I thought of myself as a ‘feminist man’; an ally to women; a guy who opposed sexism in any way I could.
And my credentials were pretty good! I’ve been involved with men’s groups for the past 25 years, and at one point helped set up an organization in Canada called ”Men against Violence against Women”. So it was embarrassing, and painful, to discover that I didn’t actually know anything very much about women’s experience of violence at the hands of some men.
This was in spite of the fact that women I knew had been trying to tell me for the past twenty years exactly what it feels like to live in a society where a significant number men still seem to feel entitled, and compelled, to abuse the very women (and children) they should be cherishing and protecting. Where every male stranger could potentially be a threat. Where women are regularly killed by their partners, and where almost all women have been in at least one relationship where they have been abused.
Even though every girlfriend I’ve ever known has told me some sort of story about being harmed in some way by a previous boyfriend, I somehow manage not to really hear it or take it in. In fact, I kind of assumed that I must’ve just had bad luck meeting girls who were predisposed to be victims.
So how exactly did this revelation come to me at this late stage in life? What caused me to wake up after managing to avoid for so long those painful facts about the actual prevalence of domestic abuse and other gender-based violence? It’s simple. I fell in love with and married a woman, who in due course shared with me the extent of the abuse that she had suffered at the hands of her ex-husband for more than fourteen years. So I started doing some research.
The embarrassing part for me is how shocked I was. I literally had no idea that so many men, even though they are a small minority, who live in the same sort of society that I do, who hold down ‘normal’ jobs, and who seem to be decent enough chaps, could actually behave in such relentlessly damaging, selfish, and toxic ways towards the women they married.
I can imagine at this point any woman reading this looking at the ceiling and shaking her head while emitting a loud D’UH! I can only say, as some kind of explanation, that one of the strange realities of being human is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and at the same time we can be unconsciously in denial and avoiding things we don’t want to know.
But why would I not want to know? I think it’s got something to do with not wanting to be negative about men, or wanting to make too much of a fuss about it all. But I now know that this is a huge yet still largely hidden issue that we NEED to be making a fuss about – in the same way we would if we suddenly discovered that one in four cars on the market was defective and likely to involve us in an accident. That’s a statistical equivalent of the risk that a woman will be on the receiving end of some kind of male violence or abuse.
For me, and I’m sure for many if not most men, it’s disturbing and painful to hear about any kind of male violence against women – combined with the shame of feeling that I may be in some way colluding with or benefitting from it.
When my wife told me about some of her past experiences, I had some questions like: ”why did you put up with it?” and ”why didn’t you just leave”. I’m only glad that before I made a complete fool of myself, I read some accounts of women who had been caught in similar circumstances, along with some analysis from various psychologist of why women stayed in abusive relationships, at least enough to recognise that someone who has not been in a similar situation can ever really understand why people caught up in a frightening and dehumanizing cycle of violence behave the way they do, and the best I can do is keep quiet listen in order to be able to get an inkling of understanding of what they’ve been through.
I’m not denying the existence of female violence against men, by the way, and I’m aware of the fact that abuse isn’t just gender-based but is about violence and oppression in general. But the statistics tell the story and say quite simply that, even though it’s only a minority of men who aver abuse, the extent of male violence against women (and against men) is much greater than the other way round, and the level of damage done is also much more severe.
It was shocking for me to discover, for example, that gender violence is the number one health risk for women across the globe – greater than the combination of war, disease, and car accidents. Let that sink in. Men kill more women than cancer and car crashes combined. But then look at the difference between the money invested by government and pharmaceuticals in trying to ease cancer (and the profits being made, in the process) and how little is being spent on women’s refuges, or on research being done to understand how to prevent violence!
Rather than analyzing the reasons for this, I’m more interested in whether, as a ”good man” who is now more aware of the scale of the problem of male violence against women and children, I can be in any way a part of a solution. With this in mind, I am starting training is a couple of organizations in the UK that will enable me to be able to work with boys in schools to help them to reflect on question issues of gender, healthy relationships, consent, and masculinity.
One other thing I’ve learned from my recent exposure to the realities of domestic and sexual abuse is that the men who are involved in this type of behavior are some of the most miserable people on the face of the planet. It’s hard to imagine anything more horrible than being caught in any way using a partner or child, other than being on the receiving end of that abuse.
So it’s in the interests of men’s, as well as women’s well-being for there to urgently be a much higher level of investment in research to understand why some men behave in such damaging ways, and what can be done to either prevent it or support them in making change. And there needs to be a similar taboo against male gender violence being in any way glorified as there is now against overt racism. We should no more accept the values espoused by the toxic ‘men’s rights’ movement that we would tolerate the ideas about race promoted by the KKK, as they both come from a place of damaging and irrational hatred.
The lack of ‘ordinary men’s’ awareness about the reality of male violence that so many women experience means that the pace of change for them is much slower than it could or should be. It also means that there is room in the collective male psyche for an unconscious and tacit acceptance of damaging male behavior rather than a zero tolerance of it, and standing up to be counted in a way that might make a difference.
I’m not suggesting that anyone else has suffered from anything like the same level of denial and delusion as me. But I’m writing this on the off chance that there are other men out there, who mean well, and want to be ‘good’, but may be living in the same bubble of unawareness that I was. This is how denial works, I guess.
I want to make sure that anyone else who is as ignorant as I have been, and who finds it equally bewildering and unacceptable for there to be this level of apparent male hatred towards women, will gain a level of awareness which will help ensure that they are empowered to be a force for change within masculinity – to do whatever they can to encourage and enable more men to live happily and fulfilled lives, and more women and children to feel loved, safe and able to fulfill their potential with the support of men. That sounds like an ambitious goal, and it is, but for me, the first steps start now.
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