Male Victims of DV Continued….
a retired professor of family law at Lincoln Law School of San Jose (Calif.) and one of the first fathers’-rights lawyers in the country. She points to the case of John and Lorena Bobbitt, which made national news more than 20 years ago when Lorena cut off her husband’s pe- nis. The aftermath turned into a circus, and de- tails would go on to reveal a volatile marriage, but Mitchell says the initial response of many radio and talk shows was just to laugh at the in- cident. “If something remotely similar had hap- pened to a woman, there would have been a very different response,” Mitchell tells Yahoo Health.
Mitchell, who has legally represented numerous male victims of domestic violence, says abuse is typically difficult for men to process, let alone seek help for. “Men are brought up to be- lieve it’s not OK to hit a woman or even hit back in self-defense,” she explains. “It is their job to protect her. Add in that you’d be a laugh- ingstock if you said your woman hit you. So in the situation of the battered husband, they don’t know how to feel. They know it’s shameful. They do not want her to get in trouble. So they do not say anything.”
What Abuse of Men Looks Like Physical violence carried out against men is of- ten similar to physical violence against women, Ivankovich says, though it can differ. “Abusive women have been known to abuse in ways sim- ilar to men, including punching, kicking, biting, [and] spitting,” she says. “In some instances, to make up for the differences in physical strength, women might use weapons including bats, guns, or knives.”
Sometimes — many times — woman-on-man abuse has nothing to do with thrown punches or weapons. Rather, it’s emotional. “In addition to physical abuse, women also engage in psychological abuse,” Ivankovich adds.
“This controlling mechanism can include hu- miliation, intimidation, and belittling words or statements.” There is another psychological tac- tic used against men: No one will believe you. Men “fear the possibility that others will think they are lying, or that they are actually the ones perpetrating the abuse,” Ivankovich says. Mitchell says that based on old stereotypes and typical gender roles, it is often very difficult for men to get fair treatment. They are often stuck in situations in which they cannot win. “Many women who are aggressive toward their part- ners know that if the police are called out, they will arrest the man,” she explains. “I once had a client, who was the mildest guy ever. In no way would he have ever been violent—but his girl- friend was very volatile and a drug user. Once, she was trying to provoke him to hit her. When he wouldn’t respond, she raked her fingernails across his face. He was standing there bleeding when the police arrived at the house. They still arrested him.”
According to Ruth Glenn, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Vio- lence, the reason for abuse is the same for men and women: “It is all about maintaining power and control over a partner,” she tells Yahoo Health. And because “we still live in a patriar- chal society, and when it is domestic violence, you are looked at as weaker when you are the victim.”
Glenn says we don’t have nearly the data on the actual prevalence of domestic violence against men that we do against women. She says the abuse is more often emotional and psychologi- cal.
“Male and female perpetrators of abuse display higher-than-average rates of borderline and nar- cissistic personality disorders, which are high in that need to ‘control,’” Ivankovich adds. “Men are less likely to seek assistance for this type of abuse, because of the shame and stigma.”
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