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6 comments
Domestic violence is largely something men do to women. It's part of how the patriarchy sustains itself.
You're right in that it's largely something men do more often than women, but the individual acts themselves are equally ugly, regardless of the person's sex.
Domestic violence isn't a male issue. It's an aggressive issue. Aggression is the male issue. That's why we are where we are.
Looking at each individual act in isolation elides over the wider social context of domestic violence. A man attacking a woman is a fundamentally different act to a woman attacking a man because of the wider social context.
Try telling that to a guy who just got physically abused by his girlfriend. (A guy who's more likely to be told he's a bitch ass excuse of a man for being upset by being assaulted by his girlfriend.)
A man abuses a woman, a woman abuses a man. The former is more common than the latter, but the individual situations themselves are NOT different in severity (at least not because of gender details). The social reaction is different but that doesn't matter. You don't get to call a turkey sandwich being held by a different person something other than a turkey sandwich.
TL;DR Whilst statistics show domestic violence affects women more than it does so men, failing to acknowledge that males can too suffer from domestic silences their struggle.
The Office for National Statistics figures show every year that one in the three victims of domestic abuse are male equating to 757,000 men.
Of domestic abuse crimes recorded by the police, 26% were committed against men. This equates to c155,000 offences per year.
Half of male victims (49%) fail to tell anyone they are a victim of domestic abuse and are two and a half times less likely to tell anyone than female victims (19%).
https://www.mankind.org.uk/statistics/statistics-on-male-victims-of-domestic-abuse/
Domestic violence is not a male nor a female crime.
• Women can be abused, women can be the abuser, men can be abused, and men can be the abuser. Treating domestic violence as a gendered crime, ultimately devalues the experiences of some over others - I am not denying this. But it also cannot be ignored that women statistically suffer domestic abuse at an increased rate over men.
• For example, in England and Wales for the year ending March 2020, it was estimated that 1.6million women and 757,000 men aged 16-74, experienced domestic abuse in the last year. Described as “significantly more likely” to be victims of all kinds of domestic abuse, women are disproportionately affected by this type of violence. We shouldn’t overlook this.
• This does not mean however, that we should in any way ignore the fact that domestic abuse happens to men as well. This is particularly important, since it can be harder to identify with men, even though the threat can still be extremely serious. Domestic violence is characterised by an imbalance of power, which although demonstrated more by men over women, can also happen vice-versa.
• More of an effort should be made to understand the complexities of domestic violence against men to challenge the assumption that it doesn’t exist. But I disagree with the idea that this actively disservices male victims or promotes prejudice, because I don’t think it helps move the conversation forward.
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