Women/feminists deny male victimhood

[jaccat]

I am the daughter and sister of men who were abused by a woman. That woman, to my knowledge, never laid a finger on me. I am also probably what most people would consider a feminist, but my views on women and equality do not automatically cancel out my understanding of abuse relationships. In fact, I’m always more inclined to believe the man, despite being a woman, because of my experience. I have encountered people with the views you talk about. They disgusted me.

 

[Warrior Chicken]

First off, apologies that my comms skills are somewhat lacking at current. But @somerandomguy your posts and candidness on many topics has been hugely helpful to me. This is important to you (and appreciate also difficult), you’re important to me. So I write.

A most valuable lesson in my profession was early in my career. The call was to attend an active domestic violence call. Upon arrival, female of very slight frame in a nightgown runs towards my car with blood running down her face onto the gown. We secure the scene. Arrest husband. Investigation continues but is slow due to language barriers. Husband is cooperative throughout and maintains “it was accident”. The kitchen and living room of the house is trashed, dishes, utensils, vases, all thrown everywhere.
I interview wife. Part way thru she spontaneously admits she threw everything she could at him, knives, dishes, etc. Not to protect herself from him. He was cowering from her. How did she get so bloody? Her nose...She said that as she threw dishes at him and hit him with utensils he turned suddenly away from her to protect his head and hit her with his elbow. By accident.
Some might say he said she said.....but after further investigation, a pattern of abuse by HER was established. From that day forward I never again saw gender as an indicator of victim vs perpetrator.

One last thing....I couldn’t dig into the topic just yet. Serial killers.....female vs male.

men can never be victims of domestic violence

men who claim to be victims are actually perps; the number of actual male victims of IPV is so tiny we can safely ignore them

If the number of female serial killers is small compared to their male counterparts....we can safely ignore them?? NOOO
Regardless of how many of them there are or what gender they are, should every available resource be used to capture them? YES

I strongly believe every human being deserves as many resources to heal from sexual trauma as possible. Is access different and often unequal, yes. That doesn’t make it right.

Thanks for being exactly who you are SRG.

 

[shimmerz]

Know what abusers do lots of times? They blame the victim. It's just another fun way of abusing.

My abuser convinced me so well that it was me that was the abuser that when I went to a DV centre to get the name of a lawyer, she had to convince me that I needed help because I was being abused. I fought with her for at least 5 sessions trying to convince her that I was the abusive one in the family.

I just wonder if maybe seeking out support from other male victims of abuse would be helpful to you for some validation.

 

[hithere]

Hi there, @somerandomguy This very topic was one of "charged" topics; or "hot topics" --the Cognitive Processing Therapy that I did three and half years ago called it a "STUCK POINT". (there's a lot of wisdom to CPT, but is not the cure-all)
So my Stuck Point was (is) exactly as you have written it here. I grew up in a family violence situation, where the person attempting murder was my mother against my father. With murderous knife attacks. This is not even to mention the narcissitic abuse, the emotional abuse, I could go on and on. I had to watch all this, experience it.

I became so angry at the bullshit feminist position that men, especially white men, cannot be victims of domestic violence. In fact the United States passed a law called the "violence against women's act"! You can't even find support for men on the federal government websites! Before I even started therapy it was a topic that really made me angry! Back in the 1990's there was a movie with Peter Strauss as the actor and the movie was called, "Men Don't Tell" It was on tv on a Sunday afternoon and it depicted a man whose wife would physically, emotionally attack him, then turn on the charm to the public and be Miss Amazing Mothe/Wife. In the end the woman again attacks him, he goes flying through the living room window all cut up, the neighbors call the police, the police arrive and arrest the man! They belive the wife and her bullshit about being abused. One of the children cry and say please don't put my mom in prison! The cops say why would we do that? And the child says, because she attacked my dad and tried to kill him. The police stratch their heads. The father of the dad puts two and two together and the woman goes to jail. I guess it's based on true life story. It reminded me so much of my upbringing.

Now here's the part that gets me angry. Immediately after the release of this movie, feminist "domestic violence advocates" rally to have this movie put in a vault to not be available through any rentals, or ever! That is for over 20 years! Their reasoning is it does a disservice to all this poor little women who are being abused. I was pissed! I spent a lot of time on social media and even joined a men's group about this topic. My experience is when I bring this topic up people use all these stats to prove that it's "rare" for a man to be harmed, abused, and attacked by a woman. Well, if the US government refuses to address the issue, of course you won't have any stats! If MEN DON"T TELL you are not going to have any true stats! I had found data a few years ago but honestly I just get tired looking it all up to quote the stats.

I'm not as angry as I used to be that our culture is this way. I have done some philosophical thinking about it for a couple years. I have had to challenge my STUCK POINT. But I honestly don't have anyway to challenge my "stuck point" because it is TRUE. I in no way want to be a mom hater, or woman hater (being a mom and woman myself) but I am angry at society for not dealing with the truth and saying that it is "rare"-- because it is not rare! Then if a woman can't hurt the man physically she will use the courts to hurt him claming childhood sexual abuse when there is none. I know this for a fact! Luckily, judges are savvy to this alienation technique, but the damage one's emotional being after false accusations of such heinous crimes it is almost impossible to have a peaceful life even if exonerated by the courts.

Women kill their intimate partners. It is fact. The manipulative, name calling, picking, tearing down of a man's dignity all of this is abuse and it disgusts me. If a man tries to recover from this, where can he even go? Who will listen? Who will care?

 

[Ronin]

I'd maybe look at components to the distress in all of it...

As in part is a trigger, female perpetrator. Itself so many personal things.

Other is women protecting that perpetrator or siding with them. On personal, group, institutional level. Each of these likely to dig in differently.

Then you have official guidelines in many professions regarding who is or isn't a perpetrator, how to recognize it, and proceed.

Which may not reflect -the actual- way of responding. Or it may. For better or worse.

Then you have gender theories and theorists. Which are a whole different kind of (rotten) fruit.

And again may reflect more personal agendas, biases, interests, or experiences... than realities.

I'd go to what is personal, concrete, yours...

Before looking at how that trigger works across contexts.

Chances are, work out the personal?
The trigger won't spill out into all of interactions and how you perceive the world.

Because the what gives it power isn't society...
It's your life, your pain, your achey spots that need healing and being heard out and cleansed.

 

[shimmerz]

"STUCK POINT"

I took CPT as well. Almost destroyed me. That was due more to the facilitator than the program. And stuck point sounds to me like what is happening right now with @SRG. Stuck on going toward the newspaper to reinforce a sense of helplessness.

I looked up a few resources that may be helpful for you. The name of the game in healing is moving towards where you want to be - not where you were when you were abused.

Barring that, there is no greater thing than creating ones own group. Meetup comes to mind. Or a web site that you created. Or keep training to be a counselor/therapist and specialize in men who have been abused. You have tons of options for

You wanted to have support, right?
You wanted to be heard, right?
You didn't want judgement, right?

The funny thing is that these are things ALL abused people need.

These links might help you get to where you want to be rather than where you were.

Program: Domestic Abuse, Violence and Trauma Support for Men
Help for Men Who Are Being Abused
Help for Battered Men

I am certain there are more. I hope they are helpful.

 

[hithere]

ok, gotta respond one more time. It is NOT a minority that believe men can't be victims, especially in the feminist academia groups. Then you enter our culture that embraces what I call the bullshit "male culture" which continues and embraces this line of thinking- (tells boys not to cry, etc) . I have heard with my own ears when the NEWS is reporting that a man was stabbed, or shot, or hit with a baseball bat by his girlfriend the first thing that comes out of the reports mouths is, "I wonder what he did?" (to cause her reaction)

I took CPT as well. Almost destroyed me.

Yes, it almost destroyed me as well, somethings were very wise, and something about the program makes so that it will never be able to deal with interpersonal aspects of the past events.

 

[Teasel]

I've not read anyone else's response. But I am a dedicated feminist who knows men can be abused and by women too.

I wouldn't mind guessing there are thousands of articles by mens rights groups that deny women are victims.

Does that mean they are true? Nah. Course not.

 

[Ronin]

Then you enter our culture that embraces what I call the bullshit "male culture" which continues and embraces this line of thinking- (tells boys not to cry, etc) . I have heard with my own ears when the NEWS is reporting that a man was stabbed, or shot, or hit with a baseball bat by his girlfriend the first thing that comes out of the reports mouths is, "I wonder what he did?" (to cause her reaction)

That's not a male culture.

That's asshole culture, only.

Honestly, it irks me that people get that impression gender has anything to do with it.

And it's a disservice to everybody to claim that's somehow a 'male thing'.

Ditto the 'men don't cry or talk about feelings'.
Nope. Men don't think that way.
Even tough as nails men, don't.

Assholes think that way.
To shove it down others' throats aggressively.

That some discussions have their time and place - and when a house is on fire may NOT be the time and place ;) - is only common sense.

 

[joeylittle]

It is NOT a minority that believe men can't be victims, especially in the feminist academia groups.

You're wrong - it is a fringe minority. They are a loud and angry fringe, which is why they can sometimes seem much bigger than they actually are.

Very, very little of the documented research going back to the 1980's even comes close to reflecting the idea that "men cannot be victims, because they are men - ergo, they always hold the power in all circles". In fact, I'd challenge anyone to find a piece of published, peer-reviewed research that DOES attempt to make this argument.

You won't be able to.

How can I be so confident about that? Because the premise that there is absolute gender inequality is a socio-political hypothesis. There are not enough facts in the world to bear it out. Therefore, any piece of writing that attempts to prove absolute gender inequality will have to be opinion writing. A theory only. Not reality. An interpretation of carefully-selected data sets.

Quick definition: The theory of 'absolute gender inequality' starts with the idea that men will always, in all circumstances, have the most power; everybody else will always, in all circumstances, be at a disadvantage.

There's no way it can logically be true. I mean, forget about how people actually are - this theory cannot incorporate race, or any gender other than "man" and "woman". It can't adjust for culture. You can only make the point if you selectively ignore whole populations.

An example, using a different topic: A person could build a carefully constructed argument stating that the size and shape of a human's skull is the absolute factor in determining intelligence and personality. There are pieces of science and history that could be quoted to support that hypothesis. Other people might even be convinced by the argument. In fact, a dude named Franz Gall did exactly this, beginning in the latter half of the 18th century.

The world looks at that hypothesis now, and easily sees that it's bullshit. Non-science, and just not true. But the notion had a lot of traction for about 100 years.

Anyone arguing absolute gender inequality is doing exactly the same kind of theorizing.

Bottom line: all feminist theory must begin with the notion of significant gender inequality. Kind of like how a cup of coffee must incorporate the flavor of coffee. Otherwise, it's not a cup of coffee.

Only after it establishes inequality, and what kind of principle it's using to determine it..then, that feminist theory can go about the business of digging deeper into exactly what, and when, any why, and how the inequality exists.

Here's the TL;DR - It's no accident that 'academic' has two meanings. One, it means "scholarly, educational". And two, it means "having no practical purpose, theoretical".

Taking these kinds of academic ideas too far into practical reality is never, ever, ever a good idea. They've got to be read very carefully, with a good amount of fore-knowledge of what context they've been written in. That's the point I'd really love to convince SRG of...these voices that are so upsetting to him (and others) are writing about their beliefs. Not universal truths. And those beliefs are not at all widely held. Perpetuating the idea that they are is just giving more headspace to a distorted thought pattern that makes them look bigger, more significant than they are.

AND: (and this is the bit that frustrates me) totally ignores the ways feminist theory is extremely significant and important for entirely different reasons.

Argh, I don't have a good enough command of my brain to make this point clearer...but anyone who made it through this post, thanks for trying.

 

[Sideways]

extremely significant and important for entirely different reasons.

Like how in a whole load of places, women are allowed to vote now.

And like how, in a whole load of places, women still aren't allowed to vote. And don't get to go to school while their brother gets a basic education.

Shit like that? Makes feminism relevant.

Feminism is rooted in the ideal of equality. Always has been. Still is.

There's definitely a loud and angry man-hating fringe. Suggesting they're even close to approaching the majority in educated circles? I think I'd like to see more than a few "take a look at this article" posts and see actual stats to indicate that the majority of academia has become an irrational outpost of anti-human rights hooligans.

Being loud and obnoxious doesn't make you the majority, or even popular. It just makes you loud and obnoxious.

 

[Ronin]

^^

Yep. Like, hell, forget luxuries like education and the right to vote ;), some places women don't get to venture out of their houses their whole lives. Or if they can and aren't risking death, must be thiis far behind appropriately delegated male relative. Or another (male) person representing them. But mostly a relative.

Or places women are, law of the land, written or not but upheld anyway, less than a property - those that are even allowed in the company of men have it good fellas.

Or, or, or.
And *that'* the kind of inequality that, no offense, cis men raised as men... just rarely can imagine.

Not a construct. Real. Painful. Generational. Hard as f*ck to alter. Sure there are ways. Nigh every culture has its places for gender rebels that want to stay alive still. But it's complicated. /off soapbox