Relationships, Emotions, Lack of Control

Roger--

You have a point about her lower weight being an advantage. Has a similar animosity been show to short, wiry male drivers?

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Lower weight and not gassing up. (or what ever you call not doing the pit stop).

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I must have missed those ads where the (race car driving) men wear skimpy clothing and pose for photos with their hair, you know, all done up.

I always see them in long sleeves & slacks with caps and sunglasses on.... not nearly as interesting as seeing them half-naked.

Darn. Missed all the fun bits.

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You've obviously missed the pix of Paul Tracy, before and after his style makeover, BK. Those Indy guys like to work a room - and work an image.

(around here, when it's Molson Indy time, their weight changes are noted in the papers)

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BorisKitten wrote:

Of course, we can guess that even fewer males than females report domestic violence against them... so the actual number of cases of domestic violence against males is likely to be a lot higher.

Anyway, do you all think domestic violence will really just disappear if these stereotypes of males and females are destroyed? If so, how can we work to change these ideas?

No, I don't think just doing away with the male superiority stereotype will help. I don;t know about everybody else. But I know about my husband. He does not get violent becuase i am weaker or because I'm a woman. And he is not a person with traditional views about male superiority. It's just rage. I think it happens when they feel helpless with rage. Also, a temporary losss of reason and sanity - becuase of the rage.

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BorisKitten wrote:

Of course, we can guess that even fewer males than females report domestic violence against them... so the actual number of cases of domestic violence against males is likely to be a lot higher.

Anyway, do you all think domestic violence will really just disappear if these stereotypes of males and females are destroyed? If so, how can we work to change these ideas?

However, casualty deprtment figures may begin to tell us more - IF people respond truthfully re how their injuries occur.

An ED in a hospital with a very socially disadvantaged catchment in my home city recently did a survey of its reported DV injuries.

Something under 30% female to male violence - leaving over 70% male to female.

I suspect we women are getting more violent.

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chinmayee_s wrote:

BorisKitten wrote:
Of course, we can guess that even fewer males than females report domestic violence against them... so the actual number of cases of domestic violence against males is likely to be a lot higher.

Anyway, do you all think domestic violence will really just disappear if these stereotypes of males and females are destroyed? If so, how can we work to change these ideas?

No, I don't think just doing away with the male superiority stereotype will help. I don;t know about everybody else. But I know about my husband. He does not get violent becuase i am weaker or because I'm a woman. And he is not a person with traditional views about male superiority. It's just rage. I think it happens when they feel helpless with rage. Also, a temporary losss of reason and sanity - becuase of the rage.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'm almost starting to think FCADV has it backwards. They say changing these stereotypes would cause domestic violence to disappear, right? And yet I think changing the stereotypes would be a lot harder than changing the domestic violence itself.

If I compare domestic violence to, say, drunk driving, their theory would read something like, "If nobody drank, nobody would be killed by drunk drivers." Well, this seems obvious, but stopping drinking entirely is not a do-able thing in this country. It's more efficient to simply arrest the people who drive drunk... and it's more efficient, I think, to simply arrest perpetrators of domestic violence than to change these stereotypes.

Mind you, I think it would be wonderful if we could learn to see humans as humans, free of stereotypes and prejudices against one another. I personally will continue to challenge these stereoypes whenever I hear them. But how likely are we to accomplish that goal?

Chinmayee_s, I think it really doesn't matter why your husband is (or was) violent with you, as long as the violence can be stopped. We can ask ourselves whether his violence is due to his childhood, his ideas about women, a brain chemical imbalance, or something else entirely, but his reasons are secondary to the fact that his actions are illegal (well, in the US, anyway). So the "why" would be decided by his lawyer/therapist/psychiatrist/social worker in helping him to become more well-adjusted after he is arrested for breaking the law.

We may wonder why criminals do what they do... but their reasons are a point of curiosity, not a point of law. Their actions are illegal regardless of their cause.

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dlowan wrote:

Something under 30% female to male violence - leaving over 70% male to female.

I suspect we women are getting more violent.

More bad news! Sad

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Quote:

I suspect we women are getting more violent.

More and more girls are fighting one-on-one in schools--with and without weapons.

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BorisKitten wrote:

Chinmayee_s, I think it really doesn't matter why your husband is (or was) violent with you, as long as the violence can be stopped. We can ask ourselves whether his violence is due to his childhood, his ideas about women, a brain chemical imbalance, or something else entirely, but his reasons are secondary to the fact that his actions are illegal (well, in the US, anyway). So the "why" would be decided by his lawyer/therapist/psychiatrist/social worker in helping him to become more well-adjusted after he is arrested for breaking the law.
We may wonder why criminals do what they do... but their reasons are a point of curiosity, not a point of law. Their actions are illegal regardless of their cause.

True. I agree with you. His actions are illegal (in my country too) irrespective of the reason. I was just trying to say that gender stereotypes arent always the reason. I was saying that they'd probably do it even if the victim was just as (physically) strong/stronger than they are.

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It's a strange phenomenon when passion overtakes someone's life to the extent they would do harm to the person they (claim to) love. I think real love for somebody would be more positive towards the one you love. If they found somebody they really love, it would seem that the proper reaction would be that you would wish her/him the best for their future.

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Just saw my first really nasty (judged on the basis of the spectrum of stuff I see) case of domestic violence by a woman against a man - (I have seen other cases but not of this magnitude).

Emotional, physical (without the types of severe injury I normally see at this intensity of abuse) and financial.

Just ventilating I guess.

Interesting - the same dynamic re an extra dimension of intense shame and humiliation that I see with men who have been raped - which I put down to its not being a cultural norm for men to be victimised in this way.

Just as helpful for him to have the reality of what had happened to him and his son named - and the processes and trajectories explained and explored - as it is for women. Interestingly, he had seen a male therapist here previously, whom he had found very helpful, but had not disclosed. I do wonder if it is easier for guys to disclose this stuff to a woman?

Also very delicate exploration of the 13 year old son's mixed feelings of distress for his dad - and a feeling that he should have protected him - mixed with intense anger that his dad had not been more of a "man" and stood up to the woman. Again, an extra dimension of complexity.

Whew - I am beat.

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I've seen it, my husband's family. Deep ****, in that both at scene are taken to be at fault, and eventually, at least then, there is a presumption to mom. Well, that day, at that time, it was bone chilling.
Mom recanted some time later.

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Yes - that presumption.

Actually, the police were good with this fella when they were called by a neighbour - so it goes.

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I've wondered, if women had all the "power and control" in our society, if they would commit these crimes against men at similar rates. Well, maybe. Don't suppose we'll ever find out for sure.

I agree that having a "model" of behavior to show to folks who were abused helps a lot. They often feel very much alone in their situation, and are pitiably relieved to find they are NOT alone. I can see how a male would feel even more alone than a female.

It's disturbing to hear of females becoming more violent. Are they coming to believe violence can only be met with violence? Are we all just going crazy? Or maybe this is just Our Nature as human critters, coming out at the moment?

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As long as violence is presented as a solution in real life, television, video games and whatever, violence will continue.

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BorisKitten wrote:

I've wondered, if women had all the "power and control" in our society, if they would commit these crimes against men at similar rates. Well, maybe. Don't suppose we'll ever find out for sure.

I agree that having a "model" of behavior to show to folks who were abused helps a lot. They often feel very much alone in their situation, and are pitiably relieved to find they are NOT alone. I can see how a male would feel even more alone than a female.

It's disturbing to hear of females becoming more violent. Are they coming to believe violence can only be met with violence? Are we all just going crazy? Or maybe this is just Our Nature as human critters, coming out at the moment?

Dunno - but I am starting to think - "possibly."

Much of male violence is put down to testosterone and/or various sociological and political explanations, and I do still tend to think that males are inherently more violent - especially to each other.

However, I am tending more and more to think that, in situations of intimacy, that evoke our deepest layers of emotional patterning and attachment trauma, some of us will be violent and abusive if we can be, male or female. We know that certain sorts of parenting and early experiences seem to create or unleash violence in people.

I do not have reliable stats - but I understand that violence and other forms of abuse in lesbian relationships is a problem; that adolescents abusive and violent towards their parents are roughly equally male and female (that statistic is NOT true in my clinical experience, though - for what that is worth - far from it...hmmmmm); we see more and more female violence in schools, as girls really lay into each other in a way associated previously with boys - we even, for a time, in my area, had a female Aboriginal gang who were so violent (many Aboriginal kids are exposed to appalling family and community violence) that we had a rash of girls too frightened to leave their homes - though this gang were also well known to break into the homes of and bash up other girls they did not like.

"Because they can" - which is a cynical explanation for male rape and child sexual abuse I used to use "in-house" - is starting to seem a persuasive explanation for whty all sorts of abusive people - male AND female - do what they do. That and the experiences thast have shaped their ways of dealing with the world.

Lots of people, male and female, could but don't.

I am blaming, increasingly, power to and pathology.

Women are still way less likely to commit violent crimes and such - though more of us do - in my clinical experience, this is often drug-related - and the drugs are frequently a way of self-medicating for the effects of severe abuse and trauma. Women prisoners I have worked with are the most appallingly traumatised people I have ever worked with - with the possible exception of some torture survivors and the odd verteran with combat related PTSD.

It seems to take more to turn women into grossly physically violent beings.

Relationships, Emotions, Lack of Control

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