When I talk about DV against women to some men.....

[Fireirons]

They immediately turn the conversation around to women being violent towards men. Yep. Women are also violent. I agree.

Yes there is no way violence is acceptable either way

But I cannot even begin to articulate my arguments about how women are often helpless, abused to an extent to being too terrified to leave, have no financial independence, no where to go, threatened, raped etc

I was shaking with anger the other day by a guy who just shouted me down...........that proved my point to a way. He asked for stats and then didn't believe them and tried for 45 minutes to Google stats for male DV.

Are there rescue centres for victims of male domestic violence seeking sanctuary?

I have nc for this.

Yep I have experienced DV.

[AnyFucker]

it happened just now on another thread

I started a thread about the tv programme "Murdered by my boyfriend" and got an interesting response

[AnyFucker]

Mankind for male victims of DV

[Ihavemyownname]

Yes there are a few male refuges

[SirVixofVixHall]

Years ago I lived in somewhere with a communal entrance. One of the (single, male) key holders would give a key to various male friends, some of whom he barely knew himself. I ended up having a massive row with him about this (as I had found one of the friends trying to get into my place in the middle of the night), where he ranted on about how men were more likely to be attacked than women and that he was sick of women ranting on about rapist men etc....
There seem to be a lot of twunts like this out there.

[Fireirons]

Good post AF. I will read through the website.

Thanks.

I have picked up too many women and nursed split lips, black eyes and took their children overnight to see a balanced view.

It will be hard to be objective though.

[ThatBloodyWoman]

I meant to watch that prog AnyFucker.
Which channel was it,please, so hopefully I can watch it on catch up?

[ASorcererIsAWizardSquared]

there are always those people.

i know a guy who was physically, emotionally and mentally abused by his wife for years, i have to say, the victim blaming is just as bad. The only thing i can say in our favour, really, is that there is less stigma for women to talk about it openly.

My friend feels as soon as he mentions the abuse he suffered - kicked, punched, banished from the bedroom, yelled at, thrown out of the house, property smashed/sold/thrown away, friends and family alienated, isolated, financially abused, threatened with losing his kids if he spoke up or left, that people somehow see him as some kind of less of a man for putting up with it for so long :(

Its because of this stigma, that there are less mentions of it online.

[AnyFucker]

I think men in abusive situations have as much right as women to get help and support

but let's not try to kid ourselves the prevalence and severity is anywhere near what women have endured since time immemorial

[AnyFucker]

tbw, it was on BBC3

[ihatelego]

i've previously been able to pull up facts for male victims of dv in a few seconds. It's a serious problem and they can be just as affected by female victims.

Surely the best way to progress as both feminists and taking a stand against dv is to treat it with equal measure and recognition and respect all victims the same.

(have experience with dv also completed a course on it with other survivors and not all of the abusers in that group were male!)

[ASorcererIsAWizardSquared]

sorry, by 'those people' i mean the ones that shout you down and get aggressive about it.

imho, everyone should have the right to speak about their experiences, without encroaching on either genders safe space to do so.

its possible to relate to each other without turning it into a competition or some kind of bizarre one-upmanship.

[ThatBloodyWoman]

Thank you

[ihatelego]

should read "just as affected as* female victims"

[AnyFucker]

yes, on an individual level men can be as affected as women

but feminism isn't really an individual pursuit, is it ?

[Gralick]

If I'm remembering my figures right, men under 35 are at greater risk of violence and murder than women under 35.

But the overwhelming majority of all the violence is perpetrated by men. This shows us a problem.

Also, the women's attackers are much more likely to be men they love, rather than strangers or acquaintances. Being half-murdered is arguably more traumatic when you're in a relationship with your attacker. It is inarguably more traumatic when you share a home, have children there, and cannot easily get him away from you long-term. Since it's more usually women who compromise their careers in relationships, they don't even have resources to effect an escape.

Of course men being abused by women do fear stigma, and I doubt you would find many feminists disagreeing with that.

Feminism is a women's movement. I'm afraid, these days, I laugh in the face of "what about" men who cry 'Where are our refuges, eh?' I suggest they should be asking other men that question: do they think Refuge dropped, fully-formed, from the sky?

I don't lack sympathy for men, far from it. I lack sympathy with men who can't stand women having more of anything, even suffering, and who try to make women think only of them.

I hope that was ranty enough

[Gralick]

Incidentally (and I won't rant about this) - Figures for violent attacks on men by women are going up. This appears to be due to violent men identifying as women. Since it is illegal to record that data, the analysis has to be done by interview. So it will take a long time to amass a body of evidence.

[PedantMarina]

WARNING: ad absurdum follows:

But, surely Da Menz should be ashamed of being abused by a girlie (by any means: physical, emotional, financial, etc) because if they were beating their wommon into submission this wouldn't be happening?!?

Or (assuming they're such girlie-gayboys that they eschew physical violence), their clearly superior male intellect failed them and they didn't detect and avoid the [female] abuser in the first place?

If they fail on one or both these counts, don't they deserve to be abused? Because they're not being REAL MEN...

What I'm trying to say is, shame about male abuse is hand-in-hand with other [stupid] societal shames: that a woman asks for rape, that children of abused mums are better off with the family not being disgraced by divorce, etc. If a man is subjected to shame for experiencing what can happen to anybody, it pretty much proves the same point about the rape/beating/etc culture that we're all having to deal with and can't get rid of fast enough.

Sorry, if I had a "big jazz-hands finish" to this, I can't remember it.

[AnyFucker]

it's certainly not feminists who attribute shame to male victims of DV

[Fireirons]

I have had too many 'discussions' with too many men about feminism to not get riled.

I want more public info films aimed at young people and shown in schools to show how shouting, insults, jealousy, possessive behaviour can turn into a shove and slap and a punch, beatings and rape.

The abuse will ALWAYS start slowly and build. The more informed you are the more you are prepared to recognise the signs and get the hell out.

I know this type of thread has been done to death and when I was sixteen I wish my school had shown some but they were not around then.

I was a text book victim to the absolute letter.

[PedantMarina]

Quite, AF, I think what I was trying to say is that when da menz complain about the shame of male abuse, what they may not realise they're complaining about is that we're all being stigmatised by the same assholes, i.e. that we have a common front to fight.

[AnyFucker]

I'm sorry to hear that, Fire

[PedantMarina]

Totally, Fireirons, and I wish that general "respect" information was given to high school (even before) students, as well as specific information on abuse. Hell, I'm still seeing grown women on Relationships boards who are reluctant to contact WA because "he's not actually punching me". And that makes me so sad. When I think of the vast amounts of things young women need to learn, I just - words fail me.

[Fireirons]

Thanks all I have left it all behind me many years ago. Maybe.

What breaks my heart is one day I was sitting on the sofa with my friend's little boy and watching tv and he was cuddled into my arm. He was three.

The moment his Mum walked in he screamed and pointed at me and said

'She is getting aggressive and frightening me'.

I was stunned. He has known me from when he was a bump.

He was parroting his mother's words to the police/me/friends on the phone.

Replace 'She' for 'he'. His Dad.

I was just sitting quietly curled up with him watching a cartoon while his mum made a cup of tea.

She will not discuss that incident. I think it hit her harder than any punch.