To think there should be a freedom project for men?

[Lilolilibet]

I encouraged my friend (a bloke who is a victim of rather horrific domestic abuse) to do the freedom project. I knew there was a version for men.

On looking closer it turns out that the men's version is to help them curb their abusive behaviours. Doubtless much needed but where is the help for men who are also victims?

It is off putting to apply for help and discover an assumption that you're the perpetrator because you're not a woman. I fully understand it's men's fault that this is the way it works but it's hard on the men who are also victims. Shouldn't there be some acknowledgement of their position too?

Any initiative that is set up to help men generally get a a lot of backlash, so even if they did set one up, I doubt it would be well received.

Except there are already plenty of organisations that focus on helping men. So your argument doesn’t work.

And even if it was to get ‘backlash’ then so bloody what? Just ignore the naysayers and carry on.

Really? That's such a shame. I see nothing but high praise for the organisations that operate in my local area. Andy's Man Club, Dad Matters and Men In Sheds are some that immediately spring to mind that are well publicised and highly rated locally.

All of these initiatives (shared by a previous poster on this thread) face a lot of backlash do they? Could you share your source on that as it's not something I've been aware of?

• Mankind Initiative
• Men's Advice Line
• Men's Domestic Abuse Support
• For Men
• Refuge - Support for Men
• Men's Aid
• ADAM Project
• End the Fear
• Safer Places
• Survivors UK
• The Pankhurst Trust
• Men's Advisory Project

• CALM

This is absolute bollocks.

There's an article (somewhere) by a woman who has set up charities both for men and for women. The women's charities she gets loads of shit about why they are women's charities. Men's; not a dicky bird.

I've worked in predominantly male services (homelessness) and get no shit whatsoever. Mention women's hidden homelessness and it's all 'what about this and that'.

People talk out of their arses. Showing that they actually haven't worked in support services for men, making their points completely and obviously wrong. And proving they don't actually care, they just want to guilt someone else and virtue signal.

I've saved actual men's actual lives. In not very safe places. And no, everyone is nice about it. No one tells me off for helping men.

Or male victims of cancer, like they muscled in on Race For Life.

Yeah, usually by the men they're in a relationship with.

There is support and services out there for men who are victims of domestic abuse.

I find some of the posters posting statistics about x number of men being killed per year very disingenuous. They fail to mention that those men were killed by other men-not women.

No one is denying that men can and do suffer from DV. No one is saying that they don't deserve support and help to get out of those situations. They do.

However, it's not for women to provide or campaign for those services. Women fought long and hard, under a lot of ridicule and abuse, for the services that women now have today and sadly, 2 women a week are still being murdered by their partner or ex-partner (last I checked).

It is not women who ridicule men who suffer from DV. It is other men. Just as it's men who ridicule and minimise teenage boys when they've been taken advantage of by a female teacher with comments like "Wish I had a teacher like that when I was at school!" I think we've all heard those comments and it's never said by a woman, is it? Always by men who think it's the height of humour to ridicule male victims of abuse.

I've discussed at length on SM DV and things like that and always receive the same responses from men. It's always the same bleating, "What about the men?" but I never see any action by men to raise awareness or fundraise or anything. It just seems to be that some men think women magically got gifted the support that we have and think it's terribly unfair we're not out there, gifting it to them, too.

No one is denying that men can and do suffer from DV. No one is saying that they don't deserve support and help to get out of those situations. They do.

They do deserve it and have it, but they don't tend to need it much.

Do you have any sources to back that up? I can't find any?

For instance there aren't designated abuse shelters for men, because there isn't sufficient demand for them.

Men tend to still keep their jobs during abuse, so it's easier for them to set up again.

The men who suffer significant abuse in the way women do, would tend to be men with disabilities. That is what Evan Stark says in his book Coercive Control.