40% of domestic abuse victims are men

[PablosCat]

So says South East Coast Ambulance NHS foundation trust

Can anyone fact check that?!

That could include men in gay relationships as well.

I work in DV. The statistics we use say 1 in 6 men are victims of DV. It's not so openly talked about but we have plenty of referrals come in for male victims.

I really doubt that.

However even if it were true, we are living in a world where men earn more, are less likely to be the financially dependent sahp, they are smaller and not as strong as their partner, they are more likely to be killed by their partner, more likely to be objectified, disbelieved, left with the childcare if they walk away....

@SlightlyBonkersQFA I know from my work and personal experience that there are far more abusive women out there than the media and public opinion would have you think.

Believe me, doing my job doesn't make you particularly fond of men but I can't deny that they can be victims too, and in numbers higher than are actually reported.

I am pretty sure those figures were comprehensively debunked, hopefully someone will know where to find this?

IIRC the stats are skewed by the police only counting the first four incidents reported by one person (thus missing many prolific male offending incidents) and the fact that violent men often report their victims as being the perpetrators.

I am sure that there are men who are victims of abuse by women but not 40%. Murders rates of women by men are not mirrored by the reverse.

The National Crime Survey for 2018 gives a third of domestic abuse victims as male.

Who are the main perpetrators

When I worked in DV we would see men coming through but often the relationship had become abusive on both sides but the perpetrators were more often than not these men and as women would fight back and they too would be physically hurt (if one or both have gone to hospital/ police have been called) and both are injured so both can be counted as victims

But that isn’t all victims and it does need to be recognised more and men need to be encouraged to come forward

I'd be interested to know the real figures for DV as a whole. Huge amounts of abuse goes unreported and men are less likely to report it than women. It's also less likely to be recognised in men.

Interesting you make the comment about perpetrators reporting their victims as being the perpetrator. That definitely happens but sometimes it is the truth. I can think of three cases my organisation is working with now where the woman who is in refuge, having fled abuse, is also very definitely a perpetrator.

It's certainly not always clear cut.

Would be interesting to know if men get better support from agencies that support dv victims or not

I believe it. I know 2 men in abusive relationships. They won’t report it. Too ashamed. This is why statistics are lower.

@Wishforsnow I can only speak of my own agency but we support victims. Couldn't give a stuff whether they're male or female.

If anything women get better support because we can offer them a refuge place. As far as I know there are only about 2 refuges for male victims in the whole country. There are over 10 for women just in the county I'm based in.

I found that the relationships can be so complex

We would see the wives/girlfriends who were emotionally and physically abused and just a walking shell so broken

Then the other side these deeply complex relationships where the man may have been the perpetrator (not always) and they were both abusive emotionally and physically yet the violence the women were harmed more yet she would provoke him and even with much support couldn’t let go even if he had moved on - I saw this sort of scenario over and over again and they felt they had control

The second example was much more more difficult to work with

@EnthusiasmIsDisturbed I see the same as you.

The job certainly opens your eyes up to the fact that there are some vile people in the world. Male or female.

And we could talk for days about the causes and reasons. It doesn't make it any easier to work with.

Of course SWALT.

But who is being raped, beaten to a bloddy pulp, murdered? That is objective evidence and it's women. Women are being beaten, women are being raped, women are being murdered. By men.

Are we to believe that the more subtle violence is totally differently proportioned? It just isn't. Despite being physically weaker, women could still employ any number of methods to violently injure and kill their partners but they almost never do. Men do. That's very telling.

Perpetrators often frame themselves as victims and consider a women fighting back, even verbally, against his attack to be an act of her aggression and abuse against him. This skews the self reported figures.

Look again at the (heterosexual) domestic murder stats. Objective and unmanipulable. Who murders who?

I suspect it probably nearer that percentage because men are less likely to report it and there is not as much support for men as there is for women.

My brother was physically abused be his 1st wife and never reported because he felt he would not be believed because he was male.

Women's Aid have addressed this:

www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/domestic-abuse-is-a-gendered-crime/

Basically women are much more likely to be the victims of more severe, sustained violence that is more likely to result in their death, and also sexual violence.

Two women a week are murdered by their partner or ex partner. The same is not true the other way around.

Men are less likely to report DV. They are just as likely to experience it, if we used the Womens Aid definition ("We define domestic abuse as an incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading and violent behaviour")

There are also relationships where they're both as abusive as each other but more often than not the man just wants out of the relationship and to walk away, whilst the woman wants some form of revenge so she becomes the victim and him the perpetrator.

I can think of a case I've worked on where this was definitely what was going on.

Interesting article here by women’s aid saying that although men are also victims, on the whole domestic abuse is a gendered crime with women experiencing more extreme, long lasting as well as being the victim most of the time...

Over 80% (83%) of high frequency victims (more than 10 crimes) are women. (From a study of data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, a nationally representative household survey.) (Walby & Towers, 2018)
In the year ending March 2018 the large majority of defendants in domestic abuse-related prosecutions were men (92%), and the majority (66%) of victims were recorded as female (13% of victims were male and in 21% of prosecutions the sex of the victim was not recorded) (ONS, 2018).
www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/domestic-abuse-is-a-gendered-crime/

"Perpetrators often frame themselves as victims and consider a women fighting back, even verbally, against his attack to be an act of her aggression and abuse against him. This skews the self reported figures" Picsnred.

My brother is exactly like this. He has been very verbally aggressive and intimidating to me a few times; he is much bigger than me and stood in a doorway where I couldn't get out. I was in a position where I had to appease and apologise to him to get him to stop.

When I later said his behaviour had been abusive he accused me of being abusive, said 'abusive women are known for accusing men... etc...' and refused to acknowledge the fact that being a foot taller than me, wider than me, louder than me and shouting aggressively from a place where I couldn't leave the room, was abusive, scary and threatening.

Textbook Darvo. He will not acknowledge his behaviour.

A male member of my family has recently disclosed he has suffered domestic violence from his wife - he was too ashamed to admit that it had been going on for a few years but he said he felt he was conditioned to think it was 'normal'.
He hasn't had a lot of help from anywhere tbh - as he moved away to a different part of the country to where his wife lived, he has no support network nearby (his wife made sure he never had chance to go out and make friends etc). He doesnt really know what to do.

Of course some men are abused, and some of their abusers will be female partners, but it is far easier for men to leave a relationship, to walk away from children, they are physically stronger, their penis and fists can be utilised as weapons etc.
Maybe men can start their own refuges for male victims of DA?

I don't disbelieve the figure. But my question is what % is same sex relationships and what % is mutually violent relationships. Then compare the same to female victims of dv.

I read research which showed that men were more likely to report DV than women.

@CandyflossKid I'm sorry to hear about your brother. Has he contacted organisations such as ManKind or the Mens Advice Line?