It is only when we confront the issue with objective truth, that we can make effective changes to
education, in a productive attempt in prevention of intimate partner violence, and
support, for victims of any gender who have suffered abuse and assault to any degree
education, in a productive attempt in prevention of intimate partner violence, and
support, for victims of any gender who have suffered abuse and assault to any degree
Violence is a crime. Abuse is a crime. No victim of a crime should feel that they have nowhere to get help, seek refuge. No victim of a crime should be made to feel silly or responsible. Victims of crime need help. Victims of crime first need to find a voice.
PLEASE HELP US CREATE AWARENESS
While All For Equality represents both men and women, there is an immediate need to catalogue the issue of men as victims of violence by women.
Please use the comment section below to catalogue your experiences, whether you witnessed, or know of, a man being assaulted, or whether you are a man who has been assaulted by a female/partner. You are able to share your experience anonymously if you wish.
I had a friend call me crying once. She told me her boyfriend had struck her. I was enraged, of course. He had at least fifty to sixty pounds on her and a good few inches. It wasn't until later she admitted she hit him first. To me, that changes everything. I'm a female but I thoroughly believe if you hit someone, you should expect them to hit back. It's unfair for her to get support for being abusive and throwing a fit when she gets a taste of her own medicine.
ReplyDeleteI believe in equality. I have been the victim of abuse more than I'd like to recount but I never initiated and that's what makes all the difference. She wasn't a victim. She shouldn't have instigated if she knew she couldn't defend herself.
I live in a transitional building for youth in late teens and early twenties. Many of us came from abusive homes, foster care, or homelessness. The house I came from, my mother was the abusive one. I am a son. This is female perpetrated violence. And then, when I moved in I befriended a couple for a short time. But when we hung out she was constantly snapping on him over little things, verbally abusive in public and even slapping him occasionally. She was eventually kicked out because she was caught on camera beating him up on the front lawn of our building. Fortunately staff in the building understand more about men as victims, because the majority of people in our building are young men. 80-90% at any given time.
ReplyDeleteQuite a few of them experienced violence from their mothers, one acquaintance of mine told me his mom stole $5,000 from him after he worked and worked for it. The terrible thing is he still talks to her.
The last thing I want to say is that I am from a middle class family. Not all abuse cases that end up in transitional housing are poor or in poverty.
I have been hit by many of my female partners during times of high emotion (and especially PMS) over the years; I never hit back or pressed charges. I have witnessed the same among others countless times, and witnessed horrific emotional abuse as well. Contrary to popular propaganda, women are NOT goddesses, they are human beings, and at times, common criminals, just like men.
ReplyDeleteI watched my brother being terrorized by his wife for years. She had mental issues to the point where her own doctors wouldn't be alone in a room with her, but my brother wouldn't leave her because according to his own lawyer, she would have a very good chance of getting custody of their son (who she despised because he was adopted).
ReplyDeleteMy sister was routinely hit by her girlfriend, and never reported it to anyone. She told me about it only under the promise that I not call the cops.
In my 50+ years, the only violence (physical and emotional) I have witnessed was perpetrated by women on men.
I've had a woman slap, hit, and try to cut me with a broken shard of glass. When that failed she cut herself and said she was going to tell the police that I did it.
ReplyDeleteMe and my brother were raised by our single mother, she would beat us choke us throw is down stairs, she even once put my head through a wardrobe door, but when we told our family they simply said it's something we had to put up with until we found our own place, we even told social services (well our highschool did when we came in with bruises) but they conducted the private interview with her present and asked her the questions that were directed at us, most of my friends were supportive but occasionally I got "she's a woman why didn't you restrain her" "at least it's not your dad hitting you" , yeah I'm sure 6 year old me would have been able to restrain my mother, people often offered sympathy, but nobody ever did anything, and most of the help services said it'd be different if it was my father doing it
ReplyDeleteMy wife has allowed her anger over the years become abusive from time to time. One time, we were having an argument, well she was having the argument. I wasn't yelling or getting worked up, I didn't call her names or raise a hand to her (I never have). Anyways, she worked herself up so much she called the police on me. Yes, it's true. She had the police remove me from my house because she was mad at me. The police kept asking me what I did to make her so angry. I did nothing other than have a different opinion on a trivial matter. I was still removed from the house for the night because she was angry.
ReplyDeleteWe have come a long way since that night with some intensive counseling and we're in a good place now. But I'll never forget the implication that she can have me removed from my family anytime she wants.
In Highschool, i had an indecent with freshmen girl. I was talking about sex with my then girlfriend, with a friend of mine, while on the bus home. She didn't like this. it disgusted her. she was offended. And she said so, So i pointed out the roughly 30 empty bus seats that she could move to.But she wouldn't have it. Why should SHE move? so, her brilliant idea, Smacking me from behind, into the window. it hurt a bit, because of all the metal, but not so much. I told her to fuck off. and kept talking, she hit me again, or tried to, i grabbed her hand on the way back, and looked her in the eyes and said STOP IT, while forcefully gripping her wrist.
ReplyDeleteShe soon departed the bus, saying "YOU'LL BE SORRY"
The next day, last period, i'm called to the office. Had no idea why, i had already forgotten about the altercation. She however, had taken it upon herself to go in that morning and cry to the principal about how i sexually assaulted her last night on the bus.
I was not given an opportunity to defend myself. They called the police and suspended me. As soon as i got home, i called the police and they told me they had dismissed the case almost immediately, So, at least that's good...
During an arguement a few years ago my mother broke her partners jaw. In an another arguement with a different partner, a few years after that, she bit him and he punched her in the nose, there was alot of blood. I've seen plenty of violence growning up from both sides.
ReplyDeleteI composed a long message about 4 incidents. Unfortunately there is a 4096 character limit here.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the Comment as: does not have the option of connecting to my Disqus account.
Will somebody PLEASE upgrade this site's defective software?
Hi, I'm very sorry there's a limit. This seemed the best platform to begin this blog until, perhaps, some funding is available for a more involved and dedicated website, which I'm looking into. I very much appreciate you taking the time to contribute and I apologise for the problem. Thanks again.
DeleteKindest,
Chris
my best friend at the time at a party we where just talking silly stuff and she got offended and she kicked me in the testiculs, didnt talk to her for weeks she apologised but never trusted her again.
ReplyDeleteMy tone will sound light hearted but that's because it didn't happen to me personally or to a friend. But I will now recount EVERY incident of domestic violence on my street in Florida. (It's an alley 200' long with 2 small apartment buildings.)
ReplyDeleteThe building I am in was built with inadequate walls. We have a nice cross ventilation and in moderate weather we leave the windows open.
The classic pattern for domestic violence is a woman with a sharp tongue, a man with more muscle than verbal skills who lashes out and then the woman can use passive aggression to lay a guilt trip on him. In the adjacent apartment had these happen.
I heard the neighbor couple argue from time to time but didn't hear much. One evening I heard a woman screaming. I went out and stood under their apartment because if she was screaming it was real violence and I would call the police. When I did I got depth perception on the noise and it was children running around screaming at a swimming pool in the neighborhood. I did hear the substance of the arguments they had. That, and subsequent nights when they were yelling in the bedroom and I could hear it through the wall.
He was going for his masters degree in psychology and would soon be in a high paying profession. She was a blue collar worker. She was putting him through graduate school. So he was verbal and emotionally skilled and she was physical. He knew how to cut and dig with words He would throw her words back at her, "The other night you said I'm your best friend!" Unable to match that she'd hit him.
Then I had another couple next door. Think of Lucy Lawless, the big actress whose real name is Lucille Ryan. The woman in this couple was of Irish descent and looked just like her. Probably came from the same village in Ireland as Lawless. Her guy was half a head smaller than her.
There were arguments. One night they woke me and I went into the bathroom (which has a thin wall) and listened to get the words since I couldn't avoid the loud voices. He would provoke her until she responded physically and threw him against the wall. Then he whined about it, "You pushed me! You pushed me!" using passive aggression until she started crying.
The next incident was not in a contiguous apartment and much of the detail was from the quiet neighbor who moved in. A woman moved into the apartment and she had a number of young friends. One day she was suddenly gone. She had a guy who was a boyfriend who thought he was the-one-and-only but she had affairs with other guys. He found out and argued with her. Then he left. Then he came back from the hospital with bandages on his face such that they must have been from knife slashes. He yelled at her apartment that he had called the police. When he left she packed as quickly as possible and went on the lam.
I have a shop in my garage under my apartment and I now have a land line phone connected to my phone above. That is useful in case I ever injure myself with a power tool because I can call an ambulance without walking upstairs dripping blood. But that was not the proximate incident that caused me to put it in. I was working in the shop one evening when an argument from a ground floor apartment across the street. All the raging was done by the woman who took wild swings at the man as he ducked away. Seeing me there he said, "Call the police." She retreated and he changed his mind and stepped over and calmly told me what happened. He had had a work crisis that meant 2 weeks of overtime rush. That was over and he had called her for a date where he would cook dinner for them. She accepted but during the dinner she accused him that the reason she hadn't heard from him for 2 weeks was that he was with another woman. No reassurance was good enough for her and she started yelling and assaulted him. He went back and spoke calmly to her and she started raging again and trying to hit him with roundhouse punches. Then she left.
I will admit I have slapped a bf in a restaurant once when I was 17. I can't remember why and I felt terrible for it. I wish someone could have told me off and showed some sort of disgust in what I did. If my bf slapped me he would have been removed from the restaurant.
ReplyDeleteThe Shrink4Men In His Own Words has many, many of these stories of domestic abuse by women: http://www.shrink4men.com/?s=in+his+own+words
ReplyDeleteMy former wife abused me emotionally for many years, very skilfully, sometimes from behind many layers, sometimes with stunning openness. I learned, after thinking I was going crazy, that she is a Narcissist. The depth of her skill and malintent was so foreign to me that it was, for a long time, unrecognisable.
ReplyDeleteShe hit me once - a full on punch to my upper arm. Despite my 6', 190 lb frame, it hurt like hell. She later told me it was my fault, I 'made her do it'.
Although the physical incident stands out in my memory, the only time in the 35 years of my adult life that I've been punched, the constant emotional abuse has had a profound impact on my life. It drove me into the twilight world towards self extinction. On the return journey, the knowledge, understanding and strength that I gained has stripped many veils from my world.
I've been working quietly, nudging and educating, equipping our sons and brothers for the challenges ahead and learning much from them in the process. So many are treading similar paths and becoming more forthright, vocal, strident.
Speak to the abuse you see - stop it right there, in the moment.