To think that women are often not abusive unless she's being abused?

[Bigbrookie]

I was in a domestic abuse training session this week and the person leading the training said that she has never seen, in 20 years of doing her role as a support worker for domestic abuse, a situation where the man isn't actually abusing the woman where a woman is accused of abusing a man. She said this is particularly the case where young dependents are involved because the woman usually is less powerful than the man in the first place and the man is often using his power to take advantage over the woman.

She said that in all the cases she has seen where a woman has reacted physically towards a man, there has been manipulative and controlling behaviour towards the woman first and the have reacted with overwhelm. I thought this was interesting.

What is other people's take on this?

I'd definitely forgotten about that.

This thread in general is making me think a lot about men's experiences of domestic violence and / or coercive control.

Logically I feel there at least must be some. Women aren't all saints. Some women are vile and horrible. Those vile horrible women are likely to have partners and are likely to be vile and horrible to them.

So it's making me wonder things like what are the stats really like? Is it a bit under reported amongst men or a lot under reported? Would a man even know how to recognise that he's in an abusive relationship. Do we automatically in any scenario assume the woman is the victim and the man the perp, where there may be situations it's the opposite. Things like that. I don't have the answers.

100% of cases in TWENTY YEARS of experience. I highly doubt that's the case and therefore I wouldn't trust them. It's improbable and I'd question their unconscious bias.

Why would that person have to be a man to think that not all women are victims and all men perps? It's logical to think at least some (I don't know the numbers but surely we can agree at least one in the whole world, so more than 0) women are abusive

It may be that there aren't answers for quite obvious reasons. Domestic abuse is not actually a crime. It is a set of circumstances or behaviours relevant in criminal law for sentencing crime.

So for example, punching someone in the street is different from punching your partner in front your children. The second is domestically abusive and there was an assault.

Ironically the second circumstance is unlikely to be punished at all let alone convicted for. It's actually easier in terms of offending to do it in your own home in an intimate relationship. It is supposed to be worse, it technically is in law, but in practice... not so many convictions.

Not all abusive behaviour is criminal. Lots of it simply can't be attached to criminal offending.

Yes l hit my ex after years of physically and mental abuse.. l was running away from him.. he wouldn't let me get out of the house.. l was in my pj's and no shoes.. l hit him with a pan and ran.. but he ran after me and threw me under a double decker bus.. he got jailed for attempted murder.. left me physically disabled ( and mentally).

@Bigbrookie

I think 🤔 the domestic abuse trainer needs to be careful about making sure she says as accurate facts as possible about this subject,
on such an obvious emotive charged topic,

even formly womens Aid,
It's called Threshold, nowadays recognises men can be also victims of domestic abuse

I think 🤔 she maybe has had very personal experience of domestic abuse and this colouring skewing the optics that there are such thing as female abusers too,

I do 🤔 think some men can experince suffer domestic abuse,
probably more than society realises admits,

cause victims of this kind of abuse
Don't want to admit to this is happening to them,
it's hidden stastic,
not based on reality

Obviously stastics bare out the very fact that there is tendency for domestic abuse to be overwhelming female victims ...

I'm glad that this "we must always be equally clear that women can be bad" argument is not overshadowing the reality in the context of this training. I think your trainer sounds great.

Of COURSE women can be abusive but I suspect her experience is not uncommon. Partly because so often women's abuse IS reactive and, of course, for the less great reason, that women's abuse is even less likely to be reported.

I also think there's a huge societal issue. So while people who are likely to be abusers could be male or female, men are more likely to actually succeed in their abuse. partly this is the physical reality that they're bigger. But other reasons are to do with the way we socialise both men and women. Women should "be kind". We're often subtly expected tot take responsibility for things that are actually out of our control, to consider other people's feelings etc etc. While the same is not true of men. As a result, women are more likely to be pre-programmed to be victims. And men's abuse is less likely to be seen as a problem. (in the workplace for example, it's the difference between men being assertive and women being aggressive for similar actions).

I think this is probably also why we hear such a lot about narcissistic mothers. A woman who is likely to be an abuser, will find it more difficult to find a target in a partner. But a child? Well... that is relatively easy and often, the tactics they're using are ones that on the surface come over like normal, appropriate behaviours for a mother/child relationship.

@MeghanThyStallion what you wrote above about being stranded and nursery due to close made me cry. I am so sorry that happened to you. I would have been absolutely inconsolable with stress if that happened to me and completely understandable that you cracked. Wishing you the very best. X

There are cases of the woman being abusive and the man not so. I've seen it with my own eyes with a relative and her partner. Even 10yrs later she's still saying she's the victim when she was the abusive one

And my exBIL still swears blind that HE was the one who was abused by my SIL. I think he truly believes it. But those of us who watched the behaviour for years, growing increasingly concerned know different. But he still tries to convince us, and everyone else. And he's just clever enough that even knowing he's talking bollocks, there have been times when I've had a moment of thinking, "oh, maybe I've misunderstood that" until I stop to actually think and realise it's not the case at all.

That doesn't mean it's the same for your relative, but the trainer's experience is, I think, pretty representative of real life.

There's an interesting interview with a couple about exactly this on the Jury Trial Channel Four. Granted I haven't watched the whole thing yet, as only saw an advert for it but what I did see would be very relevant to this thread.

@JonVoightBaddyWhoGrowls - I think women do abuse differently when they do. If a man does not drive that dynamic, then you can have something quite different which is hard to spot. That is medicalised abuse or Munchausens by proxy. That particular crime towards children. It is nearly exclusively female offending. The abuse of the child is engineered by woman towards her own children and inflicted by medical treatment. I never encountered a man who did this, ever.

Well no, because boys are often abused- by male perpetrators. And so that would be highly unlikely to be the lived experience of someone working in child protection.

in my lifetime, I’ve known quite a few men who were abused as children, but only one DV survivor, but his partner was male.

The majority of men who are victims of DV are in same sex partnerships

It’s not her unconscious bias! She is very consciously stating that this is her experience.

she isn’t denying it happens. She is saying it must be rare because she has never seen a case.

heres an example: my friend is in the police. She says she’s never had a definite case of someone’s drink being spiked. That is very different from saying it doesn’t happen- it just means it rare.

this is backed up by crime statistics that show men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of domestic violence.

I expect that this trainer said it in a more nuanced way than is being interpreted on this thread.

I’d agree that some women are abusive- but they will be more psychologically or emotionally abusive. It’s going to be rarer that a woman is physically abusive.

i did a martial art for years. I was really strong , but even rather slight men were way stronger than me if I ever fought them.

If this woman is dealing with the victims of domestic violence ( physical), I’d say it’s completely believable that she never met a situation with a female perpetrator.

Any abusive person will abuse if they get away with it.
It's easier for a woman as she is less likely to
Seriously hurt a male,
Be considered a perpetrator re OP's post
Be reported by a male.

It definitely does happen though.

I think many women are abusive in relationships but it is a different, less physical type of abuse. R4 had an interesting programme today on research showing that the number of female psychopaths is far higher than previously thought. The basis of this was that when men are psychopaths they become violent but women tend to become psychological bullies. So much less clear cut and visible.

I expect the trainer hadn’t seen because she didn’t want to see it.

The partner of one friend of mine used “weapons” to hit him - she obviously couldn’t do much damage with her fists but she could with a bottle which was just one of the things she hit him with. It happens.

Why do we always look for excuses for women's violent behaviour?

I am a victim of abuse physical and mental. And I then eventually fought back... I agree with your post op. The majority is reactive abuse from the abuse you are getting however there is a small amount of women who do abuse.

I'm not proud of myself for becoming reactive and it's taken me alot of time to understand I am not evil and I was backed into a corner a number of times before I fought back. I'll never get myself into that situation again now I have full understanding..

Doesn't help my abuser used my reactiveness against me and obviously claimed it was all me. It wasn't. I know that now but at the time I thought I was the monster.

This is what the police told my father after years of physical and emotional abuse from his wife, its also what led to us being forced to remain in her care for four more years as when he was eventually brave enough to leave, the police and social services would repeatedly force us to return to her.

Domestic abuse and someone snapping are entirely different things and present in entirely different ways.

Its really important that all cases are treated individually, and hopefully no one like the person in the OP is involved as bias can be really damaging.

There is reactive abuse. For me i explained how i felt as being a cornered dog. You can have a docile labrador never hurt a fly, but keep beating it, corner it and it can change/snap out of pain and fear.

No one is immune and impervious to ever reacting.

But also I disagree that woman can never be abusive..i mean no women in prison? None ever neglected or abused a child? None ever fallen into addiction? None ever commited a criminal offence? Or only if its directed at a man suddenly it never happened?
Shes probably never seen it, as if a professional can make and believe sweeping generalisations and manipulate/gaslight a persons experience then a genuine male victim is probably shamed into silence.

This she can't be objective and I would feel she is dangerous towards any males feeling they can't disclose abuse now.

Statistics wise she is probably right.
98% of sexual assaults and assaults are committed by men.

ONS statistics