Coercive control law and women as perpetrators of domestic abuse

[toomuchtooold]

I've been listening to Radio 4 Woman's Hour covering coercive control this week - on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A theme which came out a great deal from the experts talking about it was that although men can be the victims of coercive control, the overwhelming majority of victims are women abused by men.

I thought about my experience in my family. My dad was emotionally abused by my mother in this way, but (and I know it's possible that I didn't see all that went on) I think my mother actually focused more of the abuse on me.

I'm wondering if part of the reason male domestic violence perpetrators outnumber female is that the same sort of women would tend to abuse their children primarily, rather than their partner?

IDK, might just have been my family...

I think it's very possible; a kind of "kicking downwards" behaviour, in terms of who can hold the most power and in which ways.

I don't know of much reliable research into the gender split of it as yet, so I'd be hesitant to talk in terms beyond abuser and victim/s.

I've known more female than male domestic abusers, so to me personally it always feels alienating and lonely to hear it talked about as a male-on-female thing.

I appreciate that programmes like that would want to cover it from the perspective of female victims, though hearing from any reforming female abusers out there would be good, too. And that's fine.

But I wish mainstream places would cover it in a gender neutral way. People get disproportionately hung up on the gender angle, which is relevant, but not integral to all abuse.

I'm sorry you were put through that .

"Kicking down". That's it exactly - that the status of the abuser and the options they have might be different for men and women.

I don't know much about the research into gender split of victims either, it was just that the people on the programme were so insistent that it was primarily a male in female thing - I mean I think about my dad's experience and think, how would they know? He never told anyone what went on in our house, and there wasn't even the language to describe it until relatively recently.

It was very frustrating to listen to because they were talking for instance about the effect on children of witnessing coercive control of their mother, and talking about getting them help and stuff. I would imagine that experiencing coercive control first hand is worse for children then witnessing it so why is nobody calling for support for child victims like me, do you know what I mean? I think for kids it gets shoved in under cruelty, and either ignored because social services have enough going on looking after the kids in danger of physical and sexual abuse, and neglect, or excused as just being an extreme parenting style.

Anyway thank you very much for answering, western meadowlark

I (male) was in an emotionally and then physically abusive relationship. I tried involving the police when it got physical the second time and they couldn’t have been less interested. I know that they didn’t record it despite the very visible fresh wounds.

On about the fifth (and final) time we had a police call out to our home. They were clearly expecting me to be the perp as they entered - their whole attitude and actions screamed it. Even they couldn’t ignore the evidence though (and she was also screaming drunk) and ended up arresting her. Not for the DV though - just for breach of the peace!

I had to seek my own private restraining order a few days later - no help from the police - and she wasn’t charged with anything, just allowed to sleep it off and released the next day.

The point being that none of her actions will show up on any crime reports or statistics because they weren’t recorded. As far as the system is concerned, I wasn’t a victim (the police didn’t even bother pointing victim support my way) and I know that my experience is the norm for men reporting female DV.

Yes, lots of women don’t report either and of course it’s appropriate to help them properly. But the whole mindset - that DV is so overwhelmingly male on female - fosters a (deliberate?) blindness to anything pointing the other way which means we’re collectively doing nothing about it. Perpetuating the stereotype reinforces the tendency of men not to report it or get over their misplaced sense of shame and seek help.

I'm really sorry to hear what you've been through, and I'm sorry you got so little help from the police. I guess that's what I expected would have happened back when I was a kid but it sounds like nothing has really changed.

I would imagine that the coercive control stuff is even less likely to get reported. It's a shit situation.