Hi Betsy. Yes, you are right. Of recorded incidents in the UK, it is predominantly men perpetrators over women. I thought long and hard about writing this blog. I don't want to upset anyone. But I felt I needed to strike a balance and be neutral. I hope everyone can understand that. Where I work - we have seen a marked increase in male victims needing protection. But again, predominantly more women.
There is a whole movement of men who claim that men are not only victims of domestic violence, but overall women are most often the perpetrators domestic violence incidences. Men like Donald Dutton, Murray Strauss, Richard Gelles and women like the Erin Pizzey, the late Susan Steinmetz and many more in the Men's rights Movement all see women as responsible for domestic violence. They've written extensively on this and are published in many journals. Domestic Violence Against men does occasionally happen, but looking over the past fifty years I've seen that what passes for domestic violence against men and women are two very different things. For instance, one of the first accounts I read in a major newspaper of examples of DV an instance of a male victim lead the list. His abuse consisted of being "nagged" by his wife for being late for supper after work. There are of course real instances of male abuse but they are far fewer than claimed by those often pushing the idea.
Fifty years ago there were hundreds of shelters for men, but when women tried to find accommodations there they were turned away with the reasoning that they would be molested, robbed or raped. As has happened when men are housed with women, vulnerable or not. See Hambrook in Toronto and others. For decades now I've seen men taking away the funding for women's shelters and other services, threatening to shut them down , suing them and stopping their funding. Men have always had the resources, money, connections and power to provide services to battered women. They never did. It took poor, working-class women years of struggle to do that. Men have the rich resources to do that for themselves, but they would rather take it away from women. I believe that's the real reason why these men are trying to poach on services built up by women: they want to takeover and control them for their own use (like the man in Scotland and his husband have after taking over the rape crisis center). With the far superior resources they have there's nothing stopping men from setting up their own services. But that's not really what they want. Instead they try to manipulate, and guilt trip us to continue to control and exploit our time and resources when they could get their own. I've personally observed this and it's only getting worse. I know you're a good person Sharon and you want to be compassionate toward everyone, but there are those who will never reciprocate but only want the upper hand. Sorry I'm so long winded, but I've just witnessed this tooo many times.
Hi Betsy. Yes, you are right. Of recorded incidents in the UK, it is predominantly men perpetrators over women. I thought long and hard about writing this blog. I don't want to upset anyone. But I felt I needed to strike a balance and be neutral. I hope everyone can understand that. Where I work - we have seen a marked increase in male victims needing protection. But again, predominantly more women.
There is a whole movement of men who claim that men are not only victims of domestic violence, but overall women are most often the perpetrators domestic violence incidences. Men like Donald Dutton, Murray Strauss, Richard Gelles and women like the Erin Pizzey, the late Susan Steinmetz and many more in the Men's rights Movement all see women as responsible for domestic violence. They've written extensively on this and are published in many journals. Domestic Violence Against men does occasionally happen, but looking over the past fifty years I've seen that what passes for domestic violence against men and women are two very different things. For instance, one of the first accounts I read in a major newspaper of examples of DV an instance of a male victim lead the list. His abuse consisted of being "nagged" by his wife for being late for supper after work. There are of course real instances of male abuse but they are far fewer than claimed by those often pushing the idea.
Fifty years ago there were hundreds of shelters for men, but when women tried to find accommodations there they were turned away with the reasoning that they would be molested, robbed or raped. As has happened when men are housed with women, vulnerable or not. See Hambrook in Toronto and others. For decades now I've seen men taking away the funding for women's shelters and other services, threatening to shut them down , suing them and stopping their funding. Men have always had the resources, money, connections and power to provide services to battered women. They never did. It took poor, working-class women years of struggle to do that. Men have the rich resources to do that for themselves, but they would rather take it away from women. I believe that's the real reason why these men are trying to poach on services built up by women: they want to takeover and control them for their own use (like the man in Scotland and his husband have after taking over the rape crisis center). With the far superior resources they have there's nothing stopping men from setting up their own services. But that's not really what they want. Instead they try to manipulate, and guilt trip us to continue to control and exploit our time and resources when they could get their own. I've personally observed this and it's only getting worse. I know you're a good person Sharon and you want to be compassionate toward everyone, but there are those who will never reciprocate but only want the upper hand. Sorry I'm so long winded, but I've just witnessed this tooo many times.