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?

Women can be abusive, but I don't agree with you about Amber Heard. Johnny Depp is vile. How he's been put up on a pedestal is one of the greatest Hollywood cons.

I do think the conversation around Caroline Flack and all the 'be kind' talk is bullshit though.

She smashed a lamp on her sleeping boyfriend and she had an inappropriate relationship with Harry Styles.

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

@Dramatic thank you so much. Same to you. It strikes me that regardless of gender the experience creates the same feelings.

@Catsafterme yes, I get this completely. Is it a kind of need we have to "understand" as well as to feel its not "us". My experience of abusers is limited, but basically no. I dont think she knew she was an abuser. I don’t think she was capable of empathy or guilt or introspection. I think she wasn't beating to the same drum. I wonder if other abusers know they are abusive? They seem to genuinely believe the lies they tell?

And that is also bollocks, what a ridiculous thing to say. Because no one was ever interested when Robin Williams, Stuart Adamson or Alexander McQueen died, were they? Making stupid comments like that does your argument no good whatsoever

@BraykeDance Maybe she doesn't but a part of her must. I know in my case it's not rational and this has been going on years. She has multiple times now over the years completely rewritten her own past and ours and has become someone new each time. Everyone in our lives has been attacked in some way and cut off. I'm more inclined to steer towards NPD in this circumstance and third parties are leaning this way too, as it's bonkers.

So now the end result of years of abuse, of everyone being pushed away and cut off, leaving me and the children isolated is she has cut me off too. Now for the last six months my children have been isolated in the middle of nowhere, at our house I can't return to. I have not been allowed to speak or see them and neither has the entire family on both sides.

My children are isolated with the abusive parent and there's nothing I can do until court. It's sickening.

Presumable because any criticism of women is misogynistic, isn't that so @Tandora .
No women ever did anything wrong, ever

She means prior to that, the domestic violence case got a lot of attention. Maybe you should read things more carefully before accusing people of stupid comments.

Do you and apparently @Tandora are saying that if a man in the public eye was about to be prosecuted for domestic violence no one-would be interested and there would be no publicity?
That, I am afraid, is bollocks

Tandora

I feel physically ill that you are painting Jonny Depp a victim and participating in the gross theatre of misogyny that was the civil trial and the (social) media frenzy / discussion surrounding it 🤮🤮

JD was as much as victim as AH, I consider him to be more of a victim than her.
I am happy that the trial was public as it allowed people to see what AH was really like.
As for the social media frenzy, there was the same but in the MSM for AH. She was no longer able to control her narrative as she couldn't control SM.

I haven't said anything about that, I was pointing out that you had misunderstood her post and made an unpleasant comment to boot. I think there's always interest in any 'scandal' involving a celebrity, but women are held to a much higher standard and if they fail to meet it they will be hounded and demonised to a greater extent than a man is. I've lost count of how many male celebrities have been shown to be domestic abusers or rapists and continued to have successful careers. Caroline Flack was obviously very wrong in what she did and had previously behaved inappropriately (with Harry Styles) so I'm not suggesting that was ok, or that it wouldn't be of public interest. It's a question of whether misogyny played a part in how she was treated in the press, and the answer, as usual, is yes.

One of the reasons why CF was still in the media after her death was because her z-lebrity "friends" decided to try and make money out of it.

Anyone else remember that twat Leigh Francis prancing around in a be-kind
t-shirt with her face on it?
A man that single handily destroyed another persons career and still tells him to get over it and move on and lets not mention the black face

What a load of arse.
She hadn't been to court yet, her partner did not support the prosecution. If she were a man, it would be held up as an example of "innocent until proven guilty" and "false accusations ruin lives".

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/14/police-to-look-again-at-decision-to-charge-caroline-flack-with-assault

Contrast the coverage of Flack with this:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8718345/amp/Sister-boy-17-killed-falsely-accused-rape-shares-ordeal.html

She hadn't been to court yet, her partner did not support the prosecution

This would be the point at which to say that many female "partners" (lets use your word) don't support the prosecutions of their abusers either.

And some on here did say innocent until proven guilty etc.

I think there's no reasoning with some people who see everything as man = abuser. woman = victim. I absolutely stand by what I have said about Caroline Flack - if she had been a man, her abusive behaviour would not have been minimised and furthermore, if the police had announced they were looking into the case again after the death, there would be an uproar about it, probably on this very site.

I cannot imagine any situation where it would be deemed a good thing that a male abuser received a caution rather than be changed with assault. Can anyone else?

This thread is now a case in point. More than one poster claiming flack "smashed him over the head with a lamp" while the evidence is it was her phone
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8601423/amp/Caroline-Flack-Lewis-Burton-gave-police-conflicting-accounts-assault.html

He didn't want to press charges. She was pleading not guilty. Despite not going to court, she's repeatedly named as some kind of domestic abuser.

Yet Russell Brand is being held up as a "conspiracy" and "trial by social media". Despite the fact multiple women over a long period have said he assaulted and coerced them.

Now my opinion is she did assault her boyfriend and therefore is abusive. But we have no idea of the surrounding circumstances and if in fact she was in a toxic relationship that drove her to it (as many posters seem completely happy to believe about Depp, despite the evidence).

I think she was treated appallingly compared to how a celebrity man would be.

AdamRyan
She said it was her phone that is not evidence.
He said that it was a lamp in the phone call and that he feared for his life.
Again many women do not want to press charges and the man will plead not guilty.

I can easily believe as can many others that Russel Brand committed the crimes that he is accused of.

Whatever type of relationship she was in she committed violence. Do the surrounding circumstances matter? it seems that they do when a women is committing the abuse and an excuse is needed.

AS for JD and AH there are many that refuse to believe that she is an abuser despite the evidence.

So fripp you are believing his story over hers despite the fact it never went to court.....interesting

Johnny Depp was abusive, proved in the UK trial.

Amber Heard has never stood trial for abuse so I wouldn't call her abusive. I'd say a lot of the unsealed evidence supports her version of events to be honest.

I dislike the talk about AH but the things some people say just confuse the heck out of me.

Discussing her "trial by media" and so on - this is just really flipping the story.

She is on tape admitting she abused him and admitting she perpetrated domestic violence, quite frequently.

Yet she was going in the global media and putting herself forward as an ambassador for domestic violence victims when she herself was a domestic abuser!

I really struggle that anyone who is a victim would not be horrified by that.

Of course, she fully expected to get away with it because she never expected he would be willing to air his dirty laundry and deal with the personal public humiliation.

He didn't want a public drama. He was happy to just get divorced and move on. It was HER speaking at events and writing articles purporting herself as a victim of domestic abuse.

Her objective, obviously to both ruin his life and also garner sympathy for herself. But anyone with a shred of human decency would not be able to speak to audiences of battered women - lying to them like she did.

It does happen, it's something like 10% of all heterosexual abuse cases are female on male violence, which is a significant minority.

It is something that should be spoken about. But it's also important not to ignore the fact that male on female violence is endemic, rooted in patriarchy/sexism, and the most likely scenario (90% of heterosexual abuse).

It's also common for male abusers to turn around and accuse their victim of being the abuser. This has great danger if it's taken seriously because of greater awareness of female-on-male violence. It's important for any professionals working with abuse victims to have training to be able to recognise what the real scenario is.

And you are believing hers over his despite the fact it never went to court.....interesting

And Johnny Depp has never stood trial for being abuse either, so were does that leave us?

If Johnny Depp was the victim and AH the abuser why was an open letter signed by hundreds of DV organisations, academics in the field of abuse/DV, charities and even the woman who coined the term DARVO, in support of Heard and not Depp? 🤔