Please tell me if this domestic abuse campaign is as misogynistic as I feel it is...

I had a poke around and I suspect that Facebook group has been created to be a stick to beat specific women with metaphorically.

But at a distance with plausible deniability.

On one hand of course emotional abuse affects men. On the other, accusing women of emotional abuse can be a form of harassment.

@Rahres Saying that women's words can be emotionally and mentally abusive isn't a special pass to be handed out to men who decide they want to hit back. That image clearly showed the man's outburst as being an acceptable reaction to her 'poking' him. It wasn't raising awareness, telling men in his situation to seek support or shelter. It was saying 'look what you make us do'.

Awareness should be raised to say that if you're being 'poked', leave. Walk away and if you have children and are concerned for their safety, take them with you. That there'll be somewhere safe to go and people to listen to you. Not telling you to hang around, telling yourself that you're a victim and you can no longer be held responsible for your actions. That's terrible advice and any real foundation would steer well clear of endorsing that kind of action, because it's not good for anybody, including the abuse victim.

@Rahres yes they can be. No one is denying that, and there is a lot that men can do about offering help,support etc.

Even that image in isolation, while disturbing, could be explained . But then you have the grotesque caricatures of women, the women as gold diggers portrayal, extremely violent and even bloody portrayals of women as abusers, moaning that Women's Aid should be People's Aid, claims like "women rely in men,children rely on men" and so on it paints a pretty ugly bigger picture and a quite obvious agenda.

Why are people deliberately twisting what is being posted here?
Noone has implied women can't be abusive.
That advert appears to be misogynistic. "Toxic" women "destroy" good men, with no description of what toxic is or how men are destroyed.
As numerous people have said, the aim of DV charities is to help people leave damaging relationships, not to label the abuser or the victim as "toxic", "destroyed" or anything else.

The ones who do need help, are lumped in with a group of men who feel it's acceptable to hurl abuse at a woman because she 'poked' him one time too many, then call themselves the victims.

But if a woman was being mentally and emotionally worn down by verbal abuse, being controlled and manipulated, gaslighted, whatever it is that isn't physical abuse... If she suddenly stood up to her abuser and hurled a load of abuse at him, you would condemn her? You would prevent her from calling herself a victim? It's not wrong to fight back after you've been mentally abused and psychologically destroyed, everyone has a breaking point.

This just reminds me of what Andrea Dworkin said - men will often respond to women’s words as if they were violence.

Women's words can be emotionally and mentally abusive though.

All lives matter, too.That'se.

That's true. Typo, sorry.

swap the genders and roles do you still think it is unreasonable? I don,t think it is helpful but it doesn,t mean it isn,t true.

FFS. Whataboutery is spreading like wildfire.

All lives matter, too.That's true. But, you know what? Some things are best left never said!

I've got a lot of time for her, hadn't seen this piece but it looks interesting, especially in that is countering everything my workmate is quoting. Will have a proper read through this evening.

Karen Ingala Smith has done some brilliant work on this issue.

I'll have a read of that, thanks DonnaQuixote.

@Shmurf my mother was like that. Funny thing was it was my mum who walked out on my dad. (Both dead) She then exhibited this behaviour and worse on us. If you stood up for yourself you were then the abusive one. It led to various siblings going NC or LC with her. As a teen I frequently ended up staying with one of my brothers' and SIL because of her behaviour. My SIL refused to talk to her.

Over the years I seen and heard stories of abusive parents and siblings as well partners in all types of relationships.

crankysaurus wrote:

"There's a big stigma around being a male victim of DV...."

That is just another example of MRA propaganda, as Karen Ingala Smith explaines on her blog, studies show men are more likely to report DV than women are. kareningalasmith.com/2013/04/29/this-thing-about-male-victims/

It’s harder for men to report, there’s much more of a taboo for men’

Exactly the opposite:

men are more – not less – likely to call the police
men are more likely – not less – to support a prosecution
men are less likely – not more – withdraw their support of charges.

I think its misogynistic too.
What exactly is a "toxic" woman?
For lots of women in abusive relationships, the abuse is a pattern they don't recognise, even while it's happening to them (been there, done that). There are lots of models and research that show what abusive behaviour is and how it shows up in relationships (e.g. duluth wheel).

This just says "toxic" and has an overaggerated picture. What does that mean and how will it help a man figure out if he's being abused or controlled?

There is a difference between systematic abuse and control and having arguments. Some relationships (argumentative) would benefit from couples therapy. Some (abusive) wouldn't. That page seems to be suggesting anything other than nurturing kind behaviour from a woman is "toxic" and a man is within his rights to slap her if she does it.

Obviously it is incredibly misogynistic

DA posters/help aimed at women are all about the victim accessing help, support, shelter, getting away etc.

Thats just a big advert against women. It doesnt help a man whos being abused at all, its purely an anti-woman poster.

When its saying 'but we dont talk about it' (subtext unlike dv against women) whose fault is that? Fucking mens. But its trying to blame women. We cant talk about your domestic abuse for you, the only reason DV against women gets spoken about is because victims started speaking about it

*should say it's not his site that I know of but he does quote it extensively.

These MRA groups/pages always demonise women/the opposite sex in a way that proper DV charities do not.

That's interesting you say that, ThatsHowWeRowl, a colleague has been posting about parental alienation on the work intranet chatboards and that's exactly the vibe I've got from it. Feels full on MRA. A couple of people have challenged him on it but I've not yet, trying to work out how to remain professional at the same time as expressing my opinion. Their site is down at the moment but it's this normally parentalalienationuk.info/

This is a Redpill message I think - something from the more misogynistic end of the MRA movement. Its designed to provoke a response. Its trolling, not a serious message.

of course male victims of DV need more support - and if MRA activists put as much time and effort into fundraising and setting this support up you know the way women had too, those services would be there

but they dont want to do that, they just want to moan about unfairness because that's easier

There sure should be more support for male victims of dv. But complaining that women victims get more support is a bit absurd, if one has the briefest of looks at, say, dv deaths. It's pretty horribly obvious which sex needs more support.

I remember one where they asked women if they'd ever hit their partner and the result was surprisingly much higher than when they asked men, which they proposed was maybe because men were embarrassed to admit.

Could also be that women over-estimate the impact of them hitting through guilt, and men simply don't remember because it had so little effect on them.

Much like I have a son who's a foot shorter than me - if he hit me, then it might sting a bit, but I'm not scared of the idea, I could restrain him if I had to. In the same way DP, a foot taller than me wouldn't have a problem restraining me, me hitting him would have very little impact - if he hit me though, I would be flung across the room.

Yes, some men are victims of horrific domestic violence at the hands of a women, but lets not pretend that men and women are starting from an equal footing.

its important to remember as well the definiton of domestic abuse i.e. it is between family members not just people who are married/in a relationship/were in a relationship

Domestic abuse is categorised by any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or have been intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality. This can encompass but is not limited to the following types of abuse:

physical
emotional
psychological
sexual
financial
This definition includes honour-based abuse and forced marriage, and is clear that victims are not confined to one gender or ethnic group.

These MRA groups/pages always demonise women/the opposite sex in a way that proper DV charities do not. It's not necessary, you can raise awareness of DV against men without these memes and posts which are dripping with misogyny.