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This is a broadcast of a Panel Session called Meeting the needs of male victims of domestic and family violence, presented at the Australian Institute of Criminology's Meeting the needs of victims of crime conference held in Sydney on 19 May 2011.
Part 5 of the Panel Session features Dr Elizabeth Celi, psychologist, author and media commentator, hosting a panel comprised of Toni Mclean, Greg Andresen and Greg Millan, taking questions from the floor.
Listen now (MP3) | Watch presentation
Elizabeth Celi: Thank you to all of our speakers today. Time certainly has moved on as we now come to the question time. So in starting to raise some of this discussion with our panel members and amongst the audience members I’ll just remind you of some of the myths and assumptions and misperceptions that have developed to date. And having worked in this field, all of us in our various capacities are very clear that male victims are there, they’re in dire need of the support and we also know the blocks in resources that they face. And we do our best in our capacity to help them on that one-on-one level.
Clearly social awareness, community awareness and various service provider awareness is required so that re-victimisation or misjudgements don’t inadvertently occur. There’s still the shock and surprise that a male could experience this and how that could possibly occur.
As I open it up to any questions, given we’ve got short time left, we’d be certainly interested in everyone having a chance to ask a question. Please keep any commentary as brief as possible as you get to your question and we’ll aim to have some good discussion with you. So I saw a hand up the back there.
Q: Hi. Thanks for the speeches. I just wanted to ask, you know, one of the main things that you pinpointed is that men are scared to lose their kids, and access to their kids. I've got lots of friends who are not in abusive relationship but when it comes to the family court it's very hard for them even as good fathers not in a domestic situation to get access to their children. Is there any sort of progress in the family courts to, I guess, take note of these domestic situations and how do they perceive it?
Elizabeth Celi: (to the panel) Any of you want to take that? The same kind of barriers and blocks are happening there. The system being able to assist female victims in this area may have the same kind of paradigm and perception, but nonetheless they’re still male victims as well. What we’ve found in work we’ve done is to keep on informing men about these difficulties they may face in that sphere and being aware, it’s another layer that they’re needing to deal with, whilst also being distressed, going through these difficult times and incredibly concerned for their children in the mere fact of protecting them. His thinking “If I leave or if I don’t really do my best for this situation, they’ll be exposed to the same abuse and violence”. So they’re incredibly protective and loyal, obviously to their kids, and loyal to their partner in that they don’t really want to go through that system anyhow. They’ll be the last to really bring up any slander toward their ex-partner.
I think it’s slow, but steady. There’s a service up in Queensland, Men’s Rights Agency, that assists in this process and is certainly more informed of the details of that, so if you want to look up their website.
Greg Andresen: Dad’s in Distress as well.
Elizabeth Celi: And Dad’s in Distress certainly looks specifically at the legal system with that. It (law system) is a very slow system as we all know. Yeah.
Q: Thank you.
Elizabeth Celi: You’re welcome. Were there any other questions? Comments? Should I take this as shock?!! Go for it.
Q: I think it was Greg Andresen mentioned the research, sorry I wrote it down, I've got a bad memory… predictability. The greatest predictor of perpetration down the track was the female to male violence. I didn't write down the study but it did sound interesting. Can you tell me the name of it or where I would look that up?
Greg Andresen: Absolutely. If you go to oneinthree.com.au it’s linked to there, but I will give it to you again here. So it was the National Crime Prevention Study (2001), and the title was Young People and Domestic Violence. It was produced by the Attorney General’s Department in Canberra. Because of the change of government, they’ve archived their document from their website, but there’s an active link from the One in Three website to the full PDF of that.
Elizabeth Celi: Okay, other questions? Greg, perhaps you can let us know about some of the outcomes and achievements that have come since One in Three was launched 18 months ago.
Greg Andresen: Okay, well the public response has been overwhelmingly positive. We’ve had many emails of support from around Australia and across the globe. Many supporters have joined the campaign and they’re listed on the website, many high profile supporters. We’ve got a lot of media coverage, in the print press, radio and online. I just talked about three-quarters of a million dollars recently committed to Mensline Australia to support male victims of family violence. I can’t say we’re directly responsible for that, but these things have been happening since we started, so we hoped we’ve played a part in that.
The New South Wales Government domestic violence website now has a page for male victims. They’ve never had a page previously and we think that’s a big step forward. There is, as I mentioned, Mensline Australia now has tip sheets for male victims of domestic violence on their website, which they didn't before. We’ve commissioned some new data from the ABS from the Personal Safety Survey that was done in 2005, which shows there’s no significant difference between the levels of physical assault experienced by men and women in the home or from persons known to them, so that wasn’t teased out in the published report, so we had to commission some data for that.
We’ve lodged submissions with a number of inquiries including family law inquiries to try to make sure that the family law system is responsive to the needs of male victims and their children. We’ve attended consultation processes around the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Their Children and around the New South Wales Domestic Violence Behaviour Change Programs. And I’ve been assisting Greg where I can with some information and resources for his training program.
We’re collaborating with an organisation in Western Australia you may not be aware of called the Global Good Foundation, which is a charity that works in the area of domestic and family violence. And we’re working together with them so that their domestic violence campaigns and resources include the voices of both men and women. And we’ve assisted with the program I mentioned that’s running in the Hawkesbury region of Sydney, where Windsor police are referring male victims to the Hawkesbury District Health Service for phone counselling. We’ve established a data collection program with them so that we can actually keep tabs on the data around these men.
So a number of things. It’s a slow, steady process of chipping away, but we feel that things are changing and it’s going to be a long road. And of course, none of that would ever take away from the need for services for women.
Elizabeth Celi: So one of the key things that we’ve often found along the way, and having done several radio and TV interviews on this topic, one of the things that never ceases to amaze me is, shortly after, the myriad of phone calls and emails that come in from men absolutely relieved that someone’s spoken about it. Just relieved – in tears. And just there listening if they’ve called, or reading their emails sharing their story and offering (to me) “…if you need more information or if you need this for somewhere else, please let m know”.
To be able to receive non-judgmental support and some initial understanding, knowing that they won’t be ridiculed or judged by unfortunate misconceptions that many have unfortunately received just by unawareness of people working in the field and needing to come to grips with this level of information, the dynamics involved and that men aren’t likely to tell you anytime soon.
So in our capacity, in our working levels, the screening and the questioning is important. Asking the questions we may not feel comfortable to ask, or haven’t even been alerted to ask, which hopefully today has given you some thoughts of other questions to consider. Not only of men, in terms of ‘do you experience certain types of abuse’. Typically a starting point would be the verbal abuse. The level of criticism, insults, being demeaned, being belittled and the pattern or frequency of that over time and the psychological impact that can have on anyone, in particular masculine thinking, normal manhood strengths being demeaned, if not their fatherhood role or their sexual performance. And unfortunately, in this case, women’s increased verbal literacy can most certainly maim with a “sugar-coated viper-tongue”. Often men can relate to that description when you’re asking them about this kind of experience or they just start to bring it up themselves.
And similarly asking women about their patterns of potential abuse or if they use any physical means. For example; “Do you throw a pan, do you threaten, do you scratch, do you throw insults or criticisms?” The kind of things that even unconsciously happen for women because of frustration or anger or the various reasons that Greg mentioned earlier, and don’t realise that, over time it creates an abusive pattern and a difficult situation in their partnerships. It’s certainly not helping them develop a respectful relationship and one where they can generate more satisfaction and fulfilment with each other. So these are very important questions to keep in mind for yourselves.
Just prior to us closing up, we’d be interested to hear, in terms of your working capacity or chatting with other colleagues about this topic, what you’ve tended to come across or any thoughts, questions, uncertainties and opinions that you may have come across, if you’re willing to share.
Q: I would really like to ask a question about how effective Victim Services have been in responding to the needs of male victims of domestic violence.
Elizabeth Celi: What we’ve encountered so far is the shock that Greg Millan had initially mentioned. It’s initially a bit of a jaw drop, initially, of ‘oh, how do I handle this?’
Q: From Victim Services, not from...
Elizabeth Celi: From Victim Services, yeah from Victim Services. And unfortunately at times, through many anecdotes and clients I’ve worked with and perhaps the others may comment as well, of unfortunately certain comments like, “What did you do to deserve it? You must have done something wrong.” Or “Come on, man up.” or “Suck it up, she couldn’t possibly hurt you that much.” So flippant comments that have come out that, unfortunately, re-victimise. And the silence is then encouraged. He’s taken a step to come out, already in a psychologically abused state, if not socially abused, financially abused and so on, and that unfortunately perpetuates him to just go back into the cave again.
Similarly though, depending on the services, they have also gained some support. When people have been able to overcome some of the initial thoughts of shock and surprise, of going, “oh okay, it’s a human issue. We need to help you regain your strength and your resilience.” So there’s anecdotes and evidence on various sides.
Q: I think some of the strengths have been where services have networked together and it's more the relationship of the expertise of the counsellor he's being referred to, the social worker, the psychologist, the victim services support group, and then you get a very close clique, and you know that client is going to be supported, male or female.
Elizabeth Celi: And that’s why on this level we want to keep raising this social awareness on the worker level, on the service provider level so that we can be the beacons of light for the men so they don’t have to face too many barriers beyond what we face systemically anyway, in knowing what our work’s about. And being able to network and knowing he may need to be in touch with the court system somehow or a lawyer or other counsellors. Greg?
Greg Millan: Sorry, I just neglected to say. I mentioned my training program: there’s some postcards here at the front if people what to know more about the training program and how you contact me. The program’s been run here in Sydney and Perth and up in the Hunter region. Every time we run a program for about 25 people, they form a network, which is what you’re saying, which is great. So they can support each other and share information and that’s how it works.
There’ll be another one in Perth in September and we’re planning… I’m planning, if there’s interest, Brisbane and Melbourne. So if you live in an area where you’d like the program run, we can do it if you contact me. So there’s some information up here if you’d like that.
Elizabeth Celi: Thanks Greg. Greg or Tony, do you want to make any final comments before I wrap up? Okay, well, we won’t hold you up from afternoon tea, it is the second day! So just in wrapping up with you, we do hope that your awareness is raised on variable levels as you return in to your professional capacities and hopefully open up these discussions with your colleagues in raising awareness and understanding.
Please bear in mind: he’s not likely to tell you any time soon, so if we can invite you to consider the questions that I’ll put up in a moment in your own context. Just before that, each of us are happy to have a chat with you during the tea break if you’d like further information or our contact details again. So please feel free to approach us with any questions or discussion points.
If we can leave you with these questions to consider within your own context.
Question: “Where are we at in our views and approach toward male victims of abuse and violence?”
Hopefully it’s either expanded or we’ve shifted some things for you. Importantly on the other side of the coin,
Question: “Where are we at in terms of female perpetrators?”
They need some assistance as well and both sides of the coin will help the overall dynamic for men and women and children, naturally.
So with that, please enjoy your afternoon tea and the remainder of the conference and thank you so much for being with us for this hour-and-a-half. We appreciate your attention.
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This is a broadcast of a Panel Session called Meeting the needs of male victims of domestic and family violence, presented at the Australian Institute of Criminology's Meeting the needs of victims of crime conference held in Sydney on 19 May 2011.
Part 4 of the Panel Session features Greg Millan, director of Men's Health Services, giving an overview of his training program called Working with men affected by violence.
In Australia, up to one in three victims of intimate partner violence are male. While many services have quite rightly been established over the past three decades to support female victims of family violence, the needs of male victims remain largely unmet.
The issue of men affected by violence in intimate relationships has been reported for many years. Workers in the domestic violence, community and family relationship sectors are acknowledging this problem and seeking out training for their workers.
There is only one training program for professionals and this talk will present an overview of this program and its evaluation. ‘Working with men affected by violence’ is a specifically designed training program for health, welfare and community workers that provides information and strategies for working with men who are affected by violence in their relationships.
Listen now (MP3) | Download PowerPoint | Watch presentation
Elizabeth Celi: Greg Millan is a social work trained health educator with over 30 years of experience with government, non-government and private sector organisations. He is an executive member of the Australasian Men’s Health Forum, which Australia’s peak body implementing a social approach to male health. And as you may be hearing we’re very much on the social psychology and social health avenue with male victims. So for over 20 years he has been working in men’s health promotion implementing different programs and professional training services, particularly for other service providers, health service providers and otherwise. So Greg will share that with us now. Thanks Greg.
Greg Millan: Thanks a lot. Thank you very much for inviting me along today. This little slide starting my presentation actually is this rather interesting poster from Canada, which I think clearly talks to me about the fact that this whole issue has been silenced and that campaign was around working with those people that have been silenced, with men that have been silenced when we think about domestic violence.
My background in this work, yes, I have been social worker for 30 years. I guess my clinical work in supporting male victims of domestic violence over the years. I've had some past clinical group work with men who have experienced childhood sexual assault, which is a different issue. I run a number of programs for men and have for a number of years. Two of those, ‘understanding relationships’ and ‘dealing with difficult emotions’, which are men only programs, have involved men talking about domestic violence. Just a quick scenario is that I was asked by Relationships Australia in Newcastle to run an ‘Understanding Relationships’ workshop for them, which I did. Very good workshop I ran over a number of nights, five or six nights. I think on the fifth night we actually talked about destructive relationships and I bring up the issue of domestic violence and other issues, drug and alcohol issues or mental health issues that could be destructive, and we had this lovely guy in the group in his 70s. Unfortunately his wife had passed away a couple of years ago and he was obviously still grieving her passing away. He was getting a lot out of being at the group and when I started to talk about domestic violence he said, “Well you know my wife used to hit me with a frying pan once a week, but isn’t that what love is about?” And before I had a chance to say anything the other guys turned to him and said, “No, I don’t think so. No, I think we better talk more about this.” So that was a moment I've always remembered that men pop up with these things out of the blue. It was interesting.
I've been a longtime advocate for men who suffer violence and abuse in their relationships and I've worked in the men’s health area for a number of years and there is a huge growing awareness of – in both the health, welfare and in the men’s health sector of the needs of men affected by violence and in their relationships. So much so that since 2005 – we have national men’s health conferences every two years in this country. We started having papers and workshops in 2005. The last conference we had was in 2009 in Newcastle where there were 15 presentations at that conference on this issue and we’ve got our next one coming up in Perth shortly, so we’ve been tracking this for a while.
I just wanted to briefly say, and my colleague Greg went through the effects on men, but I just wanted to talk about some myths about men affected by violence. Men affected by violence come from all walks of life, social backgrounds, cultures and sexualities. They suffer society’s stigma for not protecting themselves often. They become depressed in their isolation, as Greg mentioned, feel suicidal and sometimes can take their own lives without disclosure of anything that has been going on for them.
They can be victimised because they fail to conform to the ‘macho man’ stereotype and as Greg mentioned, are often perceived as wimps or weak. They’re often disbelieved because they’re men. One of the difficulties I think, and this can be true for women as well, but when men say to their friends or it’s obvious that they’ve been the victim of some sort of violence and it’s within a relationship often their friends don’t know what to do or say. And they have very few support systems in place.
I wanted to briefly mention men affected by violence in male to male relationships. I know this is a national conference. This is a poster from the AIDS Council of New South Wales that was released in March. They’ve had an anti-violence project running here for five of six years or more, but they’ve just had a re-release of it. Australian research shows that domestic violence is as prevalent amongst gay and lesbian communities as it is in the wider community. Having said that, I’d just like to also draw your attention to what we’re talking about today is male victims of domestic violence who would be predominately heterosexual because that is the world we live in, so the numbers of gay men affected by this are much, much smaller. The problem is often underreported as the system can be oppressive and hostile towards gay men. Gay men who experience violence report being afraid and revealing their sexual orientation or the nature of their relationship to those that are trying to help them. Something specific to gay males is that outing around sexuality or HIV status can be used as a form of control by the abusive partner. The other point is telling heterosexuals about violence in a gay relationship can reinforce the myth many believe that gay relationships are abnormal and this can further cause the victim to feel isolated and unsupported.
I run a training program called ‘Working with Men Affected by Violence’ and I’ve run that here and in Perth and in a few other places. I run the only training program for workers in this country on this issue. I personally actually think that’s terrible that there is only one and I'm the person doing it and I haven’t run too many. But a typical one-day training program would include the following things:
• A background to the issues and what we need to do
• the effect of violence on a person
• what is different for men - so we’re talking about men here, what is different for men from women
• strategies for working with men from a strengths based perspective
• a model for working with men affected by violence. I actually present a model that people can use to work with these men
• men-friendly counselling and group work approaches
• building services for male victims of violence into your agency and what you need to consider and
• promoting the case for supporting male victims of violence and working with female perpetrators of violence, which is equally as important.
Why I started doing this was I had received a number of calls from workers who had no idea what to do when that phone call arrives, and they’re in the business of supporting people, and they get a male victim of DV ringing up and saying ‘how can you help me’ and they almost freeze because they don’t know what to do or say. So we desperately need training of healthcare professionals in this country to be able to adequately answer those phone calls.
These are some of the evaluation comments from past training program participants who’ve been through my program:
• “The difficulty men have in communicating to others about domestic violence.” This was what was the most positive aspect of the program
• “That domestic violence is a social problem rather than a gender problem as it is often perceived.” Now I guess to explain that, it’s my personal belief that we’re living in a far more violent world and that whatever you want to call it, domestic violence or intimate partner violence is a symptom of the fact we’re living in far more violent times and I see violence as a social problem – certainly with a gender determinate – but if I view it that way I think all violence is bad and that we should do something about all violence rather than view the whole issue as a gender problem and not a social problem.
• Another comment from a past participant: “I now realise men go through the same issues as women.”
• “Not looking at domestic violence from only a feminist perspective,” one of the participants said who came along.
• “There is a clear need for services to help men by providing information, support and referral services”
• “Networking and knowing others who are on the same page of the training.”
What have you learned from this training?
• “That the situation is similar for men as it is for women, however it’s hard for men due to socialisation and how society sees men,” and what this person means is, as Greg has elaborated, it’s very hard for men to talk about it to anybody or report it, so it’s very unreported because of all the reasons Greg gave.
• “Men have the same responses and feelings afterwards as women.” They certainly do.
• “There is definitely a lack of services for men both in domestic violence and sexual assault areas.”
• “Men underreport understandably and this hides the real problem”
• And “The different situation for gay men affected by violence in their relationships.”
So what do we need to do? We need to raise awareness I think as we pointed out of the issue in the community and the media. I remember distinctly the One in Three Campaign that Greg’s worked so successfully on was launched in November of 2009. It’s a great campaign, a great website, but when it was launched I was one of the people that the media could have interviewed across Australia, so the ABC as they often do if it’s a men’s health issue, I live in Newcastle, rung me up and said, “Greg, come in and let’s talk about this.” The ABC, the interview I had in the morning about this was like, “Greg, tell us about this brand new problem and what has caused it.” Oh good, you know it’s not a brand new problem, that’s good, but the ABC saw it that way. They really – it was a female journalist, I’ll put this into context – had great difficulty in getting her head around this problem. Where does it come from? Why didn’t we know about it? But as colleagues have said today, it has been around for a long time. I was working as hard as I could to talk about it and we were interrupted by a phone call from a guy who rang up to talk about his own abusive relationship and what went on in that in the middle of it and so that interviewed happened. Then we came back to me talking more about it, but that changed the whole nature of the interview. It is kind of interesting, but the interesting point was: the media don’t get their head around this either. The media, like everyone else sees domestic violence as something men do to women. They see it in that context only, so we do need to do a lot of work in the community, but also with the media. We need to provide education and training for, I think, domestic violence workers, community workers, health and welfare workers and I’d also say legal workers in there as well.
We need to advocate more for resources and services for males affected by violence. We need to encourage the domestic violence area to rethink, refocus and retrain staff to provide services for male victims of violence and female perpetrators of violence as well. And we need to seek separate funding for support services for men and never, in any way, undermine the existing services for women. Thanks a lot.
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This is a broadcast of a Panel Session called Meeting the needs of male victims of domestic and family violence, presented at the Australian Institute of Criminology's Meeting the needs of victims of crime conference held in Sydney on 19 May 2011.
Part 3 of the Panel Session features Greg Andresen, researcher and media liaison with Men's Health Australia, presenting a paper called Meeting the needs of male victims of family violence and their children.
Contrary to common beliefs, around one in three victims of family violence and abuse is male. While many services and community education programmes have quite rightly been established over the past four decades to support female victims of family violence, the needs of male victims remain largely unmet. Male victims of family violence and their children are one of the most underserved populations of victims of crime in Australia, with appropriate and tailored services being almost non-existent. This paper will present a brief overview of what is required to meet the needs of Australian male victims of family violence and their children. It will:
Present the often unheard voices of male victims of family violence and their childrenDescribe the specific experiences of male victims of family violence and their children (barriers to disclosing and finding support; different forms of abuse; impacts upon victims and their children)Review the scant support currently available in Australia for male victims of family violence and their childrenOutline the support required in order for the needs of male victims of family violence and their children to be metDiscuss recent overseas and Australian support initiatives for male victims of family violence and their children that could be adopted more broadly.Listen now (MP3) | Download PowerPoint | Watch presentation
Elizabeth Celi: Greg Andresen has been working in the field of men’s health and wellbeing since 2004, both in Adelaide and in Sydney. He currently works as a researcher and a media liaison for Men’s Health Australia and as senior researcher for the One in Three Campaign which Greg will certainly give you a bit more information about. So please welcome Greg up.
Greg Andresen: Thanks very much Elizabeth. I’ll start by talking a little bit about the organisations that I work for. Men’s Health Australia is a website that’s been running since 2007. It’s Australia’s primary source of information about the psychosocial well-being of men and boys. The One in Three Campaign was launched about 18 months ago. I’m Senior Researcher with the campaign. The aim of the campaign is to raise public awareness of the existence and needs of male victims of family violence and abuse.
What am I going to cover today? Often when this area is discussed – the area of domestic and family violence – people get lost in facts and statistics and numbers. I really wanted to let the voices of male victims and their children come through in this presentation – the human beings that are experiencing these dreadful situations. I’m going to look at the specific experiences of male victims and their children. Look at what’s happening overseas – there’s some really great initiatives that are happening overseas in terms of specific support initiatives for men and their children. I’m going to look at what’s currently happening here in Australia – what’s available. And then outline what we think is required in order to truly meet the needs of this group of victims of crime.
I’m not going to talk about violence against women today. I’m merely talking about male victims of family violence because they are an underserved population that unfortunately receives scant attention. What we believe is that both genders need and deserve appropriate support and especially, I think we’d all agree, the number one point is if we care about stopping children from being exposed to violence, we need to focus on both men and women.
I’m not going to be talking about intimate partner violence like Toni – I’m going to be talking about broader family violence. Of course that includes intimate partner abuse from current and ex-partners, both straight and gay, but it also includes often ignored victims of broader family violence: parents, step-parents, children, uncles, aunts, etc. Often when family violence is discussed, people assume we’re talking about intimate partner violence, but we really want to include all of those family relationships.
I’m going to start by playing a short two-minute news report from the UK that interviews a couple of male victims just to give you some of the voices of those men and what they’ve been through.
[VIDEO]
Reporter: The majority of domestic violence is committed by men against women. But now, an increasing number of male victims are coming forward. Men who are more aware of the help available and are more prepared to talk about the issue. The Montgomeryshire Family Crisis Centre in Wales is one place which provides a refuge. This victim escaped from his partner a month ago, fleeing with their three children after years of mental and physical abuse.
Male 1: I was threatened very aggressively by complete strangers that she had invited into the house. Alienated me from my family and my friends. I felt like I had nowhere else to go. I literally felt like I was trapped in there.
Reporter: This victim is one of the centre’s success stories. He’s now in his own home and has custody of his daughter after three-and-a-half years of violence from his alcoholic partner.
Male 2: I would be asleep, she would come upstairs after she’d been out and the next thing I know I’ve got a fist being put in my face and things like that you know and that’s how the violence would erupt. The lowest point was when, you know, the baby was say a year old, the knives and things like that started coming out. I honestly believed she was going to kill me, I really did.
Reporter: But not all men find it easy to call for help.
Male 1: I don’t feel like a man because of what’s been done to me and what I feel I allowed to be done to me.
Reporter: While centres like this are doing good work, the challenge now is getting society to recognise men too can be victims of domestic abuse. Jonathan Samuels, Five News.
[END VIDEO]
Greg Andresen: You can really see from those interviews some of the issues that are faced by men when they are in this situation. There was a great qualitative study done by researchers in W.A. last year called Intimate Partner Abuse of Men, and it found that abuse of men really takes the same forms as it does against women. It involves a pattern of controlling behaviour and often involves multiple different forms of abuse, but it can really include the spectrum of abusive behaviours that we are all familiar with in the literature: physical violence, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, etc. The researchers also identified what they termed Legal-Administrative abuse, which is the use of legitimate services in a way that abuses the rights of the victim. For example, taking out a false restraining order to prevent the victim having access to his children.
Now, on the right-hand side [of the slide] here in the blue boxes, I’ve put up some more quotes from men. These have come from the research literature or they have been left on the One in Three website. Read them if you’re comfortable with them, but once again, I really wanted those men’s voices to come through.
The impacts of family violence upon male victims. Obviously, there’s fear and loss of feelings of safety. That can be challenging for many men because they’re often raised to feel that they shouldn’t feel scared. And so to admit that fear is very challenging for many men. Feelings of guilt and shame is another big one. Once again, if men are raised to feel that they as men should be strong and tough and independent, there’s a lot of guilt or shame in admitting the fact that they are being abused.
Feelings of helplessness – we saw that in the video we just watched – the man feeling like he was literally trapped and had nowhere to go. Difficulties with trust, anxiety, stress, flashbacks. Unresolved anger is a big issue. Loneliness and isolation is huge for men who are victims of social abuse and isolation. They really can lose all contact with friends and family and that’s especially debilitating for them because they feel they have nowhere to turn.
Mental health impacts... there’s a good quote there at the top, this man really feels like his life is crushed and he has really lost his dignity. Low self-esteem and/or self-hatred is another big one. There’s another good quote there from Kevin feeling vile and dirty, not only because of what had happened to him, but what he feels society says about what’s happened to him.
And at the severe end of the spectrum we have depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm and attempted suicide. We have a number of stories that men have left on the One in Three Campaign website about their attempts to take their own lives.
Impaired self concept: once again it’s that challenge to the sense of manhood that male victims can go through. If men are raised to feel that they’re supposed to be able to deal with whatever is thrown at them and to take it on the chin, that can get… as this guy says, “It can get pretty heavy to carry around.”
Physical injuries, illness and disability, obviously, and especially when weapons are used. Use of alcohol and other substances to self-medicate. Sexual issues. Loss of work can be a big issue. Just like with women, a lot of men who are severely abused really can no longer function in the workplace and so, for example, this guy Robin here ended up on a disability pension.
Loss of home is another one. Often if men leave the situation that they’re in, they will have to start again. As do women, of course. This was the situation that was faced by Tad here. Loss of relationships with friends and family – once again, that’s that social isolation.
Then there are the issues to fathers around their children. Many men fear that if they leave the situation they may not have access to their children – they may lose contact with their children – so many men stay for that reason. And many men have a protective instinct – they wouldn’t want to leave because their children will be left with the abuser and so they stay in the abusive situation in order to be able to protect their kids.
And lastly, in terms of the impacts on the men themselves, some violence against women campaigns, by suggesting that men are the only perpetrators and females are the only victims of family violence, this can actually re-victimise men who watch these campaigns and increase their feelings of helplessness, isolation, low self-esteem, depression, anger and that loss of manhood. There’s a good quote there by Peter about how him and his boys feel whenever they see those ads.
Impacts on the children of male victims: the literature is quite clear that it doesn’t matter if it’s mum hitting dad or dad hitting mum or another family relationship, if children are witnessing violence in the family, that’s abusive to the children and could cause them long term harm. And of course many children will also experience direct violence and abuse themselves.
The long-term impacts on children include immediate impacts on their behavioural, cognitive and emotional functioning, their social development, and long-term harm to their education and employment prospects.
There was a good study done, the National Crime Prevention Study – a survey of 5,000 young people nationwide – which found that in terms of predicting whether children who were exposed to violence would grow up to either be perpetrators or victims, the best predictor of perpetration was witnessing certain types of female-to-male violence. Witnessing mum hit dad was the best predictor for children growing up to use violence. The best predictor of victimisation was witnessing male to female violence. So if we’re going to break this cycle of violence, we really need to say, ‘no’ equally to violence against women and men so that boys and girls don’t grow up to either perpetrate or be victims themselves.
I’m briefly going to look at the barriers to male victims disclosing their abuse. Like women, men face a lot of barriers to disclosing their abuse. However, men face a set of unique barriers which make them much less likely than women to report: about a third to half as likely to report being a victim. I’ve grouped them into two basic areas: external barriers refers to the fact that many barriers are created or amplified by the lack of public acknowledgement that males can also be victims and also the lack of appropriate services out there for men. Men may not know where to seek help, they may not know how to seek help, they may feel there is nowhere to escape to, they may feel they won’t be believed or understood. If they do seek help, they may feel that their experiences may be minimised or they may be blamed for the abuse. They may fear they may be falsely arrested if they call the police because they’re the man and in that case, the children will be left unprotected.
Under internal barriers, once again, it’s those challenges to their sense of manhood. Because men are raised to feel that they should be independent and strong and be able to protect themselves, there’s a lot of shame and embarrassment about disclosing. There’s the social stigma of being unable to protect themselves. There’s the fear of being laughed at or ridiculed. The fear of being seen as weak or wimpy. And a lot of men will actually be in disbelief or denial of what’s happening to them or make excuses for it.
What’s happening overseas? There’s been some really good work done in Western countries overseas that we’re aware of. There are now dedicated telephone support lines for male victims of family violence in the UK, Ireland, the U.S. and Canada. For example, The Men’s Advice Line in the UK. There are some great printed and electronic resources available now which are available on the web to anyone in the world, for example, The Greater London Domestic Violence Project has a great booklet called, For Men Affected by Domestic Violence, and the Alberta Children’s Services in Canada put out a booklet called, Men Abused by Women in Intimate Relationships. These are great resources that men around the world can draw from.
There are a number of charities and support groups in the UK, Ireland, U.S. and Canada and India, for example, the Mankind Initiative in the UK. There’s some great community awareness campaigns especially in the UK. The National Centre for Domestic Violence, which is the main organisation around the issue of domestic violence in the UK, ran Male Domestic Violence Awareness Week in 2010 with lots of TV ads and media attention to the issue. And there’s an example there [on the slide] of a Scottish police campaign that was run at Christmas in 2009 with some male faces on it.There are shelters for men and their children now in the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and New Zealand. For example, in Holland, Stichting Wende provides shelters in the four largest cities of Holland – government funded shelters – and all of those are currently full. And in the U.S., it’s not so much that there are shelters specifically for men and their children, but a number of women’s shelters have started taking on men and their children as well, for example, WEAVE in Sacramento County. And recently the Parliament in Taiwan changed laws so that welfare aid – financial aid – was available to male victims as well as female victims.
So that’s what’s happening overseas. What’s happening in Australia? There’s a fair amount of generic support available that both men and women can access: police, ambulance, legal aid, etc. However, generic support is often unaware of the unique issues faced by male victims because of the silence around this issue. So they are often unable to offer effective or appropriate help. And at the worst, some generic services may not believe men when they disclose, they may minimise their experiences or even blame them for the abuse.
And the Western Australian Research done last year surveyed about 200 service providers around Australia and they rated themselves and their agencies as only moderately effective in overcoming those barriers to men disclosing, so there’s a lot of work to be done.
What I’ve done here [on the slide] – I’m not expecting you to read this tiny font – but I basically went to the main domestic violence websites around Australia in all the states and territories and listed all of the services that they referred to there. So that’s a snapshot of what’s available in Australia today.
The boxes in pink are women’s only services. So men, unfortunately, can’t access them. So we can remove them from the chart. The boxes in grey are the generic services I was talking about. It’s really a lucky dip as to whether men who approach those services get the appropriate support that they need. Another issue is that individual workers in generic services may be aware of these issues and may have training and appropriate skills, but their workplace cultures often don’t support them. So let’s remove those generic services.
What we have left are male-friendly services that are set up for men, but some of these don’t specialise in issues of family violence – they may support men around relationship breakdown or other issues. So, let’s remove those.
This is what we’re left with [on the slide] in terms of tailored, specific resources supporting male victims of family violence in Australia. So what do we have? Mensline Australia – the national telephone counselling line. Recently, the Federal Government committed three-quarters of a million dollars for them to train their counsellors to support male victims of family violence. That’s the first federal funding for male victims that we are aware of in Australian history. However, we don’t know if the funding has been allocated or who will be conducting the training or how appropriate it will be. Also, Mensline is often the only port of call for many men, especially in regional areas, because Mensline is a referral service and there’s often no services for Mensline to refer the men on to. And until the One in Three Campaign launched 18 months ago, Mensline only provided resources for male perpetrators, not for male victims. So it’s only recently that they’ve taken this issue on.
Men in Queensland are particularly lucky. They’ve got their own Mensline telephone counselling service. There’s also a court support service supporting men through the court process in Queensland. There’s a small service in the Hunter Valley that was established a year ago, maybe two years ago, to support male victims. Since the beginning of this year, police in Windsor in Northern Sydney have been referring men to the Hawkesbury District Health Service for counselling.
There are some great individual counselling services and practices like Toni’s and Elizabeth’s, but they can be harder for men to find, and sometimes harder for men to afford. And the last three dot points there [on the slide] are all websites. It’s great to have websites out there, but they’re no substitute for face-to-face services.
In terms of professional development for workers in the sector, Greg’s going to talk about his program after me, so I’ll leave that to him. That’s the only training program we are aware of.
So, what is required to meet the needs of this group of victims of crime? The Western Australian Report from last year had four key recommendations. One is government-funded public awareness campaigns to raise community awareness for this issue – that it can happen to men. And they were really, really clear to say, these campaigns need to be very carefully designed so as to complement campaigns that are stopping violence against women and not damage the effectiveness of those campaigns. So we want to support men and women here. It’s not a competition.
The second point was to consider providing a range of publicly-funded services specifically for male victims. So, that would be a similar range of services that are available to women. Examples would be counselling, helplines, crisis response, community education programs, specialist services for different sections of the male population – gay men, Aboriginal men, CALD men, etc, financial support, legal advice. The full spectrum of services. They’re not recommending that as many services would be available for men as for women, but a similar range, so at least there are some services there for men to access. Also perpetrator programs for women which are relatively absent, and health service screening tools. In a number of states, when women come in contact with health services, they have a compulsory screening tool to see whether they have experienced domestic violence. Men aren’t screened at all and so men often fall through the gaps there.
The third recommendation is to consider how services for men could be integrated with women’s services and generic services. Obviously, some services would be able to be integrated and others may have to stay gender specific.
The fourth recommendation was for training for workers in the sector especially around dismantling those barriers to men disclosing so men can actually come forward and tell their stories in confidence that they’re going to be trusted and supported and their experiences won’t be denied, minimised or questioned.
What else? We’d also recommend MP’s and public servants need training because they’re the ones who are writing the laws and rolling out the programs that unfortunately have excluded men in the past. Men need to be included in the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Their Children and all the systemic reforms that are rolling out across the country. At the moment, it’s acknowledged that men can be victims, but basically that’s it. They haven’t been included in any other way.
We need better ABS and other data. The upcoming Personal Safety Survey is the gold standard of research in the country in terms of a broad community survey. There’s a new survey being planned for 2013 and it’s going to have three times the women’s sample compared to men, so the data on male victimisation is not going to be as good as for women.
Finally, we need tertiary education courses so people who are going into social work, health and other human services actually get good training so that they have the skills to support men when they are working in their professional roles.
My contact details are there [on the slide] and I’ll hand it back to you, Elizabeth. Thank you.
Elizabeth Celi: Thanks very much Greg. If we can give Greg a round of applause please. It’s his second presentation. I think he’s done a fabulous job of pulling together a whole bunch of information. And obviously in terms of looking at methodological considerations and the unique experiences of men, whilst some of their abuse may be similar to the levels of abuse women may experience, there are certainly some unique experiences from the masculinity perspective, so please prepare your questions for Greg.
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This is a broadcast of a Panel Session called Meeting the needs of male victims of domestic and family violence, presented at the Australian Institute of Criminology's Meeting the needs of victims of crime conference held in Sydney on 19 May 2011.
Part 2 of the Panel Session features Toni McLean, counsellor with the Think Twice! Program, presenting a paper called Are men really victims of intimate partner violence?
Unlike most other victims of crime, male victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) are yet to be truly recognised by the judicial system or the larger community. There are a number of beliefs about male victims of IPV, such as that men are rarely genuine victims; if they are, they must have done something to deserve it; or they aren’t affected as much as women are by partner violence; and it is easier for them to leave their relationships. These are all myths.
This paper will:
present evidence which shows that victimisation of husbands by wives has been documented for hundreds of years;present current statistics on the prevalence and nature of partner violence against men;explain how studies have presented contradictory and confusing pictures of partner violence perpetration;explore how male victimisation has not been adequately researched, with implications for the judicial system, the media, and government and community campaigns;offer some reasons as to why this has been the case.The acknowledgement of male victims has ramifications for government policy, the judicial system, and the provision of health and community services, as well as benefits for the community. We need a lot more information from and about male victims of partner violence in order to be able to meet their needs. Academics, clinicians and service providers need to be open to the possibility that a man who claims he is a victim of partner violence actually is.
Listen now (MP3) | Download PowerPoint | Watch presentation
Elizabeth Celi: Now Toni has worked in her past and recently as a counsellor with high-conflict relationships and currently doing a PhD in the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Sydney having a look at counsellor perceptions of intimate partner violence. So without further ado Toni will give you a bit more detail on that, so I'll hand you over to her. Please welcome her.
Toni McLean: Thank you Elizabeth. That was a lovely introduction. I feel as though there is almost nothing more for the rest of us to say. And good afternoon everyone. Thank you for coming along to our presentation.
Are men really victims of partner violence? I've certainly heard that question asked before. I'm pleased to be able to address that question today. I hope I'll be able to persuade any skeptics here, that there are indeed men who are victims of partner violence, that there are enough of them to justify providing services for them and for their children. There are a number of reasons why we should do that and those reasons aren’t just limited to the male victims themselves.
For those of you who don’t need to be convinced then I hope that my colleagues and I will add to your knowledge and understanding of male victims today. My presentation will be focused on heterosexual victims of partner violence in particular and my colleagues will talk to you in turn on the broader issue of male victims of family violence in general and on the particular situation for gay men. Before I go any further I want to let you know that some of the slides I'm presenting here are a little different from the ones that I submitted to the AIC to go up on their website. If for any reason I'm not able to get it up there please contact me directly for a copy of the presentation if you’d like to have it.
Throughout this presentation I'll be trying to be consistent with my terminology. Over the years domestic violence has become synonymous with male-perpetrated partner violence, yet, that is not the case as we know, so I prefer to use the term ‘intimate partner violence’ or shortening it to ‘partner violence’ because the word ‘domestic’ refers to all sorts of domestic relationships, not just to the intimate partner relationship and it shouldn’t be gender specific, so I will use partner violence and that will be referring to violence perpetrated by either men or women in an intimate relationship in the family.
Absolutely essential to what I have to say is my own professional journey through this field and how I came to be speaking here. Much like Elizabeth, I had no idea. I had the traditional education in partner violence or what was called ‘domestic violence’ and that obviously was the one that said men were perpetrators, women were victims, that if men were victims there was something that they had done to deserve it, and that if women were perpetrators then there was a good reason for it – that they had been victimised themselves, that it was to prevent a preemptive strike that they were expecting in the future. And probably many of you here had that same kind of education. And as you can see, looking at my background here, the emphasis has been on my working with male perpetrators and female victims. That is how I started out. That is what I saw as being a helpful thing to do.
So what happened? How come I ‘changed sides’ in a sense? Well what happened was the more that I worked in that area, the more that I worked with victims, with offenders, with couples, the more I realised that that ‘male perpetrator, female victim’ paradigm was only one snapshot in the collage that is intimate partner violence and that it has many different faces and that very often what I observed simply did not gel with this explanation. So I had no basis with which to help people.
While it seemed to be true enough some of the time in many more cases the real picture was much more complex and contradictory. Sometimes it was a case of co-perpetration and co-victimisation. Sometimes even men were victims of controlling and coercive partners, female partners who were willing to use violence to maintain their position.
So eventually I had to acknowledge that there was no way around it. Some men are indeed genuine victims of domestic violence or partner violence and many of these men have children too. I found this something of a challenge to deal with, either isolated in private practice and being fearful of making a mistake or being in an NGO where my colleagues were entrenched in the traditional paradigm. I had my own fear of getting it wrong, of falsely identifying a perpetrator as the victim. I was warned against approaching the ‘Angry Dads’ movement because they would brainwash me. I really needed to stay on track and on song with what I was doing. One of those representatives I was warned against is here today and I think you’ll find that there is probably nothing terribly scary about him when you hear him speaking.
The children though were the innocent, really innocent victims of this paradigm. Every single one of those children who is dismissed because their father is dismissed could go on to have much more serious consequences in the future.
My objectives today are to hopefully put it beyond doubt for all of you that there are male victims of partner violence and in fact, there always have been male victims of partner violence. It is nothing new. They and their children are present in sufficient numbers to justify services for them. Children suffer just as much as when their mothers are the victims and in fact, recent research shows that the consequences could even be worse for the children of male victims of domestic violence. I also want to establish that men are not only assaulted in self defence or in retaliation for their own behaviour. Their female partners are violent for a whole range of reasons just as men are and that men do suffer a range of physical and psychological injuries that can be serious.
This presentation will show evidence of the victimisation of husbands by wives for hundreds of years. This is no backlash. The existence of male victims has been demonstrated in legal and literary works for centuries. This presentation will point out the massive variability in partner violence statistics, explain why this is the case, why and how contradictory and confusing pictures of partner victimisation have arisen, will consider why male victims have been somewhat invisible for the past 40 years because they certainly weren’t invisible in the past in centuries gone by. I’ll leave it to my male colleagues on the panel to discuss the needs of the male victims themselves.
When someone raises the subject of male victims one of the first things you might hear is that it’s just a backlash against the feminist movement or against women or that men are feeling sorry for themselves or that it’s just a bunch of irate ex-husbands whinging because they’re angry with their ex-wives, but this extract you see here is from a poem that is one of many that’s littered throughout English and European literary history regarding the violence of a woman towards her husband, and as you see it dates back to the 16th century.
It’s not only in popular literature that women’s violence has been recorded. The documentation of the victimisation of husbands is found back to at least the 13th century in a variety of legal, parish and community records as well as in diaries, letters and in artworks. It is a myth that the emergence of male victims in the late 20th century is just a backlash. In fact, as Elizabeth said it seems that men are in the position now that women victims were in 40 years ago.
If you can see that image clearly or clearly enough it’s a 13th century stone carving from an English church. It shows a man down on the ground being held down by his hair while his wife swings a cheese-skimming ladle in his direction. The modern day equivalent is not rare as some of the references I've included at the end based on hospital records will attest.
Here is a frieze from Montacute House in Somerset. The particular treatment for men who allowed themselves to be abused or beaten by their wives was specifically designed to cause them a high degree of shame by making them objects of ridicule and derision. The wife was sometimes, though not always ridiculed along with her husband. Although today we would not agree with the reason for the ridicule, which was that the man was not man enough to remain in charge in his own household, nonetheless, it does demonstrate that in fact, male domination in the family home has not always been a given and some women do dominate and control their husbands and they may use violence to do that.
When a man was exposed as having had a beating or his wife found to be having an affair the village people would gather outside the house of the couple making raucous music using pots and pans and the like. Then they would drag the man out and force him to ride through the village sitting backwards on a donkey or being carried on a long pole and forced to go through the village while they followed him making this awful din. Sometimes his wife would be forced to ride back-to-back with him. This practice was called ‘riding skimmington’ or ‘riding the stain’ or ‘charivari’, the term varying with the location. It was designed to shame those couples who breached the social or moral mores of the day, in particular, those related to spousal relationships such as abuse and adultery. The term ‘skimmington’ is derived from the name for the cheese skimming ladle that we saw in the previous slide.
The first half of this frieze depicts a man holding a baby with his wife hitting him on the head with her shoe. The second half shows him being paraded through the town on a long pole and this was what was called ‘riding the skimmington.’ Throughout the history of Britain, Mainland Europe, the early days of white colonisation of the United States and in Scandinavia there is extensive evidence of this practice occurring right up until the late 19thcentury. Although it occurred in the context of the husbands being ridiculed because they were not able to maintain their rightful position as the head of the household, a belief which I suspect few of us would have the courage to condone today, nonetheless, what these references show is that this behaviour was common enough in past centuries.
Here are just a few examples of the many records that have been found that make reference to women’s use of violence against their partners. There are court records from the early 1600s describing a skimmington. There are records from prior to the English Civil War showing anxiety over the rising violence in women, and I was struck by the similarity with the headlines we’re seeing these days of rising violence in our young women in this country.
There was legislation in the new colony of Massachusetts protecting both wives and husbands from domestic abuse. In fact, there is one quote here, “So turbulent and wild both in words and actions as he could not live with her, but in danger of his life and limb.” Evidence of restraining orders against wives being issued at the late 19th century in England.
There are numerous literary examples as well recounting abuse by wives and riding the skimmington for husbands. Jonathan Swift, Oliver Twist, Sir Walter Scott, Ben Johnson, Samuel Pepys, Thomas Hardy all referring to these things. And a comment that Charles Dickens gave to Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist when told it was his duty to control his wife he said, “The law is an ass. The law is a bachelor,” obviously implying that the law didn’t understand what relationships were like or at least what Mr. Bumble’s relationship was like.
Here we have a painting from the late 16th century I think – Dawes’ “The Henpecked Husband” also riding the skimmington and wives beating him. The reason that this happened, he walked into his bedroom and found his wife in bed with her lover. Now there is a Dr. Malcolm George in the UK who gives an excellent analysis on the social processes of denial, derision and trivialisation, which are the community’s ways of avoiding the challenge of accepting the existence of men as victims of women’s violence. This is something which is not consistent with our entrenched stereotypes of strong men and gentle women and I've included some of his work in the bibliography at the end of this presentation. So from derision to denial I think we can see that there is ample evidence over seven centuries or more which speaks against the gradual emergence of the male partner violence victim as simply the backlash against the focus on women.
So statistics, how many male victims are there? How many female victims are there? This can provide ammunition to start a world war. It has generated aggression and vitriol and all sorts of threats in the academic community for 40 years or more, so I decided today I'm not going to venture into that territory. It can become a significant distraction which takes us away from the pressing needs of the victims themselves. We can all use statistics to prove the points that we want to prove. However, I do have a recollection of a study in Norway that I think was nearly 40 years ago which claimed to show a correlation between the stork population and the human birth rate. We’ll say I think the study was – the so-called ‘study’ was done to prove a point about statistics. That study showed that as the stork population increased in the previous year, so did the birthrate. Now I suspect there is a false attribution of cause and effect there or at least I hope so.
What I have done though is just to show three examples of statistics that you may find on domestic violence. The first in Santa Barbara in California taken from police records in 1983, so these are all cases where people have been found guilty of assaults in domestic violence related charges. In that study it showed 94% of the perpetrators were men and 6% were women. I've got a study done more recently from New Zealand in 2002, which is a community study, a population study of young adults, which shows 39% of the perpetrators were male and 61% were female. And then just to come down the middle, a recently released study by Professor Halford from Brisbane on Australian newlywed couples, which shows approximately equal rates of partner violence. So quoting statistics at ten paces isn’t really the way for us to proceed from here. I hope what this discrepancy will do is raise your curiosity about why there is such a discrepancy and what we can do about it.
There are very good reasons why we do have such a range of discrepancies. Michael Johnson, respected researcher in the United States is one of the first to shed some light on the past discrepancy in these statistics. He identified that different studies used different sample populations. They asked very different questions of their participants and they used different language, so different studies came up with vastly different results. Up until this time researchers and others had effectively been comparing apples and oranges or rather, they had been lumping apples and oranges together in the same bowl as though they were the same fruit.
The following slides will look at the impact of using different populations on the results. Beginning at the big end of town, if we look at United Nations surveys, obviously they’re drawn from a wide range of nations. They often include developing nations and they often include war-torn nations. When we do this it’s hard to separate out what is actually partner violence from civil violence and what are the causes. There is no way of determining the impact of the external environment on these figures. These figures also have little to do with countries like Australia, so they don’t have much validity here.
We also have national crime agency surveys. These tend to draw their figures from police records, court records, corrective services or else records from women’s shelters. These naturally focus on the more serious end of the spectrum and they tend to distort figures for partner violence as well. Also as women were rarely arrested for partner violence until the last 10 years or so and even now it’s still quite a minority their violence simply didn’t appear in these records.
We can look at national victimisation surveys, which tend to be phone surveys that are done every few years. They generally tend to be set in the context of exploring women’s violence [victimisation] and they interview a number of men as well, but the framework is already set that it is about women’s violence [victimisation]. Men aren’t primed to think of their own experience of victimisation. Studies have shown if the violence is referred to as a ‘crime’ then women are less likely to report their own use of violence. Men are also genuinely unlikely to see it as violence unless they’ve actually been seriously injured by it and that brings us to the fourth kind of study, which does give us much more reliable figures for the picture that is in the community today, so we can look at family conflict surveys and community or population studies.
These tend to be couched within a relationship conflict framework, though they investigate the same behaviours that the other surveys investigate. So they investigate criminal behaviours, but they position it in a different environment. Women are more likely to disclose their use of violence in this situation when it’s not referred to as a criminal survey and men are also more likely to disclose their own experience of violence when it is seen as a relationship issue and not a crime.
So what kinds of injuries do men receive? Men receive injuries resulting from being hit by all sorts of blunt instruments, by having objects thrown at them – glasses, saucepans, knives, whatever, by being struck with a vehicle, by being bitten, by the use of an actual weapon – a knife is a very common one, by scalding by boiling water or hot food. So all of the injuries that these can cause are the ones that men tend to suffer. That’s not to say that women don’t suffer these too, but we are here talking about male victims.
And why do women assault their partners? Well actually for much the same reasons as men do. For a need for control in some cases. It may be trying to match their partner in control or it may be to be the one in charge. Expression of negative emotions, frustrated, angry, hurt, they’re jealous. It may be in self defence, just as it may be for men. And it may be to seem tough because they don’t want to seem weak with their partner.
Which women are likely to be most violent? Interestingly the women who are likely to be most violent are those who did not report self defence, so they are the primary aggressors in the relationship. They are the partner violence perpetrators, or for the women who are genuine victims and are lashing out with violent resistance.
How is it that there is so little research on male victims? Well as Elizabeth has alluded to, when this phenomenon surfaced in that era of civil rights in the late 60s the initial focus was on women victims and it’s difficult to maintain a focus on women victims and men victims at the same time.
And as female partner violence ‘victim’ predominately implies ‘violent husband’ then it’s hard to hold the concept of a man as being a violent husband and a victimised male at the same time. Women victims were also not asked about their own use of violence. If they had been then in some cases at least it would have been seen that they were actually aggressors in their relationships. Erin Pizzey from the UK found this out. She was a champion of the cause of women victims of domestic violence, but over time she realised that it wasn’t as simple as that. If men were not asked about their experience of victimisation, nobody is going to know about it and they weren’t asked. And because male victimisation was hidden it didn’t stimulate further research. It just remained more invisible.
There have been effective public campaigns raised about the awareness of female victimisation and this has unwittingly served to keep male victimisation hidden as well. And astoundingly, in the US and perhaps in Canada as well and who knows in other countries, research into male victimisation has sometimes been actively discouraged by funding bodies. You can refer to Murray Strauss’ references. He documents that very well as I think Dr. Donald Dutton does too.
There has been an understandable fear of having to share funding with women’s services or between women’s and men’s services. However, this doesn’t help the child victims. It’s an example of faulty thinking and doesn’t provide a good solution. And the difficulty is if we acknowledge male victims we also have to acknowledge and work out how to deal with female offenders. And if we need more reasons why they’re invisible, the media focus on sensational crimes by men against women stacks the odds somewhat. It sells papers and it attracts internet readers.
We have to deal with our stereotypes. The belief that because men are bigger and do use violence perhaps more readily in some situations, that they will automatically want to assault women as well. And we make the assumption that women don’t assault men because the men are bigger. Well I can guarantee you from my own work that is not the case. There is a tendency to ridicule male victims of women’s assaults. We have trouble coming to grips with that – facing that challenge. It’s been politically incorrect to acknowledge male victims of female perpetrated violence and that may lead to many of us being a bit worried about discussing it in public. And certainly something I've had to deal with is the fear of getting it wrong in my work: what if I make a mistake? What if he is a really convincing perpetrator? But I realised a solution to that was not ignoring the problem, it was skilling myself up, becoming more knowledgeable and more proficient and more able to work through this.
The implications of ignoring male victims of female perpetrated violence: physical and psychological impact on the men who are victimised, and my colleagues will talk more about that. There is a cost to the community. There is an impact on the children. Service providers, if they want to respond don’t know how to. The male victims themselves understandably build resentment and they can become perpetrators if they weren’t before. It makes it more difficult for women using abusive behaviour to seek help if we won’t acknowledge it. Women who use violence for whatever reason are more likely to suffer significant injury in retaliation from their male partners. If for no other reason, that’s a reason to address the problem. Services don’t know how to respond to female offenders and women are at risk of further violence in future relationships.
So: beyond the paradigm. Meeting the needs of victims of crime first requires we recognise their existence and understand their experience. For male victims we have to move beyond the paradigm that has prevailed for 40 years and which has served to minimise or deny their existence, thus compromising our ability to respond to them. The fact that there are some people who are unwilling to accept that the assault of men by women does occur, stems from our deeply held stereotypes about men and women.
Don’t take my word for all of this. There are male victims. There are enough of them. Men aren’t only assaulted in self defence and they do suffer from it. There is an extensive bibliography following this presentation if you’d like to see it.
Elizabeth Celi: Thank you very much Toni. You certainly highlighted some of the research paradigms we need to consider and the up skilling that us as professionals in our respective fields may need to consider.
General References
Hamel, J. (2010). Do we want to be politically correct, or do we want to reduce partner violence in our communities? Partner Abuse, 1(1), 82-91.
Cook, P. W. (2009). Abused men: The hidden side of domestic violence. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Straus, M.A. (2008). Bucking the tide in family violence research. Trauma, Violence and Abuse, 9(4), 191-213.
McNeely, R. et al. (2001). Is domestic violence a gender issue, or a human issue? Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 4, 227–251.
Mihalic, S.W. et al (1997). If violence is domestic, does it really count? Journal of Family Violence,12, 293-311.
McNeely, R. et al. (1987). The truth about domestic violence: a falsely framed issue. Social Work, (Nov-Dec), 485-485-490.
Fiebert, M.S. (2008). References examining assaults by women on their spouses or male partners: an annotated bibliography.
Historical references for male victimisation
George, M.J. (1994). Riding the donkey backwards: Men as the unacceptable victims of marital violence. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 3(2) 137-159.
George, M.J. (2002). Skimmington Revisited. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 10(1), 111-136.
George, M.J. (2003). Invisible touch. Aggression and Violent Behaviour, 8, 23-60.
[George also provides a good analysis of the phenomenon of deriding and minimising men as victims.]
Kelly, H.A. (1994). Rule of thumb and the folklore of the husband’s stick. Jnl of Legal Education, 44(3), 341-365. [A well researched debunking of the perpetuated myth that a man had the legal right to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb.]
Recent references on prevalence of male victimisation
ABS Personal Safety Survey 2005.
Steinmetz, S. (1977-78). The battered husband syndrome. Victimology. An international journal, 2(3-4), 499-509.
Straus, M. (1988). Violence in American families: How much is there and why does it occur? In Nunnally et al, Troubled Relationships. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Straus, M.A. (2007). Dominance and symmetry in partner violence by male and female university students in 32 nations. Children & Youth Services Review, 30, 252-275.
Halford, W.K. et al. (2010). Relationship aggression, violence and self-regulation in Australian newlywed couples. Australian Jnl of Psychology, 62 (2), 82-92.
Bala, N. An historical perspective on family and child abuse: Comment on Moloney et al, Allegations of Family Violence, 12 June 2007. Jnl Family Studies, 14(2), 271-78.
References on how and why male victimisation is difficult to see
Detschelt, A. (2002-03). Recognizing domestic violence directed towards men. Jnl Legal & Public Policy, 249-272.
Graham-Kevan, N. (2007). The re-emergence of male victims. International Journal of Men’s Health, 6(1), 3-6.
Straus, M.A. (2007). Dominance and symmetry in partner violence by male and female university students in 32 nations. Children and Youth Services Review, 30, 252-275.
Straus, M.A. (2007). Processes explaining the concealment and distortion of evidence on gender symmetry in partner violence. European Journal of Criminal Policy Research, 13, 227-232.
Straus, M.A. (2009). Why the overwhelming evidence on partner physical violence by women has not been perceived and is often denied. Jnl Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 18(6), 552-571. [Read the 3 Straus papers in this order as he systematically explains: 1) the evidence of concealment of male statistics 2) the methods / processes used; 3) the reasons why.]
References on male injuries
Hines, D.A. (2007) Posttraumatic stress symptoms among men who sustain partner violence: An international multisite study of university students. Psychol of Men & Masculinity, 8(4), 225-239.
Kimberg, L. (2008). Addressing intimate partner violence with male patients: A review and introduction of pilot guidelines. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 23(2), 2071-78.
Dalsheimer, J. (1998). Battered men. A silent epidemic. Topics in Emergency Medicine, 20(4), 52-59.
Duminy, F.J. et al. (1993). Assault inflicted by hot water. Burns, 19(5), 426-438.
Krob, M.J. et al. (1986). Burned and battered adults. 18th Annual Meeting American Burns Assoc.
References on female violence
Allen-Collinson, J. (2009) A Marked Man: Female-Perpetrated Intimate Partner Abuse. Internat. Jnl Men’s Health, 8(1), 22-40.
Caldwell, J.E. et al (2009). Why I hit him: Women's reasons for intimate partner violence. Journal of Aggression, Mal-treatment & Trauma, 18, 672-697.
Hines, D.A. et al (2009). Women’s use of intimate partner violence against men: Prevalence, implications, and consequences. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 18(6), 572-586.
Hamel, J. et al, (2007). Perceptions of motives in intimate partner violence: Expressive versus coercive violence. Violence and Victims, 22(5), 563-576.
Hines, D. A., & Douglas, E. M. (2010). Intimate terrorism by women towards men: Does it exist? Journal of Aggression, Conflict, and Peace Research.
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This is a broadcast of a Panel Session called Meeting the needs of male victims of domestic and family violence, presented at the Australian Institute of Criminology's Meeting the needs of victims of crime conference held in Sydney on 19 May 2011.
Part 1 of the Panel Session features Dr. Elizabeth Celi, a psychologist in private practice specialising in men’s mental health. Since releasing her first book in 2008, “Regular Joe vs. Mr Invincible – The battle for the True Man”, Elizabeth has grown in her own awareness of the silent phenomena of male victims of domestic abuse. Astounded at the oppressive personal impact on men and the social blind spot on this sector of our community, she now actively advocates for this much needed area of men’s mental health.
As you can imagine, Elizabeth has never been short of stimulating discussions and debates on this issue and broader issues affecting men’s identity. With regular appearances on TV, several radio interviews and keynotes in Parliament for men’s health summits, Elizabeth sheds light on misperceptions surrounding men’s psychology. She facilitated, along with the panel, some healthy and robust discussion on developing awareness, understanding and services assisting male victims and female perpetrators of intimate partner abuse and violence.
In this part of the podcast, Elizabeth introduces the topic for discussion and sets the scene for the speakers to come.
Listen now (MP3) | Watch presentation
Josh Sweeney: Welcome to Meeting the Needs of Male Victims of Domestic and Family Violence. My name is Josh Sweeney and I'm from the Australian Institute of Criminology. The presenters today are Dr. Elizabeth Celi and we have on the panel Toni McLean, Greg Andresen and Greg Millan.
Now Dr. Elizabeth Celi is a psychologist in private practice specialising in men’s mental health and since releasing her first book in 2008, Regular Joe Versus Mr. Invincible -- the Battle for the True Man, has grown in her own awareness of the silent phenomenon of male victims of domestic abuse. Astounded at the oppressive personal impact on men and the social blind spot on this sector of our community she now actively advocates for this much needed area of men’s mental health. As you can imagine Elizabeth has never been short of stimulating discussions and debates on this issue and broader issues effecting men’s identity and with regular appearances on TV, several radio interviews and keynotes in parliament for men’s mental health summits, Elizabeth sheds light on misperceptions surrounding men’s psychology.
She is looking forward to facilitating along with the present panel today some healthy and robust discussion on developing awareness, understanding and services assisting male victims and female perpetrators of intimate partner abuse and violence.
Dr. Elizabeth Celi: Thank you. Thanks a lot Josh. Welcome everybody and good on you for lasting the distance this second day of a two-day and after lunch, so thank you very much for joining us this afternoon for this extended panel discussion. We do hope to get into some discussion a little later on with you. I'll briefly introduce an overview of this particular area, but first I’d also like to thank the Australian Institute of Criminology and the sponsors for us being able to share this information and discussion with you today.
So as Josh mentioned, I work as a psychologist in Melbourne specialising in men’s mental health with regard to general issues and in particular, since releasing my first book, this phenomenon that even I was very ignorant and unaware of up to five years ago, male victims of domestic abuse. I now do a lot more on the social and media education level. I'm very happy to be sharing this all with you today. So for a few minutes I'll just be giving you the social psychology side of this topic, that often many of us have confronted in doing some of our own work and education in this area, so that we can set some of the scene for you.
Just so that you are aware we do have a camera recording on the panel itself for our own professional debrief and development purposes, but none of you are being recorded, so that you’re aware of that. So as Josh had mentioned, we’ve got Toni McLean, who will also be speaking to you. Each presenter will be giving a different angle on this particular topic and Toni McLean will be sharing some of the research evidence and the methodological considerations with regard to this area. Greg Andresen will then talk to you about the personal and the social experiences of male victims of family violence, its variable dimensions and interplay. Some of the barriers to them disclosing and if they do disclose, some of the difficulties they may face in receiving the kind of care and support that they need. And last but not least we’ve got Greg Millan, a men’s health consultant of over 20 years and he’ll be informing you of a training program for providers, other service providers, health providers and workers in helping men that have been affected by violence.
So we’ll ask you to hold any questions for any of us until after all of the speakers have presented their information. We’ll have about 30 to 40 minutes after all the presentations so we can really dig into some discussion with you, so please jot down your questions along the way that arise for you and we’ll be sure to attend to them as we finish the presentations.
In my growing awareness of this issue clinically and in my social advocacy endeavours, myself and other workers in this field have constantly battled with a particular overarching theme that comes up. Please excuse me if this is repeating it for many of you in here, but it’s worth repeating just so that we’re always aware of a particular perception or a paradigm of “male perpetrator, female victim 100% of the time”. Now there is obviously no denying there are male perpetrators and female victims. Of course there is a lot of important work being done in this area that needs to continue. It’s the “100% of the time” part that we keep encountering. It’s probably best expressed, having been a Rotarian for five years and meeting various Rotarians in different areas. We had a district assembly a few weeks ago and I met a man I hadn’t met before and he asked, “What do you do?”. I responded, “I'm a psychologist and I specialise in men’s mental health and work with male victims of domestic abuse”. He straightened up with a confused look on his face. His comment was, “They exist?”. That’s a common thing that we often get and people aren’t educated about. So this is part of the social perception we’re needing to break.
So as you’re all aware, domestic violence services were initially established and rightly so, to assist female victims, of course. Over the years, over the decades with constant reinforcement of assisting female victims and male perpetrators the psychological paradigm of ‘men can only ever be perpetrators’ and ‘women can only everbe victims’ has unfortunately become engrained. Whilst we know the research shows otherwise, it’s an innocent blind spot that has been developed over the years that makes it difficult for male victims to get service, attention and help. So it’s this perceptual bias and the blind spot that we’re looking to address that has been inadvertently developed in this particular field.
So putting this in a broader social context for you, where female victims were over four decades ago in terms of the silence of their plight and experience and distress, male victims are at that place now. There is a silent phenomenon of domestic abuse or violence toward men that’s occurring, as my Rotarian friend highlighted and many others in conversations I've had. So we’re very much focused on the community and service provider awareness and education that’s required. To really ensure appropriate services are available for men and as Greg Andresen will mention, some of the blocks that men may face through service provision to just get some support.
So a key perception or factor on the other side of the coin that I’d just like to pose to you as we go through our presentations is – where are we at currently in our views and approach toward female perpetrators of abuse and violence? So we can have male victims and speak about them, but we also need to assist female perpetrators so that everyone in this intricate dynamic gets the assistance that they need.
Please let me make some things clear for you. Given our collective experience with this topic, in speaking about male victims we’re in no way diminishing the existence of female victims, their needs, and the work that is being done in this area. It’s in no way about diminishing resources toward assisting female victims and male perpetrators. It’s very important work and that obviously needs to continue. And each speaker may reiterate this along the way, but if they don’t mention it, it hasn’t been forgotten, so we do most certainly espouse to that very strongly.
Having said that, the reality of female victims can neither be a reason that we disregard male victims or their needs, and a lot of work that needs to be done for them, nor disregarding female perpetrators also being accountable to their behaviour and being able to learn some skills. So on a human level abuse is abuse and it is unacceptable.
I'll finalise on this slide before I hand over to Tony, but just take a moment to review these myths and perceptions that are out there. Some of which again, you may already be aware of, but are very much worth reiterating as we hear a lot of the detail that the presenters will now be giving to you. I'll just read them out because they pretty much speak for themselves.
Myth 1, “That men are always aggressors or initiators in domestic violence disputes”, which is clearly false.“How could she possibly hurt him? It just doesn’t happen” Again, this is false.“Men are big and strong, therefore, he can take it” – most definitely false.“Men aren’t afraid of women’s violence or psychological abuse”. In helping men through their experience, this is definitely false.“He must have done something to deserve it” This is quite a difficult one for men to deal with when they’re experiencing the battering of abuse and violence. It is most definitely false.And most important, “Men don’t feel it or aren’t affected by it”. They obviously show their symptoms or their experiences and distress differently, but just because they show it differently doesn’t mean they’re not affected by it, so this myth is definitely false.So please just keep those in mind as you hear the presenters.
