Last night, I went to a screening of a new documentary on men and domestic violence. The film (which has not yet been released) is called "Before the Fact"; it’s one man’s particularly candid and powerful story of his own marriage and what led him to a single act of physical violence against his wife. The filmmaker/narrator, Michael Holland, connects his own act of violence to the stories of men who’ve famously murdered their wives (Simpson,Blake, Peterson, Hacking), and he repeatedly asks the question "What can we do ‘before the fact’ to prevent domestic violence, especially before it escalates to murder?"
The producer of the film, Adryenn Ashley, invited me and four other men to participate in a panel discussion immediately following the screening. My friendly adversary Glenn Sacks was one as well, and the other three fellows were all from the Men’s Rights Movement. The others were Marc Angelucci, Los Angeles director of the National Coalition of Free Men, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson of BOND (Brotherhood Of a New Destiny), and a state lobbyist for the men’s rights movement whose name I regret I’ve completely forgotten. (UPDATE: I’ve been told his name is Michael Robinson.) I was invited to offer the pro-feminist perspective to counter the positions my fellow panelists might be expected to take.
What happened in the discussion period was fascinating. Though Holland’s film had focused on what all of us can do to help men before they batter their wives, several of my fellow panelists were more interested in talking about men as the victims of domestic violence — a topic not addressed in the film at all. (For the record, Glenn Sacks was the one MRA who tried very hard to keep on topic, and I honor him for that.) What followed was a mind-numbingly tiresome exchange of statistics, as several of the other panelists bandied about various figures from various studies designed to suggest that the real focus of the evening ought to be upon men as victims of physical abuse.
Lord, is there anything as useless as an argument over statistics? I don’t think I’d ever seen Twain’s old aphorism that "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" demonstrated as well as I did last night! To be fair, I know darned well that a great many folks on "my side" use statistics in debates as well. I’m also sure that good, reliable, studies have their value. But after years and years of this sort of thing, I’ve never seen anyone change anyone else’s mind by throwing numbers at them. Shrieking "38% of men are battered by women" (or any other similar figure) fails to move anyone. We all have our "counter-statistics", and things quickly degenerate into a war of competing studies and competing authorities.
If there is one thing even less productive than arguing from statistics, it’s arguing from anecdote. Look, folks, everyone who does this work — on either side of the debate — has dozens of stories to tell. In the domestic violence world, any of us can tell many stories of where the legal system has failed both men and women. We can tell our own stories and share our own hurts, and we can describe outrages committed against husbands and wives in order to bolster our respective cases. But when each anecdote is immediately met by a counter-anecdote, it’s damned difficult to see how we make any progress on an issue like this. Here on the blog, I do tell stories of my own life. This is because this blog is not intended to be polemical. But I assure you, I neither teach nor debate the way I write. While story-telling has its place, in and of itself it’s an ineffective tool for either resolving conflict or creating consensus. Usually — as last night — sharing outrageous anecdotes just reinforces one’s self-perception of being a victim of a system stacked against (depending on your perspective) men or women.
As I’ve written before, I really don’t like it when we get into the "suffering Olympics". In that post in January, I suggested that activists on both sides of the "sex wars" ought to commit themselves to three things:
1. Become aware of the institutions and structures in our own and other cultures that shape and distort our attitudes towards gender identity and sexuality. (Examples can range from female genital mutilation to pornography to reproductive rights to, yes, father’s issues.)
2. Take positive action to dismantle or weaken these structures. This is basic activism. It doesn’t involve name-calling with one’s opponents.
3. (This is my favorite). Become aware of our own complicity in "the great crime"! Rigorously examine our own attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, and past actions — where have we been at fault? Where have we injured others? How have we, consciously or not, bought into cultural lies about gender and sexuality, and how have we behaved as a result? We need to focus not merely on our intentions, but on how others have perceived us.
What I loved about the film last night — and I hope it comes to public release in due course — was that the filmmaker so clearly "got" the third precept. Holland acknowledged his own failings, and then tried to stimulate discussion about how we can more effectively help men and women to avoid the tragedy of domestic violence. He suggests that both men and women need more support and skills, a position that I think that virtually all of us could endorse. It’s just too bad that three of the four MRA panelists with whom I shared the stage last night were more interested in promoting the notion of men as victims of both battering women and an unsympathetic culture.
The Rev. Peterson was particularly rude. He’s got quite a reputation apparently; check out his World Net Daily columns here. (And he’s a whopping homophobe.) He belittled one woman in the audience who (like so many others) had shared her own anecdote of abuse; she and her friends walked out of the screening in response to his ridicule. Still, despite the rancor, all of the panelists managed to be civil and friendly to one another afterwards. Most of us are good American men, after all, raised on sports culture: rip each other to shreds on the field, and afterwards, pat each other on the back and laugh about it. I had a friendly chat after the discussion with several MRAs; we were all able to acknowledge that even when our public rhetoric gets heated, we can still be civil and even cordial when we’re "off duty." (As I’ve written before, there’s an element of male privilege in that as well.)
I’m surprised he didn’t ask Lundy Bancroft to speak on the panel. Bancroft actually runs a program to treat batterers; problem is, MRAs hate him because he holds batterers accountable for their actions. He doesn’t hold with the idea that these guys lose their cool or have anger management issues; they can manage their anger just fine when it suits them. It’s entitlement and control, period.
Was this supposed to be for MRA’s? How did Holland react to Peterson’s abusive behavior towards the women in the audience?
Holland tried to calm Peterson down, without success. All of us were local Angelenos as speakers; Bancroft is on the East Coast? (I need to look that up; I have heard of his book.)
It wasn’t supposed to be just for MRAs — the idea was to open dialogue, but the panel was a bit slanted.
“You’re right. Men, too, are battered, and it’s a serious problem. Now, about this film….”
there’s an element of male privilege in that as well
Sure. I doubt anybody patted the woman in the audience on the back and laughed about it later. It’s also been my experience that it’s an unusual man who takes being ‘ripped to shreds’ by a woman as genially as by a man.
Believe me, mythago, I tried, and Michael Holland tried, to get back on topic. Even Glenn Sacks tried. But the MRAs and (especially) Rev. Peterson were not interested.
I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to follow up with the women who walked out.
It’s interesting, Hugo, that you refer to the “Suffering Olympics” when men dare to state their own problems. You’re basically ashamed of being male and want all men to buy into that toxic ideology. Forget it. All your silly, obsequious whining about the non-existent “male privilege” is just a nauseating attempt to score a piece of ass. It’s not only lacking in any intellectual substance, it’s also pathetic.
Hugo wrote: “Become aware of the institutions and structures in our own and other cultures that shape and distort our attitudes towards gender identity and sexuality. (Examples can range from female genital mutilation to pornography to reproductive rights to, yes, father’s issues.)”
I think that the feminist community has done our culture a tremendous disservice by twisting statistics and flat-out lying about the gender distribution of DV, so personally I think that the tendency for the MRAs that you sat with is not only understandable and justified, it’s long overdue. There are a multitude of orgs, non-profits, government bodies, etc., that have been beating and continue to beat the “woman-as-victim, man-as-abuser” drum, so I believe that we have to make up for past injustices and at least for now, focus on the converse problem, i.e., woman-as-abuser, man-as-victim.
Again, IMO those guys were justified in their passion to get the truth out.
Continuing: “2. Take positive action to dismantle or weaken these structures. This is basic activism. It doesn’t involve name-calling with one’s opponents.”
I believe that the MRAs that you sat with were most definitely taking positive action to dismantle and/or weaken the malignant structures that have perverted the truth regarding what is truly a human problem, not a “gendered” problem. And as I said, I think that we need to cut them some slack due to the gross injustices perped by feminists relative to the topic of DV.
“3. (This is my favorite). Become aware of our own complicity in “the great crime”! Rigorously examine our own attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, and past actions — where have we been at fault? Where have we injured others? How have we, consciously or not, bought into cultural lies about gender and sexuality, and how have we behaved as a result? We need to focus not merely on our intentions, but on how others have perceived us.”
Please excuse the anecdote here, but in my activities in the MRA community, I’ve never, ever encountered a fellow serious activist who has condoned DV. We do hold our brothers responsible for the abuses of their partners (female and male), which is something that is conspicuously and ironically lacking in the feminist community. For them, it’s exclusively the long-discredited Duluth Wheel model, ad nauseum.
I sincerely apologize for the passionate tone of this post, but you have to understand that the truth re. the symmetry of DV has been out there since the 1970s (e.g., Straus, Gelles and Steinmetz) and we’ve been fighting to get the truth known since the 1980s to no avail, mostly because of the feminist’s insistence on monopolizing the conversation with distortions and flat-out lies.
Thus, I wholeheartedly agree that eventually we should all settle down, be civil and talk calmly and most importantly, rationally and truthfully, about the topic. But IMO, we’ll have to let the MRA community have its say and vent some, as I said, to make up for past injustices.
One doesn’t get over 30 years of lies and propaganda overnight. Give it some time Hugo - we’ll settle down. That is, as long you reign in the feminist radicals on your side.
Mr. Bad, I have no problem with an honest — even a heated — debate on the DV issue. But that wasn’t the precise point of the film, and I’m sorry it got sidetracked.
“That is, as long you ‘reign’ in the feminist radicals on your side.”
Somehow, Mr. Bad, that slightly misspelled verb seems deeply significant! (Just teasing…)
First off Hugo, re. my misspelled verb - ouch! Got me there. ;)
However, re. getting sidetracked on the point of the film, since probably none of us were there to see the film with you, please understand that at least I am responding to what I perceive as the point of this thread, that being the “rage” (as you call it in the title of this post) of the MRAs with whom you debated. So please understand why that’s the focus of my missives. And I promise to do my very best to behave myself while discussing this issue. :)
But I have to take you to task on another point you raise: “I had a friendly chat after the discussion with several MRAs; we were all able to acknowledge that even when our public rhetoric gets heated, we can still be civil and even cordial when we’re “off duty.” (As I’ve written before, there’s an element of male privilege in that as well.)”
Come on Hugo, blaming the inability of non-MRAs (dare I say: feminists) to “be civil when ‘off duty’” on “male privilege?” Oh please. Don’t you think that you should be celebrating men for being able to maitain civility under stress and advising women to learn from us, not giving others an easy excuse for not being able to get along? Or is it really that hard to admit that men might have a better way sometimes?
There’s so much of your “male privilege” arguments that I don’t buy that I can’t even begin to scratch the surface, and this is one of many examples where I think you’re all wet on this.
Just my not-so-humble opinion, mind you.
Mr. Bad, my sentence may have been badly written. We were ALL civil to each other “off-duty.” I had a very nice chat with Ray Blumhorst, who came up and introduced himself and was very friendly. (Google his name; he’s a San Diego super-MRA).
Regarding off-duty civility, I think it _is_ a privilege, though not always necessarily a male privilege. In this particular case the beneficiaries of that privelege were all male. One of the MRAs on the panel belittled an audience member who came out about her abuse. Given how very difficult it is to discuss your own abuse in public, insulting her was simply inexcusable. In what way did he demonstrate civility towards her? In what way did he demonstrate a “better way” of doing things?
That said, had a female panelist belittled a male abuse victim, that also would have been inexcusable. It’s entirely unclear whether he disrespected her because he was a man and she was a woman, or because he was an invited panelist and she was just an audience member. I would feel (and have felt) a vague sort of embarassment at receiving civil treatment from someone who could demonstrate such disrespect towards another.
This reminds me an awful lot of discussions here and on other feminist blogs: a small group drags the topic off to some old axe, and proceeds to grind away as loudly as possible. Without vigorous moderation, discussing any other topic quickly becomes impossible. One soon gets the sense that those “in charge” of the discussion just don’t care about the original issue - or at least, not as much as they care about the latest results in the Suffering Olympics.
From your description, it sounds like Rev. Peterson was inexcusably rude. I’m feeling a bit squicky about your description of the post-panel bonhomie, because when someone crosses a line like that, I think it needs to be recognized and have consequences outside the arena. Nothing uncivil, of course, but there’s plenty of open space between civility and friendliness! Hopefully he’ll be crossed off people’s lists of potential panelists in the future, but a little immediate homosocial feedback never hurts either.
At the risk of getting off-topic, I’d like to point out to Mr. Bad that Richard Gelles himself has stated quite emphatically that DV isn’t an even playing field sex-wise, and he takes exception to those who use his work to bolster such a position.
I’m feeling a bit squicky about your description of the post-panel bonhomie, because when someone crosses a line like that, I think it needs to be recognized and have consequences outside the arena.
Certainly it is a little discomfiting that the panelists were “even friendly” to a verbally-abusive homophobe. Not surprising, though.
I’m not aware of any men who rip each other apart… and then act chummy afterwards.(Well okay, I’m vaguely aware of this — but only vaguely!) Such behavior might be the norm among certain segments of society, but I assure you it is far being from “THE” Norm. Certainly it is not how things get done around my neck of the woods. Hugo, I think you need to get out more and REALLY LOOK at the world. (But I know that can be difficult; we all live in our diverse little mental ruts and various reality bubbles, eh? Plus, I’m sure you don’t travel much in my neck of the woods…)
I’m just setting the record straight: I don’t like to let certain statements (e.g. your own) go uncorrected, and I issue a corrective here because there is no telling who might surf through this website, and see my post, and come away with an amended understanding that the world isn’t necessarily what feminism says it is. It is for the benefit of such a person, or persons, that I write….
If I may state the obvious: perhaps those three men wouldn’t have responded so angrily to the film if the film didn’t completely ignore (as most DV-related works do) the hundreds of thousands to millions of abused American men. There’s only so much that those who know the truth about this issue can take when DV is presented as a problem of men exclusively abusing women.
“At the risk of getting off-topic, I’d like to point out to Mr. Bad that Richard Gelles himself has stated quite emphatically that DV isn’t an even playing field sex-wise, and he takes exception to those who use his work to bolster such a position.”
That’s a tenuous assumption to make, and it ignores that Gelles is far from the only one to find that abuse between the sexes is right about even.
if the film didn’t completely ignore (as most DV-related works do) the hundreds of thousands to millions of abused American men
The film was not a documentary on DV. The film was not claiming that men are not victims. The film was, in Hugo’s words, “one man’s particularly candid and powerful story of his own marriage and what led him to a single act of physical violence against his wife”.
If this had been a film about one man’s experience as a victim of rape, would you all be cheering on a self-described feminist who insisted the film ignored female rape victims? Would you nod understandingly if that woman disparaged a male audience member who recounted his experience as a rape victim, slammed gay men, and complained that the film didn’t address the hundreds of thousands of female rape victims?
Hmm,
First,
“The filmmaker/narrator, Michael Holland, connects his own act of violence to the stories of men who’ve (allegedly) famously murdered their wives (Simpson,Blake,et al…”
Like it or not, if someone is found not guilty of a crime by a jury of their peers in the US then to print otherwise can lead to serious problems with ones integrity.I like to use words like “alleged”,”accused”,”reputed”if the need arises, even when citing someone else.
Second,
Sooooo..! Where can a transcript of the proceedings be found?(and naturally)Where can information about the movie be found? It would be much easier for me to consider afterthoughts after examination of the event.
“If this had been a film about one man’s experience as a victim of rape, would you all be cheering on a self-described feminist who insisted the film ignored female rape victims?”
Firstly, I don’t think anyone’s cheering anything.
Secondly, a film about a male victim of rape would be going AGAINST the grain of conventional wisdom about rape, whereas one more film about a man abusing his wife goes WITH the grain of perception. No symposium on DV exists in a vacuum, and these faulty perceptions have collectively led to institutionalized discrimination against abused men. Programs that focus on abused men have been denied funding, all based on faulty statistics. Here’s one rejection letter a group received, stating that “states must fund only programs that focus on violence against women”: http://www.menshealthnetwork.org/library/VAWArejectDel1002.pdf
And here is another one, stating that the reason the group is ineligible for VAWA funding is, point-blank, that the title of the project is “Violence Against Men.”: http://www.menshealthnetwork.org/library/VAWArejectDallas1202.pdf
Even IF women constituted such an “overwhelming majority” of victims, it STILL wouldn’t excuse such blatant discrimination: imagine if we refused to acknowledge our women fighting overseas because they’re in the minority. Imagine if we only pledged to help right-handed people who are HIV+.
So, you take years and years of one-sided treatment of the domestic violence issue, and, whether you “nod understandingly” or not, it should still be easy to understand how a person can come to a breaking point.
“3. (This is my favorite). Become aware of our own complicity in “the great crime”! Rigorously examine our own attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, and past actions — where have we been at fault? Where have we injured others? How have we, consciously or not, bought into cultural lies about gender and sexuality, and how have we behaved as a result? We need to focus not merely on our intentions, but on how others have perceived us.”
Excellent advice. As a woman, I completely agree that women OUGHT to finally do exactly what you’ve just said. Women OUGHT to examine exactly what these questions have to do with domestic violence, both by men and women.
Is there any possibility that you actually WANT women to examine THOSE things? Or do you only want men to examine how they are to blame and are the aggressors? See, because in even a cursory examination I happen to know that women have a hell of a lot to do with domestic violence, from a lot of angles. We are sure as hell not merely passive victims, and there are countless ways we contribute.
So are women also allowed to examine where WE contribute? Or is that too evil to even think about?
“If there is one thing even less productive than arguing from statistics, it’s arguing from anecdote. Look, folks, everyone who does this work — on either side of the debate — has dozens of stories to tell. In the domestic violence world, any of us can tell many stories of where the legal system has failed both men and women. We can tell our own stories and share our own hurts, and we can describe outrages committed against husbands and wives in order to bolster our respective cases. But when each anecdote is immediately met by a counter-anecdote, it’s damned difficult to see how we make any progress on an issue like this. Here on the blog, I do tell stories of my own life. This is because this blog is not intended to be polemical. But I assure you, I neither teach nor debate the way I write. While story-telling has its place, in and of itself it’s an ineffective tool for either resolving conflict or creating consensus. Usually — as last night — sharing outrageous anecdotes just reinforces one’s self-perception of being a victim of a system stacked against (depending on your perspective) men or women.”
“He belittled one woman in the audience who (like so many others) had shared her own anecdote of abuse; she and her friends walked out of the screening in response to his ridicule.”
I’m sorry, am I sniffing glue, or did you just bitch that the anecdote thing was bad?
Seriously, dude, make up your fucking mind.
Did this documentary show what she did as well, or did it only concentrate on what he did wrong? In my expirience, (not huge, but having lived next door to several violent couples) the women did their fair share of belittling, shouting, threatening, throwing things and hitting before the man lost it. As if she was completely allowed to lose it and be as violent and cruel as she pleased but he was to maintain composure or be arrested. I found the whole affair sad and twisted. Given not all relationships are like this. But I think one would find that many are, that many DV relationships are two way.
I agree with Mr Bad in a way. I think that male DV victims have been ignored for far too long. I think abuse by women has been accepted and laughed at (you want public humiliation, try Mr Bobbit~that woman who walked out has no idea what public humilation is)for so long that very few people even see it as abuse even when it is covered in the news. If a man had sliced off his wife’s breast, drove around and threw it in a ditch, and claimed it was because she tormented him for years, would America be laughing?
That said, I do not think that any amount of history excuses rudeness. Feminists have justified their entire movement, down to quotas, spreadiing hate and fear of men, getting rid of any male only spaces, and pushing fathers out of the home to making up for past problems. It doesn’t wash with women, and it doesn’t wash with men. IMHO, two wrongs don’t make a right.
As far as male privilage goes, in a way you Hugo had privilage that those men did not. As a feminist, you could walk away from the pain and loss that those MRAs feel every day. They live with discrimination, hatred, and disadvantages that you, as a feminist women’s studies proffessor do not acknowledge. I have female privilage because I can walk away from these men and not look back, but they still must deal with the issues. WHen I spend a day with fathers who have not seen their children due to false allegations, restraining orders given out with no investigations, or move aways, I can walk away but they are trapped in the reality. There is all sorts of privilage in this world. Not all of it male.
Few points:
1) Someone who has a moral objection to homosexuality does not become by virtue of this fact alone a ‘homophobe’. Phobe comes from the latin phobus and denotes an ‘irrational fear’ of homosexuals. A moral objection is not the same thing, and Hugo’s name calling of the Rev. does him a disservice.
2) While this is not exactly in the main topic you say to whit, “1. Become aware of the institutions and structures in our own and other cultures that shape and distort our attitudes towards gender identity and sexuality. (Examples can range from female genital mutilation to pornography to reproductive rights to, yes, father’s issues.) ” Here I am slightly confused as the prevalence of female genital mutilation in western society is so low (and illegal) as to be negligible, whereas a better example of something that “shape(s) and distort(s) our attitudes towards gender identity and sexuality” would certainly be male infant circumcision.
“From your description, it sounds like Rev. Peterson was inexcusably rude. I’m feeling a bit squicky about your description of the post-panel bonhomie, because when someone crosses a line like that, I think it needs to be recognized and have consequences outside the arena. Nothing uncivil, of course, but there’s plenty of open space between civility and friendliness! Hopefully he’ll be crossed off people’s lists of potential panelists in the future, but a little immediate homosocial feedback never hurts either.”
NYMOM said: Well I think we need to be a little stronger in our efforts to teach this Rev manners then just crossing him off a list. Too bad that woman who he attacked from the audience didn’t have her husband or b/f with her. He could have jumped up on stage and throttled the good Rev until he apologized.
“As far as male privilage goes, in a way you Hugo had privilage that those men did not. As a feminist, you could walk away from the pain and loss that those MRAs feel every day. They live with discrimination, hatred, and disadvantages that you, as a feminist women’s studies proffessor do not acknowledge. I have female privilage because I can walk away from these men and not look back, but they still must deal with the issues.”
NYMOM said: Hugo is a MAN and cannot walk away from the issues either. I seriously doubt if he walks around with a sign on his forehead all day saying “Hello, I’m a feminist women’s studies professor” and getting special privilege from people because of it.
So could we get real here. Hugo, as a man, is impacted just as negatively as other men IF they are being discriminated against. So, obviously he works in different ways from others, to improve things.
“NYMOM said: Well I think we need to be a little stronger in our efforts to teach this Rev manners then just crossing him off a list. Too bad that woman who he attacked from the audience didn’t have her husband or b/f with her. He could have jumped up on stage and throttled the good Rev until he apologized.”
That would have gone over real big at a forum on abuse…
NYMOM: “Hugo, as a man, is impacted just as negatively as other men IF they are being discriminated against.”
In my experience, MRAs are made, not born, as a rule. Getting ones heart ripped out in family court can have that effect on a man. bmmg39 could tell of many real-life stories of abused men who were criminalized for acting in self-defense. These things create MRAs. Those men who live in these realities do not have the privilege of walking away from them. Men who do not live in such hell-realms may choose to walk away and pretend such realms are mere hallucinations, or that they don’t matter in the larger scheme of things. A few will recognize the injustice of demonizing someone of an unfavored group who has the temerity to protest. Yes, the protesters often get out of control in word and action, but torture can do that to a person. Telling a person to stop whining, even as they are pulled apart on the rack, is not helpful.
Bmmg39, here’s a link to an article by Gelles in which he decries the use of his work to support MRA claims: I don’t really see how my assertion can be deemed tenuous in the face of what Gelles himself says.
http://thesafetyzone.org/everyone/gelles.html
The behaviour of the MRAs at this event was bizarre at best, offensive at worst. It’s as if someone burst into a symposium on the Holocaust and started holding forth on the Armenian genocide. MRAs may have some worthy and legitimate claims, but until they master basic propriety and civility, they’re just going to alienate people who may otherwise be sympathetic to parts of their agenda.
“That would have gone over real big at a forum on abuse…”
NYMOM said: People can have ‘righteous anger’ at someone who is hurting another person. Even Jesus Christ took a whip to the money changers in the temple and drove them out of it. Being against abuse doesn’t mean not EVER getting angry and/or striking someone. Otherwise dangerous and violent criminals would go free since nobody was willing to stand up to them when they hurt others weaker then themselves.
I think some have changed the definition of abuse to benefit themselves
now.
It should mean striking someone who is weaker then yourself and thus unable to defend against you. I mean some of the most violent beings I know are two year olds, 2 poodles and a hamster. Using some definitions I see of abuse, they would be considered abusive. Which is clearly ridiculous.
That Rev. being confronted by a man as aggressive as he was and being forced to apologize for his attacks would NOT have come under the definition of abuse, nor should it have. He should have been corrected right there on stage and it’s a shame he wasn’t.
It’s just more spin on abuse to confuse people.
“In my experience, MRAs are made, not born, as a rule. Getting ones heart ripped out in family court can have that effect on a man. bmmg39 could tell of many real-life stories of abused men who were criminalized for acting in self-defense. These things create MRAs. Those men who live in these realities do not have the privilege of walking away from them. Men who do not live in such hell-realms may choose to walk away and pretend such realms are mere hallucinations, or that they don’t matter in the larger scheme of things.”
NYMOM said: Yet clearly Hugo is NOT walking away as he does many many things to address these issues you mention. He has this website for instance, where people can discuss such instances. He attends meetings, conferences to address abuse, MRA issues and such. Works with boys to teach them how to act as better men.
He does many things that other men don’t.
As our former President Clinton said regarding foreign policy emergencies: Just because we can’t do EVERYTHING doesn’t mean we can’t do ANYTHING.
For the record, I tend to use the word “homophobe” the way most GLBTQ activists use it. It doesn’t just mean a personal, private fear of homosexuality; the “phobia” can extend to the social ramifications of a tolerant attitude towards homosexuality. If one is afraid, for example, that gay marriage will undo the social fabric, one is still literally a “homophobe”. We misunderstand the meaning of “phobia” if we draw it too narrowly. Rev. Peterson’s remarks made it clear he was “homophobic” in this broad sense, even if he doesn’t personally fear individual homosexuals.
To be fair, Holland’s documentary bothered me in ways I didn’t discuss before; he does suggest (at the end) that what he calls women’s “verbal oppression” is often a catalyst for men’s violence. That rubbed me the wrong way, frankly; I’ve survived some ugly scenes in past relationships, but have always been crystal clear that words, no matter how vicious, are never even a mitigating factor in violence. Words and actions are utterly distinct to me.
As for the “bonhomie” (the literal meaning is redolent of male privilege as well), I’ll be frank: I’ve spent years and years becoming the sort of person who will not let sharp ideological disagreement color my friendships. (Well, unless someone’s wearing fur…) Perhaps that’s laudable, or perhaps it’s a sign that I don’t grasp how serious the issues really are on a personal level.
I wish there were a website or other info for the film. This was a preliminary screening of a rough cut of the documentary, and it will be some time before it is widely available.
Didn’t the producer realize ahead of time that inviting those particular men to a discussion would result in them parading out faulty statistics and third-party anecdotes about abused men? As mythago wrote, David Gelles, one of the creators of the Conflict Tactic Scales, has chastised men’s rights activists for misusing those figures to give them impression that women are as abusive as men. It doesn’t surprise me that the discussion went off track the way it did. Plus, why would a discussion about abuse result in one of the panelists being abusive towards a female audience member? Why wasn’t that behavior squelched as soon as it started? The irony was not lost on me.
Yes, I do believe Lundy Bancroft is from the East Coast. However, I’m sure there were other men available in California who could have spoken about men taking responsibility for their abusive behavior. It’s too bad that topic - which was a focus of the film - did not get more airplay. Considering the other men on the panel, I’m not surprised that did not happen. I’m glad that Glenn Sacks had tried to stay on topic. At least he tried to do the right thing.
“To be fair, Holland’s documentary bothered me in ways I didn’t discuss before; he does suggest (at the end) that what he calls women’s “verbal oppression” is often a catalyst for men’s violence. That rubbed me the wrong way, frankly; I’ve survived some ugly scenes in past relationships, but have always been crystal clear that words, no matter how vicious, are never even a mitigating factor in violence. Words and actions are utterly distinct to me.”
NYMOM said: Finally someone who acknowledges this: WORDS versus ACTIONS totally different.
I so frequently hear women getting castigated, even by Judges for SAYING something. Judges particularly should know better as they are lawyers by training and should understand that the use of words, instead of your fists, is the proper way to resolve conflict. Sometimes the only defense a woman has is her skill in using words. Even that woman in Atlanta who convinced a murderer to give himself up used ONLY her words.
Women should NOT be castigated for using words, but complimented. Perhaps men should be taught, when young, to use their words better and they would not have to resort to violence.
I think this is something men can learn from women. Yet instead of learning from us (God forbid) they attempt to denigrate women for this use of words. Using words in an argument instead of your hands is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing.
Hugo: “For the record, I tend to use the word “homophobe” the way most GLBTQ activists use it. It doesn’t just mean a personal, private fear of homosexuality; the “phobia” can extend to the social ramifications of a tolerant attitude towards homosexuality.”
Once again, I believe you are confusing tolerance and acceptance. One can tolerate another person’s lifestyle choices in a free society, but one does not have to accept the other individual’s choices as being as equally valid as other choices. Failing to accept those choices as having equal merit does not make one homophobic, and it is a misuse of the word. Words mean things Hugo. Stretching them so that they can be used in any abstract sense as sticks to beat and stigmatize dissenting voices removes any meaning they may have had, and sharply side-steps the legitimate claim individual morality has to autonomy regarding the things an individual is prepared to accept as legitimate moral choices.
NYMOM: “Yet clearly Hugo is NOT walking away as he does many many things to address these issues you mention. He has this website for instance, where people can discuss such instances.”
I didn’t say he was walking away. I said he has the privilege of doing so, just as most women do, and many MRAs do not. That is female privilege in action, and some males also enjoy this privilege. I know that many MRAs don’t like Hugo, and some express that dislike in rather obscene terms, even here on Hugo’s own turf. I am not among them. I often (or perhaps usually) disagree with him, but I acknowledge him as an honorable man of integrity and good intentions who walks his talk. If he ever (God forbid) runs afoul of the US family court system, he will make a awesome ally!
NYMOM, I believe you just said that women who scream in a man’s face, over and over again, the most vile abuse, are to be commended, because they didn’t slap him. Did I get that right?
To be fair, Holland’s documentary bothered me in ways I didn’t discuss before; he does suggest (at the end) that what he calls women’s “verbal oppression” is often a catalyst for men’s violence.
Oh, Lord. I’m getting a better idea why Bancroft wasn’t on that panel. He’d take no truck with that crap.
I mean, jeez, how many verbally abusive men would then be fair game for their partner’s fist? Does he not realize that most physical abuse starts out emotionally and verbally–on the part of the abuser (not the so-called catalyst?) It escalates when the abuser feels he’s losing control of his partner, and wants to regain it.
Jessy, Meriam-Webster defines homophobia as:
“irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals”.
In other words, you’re homophobic if you advocate certain policies that deny homosexuals full inclusion in society, regardless of whether or not you have personal fear of gay or lesbian people.
You may think that’s a distortion of the Latin, but take your argument to Merriam-Webster.
I’ve spent years and years becoming the sort of person who will not let sharp ideological disagreement color my friendships.
Belittling an audience member isn’t an ideological disagreement. Repeatedly dragging the discussion off topic over the objections of the event’s host isn’t an ideological disagreement. You often identify and quash such rude behaviors here, distinguishing them from the similar ideological positions held by more respectful commenters; I don’t think it’s fair to use your laudable tolerance as an excuse for ignoring poor behavior from ideological “opponents” in other fora.
I don’t mean to get too much on your case here, Hugo - you weren’t the host, I wasn’t there, etc etc. From your description, I do think Rev. Peterson’s behavior should’ve been clearly (but politely) labeled as rude and unacceptable, by someone. Framing it as a mere “ideological disagreement” does a disservice to those who manage to disagree strongly while remaining respectful of other participants, and of the designated topic.
“You may think that’s a distortion of the Latin, but take your argument to Merriam-Webster.”
Actually what I said regarding the eytemology of the word was exactly correct and you have confirmed it. I belive the MW added the bit about “or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals”, but I’ve no idea when. Other dictionaries do not include that latter part (i.e. Cambridge etc.). In any case, I have stated my objection as plainly as I can, and you have morphed the issue into one where an individual’s belief that the legally sanctioned marriage of homosexuals will harm status quo society amounts to discrimination (the only way in which your selected definition can apply without you appearing to be name calling), when in fact it is simply an individual expressing his beliefs predicated on his moral system, a moral belief system which ironically is not ‘tolerated’ by the GLTBQ activists, as evinced by the prejorative uses of words like homophobe against those who would espouse such differing beliefs.
Jessy, as any student of English knows, definitions of words evolve. MW is just a bit ahead of the curve.
I don’t generally use the word “homophobe” except under real provocation. (Read the Rev. Peterson’s articles and you’ll see what I mean.) I’ve got lots of commenters here who don’t support full inclusion for glbtq folk, and I don’t use the word for them — even though I think that I could use it accurately.
I think it’s best to avoid inflammatory language as often as possible. I may be moderately pro-life, but I always call the other side “pro-choice”, never anything else. I don’t call the MRAs misogynists very often, either (though I am called a misandrist regularly); I do break down and use the term when I feel provoked, and the Rev. Peterson’s bile generated its use in yesterday’s post.
“NYMOM, I believe you just said that women who scream in a man’s face, over and over again, the most vile abuse, are to be commended, because they didn’t slap him. Did I get that right?”
NYMOM said: Of course you distorted what I said. I never mentioned screaming I said WORDS.
I guess as opposed to slapping someone, what I said could be interpretated as screaming vile words falling into a category labeled as the lesser of evils. SINCE the ‘victim’ still has the choice of walking away.
But I believe you are just playing word games; as I think you knew what I meant when I said using your words was better then using your fists.
Since using your interpretation I could see someone claiming they were assaulted FIRST before they broke their girlfriend’s jaw or something because she started screaming at him. AND I’m sorry but that is just a distortion of fact.
Anyway, people who are are sincere about issues generally don’t need to resort to playing word games. They can be open and honest in discussions.
Once again, it shows us nothing when we try to go to the far edge of the bell shaped curve to disprove what most of us experience who reside in the vast middle.
Words and actions are different and should be treated differently.
“I didn’t say he was walking away. I said he has the privilege of doing so, just as most women do, and many MRAs do not.”
AND by the way Stanton many of the most hard-core MRAs do have the privilege of walking away.
Many of them, like Angry Harry for instance, don’t even have any kids. So who are they to inflame other men who do, with their nonsense? Many of them are not married. Again who are they to complain about marriage and/or divorce? When they have NEVER experienced either.
Many have won their divorce/custody cases yet STILL go around talking about bias in family court? Again, what are they talking about?
Sadly there are men (mostly men, let’s face it; probably something to do with aggression and replacing the alpha males from leadership roles) who are malcontents in every society ready to join any movement from Save the Whales to Fathers’ Rights in order to protest SOMETHING. I hate to say it but it appears that MRA groups have attracted many of these types. Perhaps it’s good. I don’t know, as giving them some focus could possibly keep them from becoming isolated and doing bigger damage. However, I can’t take a movement seriously where the main leaders appear to have suffered nothing of what they complain about; but are busily telling younger men (who again, haven’t even lived yet and suffered nothing) how our society discriminates against them so much.
Actually, look at most of your leaders if you want to talk about privilege.
Sorry.
NYMOM, try to not drag other folks into this (even Angry Harry!) by name… thanks.
NYMOM, it is interesteing, to say the least, to see such an equal-opportunity exasperater in action. Feminists and MRAs alike find you inconsistent and slippery as hell. In that, you are unique in my experience.
“Of course you distorted what I said.” “I believe you are just playing word games.”
I am not interested in word games. The item under discussion was “verbal oppression”. Rereading what you wrote, perhaps you meant to enlarge the consideration, but that wasn’t clear to me on the first read. If it had been, I would not have been interested in that particular digression, and would have ignored it. If “verbal oppression” was meant, then my characterization stands. Arguing - even heated arguing - is not verbal oppression. Oppression is made of sterner stuff, such as the example I gave.
“I can’t take a movement seriously where the main leaders appear to have suffered nothing of what they complain about.”
Fine. And I refuse to take seriously those who focus on the messengers in order to justify ignoring the message. Since neither of us takes the other seriously, perhaps we have nothing to talk about.
Fine.
I didn’t recall seeing anything saying verbal oppression, as I’ve never even heard of that term. How can you oppress someone verbally, if there is no threat of physical followup? It only works if people THINK you can hurt them. When I talk about women using words, it has nothing to do with verbal oppression.
BTW, I don’t believe I ‘exasperate’ people as you call it because I’m inconsistent and slippery as hell’ but just the opposite. It’s because I’m NOT.
AND my point about MRA leaders was that I have often heard a number of them comparing themselves to Gandhi and/or Martin Luther King. Two men who were actually oppressed and lead movements to overcome that oppression. Thus, my central point remains. Your entire movement is suspect as it could just be reactionaries trying to hold onto their own privilege.
NYMOM said: “People can have ‘righteous anger’ at someone who is hurting another person. Even Jesus Christ took a whip to the money changers in the temple and drove them out of it. Being against abuse doesn’t mean not EVER getting angry and/or striking someone. Otherwise dangerous and violent criminals would go free since nobody was willing to stand up to them when they hurt others weaker then themselves.”
Ah, but this wasn’t a violent criminal; it was a man who was rude to a woman in an audience. If the violent criminal attacks, I can defend myself against him or her; I can’t throttle someone who is rude to me. I was in customer service for 13 years; I would have throttled perhaps thousands of people.
“I think some have changed the definition of abuse to benefit themselves now…It should mean striking someone who is weaker then yourself and thus unable to defend against you.”
– or someone who is stronger than yourself or someone who is the same size as yourself. To suggest that abuse is only when a larger person hurts a smaller one is to suggest that larger people have fewer rights than smaller ones. I’m not a big person, myself. I’m still not allowed to punch people who tick me off. There’s a decent chance I’d have the stuffing kicked out of me if I DID. And I’d have no grounds to say, “Hey! You can’t hit me back! I’m weaker than you!” And yet this is the argument sometimes made by women who insist that they shouldn’t be arrested for hitting men.
“That Rev. being confronted by a man as aggressive as he was and being forced to apologize for his attacks would NOT have come under the definition of abuse, nor should it have. He should have been corrected right there on stage and it’s a shame he wasn’t.”
Corrected? Fine. Told to apologize? Okay. But you said “throttled.” Whole new ballgame.
“Bmmg39, here’s a link to an article by Gelles in which he decries the use of his work to support MRA claims.”
I’ve read it, and it is Gelles who is making tenuous claims. The piece you have provided from him is self-contradictory:
“To even off the debate playing field it seems one piece of statistical evidence (that women and men hit one another in roughly equal numbers) is hauled out from my 1985 research - and distorted - to “prove” the position on violence against men.”
If that one piece is in his statistical evidence, no distortion is necessary. Gelles makes the contention that MRAs “leave out” the higher rates of injury for women. There are two major problems with this:
1. A lot of serious injuries men incur as a result of DV are put into another category: the man knows that he might not be taken seriously if he says he was hurt by a woman, so his wounds get written down as “fell down stairs” or “hurt repairing car.”
2. I’ll say this again. You don’t need to put someone in the hospital to commit abuse. If a man “just” slaps his wife’s face, he won’t likely break any bones, draw blood, or leave a bruise on her. Does this mean it’s not abuse? Certainly not, and it’s no different if she is the one slapping him.
“Indeed, men are hit by their wives, they are injured, and some are killed. But, are all men hit by women ‘battered?’ No. Men who beat their wives, who use emotional abuse and blackmail to control their wives, and are then hit or even harmed, cannot be considered battered men. A battered man is one who is physically injured by a wife or partner and has not physically struck or psychologically provoked her.”
I could just as easily turn this around and say that a lot of women who are hit, injured and/or killed do not qualify as battered women, because they’ve used emotional abuse or psychological provocation against the men who eventually “fought back.” That’s the whole problem with this issue: men who hit are presumed guilty from square one, whereas women are assumed to be “just fighting back.” I’ve seen that argument used to try to discredit the more than 150 studies suggesting that women and men abuse each other at approximately equal rates: http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
The Countess: “David Gelles, one of the creators of the Conflict Tactic Scales, has chastised men’s rights activists for misusing those figures to give them impression that women are as abusive as men.”
Women INITIATE (in other words, NOT self-defense) domestic abuse against men approximately as often as the reverse occurs. Studies that suggest otherwise often rely on arrest statistics. Let me tell you about arrest statistics.
On a message board where I (and others) counsel victims of abuse (of both genders), one man wrote that his wife has physically attacked him many times. Each time he has called the police; each time the police have refused to arrest her, perhaps following their “handbook” provided to them by the local DV shelter. In fact, one police officer actually said to him, trying to offer practical advice, “The next time she starts swinging, leave the house. Because if she breaks a nail hitting YOU, we’re going to arrest YOU.”
I’m going to repeat that: “The next time she starts swinging, leave the house. Because if she breaks a nail hitting YOU, we’re going to arrest YOU.”
Folks, that’s right out of Samuel Beckett. If you saw that in a play, you’d say, “Oh, this is a farce!” To be arrested for being beaten up might be amusing (to some) in a morbid comedy, except this is happening to actual men in real life. Another man on that website said that the police said to him: “We’re not arresting her, buddy. But if you lay a hand on HER, we’re coming down hard on you.” They said this in FRONT of his abusive wife. Do ya think things got better for him after that? Or do you think they got worse?
So, let’s say the next time this happens, the wife DOES break a fingernail while hitting her husband, and they DO arrest him. HE gets arrested. HIS name gets reported for committing domestic abuse, while the guilty party gets a blanket wrapped around her as she is taken to the DV shelter.
So, if this happens in various places around our country (and world), and you look up arrest statistics, what exactly do you THINK you’ll find?
“Corrected? Fine. Told to apologize? Okay. But you said “throttled.” Whole new ballgame.”
NYMOM said: Well the way it was framed initially it sounded like the Rev. verbally attacked an actual victim of abuse and drove her out of the forum which was about dv. So then yes, I would have supported him being ‘forced’ into an apology by whatever means. I assume he wouldn’t have agreed, so yes, throttled would be appropriate to the situation as I originally understood it.
However later it was amended (by others) to say that she wasn’t a victim of abuse but a ‘plant’ in the audience as a representative of a feminist group.
Then I would have just had security escort her out for being disruptive.
So it depends upon who she was really, how I would have reacted. But the initial story painted her as an actual victim of abuse herself, attending the seminar or whatever it was, and then being attacked by this Rev from the stage.
So this was why I came up with the original statement.
Since yes there is such a thing as righteous anger where you can justify throttling someone and I’m not talking about a customer aggravating you either. I’m talking about serious issues, like yelling fire in a movie theater, which justifies throttling someone who won’t shut up. Or chasing a victim of some crime out of a forum she was entitled to be in.
IF that was the situation.
Like I said, there is a place for violence in righteous anger such as wars in response to aggression, for instance. I mean someone can be against domestic violence it doesn’t necessarily turn you into a pacifist…
“Women INITIATE (in other words, NOT self-defense) domestic abuse against men approximately as often as the reverse occurs. Studies that suggest otherwise often rely on arrest statistics. Let me tell you about arrest statistics.”
Well then maybe this is not really domestic abuse then? As every single argument a husband and wife have where one might yell at or even push the other is not nor should it be, classified as domestic abuse. You appear to have a very ’sterile’ notion of the interactions that go on between two people when they are intimate with one another. It frees them or gives them permission to act in ways that they probably would NOT act with other people.
I mean if you are counseling people, perhaps you are overinterpreting what they are saying and seeing abuse where none exists.
I mean someone like you would have dropped dead if you had ever been at one of my family’s events from weddings to a Christening. Like clockwork, a few hours and a couple of round of drinks into the night someone would remember some insulting remark Uncle John said to cousin Pat’s wife ten years ago and never apologized for and the fight would be on…now that was verbal abuse…YET the next day they were fine. I mean in your world they would have been getting restraining orders against one another.
BTW, I heard that many of the statistics compiled for domestic abuse came from hospital emergency rooms not arrest records. So you should check that out too. This could be another one of your misinterpretations.
“I’m talking about serious issues, like yelling fire in a movie theater, which justifies throttling someone who won’t shut up. Or chasing a victim of some crime out of a forum she was entitled to be in.”
Physical force is only permissible in cases of true physical danger. Yelling “fire” may qualify, but not after everyone realizes the person is full of soup. Mere rudeness or even cruel words certainly don’t justify violence. Now if he went up there and tried to “shut her up” with his fist, then, yeah, it would be on.
“I mean someone like you would have dropped dead if you had ever been at one of my family’s events from weddings to a Christening. Like clockwork, a few hours and a couple of round of drinks into the night someone would remember some insulting remark Uncle John said to cousin Pat’s wife ten years ago and never apologized for and the fight would be on…now that was verbal abuse…YET the next day they were fine. I mean in your world they would have been getting restraining orders against one another.”
I’m not attacking you or your family here. As long as things remained verbal, I can see the law not intervening, sure. But if one person were to beat the snot out of somebody else because of a comment, then an assault would have been committed.
“BTW, I heard that many of the statistics compiled for domestic abuse came from hospital emergency rooms not arrest records. So you should check that out too. This could be another one of your misinterpretations.”
“Guess I think I’m okay.
Walked into the door again.
If you ask that’s what I’ll say,
And it’s not your business anyway.”
That’s a stanza from Suzanne Vega’s “Luka,” a song about child abuse, but it pertains to abused adults, too. Certainly, women face the same shame and reluctance to tell the police or emergency personnel that she’s been beaten up, but if she DID she’d be far more likely to be believed than if a man does the same thing. Hence the BS stories about how the man lost a tooth/has second-degree burns/suffered a cracked rib.
bmmg39, I too am bothered by Gelles qualifying battery as something that happens only to men who didn’t “provoke” it. When wife-beaters claim “she provoked me” we don’t consider that an excuse for hitting her, nor should we.
I’m plenty aware that women can be violent. I knew a girl who used to get hit by her girlfriend (I’ve noticed same-sex domestic abuse is not addressed here… that happens too.) When I was younger my mom used to lose her temper and smack me around (my dad never did, but he also never intervened). Then one day I stopped letting her hit me…. just grabbed her wrists and held. She looked me in the eye and asked if now I was going to hit her. And it really really saddened me that she didn’t think I could/would defend myself from her without turning that violence back on her. I replied no, I just wasn’t going to let her hit me anymore, and didn’t budge till she calmed down.
So, I simply don’t sympathize with people who abuse their abusers. I don’t care how provoked you are, you don’t hit someone unless there is really, truly no other way to defend yourself. If you’re seriously outweighed or the other person has a weapon, that might be all you can do. But if they’re screaming in your face? If you’re at all able to stop them without hurting them? Then harming them is still wrong. Abuse is abuse even if provoked.
Your story about your battered friend and the police is indeed horrifying. And I’ll buy your argument that male victims of domestic abuse under-report. However, women also underreport or lie about the causes of their injuries (I’ve done it). Police also ignore domestic abuse against women. (A friend of mine related a particularly depressing story about the police who watched and did nothing when his mother’s boyfriend wrenched her wrist so she couldn’t carry her suitcases out of the house. We could go back and forth on this and just establish that the cops are terrible about domestic abuse across the board.) So, your arguments about underreporting and lack of enforcement do indicate that the raw numbers of men being abused may be higher than we know, but they don’t say anything nearly as conclusive about the ratio of male to female abuse victims.
That said, I’m glad you’re doing something to help these guys. I don’t envy them having to face ridicule on top of everything else. I just don’t like framing the situation as if they’re competing with female abuse victims… like in order to help one group you have to snub another.
I actually got involved with a similar debate with a member of my family. Ads are currently showing attempting to educate men that violence against women is not ok in australia at the moment.
His argument was what about violence towards men (within domestic violence)?
While I have no problem with his comment, I do worry about the effects of taking the attention away from the women in the picture, stats and lies aside women remain the bigger victims within domestic violence.
I think another side of it is the fact that there are still beliefs that it is ok to ’slap your woman out of it’. This isn’t a view point that many women share or at least one i’m yet to hear.
Also, there are still judges who favour men in domestic abuse cases regardless of case details and far too many women who continue to die as a result of domestic abuse.
“I’m plenty aware that women can be violent. I knew a girl who used to get hit by her girlfriend (I’ve noticed same-sex domestic abuse is not addressed here… that happens too.)”
The group I promote, Stop Abuse For EVERYONE, does indeed emphasize that violence within the gay and lesbian community is also a huge problem (or, rather, a subset of the same huge problem). Unfortunately, if people go with the traditional way of thinking, that a man can never be a victim of DV, the gay men as well as the straight ones will also be left out, and with the way of thinking that a woman can never be a perpetrator, the lesbian victims will also be left out.
“So, your arguments about underreporting and lack of enforcement do indicate that the raw numbers of men being abused may be higher than we know, but they don’t say anything nearly as conclusive about the ratio of male to female abuse victims.”
Yes, as I said, I’m positive that there are plenty of women who also fear telling someone about their being abused. My point is that women are publicly encouraged to do so, whereas abused men, often turned away rudely at battered women’s shelters, and ignored by the media, feel like there’s no place for them to go, and that they’re supposed to “take it like a man” (a phrase that infuriates me) and remain stoic. As for numbers, for all we know there are more abused men than abused women, or perhaps the numbers are the same, or perhaps more women than men. The point is that even if there were just ONE abused man, we should give him the same support that we would give any abused woman, rather than dismiss him as the minority and wash our hands of the matter. If a 300-pound football player were slapped by his 100-pound wife, we should be just as outraged with her as we would be with him if the situation was reversed.
“That said, I’m glad you’re doing something to help these guys. I don’t envy them having to face ridicule on top of everything else. I just don’t like framing the situation as if they’re competing with female abuse victims… like in order to help one group you have to snub another.”
Thank you. And, to be honest, I wish I were doing more. I just post occasionally on that website; the brunt of what I do is having a bumper sticker on my car and handing out literature on abused men at libraries and DV offices, most of which have been receptive to me. And I agree with you: I don’t want there to be a “competition” between two groups of victims, and as soon as we begin giving men the support they need, we won’t need to have a “competition.”
Kristy: “While I have no problem with his comment, I do worry about the effects of taking the attention away from the women in the picture, stats and lies aside women remain the bigger victims within domestic violence.”
Please see “Anonymous’s” comment about “competing” groups. If we were only helping white people with AIDS and telling people of other races with AIDS that they should hit the road, and I suggested we should begin treating these other people as well, would you worry about taking attention away from the white people?
And your second point strikes me as rather lazy, in which you state, “I don’t care what the statistics say; women have it worse.” I won’t even get into your “lies” comment; I’m trying to finish this post without becoming too angry.
If a 300-pound football player were slapped by his 100-pound wife, we should be just as outraged with her as we would be with him if the situation was reversed.
Of course we should, as long as you’re imagining comparable levels of physical damage resulting from the assault. And I’m sure you’d agree that a slap that leaves a red mark is in no way comparable to a slap that breaks a jaw.
It doesn’t matter how physically damaging an assault is, when you’re considering whether a relationship contract has been broken and whether a person ought to leave and never come back (and I think that any slap on the face is reason to leave if the recipient so desires.) If that’s your concern, it doesn’t matter small a woman is - she slaps you, she’s done, and her size and sex are irrelevant.
However, there’s more to domestic abuse than the momentary pain and emotional trauma. There’s the fear of permanent damage, of future beatings if you leave, or death, and in that respect, size does matter. Just as a slap is worse than a yell, broken bones are worse than bruises. A smaller person can do as much damage as she wants if she has weapons, training, or time to plan, but in the heat of the moment, a blow struck in anger by an untrained assailant is likely to be far more damaging coming from a larger, stronger person with more upper body strength. Naturally, all this applies in exactly the same way to women in relationships with partners one-third their weight. Some might speculate, however, that such relationships are rather rare.
“If a 300-pound football player were slapped by his 100-pound wife, we should be just as outraged with her as we would be with him if the situation was reversed.”
“Of course we should, as long as you’re imagining comparable levels of physical damage resulting from the assault.”
No, because that’s irrelevant. When you state that it’s “worse” for a man to strike a woman, the obvious converse is that it’s “not as bad” when a woman strikes a man. A man is in an extremely dangerous situation if he’s with an abusive woman who believes that he would receive a more severe penalty for retaliation than she will for striking the first blow.
The law must be constructed as to treat all people fairly, and not have a size coefficient to determine the amount of jail time.
“Of course we should, as long as you’re imagining comparable levels of physical damage resulting from the assault.”
No, because that’s irrelevant.
Right. The level of physical damage is irrelevant to the outrage we should feel. If you feel the same amount of outrage at an abuser who slaps her victim’s face as you do for one who leaves her partner in a wheelchair, then we do not live in the same moral universe.
man is in an extremely dangerous situation if he’s with an abusive woman who believes that he would receive a more severe penalty for retaliation than she will for striking the first blow.
Of course. This isn’t a gendered situation, as women who have waited until their abusive husbands slept to retaliate and gone to jail for murder know full well. Of course, you have a slight advantage if you’re strong enough that you can retaliate right away without getting killed, because it looks more like self-defense to a jury than if you have to wait until she’s unconscious.
The law must be constructed as to treat all people fairly, and not have a size coefficient to determine the amount of jail time.
It’s not about size, it’s about damage. If you had posited a 300-lb sedentary office worker and a 100-lb karate expert, my point would stand, just directed the other way. That’s why I specified “untrained” and “unplanned” and “heat of the moment” in my hypothetical assaults, because obviously with skill or calm forethought a smaller or a weaker person can do lots of damage. But if it’s an unpremeditated slap in a momentary loss of control, yes, it damn well does matter whether you get a bruise or lose an eye. You’ll note that I also specified that no matter how “harmless” the slap, the victim is fully justified in leaving (and I would add, in calling the police and having the assailant arrested.) But to say that it doesn’t matter how badly you hurt somebody is ludicrous. A girlfriend who shoves me out of her way is not as bad as one who kicks me till she breaks my ribs. Period.
“It’s not about size, it’s about damage. If you had posited a 300-lb sedentary office worker and a 100-lb karate expert, my point would stand, just directed the other way. That’s why I specified “untrained” and “unplanned” and “heat of the moment” in my hypothetical assaults, because obviously with skill or calm forethought a smaller or a weaker person can do lots of damage. But if it’s an unpremeditated slap in a momentary loss of control, yes, it damn well does matter whether you get a bruise or lose an eye. You’ll note that I also specified that no matter how “harmless” the slap, the victim is fully justified in leaving (and I would add, in calling the police and having the assailant arrested.) But to say that it doesn’t matter how badly you hurt somebody is ludicrous. A girlfriend who shoves me out of her way is not as bad as one who kicks me till she breaks my ribs. Period.”
NYMOM said: I’m so glad somebody else said this.
Actually our statistics on violence being mostly committed by men and it’s victims being mostly women can be seen to be a pattern WORLDWIDE. If you read Steven Rhoades “Taking Sex Differences Seriously” you’ll see what I’m talking about.
bmmg39, I’m glad there are organisations like yours. I truly am! Particuarly since the two main sides of the argument seem to forget same sex couples.
As for the competing thing perhaps you are mis- understanding me its probably my fault trying to jam a 1 hr argument into a few sentences on someone elses blog.
but when it comes down to trying to target one audience, trying to get one group of people to identify with the ads then I can understand them targeting abused women.
I think the beliefs about domestic vioence towards women still stem from some more mainstream attitudes about keeping women in line. I might be mistaken but i’m yet to come across any articles/arguments from women who not only beat their partners (male and or female)but also think that it is ok and proudly admit it (if you are able to find some i’ll be happy to admit that i’m wrong).
What i’m trying to say is that these beliefs about domestic violence towards men are not reinforced by older societal views. Whereas there still remains many men who believe and actually communicate to other men proudly that she deserved it and that violence towards partners is ok.
I think the ads I am talking about are trying to change that particular aspect. trying to change broader attitudes towards partners as well as communicate to women to contact them.
My guess (yes a guess) is the other reason they are actually targetting women is because it continues to cost the government more money to care for abused female victims than what it does to care for males victims.
Btw, you mis-quoted me.
“I think the beliefs about domestic vioence towards women still stem from some more mainstream attitudes about keeping women in line. I might be mistaken but i’m yet to come across any articles/arguments from women who not only beat their partners (male and or female)but also think that it is ok and proudly admit it (if you are able to find some i’ll be happy to admit that i’m wrong).
What i’m trying to say is that these beliefs about domestic violence towards men are not reinforced by older societal views. Whereas there still remains many men who believe and actually communicate to other men proudly that she deserved it and that violence towards partners is ok.”
NYMOM said: Good point. It probably stems from the fact that women still generally marry older men then themselves and in some situations this can be by as much as a decade. Actually my own ex-husband was 15 years older then me, had been married before with three children he had custody of, had been at his job 21 years, etc., etc.,. So there is a tendency on both sides to see the ‘junior’ partner as a dependent and thus liable to be treated (in some situations) as a child.
So you are 100% right. It’s the whole idea BEHIND the marriage relationship that needs to be addressed, not just the abusive ones.
Although what do you do about the women who are okay with being the junior partner in the enterprise (if they aren’t being physically abuse) yet their complicity/passivity sets up scenarios where abuse against OTHER women in our society is condoned.
Anyone wondering what Dr Gelles thinks about this specific issue can go to VAWA4all.org and see that he is an endorser of the ideas presented by that site. The site was written by a prominent MRA and has many connections with MRA’s around the country including at least one of the panelists. It is undeniable that Gelles is clearly in the same camp as the MRA’s in their concern for male victims and their lack of recognition and lack of services.
It seems clear that the majority of the panelists felt that an important issue was that of male victims. The panelists were invited guests. They chose the issues to speak about that they felt were important. These issues were not what HUGO thought was important and so now he seems to be upset that what he thought should be discussed was not given much airtime. Seems to me that Hugo is complaining that he didnt’ get his way and is attacking and name-calling those who did. Notice that all of what we know about this event is from Hugo and from his perspective. It might be helpful to hear a few other perspectives on the meeting.
I applaud those men for speaking up about male victims. This message needs to be spoken in public and I thank them for their courage to step forward and speak their truth even with the negativity that comes from those who are rigidly set in their ideas about men and DV. This is not a small problem that simply needs a task force or a couple of articles in the newspaper. This is a huge crisis impacting nearly 1 million men each year. Be aware of those who want to mute the critical nature of this crisis. Be aware of their tendency to shift the ground to name-calling and personal attacks.
Seems to me that Hugo is complaining that he didnt’ get his way and is attacking and name-calling those who did.
Yes, how selfish of Hugo to be critical of a panelist who was verbally abusive (oh, sorry–”venting”) to an audience member. Clearly even Glenn Sacks was under Hugo’s sway!
I’m all for men speaking out about male victims. I don’t get the insistence that any discussion at all of DV of a woman by her male partner is taken as a deliberate, intentional, hostile attempt to squash the issue of DV against men.
Dr. E, the event in question was a discussion forum on a film focusing on male-to-female DV. It’s reasonable to assume that a discussion panel will devote themselves to the topic at hand, instead of using the opportunity as a free-for-all to air whatever other grievances they happen to have. If the MRAs in question had organized their own symposium on male victims of domestic violence instead of hijacking one dedicated to male-on-female DV, their credibility would be a lot higher.
I heard another account of this event and it didn’t sound a thing like Hugo’s. In neither account did I hear that the promoter/organizer for the event was unhappy with the topics discussed. If I heard that the organizers were unhappy with things I would likely have a different take on things. Like I said, we really know very little about what happened and I won’t pass judgement on the panelists until I find out more.
“I applaud those men for speaking up about male victims.”
NYMOM said: Some have said that the real problem is NOT that there are few men getting help with domestic violence situations; but that gender neutralized feminists have taken over VAWA and allowed it’s legal arm to be used in ordinary divorce/custody situations (where no domestic violence exists). Almost like a preempted strike sort of thing against men allowing women to get house, custody, child support, etc., w/o a real hearing on the issues.
If this is true then you are barking up the wrong tree by trying to paint your opposition to it as trying to help abused men. Since many people (including men) are not going to buy the line that almost as many men are abused as women. They just aren’t.
So why don’t you go after your real complaint against VAWA, which is that gender neutralized feminists have hijacked it for their own purposes.
It’s the inconsistency of their position that bothered me. These gender neutralized feminists appear to be working both ends against the middle here.
On the one hand they are pushing for gender neutral custody and causing millions of women to lose their children; then this VAWA situation where they are doing just the opposite. People in this country need to know where feminists really stand on these issues and react to them accordingly.
That’s the real issue. This other stuff is really a sideshow.
NYMOM said: “If this is true then you are barking up the wrong tree by trying to paint your opposition to it as trying to help abused men. Since many people (including men) are not going to buy the line that almost as many men are abused as women. They just aren’t.”
If what you mean by this is that most people are under the false impression that there are more women abused by men than men abused by women (due to the feminist propaganda campaign of the last 30 years) and thus they aren’t going to “buy” the reality of the statistics, then I agree - we have to change people’s minds by forcing the truth to come out re. equal culpability of women and men for initiating inter-partner abuse. The abuse may be different (e.g., women may get more severely hurt by men than vice versa - although I’m not at all sure this is true when you consider the violence that women commit using proxies, i.e., the police, boyfriends, contract killers, etc.) and so services for men might be different than services for women, but this doesn’t obviate the need to address violent women. In fact, identifying and dealing with violent women would probably help those women avoid severe injury at the hands of men who are simply protecting themselves.
So to bring this back on-topic, that is why I think the panelists were justified in focusing on woman-on-man inter-partner abuse. As I said before, there are a myriad of entities beating the drum of violence against women - many of those entities funded with public resources - and almost none addressing the reverse. Thus, we have to level the playing field by shifting the focus to violent women and male vicitms, at least for the foreseeable future.
Hugo, there’s a history to the suffix “phobe” that you’re missing, and it supports your use.
In foreign policy, and in particular in British foreign policy, “-phobe” and “-phile” were used, respectively, to refer to the opponents and advocates of another country. Those who believed that France was the paramount threat, feared it, and sought to oppose its moves, were “Francophobes,” while those who sought closer relations with Russia were “Russophiles.” In this usage, fear of the advance of one’s opponent is conflated with opposition, and rooting for the advance of another is conflated with fondness.
I find the terminology useful because it conveys advocacy and opposition on the policy battlefield. The insulted, squirming ire that homophobes display at the notion that they are personally squeamish about homosexuality is merely a bonus.
Thomas, excellent point! Thank you!
H