subject: Battered And Abused Men - Domestic Violence Is Genderless [print this page] Some battered women take objection to the idea of helping abused men as though this poses a conflict of professional commitments. However, I see it differently.
In my own practice of helping battered women, I'm keenly aware that many of the male abusers that they are entangled with were raised by controlling abusive mothers.
My belief is that if we are to end domestic abuse, it is our professional responsibility to address intimate partner violence in all of its forms, including that of female batterers as well as male batterers.
Domestic Abuse Is a Human, Genderless Relationship Condition
Abuse is fundamentally about control. Violence may be a manifestation of domestic abuse, but domestic violence is fundamentally about control.
This control can take the form of dictating another person's decision-making, failing to factor in the rights and liberties of the unempowered party and, more obviously, regulating multiple areas of a couples mutual personal lives.
Women are as capable as men in assuming this domineering/controlling role in a relationship. Even though traditionally one expects the controlling party to be the physically larger person and the socially endorsed "man" of the house, women wear these pants just as do men.
Domestic abuse is genderless. It's more about positioning in a relationship wherein one party establishes and maintains an unequal distribution of power within the relationship.
Battered Men as Victims of Domestic Violence
Men in abusive relationships are victimized just as female abuse victims. They are verbally abused, emotionally abused and in some cases they are also physically abused.
The battering that they endure is the controlling female's effort to keep them in a subservient position, one of being under her thumb. And the brutality that they come to know carries emotional scars just as it does for women abused by their male partners.
These abused men experience all of the same psychological consequences as battered women in abusive relationships. They lose contact with their own inner voice through the conditioning characteristic of abusive relationships.
They harbor shame and guilt, loss of self-worthiness, and psychological disassociation with their essential core.
They adapt to the implied rules of domination and control within the relationship. And ultimately they grow to resent their enslavement and self-imposed entrapment.
If you are an abused man or know of a man victimized in an abusive relationship, seek to break the cycle of abuse before it spirals out of control.
