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Dear
Readers,
George
Rolph runs the best site I know for male victims of abuse. I respect his
views and recommend that women as well as men, victims as well as abusers,
become acquainted with his material. You will find his site at http://no-more-silence.org.
Thank you
so much George. Dr. Irene
April 29, 2004
While this paper cannot be a definitive
guide to the nature of the abuser, the victims relationship with the abuser
and societies part in encouraging gender bias, I hope it will add to the
pool of knowledge. It is my hope that, at least a small way, this paper
will be an aid towards helping us all understand the nature of domestic
abuse and those who perpetrate or encourage it.
George Rolph. London 2004.
The abusers - Actors in disguise.
First and foremost abusers are actors.
It makes no difference what gender the abusive personality is, their
primary skill is to emulate normal behaviour in order to disguise their own
condition.
I have spoken to many victims of abuse
who say that the person they met and fell in love with “gradually changed”
into a monster. This is often one of the most confusing and distressing
aspects of abuse from the victims point of view. It is also a situation
that the abuser will exploit with varying degrees of vicious skill. While
it is impossible to be specific on these subjects in every case -- as there
are always exceptions to every rule -- careful observation and research
have uncovered certain general consistencies I want to discuss here. The
question is; what is going on in the abusers mind that causes them to
suddenly, or gradually, become abusive to their new partner?
It appears that the abusive personality
has learned, by observation and by mimicry of those around them, how to
give every appearance of normality and stability for often quite extended
periods of time. This means that they are able to convince new partners
that they are really charming, wonderful people who should be trusted and
are worthy of love and care. This act is easy to maintain in certain social
situations and where the abuser has minimal contact with others in an
average day. For example, in a work situation where he/she will be in
contact with others for a maximum of eight hours per day. Another social
situation may be one of casual friendships made in pubs and clubs. Under
these conditions the actor (abuser) need only be convincing as a normal
person for a minimum amount of time. This is why many friends of the abuser
find it hard to believe that the person they think they know could be
capable of such barbarity within a long term relationship. In the case of
female abusers, this difficulty is compounded by social and political myths
that see females only as victims and not as perpetrators.
For the abusive actor, maintaining the
act of normality within a long term relationship is almost impossible. The
intensity of the time spent in the company of the victim means the
emotional strain placed on the pretender, by their need to hide their true
selves, becomes too difficult to maintain. The act breaks down and the real
personality disguised beneath it rushes to the surface. To the victim, the
sudden outbursts of aggression from the previously “loving” and “charming”
personality they fell in love with, is both mystifying and deeply
confusing. The victim, often still in love with the abuser, begins to make
excuses for the abusers behaviour. Mentally sweeping it under the carpet
and falsely believing that things will get better in time. This is not
difficult to understand. Anyone who has fallen in love knows the huge
investment of trust, emotional/mental commitment and selflessness it takes
make the relationship work. It is natural for the victim to assume that the
other person has made the same efforts as they have and this primes them to
accept the abusers excuses and rationalisations of their behaviour.
The abusers self-view.
An abusive personality is fundamentally
one of self loathing and even self hate. However, this self disgust is too
painful for them to accept. Desperate to “fit in” with everyone else they
justify the abusive behaviour they cannot avoid and deny the rest. The
denial can be very profound and will drive their negative feelings about
themselves very deeply within their tortured psyche. Many abusers are
deeply frightened and horrified by their violent outbursts but their denial
prevents them from dealing with the feelings that cause them. Therefore,
when they lose control and abuse another, there often follows what looks
like deep and sincere repentance and begging for forgiveness, only to sink
back into the same patterns again later on. Given enough time, even these
feelings of regret and remorse will become buried and their emotional
attitude to their abuse of others will harden into a cold uncaring outlook.
For this reason, I believe it is vital that treatment be applied to the
abuser while they still own feelings of remorse and regret. Treatment of
the abuser will become progressively more difficult over time as the abuser
will lack the necessary need and drive to want to reform.
In order to avoid owning up to what
they feel about themselves the abuser will project their self hatred onto
their victims. Where this occurs it sets up the classic abuser/victim
relationship. I will expand upon this relationship later in this document,
but for now I wish to return to the abusers view of themselves and its
consequences in their lives.
We have seen how the abusive
personality often feels about themselves but why does this self hatred come
about? There may be myriad's of reasons but there are some common threads
that I have noticed in my studies, my experiences of abuse and my
observations of abusers. Many of those who become abusers report that they
have grown up in abusive homes themselves or, have experienced abuse later
on in their lives. When probed about how these experiences have affected
them, almost all report feelings of anger and even intense rage that they
themselves are frightened by.
To a child growing up in an abusive
home, even though the behaviour they are witnessing and experiencing from
others deeply disturbs them, they consider it to be “normal.” Its all they
know, so for them, this is what normal family life is all about. However,
the deep fears and anger raised in them by their abusers have little or no
avenue of expression within the home. To become angry, or even show
dissatisfaction with their treatment, may very well lead to an escalation
of the abuse against them. This fear of retaliation drives the feelings
they naturally have about their abusers deep within themselves. The only
way to cope with the feelings of fear and anger is to deny and bury them or
take them outside of the home in anti social behaviour. *
When the abused child becomes an adult,
if they have not dealt with these feelings of rage buried deep within
themselves, they are almost certain to resurface within their adult
relationships.
Adults have a tendency to recreate what
they considered normal in their early life at home, within their own adult
relationships. If they grew up in a chaotic and fear filled environment it
is natural for them to feel at home within that kind of family dynamic.
Subconsciously they may well be building relationships they feel are well
known to them and no matter how painful those relationships are, they feel
“normal.”
Some abusers are simply psychopaths.
They enjoy the feelings of power they have over the victim and may well go
on to kill them if early intervention is not forthcoming.
Other abusers simply come to hate their
partners over time and instead of leaving the relationship, set out to
destroy the other person (and sometimes other people) within it.
All abusers enjoy the feelings of power
they have over their victims at some level, but not all abusers are
psychopaths. Abusers are often deeply selfish individuals who live in a “me
me” world where only their own feelings, needs and desires are important.
When the abuser expresses love for the victim it is often not because they
feel that love, it is often because they want something from
the victim that threats will not get them. My own abuser, for example,
would become tender, gentle and kind whenever she wanted me to help her
with something she could not manage alone. Afterwards, my efforts to help
her would be ridiculed as inadequate.
Some abusers will abuse others by proxy
and this seems to be a predominantly female trait. I have received calls to
my help line from men who have been beaten up by other men when their
abusive female partner has told another man that her victim had expressed a
desire to sleep with the attackers infant child, for example. Other forms
of this abuse include making false allegations to family members or the
state authorities in order to have someone else attack or arrest the
victim.
Another form of abuse by proxy is to
withhold contact unreasonably from a parent with his/her child. In such a
case, the abuser is using the state apparatus to continue abuse after the
relationship has ended. This constitutes abuse of the child concerned and
the adult denied contact. I also consider false rape allegations that can
utterly destroy a persons life to be abusive behaviour that is all too
often unpunished by the state.
For those who have experienced abuse
in later life but who had relatively happy childhood's there may well be a
subconscious element of revenge in their subsequent abusive behaviour. In
the case of the female abuser this may be hugely reinforced by articles in
women's magazines that portray men as nothing but bad, soap opera stories,
dramas, movies, press stories about female abuse victims, and the constant
and relentless pressures on women by radical feminist groups to see all men
as dangerous and who paint men as predatory violent animals and women as
poor victims being preyed upon. Even advertising on the television that
portrays men as useless and stupid may reinforce her hatred of males and
feed her feelings of the need to take revenge against all men for
what one man has done to her.
Such thoughts and feelings are covered
by the umbrella term, Misandry. A misandrist is a hater of men. There are
many more of these people around than is popularly believed. Many of them
are writing the things referred to above or are part of the organisations
promoting hatred of men in our society.
Such a scenario is also possible in the
case of a male abuser who resents being typecast in these ways by “evil
women” and sets out to justify his violent behaviour by seeing himself as
some kind of avenging angel. His thoughts and feelings of hatred and
resentment towards women are embraced by the term, Misogynist. It is well
known there are many of these men around, however, criticising female
behaviour is not the same as hating females. An important
distinction needs to be made between the two for any rational debate on
these issues to succeed. **
* It is interesting to note that over
90% of males in prison come from broken homes, yet societies in the western
world actively promote single motherhood as a virtue while discouraging
marriage. That this is creating a huge problem for the future and
singularly lacking any kind of wisdom should be obvious to all.
** A common defensive ploy of radical
feminists is to paint any and all criticism of females as hatred of them
and, by so doing, pressure people (chiefly men) into regarding a counter
argument as misogynistic in origin and therefore worthy of being ignored.
The victims
relationship with the abuser.
The victim and the abuser have a
complicated relationship that is difficult, at times, to define in simple
terms. I will do my best here to look at the most common traits of that
relationship as I have understood them.
Initially, as stated above, the victim
will often have no idea their partner is abusive. (Those who do, and remain
in the relationship, may well be attempting to “help” the abuser and this
is a very dangerous thing for those with little or no knowledge of abusive
personalities to attempt. It is difficult enough for a professional to help
an abuser, it is certainly not something an amateur should attempt). As the
ability to maintain the act of normality under the constant
scrutiny of a close partner breaks down, so the real and disturbed person
beneath the act will emerge. The first signs that all is not well may be
anything from a slow escalation of irritable behaviour to a sudden
explosion of violence.
It is important here to make another
careful distinction. Not every act of irritable behaviour or sudden
aggression means a person is automatically an abuser. All of us get out of
bed on the wrong side sometimes. The key indicator is the frequency
with which the behaviour occurs.
The most common indicator that one is
living with an abuser will be that individuals need to control everything
about the victim. This need to control will become all consuming over time
and is common to both male and female abusers. * This need to control
others seems to stem from two strong desires within the abusive
personality. The first, is a desire to remain hidden and the second, is a
desire not to feel inferior. In order to understand these two desires it is
important to realise that abusers are deeply fearful people who are
terrified of the strong and overwhelmingly powerful feelings raging within
them. It is this fear that drives their need to bury those feeling as
deeply within as possible and then to deny them when they rush to the
surface.
Let us look first at the desire to
remain hidden.
Within a close personal relationship it
is perfectly natural for both parties to closely examine each others
personalities and to explore each others feelings. This examination is what
the abuser fears most. To the abuser, such a close look at who they are
becomes deeply threatening. They spend their wholes lives hiding their true
selves both from themselves and from society. They loathe themselves and
often fear their capability for violence. They cannot bare coming under
scrutiny and this innocent searching by their partner can often be the
trigger for their abusive reactions as they try to halt the exploration of
their deeper and hidden selves by using intimidation and/or violence. Yet
their need to appear normal drives them to seek out a partner and
have a “normal” relationship. **
The desire not to be inferior stems
from a different set of unconscious dynamics.
We all remember the bright kid in
school who was always picked on for being “the teachers pet.” That child
stood out in the crowd and by virtue of the fact the he/she was smarter
than the rest, made the rest feel inferior. By picking on the bright kid
the others were trying to pull that child down to their level in order for
them to lose their sense of inferiority. Unmerciful and constant teasing
and/or bullying can force the bright child to conform to the wishes
of the rest, and those bright kids who join the pack, quickly find the
persecution stops. In a similar way, the abuser tries to drag their partner
down to their level. This can be achieved by constant bullying and by a
technique I have dubbed, verbal machine gunning.
To machine gun verbally means to fire
a constant and rapid stream of accusations and insults without ever giving
the victim time to answer any of the points made. These insults will often
be projections of how the abuser really feels about themselves. For
example; if the abuser feels strong feelings of jealousy towards the
victims friends and associates, then the abuser accuses the victim of being
jealous of him or her. Again, the abuser may feel inadequate in the
kitchen, or driving, and so accuses the victim of being a crap cook or a
lousy driver. Whatever the accusations are, they will often be delivered at
high volume and in such rapid succession that the victim will be both
terrified, confused, outraged and hurt, and with so much going on at once
within them, feel totally unable to respond. A sort of mental and emotional
paralysis ensues that may eventually lead to the complete collapse of the
victim. At this stage the abuser is almost drunk on the feelings of power
over the victim and if violence is to occur it may happen at that moment of
evil euphoria. Victims have told me that they have seen the abuser “smiling
down” at them with sick delight as they have folded beneath such
onslaughts.
The reasons why the abuser does not
want to give the victim time to answer are twofold. Firstly the abuser has
absolutely no interest in the thoughts, concerns or feelings of the victim
and secondly, the abuser is not interested in dialogue, but only in control
over the victim. In the abusers world view, life is all about the great “ME”
and not the little “you.”
The extent of control over the victim
can sometimes be very far reaching indeed. I have spoken to many male and
female victims who's abusive partners have chosen what food they eat and
when. What clothes they wear and when. What times they are allowed out of
the house and when to come home. Who they are allowed to be friends with
and who they must never see. What time they are allowed to sleep and when
they must wake up. When they can see their children and when they cannot.
What relatives they can visit and those they cannot. What music they can
enjoy. What purchases they can make. How much of their own money they can
spend. And on and on.
Abusers who fear a partner may be about
to leave them will often run up huge debts for their partner. Some will
slander their name in the local community in the hope of stopping anyone
else being interested in them. Poison the victim. Send abusive text
messages to their phones. Stalk the victim or damage the car to prevent
them leaving. Keep the victim from his/her children. Threaten suicide.
Accuse the victim of rape or sexually molesting children. Make threatening
or silent calls late at night. Destroy his/her property. Keep him/her at
home against his/her will. Increase the level of violence. Threaten to kill
the kids if she/he leaves. Try to ruin his/her reputation by spreading lies
about him/her to his/her family and friends. Threaten suicide. Turn the
children against the victim. Find and attack him/her in her new home etc.
All of this behaviour is about control
and dominance over the victim. All of it is negative and destructive
behaviour. It is unlimited in its creative evil and the two lists above are
by no means extensive and neither are they mutually exclusive. Each gender
is as capable of these things as the other.
* Indeed, so prevalent is this trait
that careful and informed questioning by police officers called to a
domestic abuse incident may well quickly illicit who is the real abuser and
who is the real victim. Something that many police officers need to
understand if they are to ever stop making the wild assumption that all
abusers are male and all females are victims.
** This may be why many abuse victims
are kind, gentle, loyal and deeply loving people. Most abusers will not
seek confrontation with people who may fight back. They want easy targets
that they can dominate. For the male and female abuser that will often mean
a passive personality type is sought as the next victim.
“Treatment” for victims of abuse to avoid.
The co-dependancy (co-alcoholic) idea
was first developed to explain other family members reactions to living
with an addict and the harmful effects of those reactions. It is an
entirely reasonable idea based on sound research. However, during the
1980`s the definition of codependency was expanded beyond all reasonable
bounds, by people looking to make quick money by selling cheap books, to
include virtually any form of caring for another. Simply put, this means
that any and all caring behaviour is a form of psychological illness unless
the person being cared for is the self. It could almost have been written
by today's radical feminist element who advocate blaming others for the way
we feel while accepting no responsibility for our own actions.
The pushers of the modern codependency
therapy system of mock psychology will tell you that as a victim of abuse
your feelings of caring for the abuser are wrong. (In fact, they will tell
you that almost everything you feel about other people is wrong), but
caring for others is not a pathological condition. My advice is to avoid
these peddlers of doom like the plague. Being a caring person is not wrong
but, excessive selfishness is, and in fact, is one of the symptoms of the
abuser.
Robert Westermeyer, Ph.D. Has the
following to say about the current codependency “fix all” sweeping book
shops and chat shows on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Why would a psychologist wish to
criticize the codependency idea? Many people claim to have been helped by
codependency books and codependency self-help groups. I don't wish to take
away anyone's belief that they are better for having integrated the
codependency idea into their lifestyles. But it definitely isn't for
everyone. Codependency is a nebulous idea, born not of science but of the
gut feelings of counsellors and frustrated lay people. It's black and white
requirements for recovery, though seeming reasonable on the surface, are
not in line with empirical research and have dangerous implications with
regard to the most human of attributes, caring. My two primary concerns
with the codependency idea are:
The Codependency Idea
Pathologizes the Natural Tendency to Care for Others.
The cure for Codependency
Mandates Action which is Not Necessarily in Line With Pro social Values.”
(Emphasis mine)
He goes on: “A
case from several years ago comes to mind involving a caring mother who's
27-year old daughter had been abusing prescription opioids and
benzodiazapines for ten years. The daughter finally made the decision
attempt a methadone detox, following two months of methadone maintenance.
The MD at the methadone clinic recommended that she taper the
benzodiazapine, which wasValium (methadone doesn't cover non-opiate drugs).
The mother was very invested in her daughter's change efforts and
subsequently flew in from out of state to live with her while she detoxed.
She agreed to dole out the Valium because the daughter felt that she could
not do it on her own without relapsing. The mother hid them in her car and
stood watch over her daughter during the first three weeks of her
transition. The patient voiced that her mother's presence was imperative
for relapse prevention at this time. The mother voiced that it made her
feel as though she was finally doing something to help daughter which was
panning out. She felt so good about her efforts that she went to an Al-anon
meeting. She was literally attacked by three attendees who deemed her
behavior enabling and, in addition to deeming her responsible for her
daughter's enduring problems with substances, instructed her to go back to
her home immediately and let her daughter grapple with her troubles on her
own. One said, "She's an adult, and a time comes when you have to let them
leave the nest or you're just perpetuating the illness."
Thankfully, this woman had enough
conviction and confidence in her values to blow off the advice. Many people
don't have this much tenacity to their standards. Many are given such
guidance and are left in a complete quandary. The mother's contention was
that her daughter was completely responsible for her choice to use or not
use. She recognized that her daughter had crippling problems with anxiety
and panic and had used the drugs to medicate these states. Though her
daughter made the choices, she felt that there was a way she could help her
daughter follow through with her motivation to better her life. She knew
that if she went back home, her daughter would relapse and that relapse at
this point would be devastating to her daughter, who had tried just about
every method of quitting imaginable. She fathomed that her daughter might
discount the whole methadone choice and revert to prescription drug abuse
again.”
With attacks like those above on a
mothers need to be involved in her daughters recovery from drug addition,
it makes one wonder at times if the psychopaths are running the asylum!
It is a pervasive and disturbing view
that relies more on “feelings” than serious research and it is to the
medical and political establishments shame that these views have found any
credence at all within today's society because they have kept silent in the
face of such popularist, false and dangerous ideas.
Instead of buying into these “instant
happiness” so-called solutions to modern living learn about assertiveness
and ways in which you can better manage the situation you find yourself in.
The best advice that can be given to a victim of abuse is still,
get out of the relationship as fast as you can!
Nobody in their right mind likes to see
themselves as a victim but the truth is, that until you have broken free
from the relationship and overcome the effects of the abuse, a victim is
what you are. Once you have overcome the effects of the abuse -- and with
the right help, that is almost always possible -- you become a survivor.
The ease of transition from victim to survivor will depend entirely upon
yourself, the quality of the help you receive if any is needed and the
extent to which you were abused. If you wish to cut down on the time needed
to recover and be your old self again, leave the abuser as soon as you
possibly can.
Gender bias in the abuse industry
and society.
The domestic abuse industry is saturated in gender bias as
any examination of the literature it produces will show any reasonable
person. From the thousands of so-called “studies” carried out by special
interest groups, to the leaflets and advertising surrounding the abuse
phenomenon, it is obvious that society has blinkers on when it comes to
thinking about who perpetrates the abuse. The questions are, why has this
bias come about and who are the victims of it?
Answering the second question first the
answer is simple: Men!
Answering the first question is very
complex and beyond the scope of this paper to examine in great detail.
However, I would like to touch upon the more obvious examples. At the risk
of being accused of misogyny (woman hating) for daring to criticise
anything the “fairer sex” does or says, I am nevertheless going to do so.
First of all the domestic abuse
industry is run almost entirely by women. Many of these women are
themselves victims of abuse or have worked closely with female victims of
abuse. This, I submit, tends to give these women a skewed and deeply
prejudicial view of men. At their most harmless these views will be shaped
by the experiences these women have suffered and make them tend to be
suspicious of anything men may do or say about abuse. At the worst, these
views may lead to a pathological hatred of men and a deep desire for
revenge. I suggest that both of these views are common within the abuse
industry today. What is more, I suggest that these are the reasons why the
female dominated abuse industry is almost totally unable to even
countenance that women can be abusive also, irrespective of the evidence we
might show them to prove otherwise. Their minds have become set into two
broadly entrenched positions:
1. Men abuse women and women do not
abuse men.
2. If women abuse men then men deserve
it.
That these prejudices have been taken
up by western political thinkers is beyond dispute. It is also increasingly
evident that police forces, the medical establishment and the media as a
whole in the western world, have also adopted these bigoted and dangerous
attitudes towards male victims and female perpetrators. The message sent
out by these attitudes to female abusers is, “do what you like.”
This “woman as victim and men as
perpetrator” mind set is not only deeply offensive to all the male victims
out there, it is also dangerous for society as a whole. Like all prejudice
it has implications for the future that are horrifying to contemplate but,
the implications for today are also deeply worrying. For example; when we
allow one gender carte blanch to abuse another we are failing to
consider the innocent victims of that abuse. The children, grand parents,
brothers and sisters who witness the destruction of a loved one or (in the
case of kids) learn to become abusers themselves, as well as the victim. We
have seen how a women, subjected to non stop terror and violence in the
home, can snap and kill her abuser. Yet, we do not afford the same damaging
effects on a male victims emotional life. In fact, if he snaps and kills
his abuser we victimise him all over again by vilifying him in the press
and locking him up in jail. Personal abuse is not enough, it also becomes
political and legal abuse if you are a man.
Is it just the abuse industry that
generates this prejudice? The answer to that question is, no. The abuse
industry perpetuates these myths of man=bad, woman=good but there are other
roots in society that also need to be cut out once and for all.
As an example of the extreme prejudice
aimed at men throughout society lets look at a T Shirt on sale here in
Britain. The T Shirt has a cartoon of a young boy emblazoned on the front.
A rock is seen heading for the young boys head. This picture is set beneath
the words, BOYS ARE STUPID....THROW ROCKS AT THEM. Anyone viewing this T
Shirt would probably smile and say, “Its just a bit of harmless fun.”
However, if we reverse the gender and make it a little girl cartoon and
change the words to read, GIRLS ARE STUPID....THROW ROCKS AT THEM. Suddenly
it becomes an incitement to hatred.
Further examples of this selective
politically correct thinking can be found in almost any of the modern
women's magazines. Articles describing men in general as anything from
stupid, unthinking animals, to downright dangerous, predatory monsters can
be found in almost any of the thousands of periodicals on sale in British
newsagents. Hundreds of books have been written that do nothing but portray
men and boys as complete idiots or dangerous sexual beasts. However, were
men to begin writing about women in the same terms, the outrage and protest
would be massive. Prejudice, it seems, is fine if you are a female but
offensive if you are a male.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about
all of this is that many men buy into it. Not only do they buy into it but
they become advocates of it. Its almost like black men joining the Ku Klux
Klan and helping to rid the planet of those “stupid niggers.” It astounds
me that some men have done this and lived up to the “men are stupid”
stereotype many radical feminists have portrayed them as for 40 years. It
also demonstrates the incredible power of media led brainwashing!
Many women, who know very well what
other members of their sex get up to in terms of violence and the emotional
abuse of others, are probably the most guilty of all people in society. By
their cowardly silence they give a nod and a wink to their “sisters” to
continue the abuse of children and men.
The politician, the policeman and
policewomen, the General Practitioner, the journalist and the lawyer are
all guilty of the most astounding double standards and extreme prejudice
when it comes to even looking at the evidence for the existence of male
victims. Even our social scientists baulk at the idea of a man being a
victim of female abuse, yet the reasons they give for their prejudice are
-- like all reasons for prejudice -- laughable in their demonstration of
inept thinking.
Policemen who have had to call for help
while struggling to load a drunken and violent female into the back of a
police van on a Friday night will still say, “Well, it stands to reason
that a women who is half the size of a man cannot do much damage to him.”
The politician who has to ensure the safety of their citizens from the
threat of a female terrorist with explosives strapped to her body from
wiping out dozens of people will still say, “It goes against the
instincts of nurturing in women to kill others.” The journalist filing
a story about females who kill, injure or maim others (including children)
will still say, “Women are incapable of inflicting much damage on
people.” Likewise judges, who sit daily and listen to horrifying
stories of females abusing kids or making false rape or sexual molestation
charges against men will still say, “I do not believe that women are
naturally capable of violence or deceit.” Such stupidity in the face
of huge evidence to the contrary is mind blowing to me, yet it is so common
it appears everywhere. The mind that is soaked in prejudice
truly is a swamp of contradictions and blind brutal dishonesty.
How does all of this effect the male
abuse victim? The answer is as simple as it is direct...
No one believes him!
From the households family
doctor who refuses to “get involved” when the man says he is being abused
by his wife; to the nurse at the hospital all to willing to probe the cause
of suspicious injuries on a female patient but whose mind is as closed as a
steel trap when the patient is male. From the police officer swayed by the
“victim act" of the sobbing female abuser and who then arrests the real
victim; to the lawyer who talks the man out of applying for the restraining
order because “the judge will not believe you.” From the male
victims “friends” who ridicule him when he asks for help; to the
men's movement leaders too stupid to realise the implications of this
policy of denigrating males. All are equally as guilty as each other of
ignoring deep and real concerns and the evidence of their own eyes. All, by
their complicit silence, are as guilty of abusing that man as if they
wielded the pan of boiling water she threw over him themselves.
A
few facts and questions.
In great Britain, at the last count,
women had 423 refuges. Men have 3.
Women's groups receive over 30 million
pound per year from government and police sources. Heterosexual Male
support groups get nothing.
Scientific studies from all over
the western world have shown again and again that domestic violence
against men occurs equally to domestic violence against women,
yet western governments have actively suppressed these facts,
preferring to use instead, the wildly inaccurate “reported crime
statistics” method of determining the prevalence of domestic abuse against
the two genders. At the same time, the British government, for example,
publicly acknowledges that “most men DO NOT report domestic abuse against
themselves.” Therefore, if the government acknowledges that most men
do not report the abuse they suffer, why do they insist on using reported
crime statistics (which they acknowledge are inaccurate) to influence
funding decisions while, at the same time, ignoring the evidence from their
own scientific studies? *
Men and
boys are subjected to massive amounts of prejudice in everything from
education provision; medical cancer research (breast versus testicular for
example); housing provision; Divorce; the right to bring up their
children alone; hugely insulting articles; newspaper stories and books;
job security issues as a result of so-called “positive” discrimination;
discriminatory advertising on the television; hate speech; political
discrimination; legal rights and censorship of the male point of view in
the media. If men complain about this they are ridiculed and called whiners
sometimes by other so-called men in the media but, most often, by radical
feminist media spokesmen. This prejudice has led to an explosion of single
mothers and the most confused and damaged generation of children our
country has ever known. Will someone please tell me the benefits of this
utopian radical feminist, left wing view of modern society?
*
For a great cautionary tale of statistics and their manipulation go to
this page on the Web:
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2004/0324.php
Copyright ©
George Rolph. April 2004, reprinted by permission
Founder of
No More Silence.
Contact:
grolph@no-more-silence.org
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