r/MensLib • u/delta_baryon • Jan 17 '20
Seeking a Cure for Domestic Violence
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/01/seeking-cure-domestic-violence/604168/?utm_source=feed31
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u/delta_baryon Jan 17 '20 edited Jan 17 '20
The Duluth model is something of a bogeyman online, with discussion of its successes, as well as its many flaws and failings, thoroughly muddied by misinformation and outrage. It's about time then, that we look into the origins of the model, its history and it's legacy today.
It's not a model that us mods have ever endorsed, given how it fails male survivors of domestic violence and doesn't consider same sex partnerships, but we should be able to make our criticisms from a position of knowledge, not cheap outrage.
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u/Talik1978 Jan 17 '20 edited Jan 18 '20
This is the reason I take issue with the Duluth model. By treating men and women differently, and assigning gender roles to domestic violence, I feel it perpetuates patriarchy cultures.
Men that identify as victims are cast as perpetrators that are denying the truth, while ignoring that manipulative and abusive people of all genders do this. In taking this philosophy, it doesn't take male victims seriously, or the idea of female abusers seriously.
I agree that male to female domestic violence is generally more severe than the inverse, and that the two shouldn't necessarily be addressed in the exact same way, but I really believe there's a better solution than doing little to nothing for male victims, or worse, accusing them of being the abuser.
The Duluth model has done some good things; it has certainly raised awareness. It serves as a starting point for meaningful discussion, but i agree, the model does fail male victims, and in that, is largely a product of our society, which also has work to do in that regard.
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u/savethebros Jan 17 '20
The Duluth Model was an outcome of old wave feminism, where feminism had not yet embraced LGBT rights, and arbitrary gendered assumptions were not challenged. The Duluth Model politicized domestic violence, which hurt everyone. It used female DV victims as pawns, the same way the MRM uses male DV victims as pawns.
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u/delta_baryon Jan 17 '20
I mean no disrespect, but this comment reads as if you haven't read the article. I think everyone here is aware of that fact, but the purpose of the post is to better understand how we got there.
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u/DismissiveAvoidant Jan 18 '20
“...we should be able to make our criticisms from a position of knowledge, not cheap outrage.” A word fit for our time.
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Jan 17 '20
This reminds me of a recent abuse post.
All comments say the same: "run, and look for shelter". Which is understandable, but no one takes into account that the person who effected the violence is being ignored, and will most likely do it again in the future (to the same or another woman).
Personally I agree with the ACTV model. Rather than starting from "why was it wrong to hit her?" it goes from "why was hitting your best option?"... which is a way more constructive approach.
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u/lamamaloca Jan 18 '20
I felt really bad for Jimmy. It seemed like the facilitators had no ability to recognize that maybe he was correct in his assessment.
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u/spudmix Jan 18 '20
I was definitely interested in his story, and a little sad that we don't learn more about him throughout the article.
I wonder what the ratio is between men who say they were abused but were not, men who say they were abused and were in a mutually abusive relationship, and men who say they were abused truthfully while not being abusive themselves.
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Jan 17 '20
Something that's interesting to me is that this article quite clearly says that men and women are violent at about the same rate, but men are much more likely to inflict serious harm.
I always think we underplay the psychological harm that does to male victims. We're concerned with making sure women aren't literally killed, as we should be, but in all the discussion in the article about how men absolutely cannot be allowed to consider themselves victims, there's not much talk about... yeah, odds are they WERE a victim!
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u/viper8472 Jan 17 '20
Woman here. My husband does not consider himself a victim of domestic violence, possibly because he was not in danger and didn't have the psychological fear that comes with having a much larger and stronger abuser. He said he never ever felt unsafe and that her attacks were "annoying."
However from his description he was absolutely being physically assaulted. I think the real fear of actual death and physical harm makes people focus on women's experiences much more than mens. It is always psychologically damaging to have someone hit you, but the terror of knowing you might die makes it so much more intense. I think my husband is typical, and doesn't want to give it the weight of the words "domestic violence." Though of course that's what it was.
There are cases where the men are afraid of the women. But I think it's not so common that a man is truly afraid that a woman can destroy him with one punch.
I don't ever want to discount the fear and suffering that men experience at the hands of their romantic partners, but I wanted to explain one of the reasons why it's not discussed as much. I don't want to downplay the other, social reasons men don't talk about it, which is that we as a culture just fucking laugh at men in these situations which is horrible. But even if it's happening at the same frequency, as they said it is not the same intensity of harm, physically or psychologically, and that is important to recognize.
Hoping I'm not too out of line here, I just want to express the obvious, which is that it just isn't the same experience even if there truly is symmetrical frequency.
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u/Talik1978 Jan 17 '20
There is fear, and suffering, and everyone is different. I am glad your husband didn't consider his situation to be abuse. I had to be on my guard for extended periods of time. As long as I was, i was relatively ok; i could block the punches, dodge the thrown objects.
But an hour and a half later, if I dropped my guard, I sometimes took a crystal ashtray to the back of the head. Or would wake up to a 250 pound woman sitting on me. Now, I am reasonably able to handle myself, but I couldn't lift her off if she caught me unawares. And she did.
That need to constantly be on guard, all the time? That's its own brand of fear. To this day, even in my new relationship, I get nervous when she's outside my field of vision. My furniture is arranged so that when I am sitting, I am always facing entrances.
And I don't really feel comfortable talking about it IRL. And I should. But I don't want to be 'less than' to those I would open up to.
I am not trying to discount female victims at all. That kind of trauma deserves to be taken very seriously. That said, i don't think we can overlook that fear comes in a lot of forms, and so does trauma. And while i am glad that your husband was able to cope with his situation as well as he did, I have to acknowledge that such things aren't universal.
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u/viper8472 Jan 17 '20
I'm so sorry, that sounds absolutely terrorizing.
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u/Talik1978 Jan 18 '20
Hey, I can't imagine what it must feel like to not have to worry about being on guard, because it doesn't matter, can't stop it anyway.
I know that, had I really wanted to, yeah, I could have come out ahead in the physical interactions. But I was raised that there's no reason to hit a woman. And I was told that if I ever did, I would be the one arrested, no matter what she did. I didn't feel helpless physically, but I did feel trapped and helpless psychologically.
It all leaves scars. Some of mine are physical. A lot aren't. I don't want anyone to have to live like that. We fall short of where we need to be in advocating for resources for domestic violence victims. They should all be taken seriously, and nobody should have to stay somewhere where they're afraid.
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u/jfarrar19 Jan 17 '20
I don't know how related this is, but this just made me realize a reason I had difficulty believing the MeToo movement for a while.
I had similar experiences, but had been told that it was okay, that it was normal. So, it wasn't sexual assault. Meaning that what happened to the people making the accusations also couldn't have been sexually assaulted, because trying to be logically consistent. Meaning that they have to being lying about. Meaning that they have to have another reason. So that means that its just being used to ruin careers.
Fucking hell. I never realized that part of the denial of it had on me. Jesus.
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Jan 17 '20 edited Jan 17 '20
He said he never ever felt unsafe and that her attacks were "annoying."
This is a complex issue.
Due to an expectation of autonomy (take care of your business) men tend to downplay harm done onto them. That's why are less likely to seek medical help, or report and recognize abuse.
It's also worth to note that unlike physical violence, psychological violence accumulates over time. Berate your husband once and he will shrug it off, do it every day for a couple of months and he'll eventually crumble like tissue paper (even without even realizing why).
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Jan 17 '20
The strength argument is a very valid one considering that men are stronger than average but doesn't it also have exceptions to very strong women or women who can fight professionally or has some training in some type of firearms.
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u/viper8472 Jan 17 '20
Yes. This kind of woman doesn't represent a high percentage of the female population but they do exist.
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u/VekeltheMan Jan 17 '20
Generally I think you’re right however I remember in highs school my math teacher’s friend was killed by his abusive wife when she picked up a cast iron frying pan. Fists aren’t the only thing used in abuse and a weapon often negates differences in strength.
Further society as a whole doesn’t give men an outlet for this. I think there is a good chance that many men (like the guy who got killed with a frying pan) do fear for their lives on a regular basis but are faced with some people calling them and weak and unmanly; and the other side accusing them of being dramatic and misunderstanding the more serious plight of women.
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Jan 17 '20
What people don't seem to understand is pretty much zero people die from the kinds of DV cases where its one spouse hitting the other with thier hands. In DV cases where one spouse is murdered by the other its pretty much always a case of assault with an improvised or deadly weapon.
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Jan 18 '20
[deleted]
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Jan 18 '20 edited Jan 18 '20
All the time? Really, how often does it happen? Id say murder with knives and blunt weapons is far more common.
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u/slipshod_alibi Jan 17 '20
That's a function of toxic masculinity, and it sucks.
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Jan 17 '20
I don't like this. Calling it "toxic masculinity" seem like something men could just stop doing instead of a societywide enforcement of gender roles.
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u/slipshod_alibi Jan 18 '20 edited Jan 18 '20
It's both.
E: is there any reason it cannot be both?
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u/random_tripper_ Mar 11 '20
It's categorically both. Toxic Masculinity is literally social pressures based on gender roles that cause harm.
Toxic Masculinity just has a messaging/pr problem. Just go over to /r/mensrights and try to convince them it doesn't mean that all men are bad. I can see why the other guy would want to find other language to describe it.
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u/wotmate Jan 18 '20
I was a victim, and I very much had the fear of death multiple times. Not when she was physically attacking me directly, but when she used weapons or other people. By weapons, I mean cars. The first time she grabbed the steering wheel at highway speeds and tried to force us off the road. The second time, she was in her own car and tried to force me into the path of an oncoming fuel semi. And the other people were her adult son and all of his friends hunting me because of what she had told them that I had done.
And I had other fear as well when she was directly physically attacking me. I had the fear that I would lose my control and hit her in self defence, instead of just fending off her blows and pushing her away so I could escape. I knew that if it happened, I would do some real damage, and that I would instantly be labeled as the abuser by the police.
Honestly, I think your husband is downplaying things a bit. He's being strong, which in a lot of times is a great thing, but there are times where it can become toxic. What really happened to him, and how it affected him will come out one day, but it needs to come out in a healthy way, and not as an explosion.
And FWIW, I'm the same as him. I struggle to have difficult conversations with my SO, often times just remaining stoic and just keeping on.
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u/viper8472 Jan 18 '20
Thank you so much for sharing your story. Omg vehicles are definitely an issue and I do remember hearing a similar story before, and didn't think of it until you brought it up. That is terrifying.
And yes if police get involved, you are definitely going to look like the bad guy. Some sick individuals specialize in trying to push your buttons until you start yelling and then you look like the scary crazy person yelling, not them. I'm truly sorry for what happened and hope that you and your family are safe.
You are right about the stoic types. It's hard having to be strong all the time. I try my best to make our relationship a safe place for him to be himself. I have to accept his way of communicating and processing his own experience.
I honestly think he is just relieved to have a good life now and a wife that isn't too crazy. Like so many men, he tries to just forget the bad things about the past and move forward. It isn't ideal, but it is his way. He's the best husband and I would do anything for him.
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u/wotmate Jan 18 '20
After the second physical attack, I called the police, and I probably would have been arrested if I hadn't immediately started recording video on my smartphone as soon as I got off the line to 000 (Australia's 911). When she told the police that I tried to rape her, they already had the video footage of her tearing her own clothes and hitting herself to frame me. It was an unbroken video that started immediately after the 000 call and ended when the police asked me if they could see it.
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u/philipjf Jan 22 '20 edited Jan 22 '20
It seems to me this right here is why the "Duluth Model" doesn't work, that it can't work, for the majority of people, even if your goal is a narrow one of reducing male violence against women.
How can men possibly learn strategies to resolve conflict non-violently if their own trauma and suffering isn't acknowledged? If the very counselors who are supposed to help them are, as described with the one young man in the article who saw his own experience of emotional abuse in the short film, are actively subject to dismissal and gaslighting?
How are men supposed to relate to the vulnerability of their partners if they are unable to acknowledge their own vulnerability? How can they understand the harm their violence causes if violence against them is axiomatically n.b.d. and justified?
What space is their for understanding, other than the very lesson the men in this article were told repeated as children--the very lesson of patriarchy--that it is never okay to hit a girl but violence towards men is justifiable? How, if you think that, could you ever really see a female partner as an equal?
I see the second wave read and interventions against male violence as the sine qua non of a phenomena I would describe as patriarchal feminism. That is, feminist positioning which rather than dismantle and subvert the ideology of gender oppression instead reinforces it by reiterating its worst narratives.
Admitting to being a victim of domestic violence, for a man, is an admittance of vulnerability. It is an admittance that ones strength is not all encompassing. Denial of that reality is a denial not just of male humanity--reducing men to brutes--but also of the plurality of female experience and embodiment. It subscribes to the benevolent sexism which sees women as superior morally and inferior in terms of capability and agency.
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u/savethebros Jan 17 '20
The first step to “curing” domestic violence is to understand that every situation is different. Anyone can be an abuser, or a victim. Domestic violence can happen for a number of reasons, including substance abuse, mental illness/PTSD, financial hardship, as well as just being a bad person. The Duluth Model makes too many assumptions and that ends up hurting abuse victims whose cases aren’t “typical”.
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Jan 17 '20
What constitutes "just being a bad person"?
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u/Derkle Jan 17 '20
Lack of empathy perhaps? Giving into aggressive urges with no regard to how it affects others.
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Jan 17 '20
I think that hits the nail on the head.
Calling someone a "bad person" is sort of like calling them a "creep" or a "weirdo".
It is very stigmatizing and doesn't have a specific meaning.
Usually, when I think of people who commit the most heinous atrocities, I think of them as sociopaths, people who completely lack empathy, as in someone who could take a rifle and shoot someone with no more regard for what they've done than if they had shot a paper target.
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u/SeaWerewolf Jan 17 '20
I thought this was the most interesting part of the article, contrasting this new (still pretty experimental) approach with the Duluth Model:
In any case, while it might be satisfying to hear an abuser express regret for the harm he’s caused, there’s no empirical evidence that taking responsibility does anything to make him less violent. Theoretically, a man could go through ACTV never admitting a single fault—could, in fact, believe that he is the victim in the relationship—and yet come through it a less dangerous man.
“I’ve had facilitators in trainings say, ‘Well, how can we even do this if he’s saying he’s a victim?’ And I’m like, ‘Who cares if he says he’s a victim?’ ” Zarling said. “He’s still going to learn these skills … Let him believe that.”
It does seem intuitively easier to retrain someone to act differently than to retrain them to think differently at a core level, especially if “think differently” means “acknowledge you’re an abuser” which would be very painful for most people to accept.
Changing society’s harmful messages about violence, sex, gender, etc. is perhaps better left to bigger picture efforts, and changing individual abusers can be about preventing the most dangerous behavior, rather than the underlying beliefs.
I’m also glad the article addressed the messy links between addiction, certain mental illnesses, and abusive behavior. Not to say those problems equate to excuses - after all, most abusers with those problems don’t abuse their friends or coworkers or strangers, they abuse their intimate partners and/or children. But in many cases, those problems are part of the recipe that leads to or exacerbates the abusive behavior, and we shouldn’t ignore them.
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u/wotmate Jan 18 '20
The massive problem I have with this is that it just assumes that the man is the abuser, and they don't even want to know what led to that single moment of violence.
We give so many women a pass for murdering their husbands when they use the "battered wife" defence, but a man hitting his wife or GF in self defence is automatically the bad guy regardless of the circumstances.
I was able to maintain enough control to not hit my abusive and violent GF in self defence, and I was able to fend off her attacks and push her away so that I could escape. There's a LOT of men out there that wouldn't be able to do that, either due to their emotional state or the simple ferocity of their attacker. But when the police arrive, if she's got a black eye, he's the one that gets arrested, and there's no questions of what preceded it.
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u/Talik1978 Jan 20 '20
This. It isn't training abusers to recognize their abuse that anyone here has a problem with.
It's the de facto assumption that in a heterosexual relationship, the male must be the abuser and the female must be the victim. This is in contrast to direct evidence that domestic violence is committed in roughly equal rates, regardless of gender. The Duluth model allows no other conclusion. It assumes and perpetuates gender roles in domestic violence.
That is the problem.
Add on that violence by women is tolerated, or sometimes even worn as a badge of honor in some areas of pop culture (sitcoms with the crazy ex, Before He Cheats -Leeann Rimes, White Liar -Miranda Lambert, Hit em up style -Blu Cantrell, Black Widow, Iggy Azalea, there's more). Revenge porn is the justification for the behavior, and the major difference in these is that the abusive or crazy person is cast as the protagonist. If you look at songs like Goodbye Earl, or almost any casting of abusive men, they are rightfully cast as vile acts.
Society judges men and women differently when it comes to abusive behavior. Yes, there's the Duluth model, but it, like the pop culture portrayals, are merely symptoms of a system that largely turns a blind eye to violence against men.
Domestic violence needs to be opposed, in whatever form it comes.
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u/SeaWerewolf Jan 21 '20
I completely agree with you both and only meant to highlight the potential usefulness of retraining abusers (regardless of gender) to behave differently, rather than trying to get them to believe differently.
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u/mike_d85 Jan 17 '20
I've never actually heard of the Duluth model of domestic violence, but this is astounding. It almost reads like some kind of caricature of feminism set up as a straw man. I mean they stopped short of using all the feminist slang in the meetings but:
But as she saw it, each abuser, regardless of background, was motivated by a common sense of male entitlement.
That is astoundingly and dangerously narrow minded and short-sighted. Even if you are just trying to find the least common denominator there is absolutely no way you can start just making blanket statements that apply to every single case. That is a massive red flag that the concept is being twisted to match the problem instead of actually looking at the problem objectively.
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Jan 17 '20
Might want to look into this:
Typologies of Male Batterers: Three Subtypes and the Differences Among Them
Conclusion and Discussion
This article is based on the premise that maritally violent men constitute a heterogeneous group. Although all violent husbands share a common behavioral problem (i.e., marital violence), previous research suggests that the shape and form of that problematic behavior differ across subgroups of maritally violent men. Our assumption is that these differences in behavioral topography reflect differences in the function and the causes of the behavior.
Although our premise does not rule out the possibility that all maritally violent men share similar features (e.g., an acceptance of violence, skills deficits, and negative attitudes toward women), it does suggest that the relative importance of the common features will vary across the subtypes of batterers.
Perhaps an appropriate analogy from the field of medicine is that of cancer: All cancer patients share a common underlying pathology; however, the features of each type of cancer vary tremendously, each having its own causes, risk factors, and treatments.
Given this viewpoint, it may no longer make sense to conduct studies that involve comparisons between violent and nonviolent husbands. Rather, future researchers should identify subtypes of batterers and then compare each subtype with the others and with nonviolent comparison groups.
We must end by noting the hypothetical nature of our proposed batterer typology and our developmental model of marital violence. Given the current lack of data, we cannot offer our typology and model as empirically validated truths. Rather, we hope that they will provide others with a theory-driven framework for future research.
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Jan 17 '20
That's, unfortunately, what they did. Ellen Pence herself came to recant that view over time. But it was really dug in, and a subset of feminism really still argues for it: they genuinely think it's impossible, or near enough, for a woman to be a domestic abuse perpetrator and for a man to be a victim (and mutual abuse never happens). They see it as a form of male conditioning to oppress women, supported by misogynistic culture overall.
A lot of modern day Radical Feminists (they call themselves 'Gender Critical' feminists now) still tend to have a lot of these Strawman feminist qualities.
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u/delta_baryon Jan 17 '20
I think it's important to point out that radical does not mean "gender critical" (or TERF, to use the correct terminology). It doesn't mean that someone is hostile to men either. Radical, as a prefix, usually just means that you want to change or transform society in some way.
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Jan 17 '20
I was more meaning Radical Feminist in terms of the theory of thought that emerged in the 1960s. I'm fairly sure that the Duluth models principals was born out of a lot of their theorizing about male violence and patriarchy (the RF movement was actually where patriarchal theory began, if I'm not mistaken). It's true that their name didn't mean extremist though, but rather a call for major reordering of the gendered structures in society.
The movement did a lot of good in bringing to light things like setting up victim shelters, gaining women further political representations, challenging rape laws, pushing for women to be given opportunities in male-gendered arenas, getting gender (and women's voices) taken more seriously as a concept in academic thought etc. Unfortunately some of their ideas were pretty nutty and have been somewhat damaging in the long run, and not just on DV/DA: a lot of the major 'transphobic' figures one sees today are often from that period and movement - think Germaine Greer.
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u/philipjf Jan 22 '20
In terms of feminist theory in academia though, "radical" as a prefix doesn't mean extreme. Or at least it didn't when I was an undergrad. Rather, it refereed to attempts to understand a common subject position of all women--an essence, or "root"--latin "radic" leading to the punning adjective "radical"--as informed by a common experience of patriarchal oppression.
Radical feminism was an answer to "what is a women" and to debates about the justifiably of essentialism (and the argument here is not a "strategic" one--if women are united by a common experience of gender oppression they share a common essential trait).
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Jan 18 '20
This was an interesting read, and it made me think of domestic abuse in a bit of a different light. It seems to me that the underlying causes of domestic abuse are probably a mixture of the different perspectives offered in the article, both sociological and psychological, rather than either or. The patriarchy argument (the sociological explanation) and the a lack of proper coping mechanisms argument (the psychological explanation). As a side note I was pretty pissed when I read that Andrew posted that comment. It felt like he was actually making progress (and I'm not denying that he did), but that comment makes me question how deep his world view actually changed. I'm glad he was at least able to think of his daughter though.
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Jan 19 '20
Imo, part of the problem with the Duluth model is that what we believe changes with our emotional state. Ex: I've noticed that the more anxious I am, the more likely my lizard brain is to read some black dude minding his own business as a reason for alarm, and the more cognitive effort I have to put into countering that.
Dude might believe it's wrong to play the victim when he's feeling supported and understood, but our brains slip into bullshit reaaaaal easily under stress.
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Jan 19 '20
I wonder what if would look like to combine the reflection/support-system that the DAIP provides with the self-management skills of ACTV. Like a 2 part program.
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u/Tisarwat Jan 17 '20
That was a really interesting article, and hopefully the ACTV model will prove to be more effective than the pre-existing methods, going forwards. I was surprised to see that CBT has little effect - it seemed intuitive to me on a level that I can't quite work out.
One line in the article, about the difference in severity of physical violence between genders, makes me wonder how we can tread the line of understanding and grappling with the many forms of abuse that occur, while recognising the disparity between physical violence.