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?

@Sigmama

Your defence of Johnny Depp is disturbing. Abuse can happen on both sides in a relationship

Only one person is the "abuser" in a true abusive relationship. I think Jonny Depp is an alcoholic, unfaithful, weak and generally unpleasant man. I have also heard evidence that demonstrates beyond all doubt that he is a victim of an abusive Amber Heard.

When it comes to power dynamics, Depp wins hands down in both physicality and status. Having been the victim of abuse, it is the superior physical power of men that has been the clincher

Physical strength, size, and money or status have absolutely nothing to do with the dynamics of an abusive relationship.

My DP was bigger, stronger, superior in status and wealth to his abuser and that made absolutely no difference.

Jonny Depp is abusive ffs. You stress about female abusers being excused then do it yourself about male abusers. Such a hypocrite.

Perhaps those here to defend a proven, self confessed female abuser, can remember this thread is full of victims of female abuse. Perhaps instead of derailing it to defend a celebrity, you can instead allow them the room and space to speak. Maybe listen and learn from their experience if this is a topic that interests you.

You cannot claim that greater physical strength, status and resources has 'nothing to do with the dynamics of an abusive relationship'. All of those things serve to not only reduce ones liklihood of becoming a victim, but also provide invaluable protection and exit opportunities from abusive situations that are unavailable to those who lack them.
Cases where abuse is carried out by someone smaller, weaker, with fewer resources, less privelege, less power on someone with a great deal more, are by no means the norm; so should be explored as the anonimily they are, rather than misrepresented as demonstrating a behavioural pattern, for no apparant reason than to argue that women are as bad as men.

I'm with you OP, I've no time for JD he's certainly not good BF material, he's got addictions left right and centre and pretty messed up. But AH is a whole other level and I think probably ticks a lot of boxes for Narcisistic personality disorder, most of the attributes you list in one of your posts. The one thing that nailed it for me though was her chameleon nature - meeting JD and immediately liking everything he liked, it's how people with NPD get you to like them IME, they become a reflection of you. It all seems super, super perfect and then you fall of the pedestal and the devaluation starts.

I think though what it comes down to at the end of the day is that emotional abuse is not viewed in any where near the same light as physical abuse. And if there is physical abuse by a woman then there is generally the view that they must have been driven to it or it is down played.

All that said of course 99 times out of 100 the man is the perpetrator - but that doesn't mean it's not possible for women to be capable of going to the same lengths.

This case of female on male abuse certainly demonstrated that women can inflict appalling injuries and that female on male abuse isn’t taken seriously. Mark von Dongen did call the police about his ex but received no support.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/09/mark-van-dongen-berlinah-wallace-trial-acid-attack-son-speech#:~:text=Mark%20van%20Dongen%2C%2029%2C%20was,Wallace%20on%2023%20September%202015.

You've worded this really well. I wanted to reply to that but didn't know how to word it. There's an extra layer of terror when your abuser is a foot taller than you, almost double your weight and can send you flying across a room with a small push when you know if you tried to push back with all your weight their feet wouldn't even move. Knowing they could strangle you, smash your head against a wall, repeatedly punch you or physically stop you from escaping and there's absolutely nothing you can do about any of it definitely has a bearing on the dynamics of the relationship.

Definitely.

Some people seem to think women are either incapable of it or must have been driven to it by a man or have some kind of emotional problem, mental illness or trauma

Which is usually the case with male offenders too but they are thought about very, very differently.

@5128gap

You cannot claim that greater physical strength, status and resources has 'nothing to do with the dynamics of an abusive relationship'. All of those things serve to not only reduce ones liklihood of becoming a victim, but also provide invaluable protection and exit opportunities from abusive situations that are unavailable to those who lack them

Sorry but these thought patterns play into why male victims are so often not taken seriously.

Abuse victims aren't unable to leave because they're too physically small or don't have money. They are groomed, then devalued, then trapped in an abuse cycle that often takes years to fully understand.

Being physically bigger that his abuser didn't stop my DPs abuser from abusing him. It just made it less possible for him to defend himself without being vilified.

It also did nothing to stop the psychological abuse, which was far worse than any bruises on him. He was not weak, he was not poor, he was not physically vulnerable- but he was a victim of abuse.

Exit opportunity is not generally why DV and abuse victims dont leave. They are much more likely to stay because they're in trauma bonds and have been groomed and then psychologically broken down.

Add to that, female abusers typically use threats to terrify a man. "I will say you raped me" and "I will say you hit me" and quite often if the man has a good job or a powerful position in life he had even more to lose when such threats are made.

My DP worked in law enforcement in a high up rope when this happened to him, and despite that he felt there was nothing he could do to stop her- so he tried to appease her.

but also provide invaluable protection and exit opportunities from abusive situations that are unavailable to those who lack them

Ah.... so male victims can just leave can they?

Also, women can and do abuse other women. That's important to consider. Mothers abusing their daughters psychologically is a big one.

There are literally stories here of people talking about their abuse and it's being diminished because "Well a man could have beaten you"

OP - I'm surprised only one person had implied you are a man tbh. Its common here that if you start to talk about how women can be abusive or use "male" and "female" instead of "man" and "woman" to be told you must be a man trying to cause trouble

@AnObserverInThisDarkWorld

There are literally stories here of people talking about their abuse and it's being diminished because "Well a man could have beaten you"

That's one of the saddest things. Years on my DP has still never told anyone what happened to him (except me) and its taken six years from him to agree to seeking help for his PTSD.

Deep down he knows people won't take him seriously

@KimberleyClark

That Mark van Dongen case was tragic. The reporting on it was horrific too. Implying he had led her on or was somehow to blame for her jealous rage.

She was such a liar too. Here's an extract from the trial reporting....

Under questioning by Richard Smith QC, for the defence, Ms Wallace said she and Mr van Dongen had argued after he told her he had slept with another woman

"I said 'why don't you just kill me', because I can't have any peace with him," Ms Wallace told the court

"He said I should kill myself. He went into the kitchen and came back with the acid and put it on the table

"He said 'there you go, you kill yourself - I'll watch'."

It later came out that she had researched and looked at 82 online articles about acid attacks, days before the attack.

Yet she said there bold as brass making him out to be the abuser

I don’t think anyone is saying that. The op’s point was that these cases are the minority, an anomaly if you like, and that in part leads to them being disbelieved or excused.

im certainly not saying women are as bad as men. What I am saying though is that when it does happen to be a women perpetrator (and let’s be clear, it doesn’t never happen) then people shouldn’t make excuses, victim blame or say “yes but men do it more”.

Op, I think your use of the JD/AH case as an example isn’t great and is derailing what was an interesting point and discussion. Would you be ok with letting it drop and moving the chat on?

There are a couple of these films out there, some have a section where they asked the passers by why they didn't help the man, the answers ranged from

"he must have done something to deserve it" to
"I quite enjoyed it"

I will see if I can find them.

This.

Depp was proven to be an abuser in an English court.

Size isn't everything when you take into account other factors.

my friend is physically disabled, his ex might have been smaller, but physically, she was stronger than him, and used to taunt him with the fact she could HURT him.

My brothers ExW might have been shorter/slimmer, but was trained to fight due to being in the military of another country before coming to the UK, and he was terrified of her.

It's not always as simple as 'oh he is bigger, he could beat you'

It’s absolutely possible for women to be abusive, and it happens. But it isn’t part of a massive, systemic problem in the same way.

Unfortunately it is because of the power imbalance and there isn't a whole lot that you can do about that while society is the way it is (i.e men prominently being the abusers of women)

It reminds me of the story I saw a while ago of a white man in America who was attacked with a machete by a black man who was spouting a load of racism towards the white man and purely attacked him because he's white. It was a vicious attack and he almost didn't survive and has been left disabled. It was quite clearly a racist attack yet the amount of people in the comments completely minimising what he went through and basically laughing at it and saying things like "oh the shoes on the other foot".

I agree with this. Yes, women can absolutely be abusive but the Depp/Heard case is not an example of that. OP is totally misrepresenting the facts, including the UK court case which was won on the basis of truth, not whether it was reasonable to believe Depp was a wife beater. He actually swapped out witnesses in the US trial and had them give the same testimony that was given by someone else in the UK, because his witnesses' credibility was torn to shreds here, so he needed a different cast of people to back him up.

The claim that she cut off his finger was made years later and preceded by multiple admissions on Depp's part that he did so himself, not to mention the injury he had was not consistent with a bottle being thrown. It's an absurd claim. The tape where she was saying people wouldn't believe him was taken out of context - she had been apologising for calling the police and said she was scared he would kill her by accident. She also said she hit him in reaction to him scraping her toes with the door because she thought things were getting violent again. OP you need to look up reactive abuse and power dynamics, and find a better example of female on male abuse to push your agenda.

It makes me quite angry to see Amber Heard's name being dragged though the mud again after the orgy of misogyny and DARVO has finally died down and all the unsealed documents prove she was telling the truth.

As someone who has been violently assaulted, sexually harassed and sexually assaulted by women, it actually drives me nuts that people are so utterly in denial about the capacity of women to be abusive, predatory and coercive, either to other women or towards men.

One example of this is the way women tend to roll their eyes at a man saying he has a crazy ex. Yes, I know he might just be talking bullshit to justify their own behaviour. But equally, he might have been in a relationship with an abusive, volatile, obsessive and controlling woman - there are plenty of them about.

I'm a feminist, and I have also been a victim of domestic violence from a man, so I'm not in any way seeking to diminish male violence - absolutely not. But the narrative (which I see CONSTANTLY on Mumsnet) that men are the only people who might be physically, sexually or coercively abusive drives me mad. It would benefit both men and women if people wised up on this, frankly.

That's not what was found at all.

The court found that on the balance of probabilities that the sun was correct to publish their findings as AH was a reliable witness.

Correct. It isn’t

and do you agree that in cases where it does happen, the fact it’s a minority, unusual, not systemic, can lead to it being minimised, excused or ignored?

You are right about the reasons why abuse victims don't leave, physical strength is only one factor. But unfortunately I have to say again, female victims face the same things as your partner has. I wasn't believed, the police told me (incorrectly) that I couldn't press charges for things that I hadn't reported at the time, they made me feel stupid for even asking.

Years later other abuse allegations came to light and they came back to me and said they would take statements from me now, I'm talking 10 years later. So 10 years of being disbelieved, of having his friends and family saying I must have pushed him to it, that he was a "broken man" and even now he's in prison some of his family still don't believe he did anything at all, even with actual evidence.

As for the threats, he regularly told me if I tried to leave he would kill me, he would kill our children and leave them for me to find, he would kidnap them and I'd never see them again. He would kill himself and everyone would blame me and our kids would hate me forever. I could go on. Abusers all use the same tactics.

Saying physical strength, size and money or status have nothing to do with abuse is hands down the stupidest and most ignorant thing I've read in all my years on Mumsnet.

It's simply not worth discussing with anyone who could spout such utter bullshit.