The bruises may not be as visible as if you had been slapped, but bruised you are. And since you were raised to never strike a woman, you take the verbal assaults and bite your tongue.
Yes, even men are victims of domestic violence.
When I bring up this topic with people, most believe that it doesn't happen to men. And worse yet, men think that any man who allows himself to be abused by a woman, isn't much of a man.
What fallacy there is in that statement.
I was as ignorant as most. Having been in an abusive relationship for a decade, I had no idea that there were men out there who were going through similar experiences. There was no "movie of the week" nor was it discussed on talk shows. I didn't discover this nasty, little secret until, as a manager for a domestic violence shelter, we received a phone call asking to place a man in our shelter who was being abused by his wife. Of course we declined. We had no provision for such a situation.
Men are abused by women, both physically and emotionally/mentally. It has nothing to do with whether or not he is a "real" man, and more do to with the choices he has made in his life. Poor choices foster poor relationships.
We all want and need to feel loved. Sometimes in our desire to be loved, we allow others to dictate just what love is.
Most men are taught to be providers; to be caretakers of those they love. "Real men" don't hit women. So when faced with an abusive relationship, men have little defense and no training in how to cope in that situation. Being the "fixer", they struggle with how to fix the relationship.
Walking away would mean failure.
Abusive women don't differ that much from abusive men. Both lash out irrationally at others. Both have a perverse need to control and manipulate. Both are dangerous.
Men in abusive relationships have no one to turn to for counsel. They can't or won't confide in friends or family, because to admit that they are ensconced in such a violent relationship, may make them seem less of a "man".
Something this society teaches all too often.
These defined roles we all live in/with can be so self injurious. Men are supposed to be the strong and silent types - able to deal with anything that comes their way. And women - well, we all know those roles.
According to a Nov. 1998 Department of Justice/Centers for Disease Prevention and Control report on the National Violence Against Women Survey: "Every year, 1,510,455 women and 834,732 men are victims of physical violence by an intimate. Every 37.8 seconds, somewhere in America a man is battered. Every 20.9 seconds, somewhere in America a woman is battered."
Bert H. Hoff publisher/editor of Men's Voices journal writes: "The data show that men are more likely to have a knife used on them or to be threatened with a knife, hit with an object, kicked, bitten or have something thrown at them. Women are more likely to beaten up, threatened with a gun, choked, victims of drowning attempts, have their hair pulled or be pushed, grabbed or shoved."
Domestic violence is gender-less. It isn't bound to any specific age, race, or socio-economic background.
Society seems to think that domestic violence is limited to physical assault; when in fact abuse can occur in the subtlest of forms. A cruel word, a slight push, a pot thrown across the room; these actions can and do escalate.
The fact that men are abused by intimate partners (for the sake of this article, wives/girlfriends) - that fact rarely makes the local or national news. And when it does, we are left quietly questioning, "I wonder what he did to tick her off?" Like there must have been something "he" did to precipitate the violence.
Would we dare say such a thing if it were a woman who had been battered?
So, why would we question if it were a man?
We are a society raised on "the strong shall survive". And we are taught that men are the stronger of the sexes. To believe that men can be and are abused by women goes against everything we think and believe and have been taught. Yet - it happens.
It's a dirty little secret, and one we'd like to sweep under the rug.
But how can we?
To ignore the fact that abuse occurs against men, makes us all small minded. It perpetuates this gender bias that keeps these secrets in the dark.
The statistics do show that more women are abused than men, but even one life - gender aside -caught in this cycle of violence, is one too many.
If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, or you are the abuser - seek help. There is no shame in saying, "Enough is enough."
We have to stop the cycle. We have to stop the violence. We have to find our voice and say, "No more secrets."
J. A. Stroud
Published in SHE Caribbean Winter 2003 issue