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?

@5128gap

OP you have invited people to offer opinions on whether the high incidence of men abusing women makes men less likely to be believed.
None of the posts you have objected to have actually veered from this remit

5128gap, you've been very polite, but pasted below is an example of a post I've objected to, which is not even close to this cremit

"I'm pretty sure this poster is a regular anti AH poster who has name changed. If she is, I wouldn't bother because she's just going to go on about how you can "just tell" AH is abusive. Bit disingenuous to start a thread about female abusers to bring this up (again) though"

5 or 6 posters here have come here and said nothing of any sort close to the subject matter and have simply come here to troll, seemingly due to an obsession with Amber Heard. See page 12 where I've listed these.

They are the ones asked to go elsewhere. This isn't the place to come for that.

there is also no evidence to support your counterpoint either,

As for your claim that these discussions should only be dome on data.
Where are we to get this from, both sides have an agenda, both have had surveys and research debunked by the other.

Who decides which data we are going to use.

What can be asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence.

And yet one is being nasty to another poster. By inferring a stereotype.

So again its OK for one side to use stereotypes and name calling but not the other.

Just the same hypocrisy that lives on these threads all the time.

@Ilovebudgies

The whole point of the thread was to say how male abuse is down played, dismissed and not believed, and a well known case where abuse is admitted to on an audio by the abuser, is dismissed, downplayed and not believed right here on the thread repeatedly

I think this is the key issue for me really here. I have similar messages, texts from the woman who abused us - openly confessing to losing control and the various behaviour. It made me feel quite nauseated to realise a confession wouldn't be enough! That's quite a scary way to feel - a powerlessness that's familiar with abuse.

I wouldn't necessarily take objection to someone saying 'yes but it was a mutually abusive relationship' even though I don't agree with that personally, but people piled in to talk about how vile Depp is

One thing I find hard as a victim is the lack of understanding around the idea of abuse, where fighting back, reacting, being finally pushed until you lose it, is characterised as "mutual abuse". I've watched many documentaries on male-led abuse and to me it was always clear that the woman was bewildered, frightened, confused, left almost a shadow of who they were by someone who was clearly getting off on dominating them and scaring them. It makes me uncomfortable some can't spot that if the gender is changed.

If a man is an abuse victim women automatically look for what he might have done first, how he might have caused it, but in reverse that is victim blaming

Quite. There is a post a way up where someone says "yes Caroline Flack was abusive to her partner but we don't know if he drive her to it". It's the instant reaction of some. As a victim, it makes you feel pretty bad because the abuser has already made you believe you drove them to it!

It's a really important topic because usually on Mumsnet debate around it is immediately shut down by feminists shouting MRA, I think MRA has already appeared, l at least once, in a thread about male victims of abuse!

It's a problem that this one thread wasn't allowed to be a space where those kinds of comments were not made. I personally dont feel like I could share any more information here because people turned it into an unsafe space. Especially the person AdamRyan who started saying the person who abused me was the real victim. I was pretty shocked by that. You wouldn't see this on a thread about male abusers.

I knew this would be some pro Johnny Depp nonsense before I even opened the thread. And lo and behold, it is.

I saw the comment you referred to and it really shocked me, I wasn't sure if I was definitely reading it right tbh.

@BestMemberOfTheFratellis

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

There's 14 pages of posts before you made this statement. Can you please share the things I have said which have led you to levy the accusation I am on a "crusade to claim women are worst abusers than men?

I dont think that, and believe I've said the complete opposite in the title and throughout all 14 pages.

If I say I believe in Jesus, you would infer that I'm a Christian. If you say that women overlook 'nice guys' and go for bad boys, before pivoting once they get older to a 'nice guy' to help them bring up the children abandoned by those virile bad boys, I will state the obvious fact that this could be taken word for word from an incel forum.

@BraykeDance

“He might or might not have been violent, but I doubt it given the recorded conversations I heard where she admitted it and called him a baby. But even if there was, she was DEFINITELY the abuser.”

There is this little gem 👆right here. Well so what if he was violent, she was the abuser. Talk about denying, minimising, gaslighting and dismissing victims of abuse. The casual way you wave away his violence, (evidenced, proved) is frankly very telling. Isn’t that one of the rules of misogyny? Women’s behaviour makes men commit violence. You have royally shown your arse.

@Ilovebudgies

I saw the comment you referred to and it really shocked me, I wasn't sure if I was definitely reading it right tbh

Oh you read it right. I think a good example of people being unable to do exactly what I was discussing on this thread but going a bit beyond.

I'd listed on this thread the abuse I personally went through, the short and long terms effects and terror we went through.

I expected some people to not compute that this felt as bad as it would if the assailant had been a man, but the vitriol of accussing me of being a fake person, or worse, stating the person who abused me was probably the real victim was surprising.

Sorry your friend is going through this. He's lucky he's got your support.

I wouldn't know as I have never been on an incel forum. but I recognise the inability in another to put a counterpoint together and just be nasty.

@NoMorePumpkinSpiceBollocks

There is this little gem 👆right here. Well so what if he was violent, she was the abuser. Talk about denying, minimising, gaslighting and dismissing victims of abuse. The casual way you wave away his violence, (evidenced, proved) is frankly very telling. Isn’t that one of the rules of misogyny? Women’s behaviour makes men commit violence. You have royally shown your arse

You're do deeply entrenched in feminist dogma that it's blinding you to being able to treat women and men by the same standards.

If a man lovebombs and grooms a woman, isolates her, devalues her, repeatedly hits her over a long period and terrifies her to a point she is locking herself in bathrooms to escape being hit, and tells her it's her fault for making him "lose control", then He is an abuser. He is the person engaging in a pattern of abuse that has gained power and dominance by means of coercive control and manipulation.

If she pushes him or reacts, it does not make her, an abuser.

It doesn't matter if those dynamics are female on male, vice versa or same gender. It is always true.

@BraykeDance

“What I meant was that in this component of domestic abuse ie the non physical side of it that women can be incredibly manipulative and controlling. And some women are often better at it then males. I didn't mean that males don't also use psychological means to control”

This plays to an old misogynistic trope that women are sly, conniving and deceitful and worse than (the upstanding, decent, honest) men for it. It’s bollocks. Men make up all of the rapists, since rape can only be carried out by someone with a penis and they make up the vast majority of pedophiles and child sexual abusers. For which, they employ the tactics of lying, manipulating and controlling behaviour and do so far more effectively and more often than any woman. Agree with the previous pp - it’s a very familiar agenda.

I expected some people to not compute that this felt as bad as it would if the assailant had been a man, but the vitriol of accussing me of being a fake person, or worse, stating the person who abused me was probably the real victim was surprising.

Except AdamRyan didn't say that, not in any comment I read.

Do you mean this?

"You seem extremely defensive that people "don't believe" men which makes me wonder if your partner is often disbelieved about his crazy ex?"

Because that is not saying that the person who abused you and your partner was the real victim, it's asking whether your defensiveness is being fueled by the disbelief you may have encountered. Tbh the way you've equated the two is in keeping with the other inaccuracies in your posts.

It's a fairly well-known internet subculture which has been publicised in the mainstream as well, particularly as there were a couple of high-profile murderers who identified with the incel movement. It's not necessary to hang out on an incel forum to recognise the rhetoric, or to espouse it yourself, clearly.

@BraykeDance

Ah so when men react with violence to a woman they aren’t abusive, but when women do it they are. Got it OP and it’s a tactic that lots of abusive men employ. They employ a range of psychological and physical abuse tactics to the woman and when she pushes back in self defence they claim victim hood.

Your claims of entrenched in “feminist dogma”are as bad as the cries of MRA that other posters complain of. You have also deflected away from the point - you are holding women to a higher standard than men, their behaviour is “worse” than men. When it objectively, empirically isn’t.

@NoMorePumpkinSpiceBollocks

what you've quoted below wasn't me!

“What I meant was that in this component of domestic abuse ie the non physical side of it that women can be incredibly manipulative and controlling. And some women are often better at it then males. I didn't mean that males don't also use psychological means to control”

This plays to an old misogynistic trope that women are sly, conniving and deceitful and worse than (the upstanding, decent, honest) men for it. It’s bollocks. Men make up all of the rapists, since rape can only be carried out by someone with a penis and they make up the vast majority of pedophiles and child sexual abusers. For which, they employ the tactics of lying, manipulating and controlling behaviour and do so far more effectively and more often than any woman. Agree with the previous pp - it’s a very familiar agenda.

So you don't actually know what is on these websites and you are just saying that my post fits?

Or in other words you are just making stuff up to fit your agenda.

@NoMorePumpkinSpiceBollocks

Here is what I said:

"It doesn't matter if those dynamics are female on male, vice versa or same gender. It is always true"

Here is how you replied:

"Ah so when men react with violence to a woman they aren’t abusive, but when women do it they are"

No. I literally just said as plain as day that the same applies irrespective of gender.

Got it OP and it’s a tactic that lots of abusive men employ. They employ a range of psychological and physical abuse tactics to the woman and when she pushes back in self defence they claim victim hood

Yes it is a tactic abuse men employ. AND abusive women.

Your claims of entrenched in “feminist dogma”are as bad as the cries of MRA that other posters complain of

No they are not. I'm advocating equal treatment regardless of gender. You are calling people misogynistic for holding women to the sale standards as men.

You have also deflected away from the point - you are holding women to a higher standard than men, their behaviour is “worse” than men. When it objectively, empirically isn’t

Nowhere, anywhere, have I said anything remotely like that. I have said both are the same!

No, as I've said repeatedly, your post fits that ideology like a glove. These are specific, explicit beliefs within it. Young women sleeping around with attractive bad boys and then shacking up with some less attractive 'nice' schmuck as they age out of that, in order to gain the man's resources, is part of incel and MRA philosophy. You being offended, if you are, doesn't change that. Very difficult to believe it hasn't directly influenced you, but then again misogynistic tropes are so saturated within the culture that maybe you've just invented it again separately.

I am sensing a theme here that for some, the suggestion female abusers are held to the same standard as men is "misogyny" or, for some reason is beyond possibility that they could be the key aggressor.

I personally couldn't have been more clear throughout this thread that I believe abuse to be genderless, and that I believe women are equally capable of entering into the abuse cycle. That being....

Physical violence
Name calling
Mind games
Humiliation
Lying to damage someone
Invading privacy
Intimidating people with threats
Suicide threats
Minimising, denying and blaming
Sexual coercion
Coercive control
Financial abuse

Almost always characterised by "losing control" followed by minimising, denial, blame and sweet apologies. I don't think I've ever seen or heard of any abuse without that same pattern.

There isn't one of those things that I think men and women are not equally capable of. I believe, regardless of gender, than in an abusing relationship the "abuser" is always the one controlling that power wheel and engaging in several of those behaviours.

I never feel that the victim reacting by pushing their abuser out of the way, or even hitting back if the abuser is attacking them makes them an abuser. Certainly if my abuser was hitting me or attacking me, I would have restrained her or possibly even fought back. I don't know. I certainly dont blame DP for the time he dragged her out of his house by her arm when she had refused to leave for 4 hours and had threatened him with a knife and smashed many of his possessions.

Gender doesn't come into it for me. Abuse is abuse. Reacting to abuse is not "mutual abuse". This is my view and certainly mirrors every domestic violence website I've read.

It's not misogyny to hold people to the same standard regardless of gender. A female abuser doesn't hurt less and often the victim is also a woman :/ or even a child!

Actually you are now changing what I have written to meet your agenda, I didn't say anything about "girls sleeping around with attractive bad boys." nor did I post anything about "gaining a man's resources".
this is your twist on what I wrote.

I am saying whilst their is a market for bad boys there will always be bad boys.
In order for there to be no bad boys society has to change. That is both make and female.

I get the feeling that you don't actually know what you are talking about.

Exactly. But I don't think women are attracted to "bad boys". You do.

Scientific testing relies on volumes of data and deliberately trying to disprove a hypothesis. You often see statistical analysis and probabilities for example.

It is not a case of just plucking the figures that support your argument out of the research and claiming you are right.

You are entitled to your belief that women abusers are treated more leniently than men but that view isn't backed by evidence.

Unlike the view that most violence and abuse is perpetrated by men. That's backed by nearly all the evidence you would want to see.

One is faith, one is science.

I thought you weren't interested in talking about Heard/Depp any more? First post back and you are already on it.