To think the high volume of male abusers means some people find it hard to see when a female is an abuser?

[BraykeDance]

Having experienced first hand fairly extreme abuse from a female, I feel a bit like even in 2023 some people struggle to believe women are capable of extreme psychological, emotional and even physical abuse.

I find often people want to victim blame by implying the man must have deserved it or driven her to it. Amber Heard being a great example of an abuser where I think if she were a man people would see much more clearly that she is an abuser.

I understand men (for reasons I don't understand) have a greater tendency to be abusers in the sense of power and control; but women do this too sometimes.

I found, as someone recovering from such am abuser, that many people minimised it and almost normalised behaviour that would certainly mean prison for a man.

Which made healing as a victim a lot harder. And also made it far easier for the abuser to continue.

AIBU to think we hold women to a different standard and sometimes reframe abusive behaviour or coercive control to fit with the idea of the female victim?

If it’s not the time and place to bring up Amber Herd then why did you bring it up in your OP and why do you continue to raise it as an example.
If you bring up a public issue and emphatically state your opinion on it , people are allowed to respond.

iI haven’t disrespected survivors of abuse.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the narratives you are promoting on this thread , I find them misogynistic, and I think it’s very important to say so.

But @AdamRyan you are ignoring the vast majority of the evidence she presented. There is a huge volume of evidence showing that abuse is most commonly bi-directional. I saw you on the other thread, I read the evidence presented by @Natalya123, it was eye opening, I didn't contribute much as I didn't have time.
You took one of the smaller studies and made one point that bi-directional abuse is often self defense. You failed to respond to the point that 'one way' abuse was more often carried out by women. Why do you ignore that point?
You also dismiss all abuse unless it's physical, you only care about abuse that is physical and you only care if it's man on woman.

This thread is about male abuse being dismissed and downplayed and that's what you are doing here with your relentless anti-male agenda. We are not here to count up who abuses who more, we know that more physical harm happens to women, but the evidence suggests that there is a huge problem on both sides, and some of the issues raised in this OP are really important.
Why cant you acknowledge that?

And I'm fed up of seeing MRA thrown around willy nilly. It's what happens in every thread. People make valid points sensible points, show evidence, and feminists just start name calling thinking it strengthens their argument, it doesn't.

What narratives do you disagree with?
Amber Heard aside because that is causing a distraction, what has been said by OP that you disagree with?

She believes that it’s hard for people to believe that women commit abuse, that people downplay abuse committed by women, and that it’s harder for male victims compared
to female victims to be believed. in fact the dynamics are quite the opposite (the AH/ JD trial being a perfect example). Women face relatively greater barriers to being believed as victims (their word is less likely to be considered as weighty and veritable as a man’s- this is even recognised formally in many jurisdictions where women’s testimony isn’t given the same weight as legal evidence) , women are culturally more likely to be both targets for accusations of abuse and more likely to be deeply vilified and pay the ultimate price for these accusations (read history of the persecution of witches).

OP also apparently wants some special status of victimhood because she is a victim of female abuse, as if female abuse is in some terrible category of its own , which is a subtle dog whistle to the very same dynamics - whereby female abuse is actually seen as somehow more malignant / dangerous than male abuse (which is normalised in comparison) etc.

You provide balanced arguments, and I agree that there are two main issues at play. But again you're moving a narrative away from female abuse and placing the blame at the hands of men, which detracts from the experience of the victim and makes it (again) a feminist issue, so nothing is done to support those victims.

Just to give an example, my best friend is a man, he has been the victim of long term emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of his wife which in the end turned briefly physical in the form of one punch. He left the marriage but it continues in the form of control with the kids. It is relentless and never ending, I've seen all the messages, ive listened to all the recordings.
In his area (an outer London borough) there are council run free support groups for female victims of domestic violence, there is nothing for him.
He sent me a list of all the groups in his area and none were anything he could attend. I worry every day that suicide will be his next move. If he loses his child, which is what she is trying to do now, I could easily see that happening.

How can we tackle female on male abuse if we don't acknowledge it exists? Why cant we accept that humans (male and female) are capable of some pretty awful things, especially in relationships when emotions such as jealousy and anger and fear of loss etc all come into play from both sides.

I personally think that female abuse is much more commonplace than we believe it is - but society has minimised it as it tends to come from female caregivers. In India it’s widely known that the parent most likely to beat you is your Mum, but that beating is described as a ‘sweet pain’ - ie evidence that your Mum loves you. It’s become a joke almost.

I can't draw conclusions from reading snapshots and raw data, and natalya doesn't link the sources.
When I googled, the ones I could find didn't at all show what natalya said they did.
I don't believe "one way" abuse is most often carried out by women and not seen any studies on this thread or the other to support that statement.

Anyway I thought op made it very clear she wanted the thread for victims of female abuse to be able to discuss that. So I'll bow out.

No @Ilovebudgies I'm not shifting the narrative. I'm staying strictly within the remit of the question posed by the OP. The OP asked specifically if we thought male abuse victims were taken less seriously because far more men are abusers. The post you quoted is my response to that question. My opinion being that if they are, then here is a possible reason for that.
I couldn't be more focused on the issue at hand if I tried.
If that involves stating the rather obvious point that the treatment of abuse victims is controlled by men, so any complaints about that apect of male abuse cant really be laid at womens doors, and that doesn't fit comfortably on a thread designed to turn a spot light on evil women, well, that's too bad.
If the OP is serious about changing perceptions of male abuse victims, she needs to focus on or at least acknowledge the role of the men with the power to effect that change.
If she merely wants to tell us that men are victims of women, she needs a new thread title that doesn't contain a question she may not like the answers to.

So, am i an MRA for wanting justice for my disabled friend who's life has been made a living hell by his ex for the last 3 years?

He is now at this point scared, suicidal, and even has a panic button installed in his house because even the police think he at risk of harm from her.. yet despite 2 separate convictions for her crimes, she is still walking free with just a slap on the wrist.

Wanting him safe, alive, and able to get on with his life doesn't make me an MRA.

Why do you think the treatment (and likelihood of being believed) of male abuse victims is controlled solely by men?
38% of the police force is now female, 35% of judges are female, and most councils have both men and women on the boards making local decisions. Most newspapers have a fairly even distribution of male and females writing articles, which influences public perception and our culture.
I think it's a cop out to just say 'men up there, hello up there, can you hear me? Can you sort this out please' as a response to every issue.
I think the attitude of some women on here (that it's not really an issue for men, dismissing it etc) is pervasive in society. Both men and women are responsible for the culture we exist in, for newspaper articles, for tweets, for news reports etc, it isn't all in the hands of men.

And yet Heard vs Depp is a prime example of what the OP is saying.

How? They are both proven liars.

Do you think then @Ilovebudgies that it was women who created the sex based stereotypes that lead people to believe that a 'real man' couldn't be abused by a woman? That a 'real man' is strong, powerful, master in his own home and should be perfectly capable of controlling a woman, his inferior in every way?
And do you really believe that because women are now employed within the institutions that run society this means their influence in those spheres is equal to that of men?
Your own figures demonstrate only that women are a minority in these roles, and you have given no weight to where they typically stand in the hierarchy, or to their comparatively recent inclusion in male dominated spheres where the culture has been fixed for centuries.

We have 5 posters on here denying that from the start, any evidence from the trial is not believed and those arguing the point are told that they must are supporting an abuser and an MRA.

JD must be guilty.

I'm surprised that we haven't had handmaiden and the other favourite slurs that are often banded about

No I'm not saying it's equal by any stretch, especially in the upper echelons, but it is far from this total male dominance society that people try to insinuate.

The fact is if a man goes to the police, there is probably a high chance he will be met by a female, if he is in court there is a decent chance he will be faced with a female judge.

I agree with you on the development of sex based stereotypes but these were developed far before any modern man was born. They are entrenched in society and affect the current attitudes of both men and women today and can be challenged by both men and women today.

Like the OP is saying, many people think abuse of men isn't a big deal, evidence is showing that domestic abuse appears to be two way, but people just will not believe it, they shut down the evidence without even reading it.
That isn't a male issue, that is actually usually a female one. Women feel that discussions around male victims of abuse somehow detracts from their feminist fight against 'man on woman' abuse, so they attempt to dismiss it and shut it down, start throwing MRA at people and listing all the ways in which women suffer at the hands of men.
It is perfectly possible to champion both causes but it's almost impossible to have a debate on it, and I can see why few politicians want to even go near it.

Highest rates are for lesbian and bisexual women.

You don't hear many men challenging the stereotypes though, do you? Until a minority of them come up against one of the very few ways they may not work to their interests, they tend to either endorse them or at best move through life oblivious to the privileges they afford them.
In truth I think the idea of men and women working together to break down sex stereotypes to avoid a few men being collateral damage is a pipe dream.
You might be able to convince some women to 'be kind' and to adopt men's causes (there is a lot of predisposition amongst women to do this) but I can't imagine how you'd ever get the men on board. After all, the vast majority of them will never encounter this issue and tend to be very quick to sneer at and other those who do.

There is some real disinformation being pushed on this thread and a really transparent MRA agenda, that no one who works in the criminal justice system, or with victims of domestic violence (both sexes) (me included) recognises.

Some counterpoints and studies:

• The majority of domestic homicide victims (killed by ex/partner or a family member) for the year ending March 2017 to the year ending March 2019 were female (77% or 274 victims) and most of the suspects were male (263 out of 274; 96%). Of the 83 male victims of domestic homicide, the suspect was female in 39 cases, and male in 44 cases. (ONS, 2020A)
• Over the three-year period April 2016 to March 2019, a total of 222 women were killed by a partner or ex-partner. The majority of suspects were male (218, 98%). This means that during this time period, an average of three women every fortnight were murdered by their male partner or ex-partner. (ONS, 2020B)
• One study of 96 cases of domestic abuse recorded by the police found that men are significantly more likely to be repeat perpetrators and significantly more likely than women to use physical violence, threats, and harassment. In a six year tracking period the majority of recorded male perpetrators (83%) had at least two incidents of recorded abuse, with many having a lot more than two and one man having 52 repeat incidents. Whereas in cases where women were recorded as the perpetrator the majority (62%) had only one incident of abuse recorded and the highest number of repeat incidents for any female perpetrator was eight. The study also found that men’s violence tended to create a context of fear and control; which was not the case when women were perpetrators. (Hester, 2013)
• 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)
• The large majority of defendants in domestic abuse-related prosecutions in the year ending March 2020 were recorded as male (92%) and the majority of the victims recorded as female (77%, compared with compared with 16% who were male). The sex of the victim was not recorded in 7% of prosecutions. If these missing data were excluded from analysis, then it would be 82% female victims and 18% male victims (ONS, 2020C).

ReferencesDobash, R.P. and Dobash, R.E. (2004) ‘Women’s violence to men in intimate relationships. Working on a Puzzle’, British Journal of Criminology, 44(3), pp. 324–349
Hester, M. (2013) ‘Who Does What to Whom? Gender and Domestic Violence Perpetrators in English Police Records’, European Journal of Criminology, 10: 623- 637
Myhill, A. (2015) ‘Measuring coercive control: what can we learn from national population surveys?’ Violence Against Women. 21(3), pp. 355-375
Myhill, A. (2017) ‘Measuring domestic violence: context is everything.’ Journal of Gender-Based Violence, vol 1, no 1, 33–44
Office for National Statistics (ONS). (2020A). Domestic abuse victim characteristics, England and Wales: year ending March 2020. Published online: ONS
Office for National Statistics (ONS). (2020B). Appendix tables: Homicide in England and Wales. Published online: ONS
Office for National Statistics (ONS). (2020C). Domestic abuse and the criminal justice system, England and Wales: November 2020 Published online: ONS
Walby, S. and Allen, J. (2004) Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking: Findings from the British Crime Survey. Home Office Research Study 276. London: Home Office
Walby, S. and Towers, J. (May 2017) ‘Measuring violence to end violence: mainstreaming gender’, Journal of Gender-Based Violence, vol. 1, no.
Walby, S. and Towers, J. (2018) ‘Untangling the concept of coercive control: Theorizing domestic violent crime’, Criminology & Criminal Justice, Vol 18, Issue 1, pp 7-28
Women’s Aid, Hester, M., Walker, S-J., and Williamson, E. (2021) Gendered experiences of justice and domestic abuse. Evidence for policy and practice. Bristol: Women’s Aid

5128gap

Many of those stereotypes are supported by women.
Look at who has more relationships in their younger years. Is it the nice men that will treat women right and look after them or is it the exciting bad boys?
We all know that its the bad boys. So what do those that want a relationship do? They mirror the market.
For all that some women say they want a man that shows his emotions etc. most will ridicule those same men until they are either ready to settle down or are done with the bad boys and want some emotional back up to bring up the children that the bad boys have abandoned.

Neither side comes out of this well.

To be transparent these are from a specialist domestic violence organisation, Women’s Aid and not plucked from Wikipedia like @Natalya123 ‘a and so will instantly be dismissed as from a “feminist” organisation and then invalid. Presumably the ONS statistics showing between 2-3 women a week on average being killed by a current or former partner are also suspect and “feminist”.

Like I said, so transparent as is the dubious revisionist evolutionary biology of women competing for the best men. Think on geniuses - in every mammalian species (of which we are one) males compete for fertile females not the other way around. Ask yourself why, if women compete for men, do men produce millions of sperm with each ejaculation, when there is only one egg to fertilise?! In biology when an organism produces lots of its gametes - it’s either because so few will survive (not the case in humans) or because they have to overcome a lot of competition.

asAs for men work better collaboratively in teams, I mean do you actually know any history? Virtually ever war in history has been started by and fought by men. The perpetrators of almost ever genocide have been men. I mean I can’t even countenance such stupidity. Women cannotgive birth alone. It’s incrediblydangerous. They had to have other female midwives and birth attendants helping them throughout history and have done so very very successfully.

I don’t believe that the OP or others are posting in good faith. Multiple other posters have stated that they believe men can be victims of abuse, but OP is on a crusade to claim that women are “worse” abusers than men and that just is not the case. There is also a massive amount of under reporting of abuse by women when men are the perpetrators.

We all know that its the bad boys. So what do those that want a relationship do? They mirror the market.

Oh my god what a load of misogynistic twaddle.
You could equally say "Look at the behaviour of boys on their teenage years. We all know most of them are unempathetic, self centred, risk taking "bad boys" (this is based on actual research into teenage brains). So what do those (girls) that want a relationship do? They mirror the market"

Women's behaviour is not the driver for men's misogyny.

A thousands times this!

This is a very interesting female centred evolution psych view

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/sex-and-the-female-agenda