Men who destroy their families - help me understand

[missymisdemeanor]

I have NC for this. A young woman I worked with took her life a few weeks ago. The investigations are now complete and the Police have discovered that she was subject to long term sexual, verbal and emotional abuse from her father. There were thousands of abusive emails and text messages. She died in a very violent and horrific way and it is difficult to process the mindset she must have been in.

I work with children and I know so many families that have been ruined by men. So many women and children's lives destroyed. I feel so angry. For years I have had this funny quip where when someone says 'not all men are like that' (NAMALT) I reply 'you're right, but all the people like that are men' (APLTAM).

How can I make sense of the experiences of families I know that have been destroyed by men having affairs, being violent/aggressive/controlling, gambling/drink problems, abandoning the family to 'find themselves'? So much narcism and selfishness, entitlement, anger, vengeful hatred and destruction.

Please can someone recommend any reading material? My thinking is jumbled and I need to sort my head out. I work with many fantastic men, have a loving DH and fantastic DS who sometimes wonders aloud if I am sexist :( (but he does understand), maybe I am. I can't reconcile my anger. If any wise women are out there please help. I suspect it's my age - layers and layers of experience forming patterns in my brain over 4 decades. Any advice?

Rates of domestic violence are at their HIGHEST in lesbian relationships, while they are at their LOWEST in gay relationships. I do believe this is a problem, but it's not "only" men who are like this.

This is the exact problem. Men are socially taught that expressing emotion in general is a taboo for them. That even the slightest tear means they're worthless. While I don't think a mental breakdown I'd a valid excuse there are certain, simple methods to prevent this. You need to be careful with him, but most of this problem tests on society''s shoulders. Do not become afraid of your own son.

Do you have a source for lesbians having the highest rate of domestic violence? I've never seen that, although I have seen that the rates actually include abuse from family and ex-partners so it's not necessarily female on female violence still, and more homophobic abuse by men.

The point I was making is that you don't become abusive unless you have an abusive background.

Well, I don't believe thats 100% true either.

How about the relationship between male entitlement and male self-centeredness, violence, and lack of responsibility?

It is cultural/traditional and is being broken down slowly by the women's movement, but in most cultures men are/have been raised to think his spouse and offspring are his OWN possessions to use and abuse (or abandon to destitution).

The women's movement is only a tiny blip after generations of huge sex inequality.

And as per the op it is overwhelmingly women who pick up the pieces, take responsibility for the children.

However, most mental illnesses and personality disorders are fairly equally spread between men and women - and the kids of these people generally have a terrible time - chaos, neglect, unpredictable cruelty, mind games, etc.

And because there's a hereditary component to mental illnesses and personality disorders, which also affects the method of 'nurture' too - this can run in families and seem that it is the abused who become abusers.

I work with many fantastic men, have a loving DH and fantastic DS who sometimes wonders aloud if I am sexist sad (but he does understand), maybe I am.

Going back to the OP - First thing is to try to explain to your son that 'sexism' is a term we use as a shorthand for the systematic and structural oppression of women as a class. It's about broad and systemic imbalances in power, and not just about individuals. It is not a level playing field, and where there is a power imbalance, then the actions of the dominant class have to be understood differently from the actions of the oppressed category/class. Hence, a woman can't be (systemically) 'sexist' towards a man, because there is an underlying power imbalance in any and all of our interactions.

But yes, the anger is difficult isn't it? I call it the 'dark knowledge' that a feminist consciousness gives us.

I suppose you have to find a way of channelling it and work out what you can do in your own field of action, expertise & agency, to use this knowledge to try to make life better for women & girls. If you have spare money give it to Women's Aid for example. I teach and write, and I teach & write all the time from a feminist perspective. Others do far more practical useful work than I can do, but I calm myself by thinking - I'm doing my bit, as they are doing theirs. Best to do really well what we're good at.

But it is a constant dialectic, isn't it? Nice men one knows & loves & birthed, and then a world which socialises those men potentially to become monsters who annihilate their families.

Part of the problem for me is that we don't make visible the extent of the violence of patriarchy - we can't afford to as we live with & love individual men. But it's like fish don't realise that they swim in water ...

If we start saying men are essentially violent, then in my view we're saying that biology is destiny, and I don't believe that, for one minute

I don't think feminists are saying that - at least not the 2nd wave from 70s women's lib movements - they're saying that the structure of our society, and the ways that we're conditioned or socialised into gendered roles, enable, facilitate, even encourage men to be violent, in order to prove that they're really "men."

To challenge this is to be compassionate towards men, as well as women.

But you have to see beyond individuals & fit personal experience into wider patterns and structures.

It's not offensive to say that if you're abused you're more likely to go on and abuse.
It's particularly pertinent when the abuse is lifelong. They won't know any other way to show love, care, respect, etc. everything but the abuse will feel foreign and wrong.
I think the only key to doing things differently is being able to recognise what's happened, why it's wrong and what you can do to prevent it happening (to your husband/wife/children).

I'd be a very rich much less busy woman (I work with victims of primarily male violence) if I knew all the answers or the way to stop it that doesn't include the abuser wanting to stop it.

I don't understand all of it and I see it or hear about it all the time. I can listen and be there for victims and hold hands and tell them it's not them. But whenever someone asks me "why" it's happened to them and why he's done x y and z unfortunately I can't give much of an answer.

Oh I see we have had the normal influx of "women do it to".
It's so boring.
Men do 99% of it. Can we talk about the 99% please? And while we are at it, can we stop with the bullshit like "empathy is learnt ". It would be nice if for starters men took responsibility for male violence.

Of course that’s not offensive, but that’s not what people were objecting to. Sigh. Never mind.

And to bring it back to Ted Bundy (I wasn't aware of the grandfather) - he - like most psychopaths bullshitted the psychologists, saying his mum abused him (pretty sure it was Bundy I am thinking of) I think (Freudian ideas were still big) - because he knew that's what the psychologists wanted to hear... Although he also blamed pornography and other things too.

Well, it is depressing, horrible if you think about it too long. I don’t know what we can do, except keep on trying to make it visible, and unacceptable...

I am talking about my own personal thoughts and feelings in order to try and make better sense of them. In my experience angry men hurt others, angry women hurt themselves. I cannot find any sources suggesting lesbians have the highest rate of DV - can you add a link?

My own mother was neglectful and emotionally abusive. She has a scar across her lip where her father glassed her when she was 14. She'd caught him stealing her wages to go to the pub. She hurt me many times but is was incidental and careless.

I am finding everyday life a challenge at times. This morning a father at my sons activities was aggressively refusing to pay and embarrassing his child by making disgusting comments about his ex-wife's financial irresponsibility. The child was nearly in tears but the man just continued ranting and stomping around with no regard for anyone except himself. His feelings were all that mattered - not his child, not the other 20 kids in attendance, not the mother of his child, just him.

The physical differences in men and woman are also important. MY DH is 6'6" tall. I am just over 5'. He could kill me with one blow - I couldn't hurt him without a weapon and only then if he wan't expecting it.

In my experience angry men hurt others, angry women hurt themselves

Yes this is generally the pattern.

There is also culturally 'normalised' abuse too.

For example a pastor advising child beating to stop them 'going astray'. If the whole community condones it, then parents will perpetrate against their own kids and also justify their own parent's abuse of themselves - and even be a bit nostalgic about it (I am horrified to have witnessed).

Or cultures where violence is just allowed and not disapproved of, such as kids hitting each other and adults don't intervene.

But where people are abused as kids and they are aware that this is 'not normal' and is in fact socially frowned upon - tend to choose to act differently.

I think it is important to avoid stigmatising victims of abuse as potential perpetrators, because I think this 'passing down' only really tends to happen in a context of normalised and culturally accepted abuse (unless there is mental illness/personality disorders running in the family).

When I did my safe guarding training we were told that mothers were the most likely perpetrators of physical abuse of children.

we were told that mothers were the most likely perpetrators of physical abuse of children.

Which makes sense because mothers generally spend far more hours with their children than men, and are far more likely to have difficulty coping with the enormous, complicated and extremely challenging task of raising children at close quarters than men.

It makes me think of Eminem's very public issues. His hatred of his mother and gazillion complaints against her... and in one of the more recent songs he admits he never really stopped to think "where the hell [his] deadbeat dad was".
I would say abandonment to a shit parent is actually worse than being a shit parent.

Elsie2791 Sat 27-Jan-18 00:27:20
The point I was making is that you don't become abusive unless you have an abusive background.

Thats a myth. Some people abuse because they enjoy other peoples pain, or the feeling of power they get.
It can be a lack of empathy and learned behaviour, to associate giving pain with feeling pleasure, or sexual excitement.

Comparing male predators with mothers is unhelpful to children.
In the case of a stressed out mother, it can be a lack of coping mechanisms or a lack of support that leaves women to cope whether they are adequate to the task or not. Mothers that harm their own young are not usually predators seeking out a victim.

People who breed animals know that first time mothers are pretty ham fisted and make mistakes that can harm their offspring. they usually get better with practice unless they lack maternal instinct, in which case they can kill their young.
Its only women that are expected to get it perfect all the time with no training or practice.

Quentin men don't do 99% of it.
Angry women often hurt their children. Stop trying to deny it when there are numerous cases that prove it. And it isn't just psychological either.
What you don't tend to see is angry women hurting men, and that is where the inequality lies.

What you don't tend to see is angry women hurting men, and that is where the inequality lies.

I would say that the inequality lies in the fact that men perpetrate 98% of sex crimes and 95% of violent crimes and that 2 women are murdered every week by men - and women murdering men (without a male accomplice) is negligible.

There aren't all these men living silently in fear like F4J would have you believe.

What @GuardianLions says.

I think there's real damage when every time the actual stats around male-perpetrated violence are set out, someone comes along to say "women do it too."

It's not that women do it too, it's that almost all violence in this country is perpetrated by men - against women, and violence against men.

Saying "women do it too" obscures the statistical reality of male violence, and its cost to all of us.

My post was not meant as NAMALT or Women do it too. There are some pervasive myths regarding child abuse and they are dangerous to children living in abusive situations. Most sexually abused children are abused by other children. Most physically abused children are abused by their mothers.