide for women. If you go ask the guy who did the armed robbery where the money goes to, a good chunk of the time, the money he made goes to his girlfriend. A man is trained from birth to be a provider for women, to keep them safe. Men go to… Read more »
You know for a feminist this really was a pretty good effort. For an anti-feminist it would be a C but for a feminist it’s an A. I guess you just have to grade them on a curve, right? At least he tried. When a feminist does try like that I’ve noticed that it is often a guy. Probably the best feminist for that “womansplaining” would be Ampersand although I don’t know if has got any new material in the last 5 to 10 years. It’s just so rare for any feminist to try and debate any of their claims… Read more »
“That desire by men to share custody is one of the great gifts of feminism to men: that encouragement and assumption that we can as good parents as women” It should have been that way if feminists were intellectually and morally consistent. They never ever were. Feminists have always demanded the ability to have their cake and eat it too. Feminist did expect men to be good parents when it suited the feminist desire to have equal number of women and men work, however they have never ever supported joint custody or shared parenting in cases of divorce. That came… Read more »
Right, the thing that’s always interested me was the demand for Victorian protections while demanding equality. Nothing wrong with equality, of course. But the neo-puritanism of being extremely sex-negative and pro-monogamy while being feminist strikes me as being inconsistent. Such early feminists as Edna St. Vincent Millay, Emma Goldman, and (later) Germane Greer didn’t take this position, of course.
Most of the feminists I knew in the 60s-70s were sex positive. But the Andrea Dworkin – Bob Jensen type of feminism seems to re-connect the two.
It’s well documented that women commit more child abuse. It’s due to the propinquity of women to kids.
That is what makes the following from the article so frustrating. It assumes that men commit the majority of abuse and that is why they lose custody.
“I believe that if a man (or woman) has committed serious or ongoing abuse of his children or such abuse against his spouse (which, research tells us, when witnessed by children, has as negative an impact on the child as if it was directed against the child) he has forfeited his right to custody.”
How ironic, the very next article over is by Hugo who says male guilt presumption is justified and needs to kept up.
This article says no such thing exists. I think you man-haters at least need to get your stories consistent.
If they were worried about consistency and logic, they wouldn’t be man-haters.
Mr. Kaufman, I thoroughly debunked your article at my blog. I challenge you to muster up a response. Okay?
Right. Let’s pretend society doesn’t like to believe men are guilty and women are not. I’m sorry to repeat it since we’ve all heard it enough times, but as many of us were told as young boys (my parents had it on a plaque on my bedroom wall…):
What are little boys made of? Snips (frogs) and snails and puppy dogs’ tails. What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice.
1. You call this a myth but it happens. There are people (not just feminists) that actually do make the assumption that if violence happens it must have been done by a man. Sure you lay out that most violence is committed by men but instead of using that evidence to call out the people who buy into the assumption (that if violence happens it must have been done by a man) you instead use it to cry foul on the people who are pointing out that the assumption is unfair. 3. Huh? Ever see the statistics for how many… Read more »
In many (but not all) cases, the more serious acts of violence by a woman against a man are either in self-defense or are a final, desperate retaliation for years of abuse. (That’s why women’s shelters and better policing to end men’s violence against women are life-savers for men: they help a terrorized, trapped woman get out of her marriage without thinking the only way out is through killing her spouse.) Well this fits the feminist narrative of why women are violent in DV cases. But Im not buying it so easily. Now, Again, please provide the name of study.… Read more »
Im so glad to see the antifeminist ‘true DV figures’ crew are here to slice and dice this article Also, could the author cite, link the study from which he could make the astonishing quote below. Which does not seem likely to me, as the impact of the threat of violence whether mental or physical, is not dependent on sex, but on the temperament of the abusee Men who experience emotional or physical violence in relationships at the hands of a women are less likely to live in fear of that violence than the other way around. Men might not… Read more »
Jameseq – It’s an interesting point. It’s also interesting that the focus is always upon violence and fear. It looks at dynamics on a micro moment time scale and not the macro – missing the bigger pictures. Living in an abusive relationship is recognized as causing long term health damage, physical and psychological. That affects Mortality and Morbidity rates. A great deal of study has been done in that area for women – but equivalent study in men has been lacking. Why? Is it Gender Mythology and supposed common sense getting in the way of balanced study that is not… Read more »
Possibly men expect violence, so less fear and more acceptance of it as a “normal” part of their experience. Considering the majority of deaths from violence are male, I don’t think it’s a good thing to accept if it’s true. Even if men have less fear, violence is wrong and they shouldn’t be subject to it. Violence is a sure-fire way to increase the risk of them defending themselves, that fight can escalate quick and if a man’s strength overpowers the woman and ends up with her more injured then who’s at fault? Is it the man for defending himself,… Read more »
I meant, Both still suffer the effects of violence*
Ah myths and monsters – Some believe in Unicorns, other monsters under the bed. I have even heard of a recent sitings of Sasquatch and Meh-Teh! ” ….there is no presumption of male guilt. Here’s why.” It would be easy to agree with that, if men were as mythical as other entities. Unfortunately – there is a great deal of evidence that the Myth of Male Guilt and it’s Mirror (The Myth Of Female Innocence) is real – and even enshrined in Institutions and social attitudes. It may not be all Institutions and even all of society, but it is… Read more »
I see some good points in the article, but even if the percentages are true they don’t give the whole picture. Yes, a minority of sexual assault charges ever lead to a conviction in court. That doesn’t mean the judge and jury refuse to believe the accuser. It doesn’t mean society assumes that men are innocent. Whether the accusation is true or not, whether he’s found guilty or not, there are generally plenty of people who will assume he’s guilty (where there’s smoke there’s fire, right?), or they will at least stay away from him just in case it is… Read more »
Michael picked a bad day to spout his untruths.
See the CDC Study released at the same time.
As Ron commented on the thread there:
“The CDC also say that women initiate domestic violence the majority of the time, and that the strongest indicator of a woman being injured by DV, is her own violence.
h t t p://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020
The problem is more complex than some would have us believe.”
When can we expect a retraction, Michael and publisher?
Your “myths” are transparently true.
You are not entitled to your own facts.
Just sounded like a lot of feminist man-hating bullshit to me.
And people want to credit the Trump administration with coming up with the idea of “alternative facts”.
Bottom line problem: Women are permitted, even encouraged, to be highly emotionally sensitive. Women are given special legal rights based on the social norm that they are entitled to high emotional sensitivity. Example: Michael says in his article: “Men who experience emotional or physical violence in relationships at the hands of a women are less likely to live in fear of that violence than the other way around. Men might not like it, men might know they’re stuck in a crappy and abusive relationship, but they’re less likely to be living in terror compared to women. In other words, the… Read more »
Excellent work JustaMan. You reckon we will see this gold standard Canadian Study?
Theres so much wrong with this article that has been so well examined above that I feel I’d merely be reposting it to comment further. I’d just like to address the author and ask him to please do a little research on the issue, even if just to check his figures. I think you’ll be surprised.