Conference quark::mennotes-v1

For me, talking about my abusive childhood is both frightening
and liberating.  It is wonderful therapy.  I don't feel safe
enough in this notes file to discuss particulars, but if admitting
that it happened helps any others find their own stories, I'm
glad.  It also helps me the more I'm willing to admit that
it happened.

I'd like to recommend a book for any man who was abused as a 
child.  It's called _Victims No Longer_ and it's written by Mike
Lew, it just came out in paperback ($14.95).  This book does not
throw lots of "self-help" ideas at you, it does not try to prove
that abuse of children or males exists, it simply talks compassionately
and with understanding to male survivors.  I love reading this book
(I'm about half way through it and I hate to finish it) and I
think most people who were abused would like it too.

A few side notes: 

It is very common for people who were abused to question if their
experiences were really abuse.  A good trick to use is to imagine
what was done to you being done to a child you know and love now.
If you get upset at the idea of the experience being repeated for
this child, then it was probably abusive, even if you can't see
it as such in you're own case.  If you feel abused, it's worth
it to try to heal.

Above I specify "...for any man who was abused...".  This book
is written specifically for *men* who were abused as children.  It
is really the *only* book for men that is available.

There are many books for women (one highly recommended book for
women is called _The Courage to Heal_).  I believe female survivors 
could read _Victims No Longer_ and gain much of what I have gained.
But the book is geered specifically for men.  This is one case
when the reader is told outright that the sex of the pronouns
is consciously choosen to be male when discussing the victim.
When discussing the vicimizer or other people in the victim's
life, the author switches between male and female pronouns.

Geering the book specifically for men allows Mike Lew to address 
some needs that many men may identify with (given the cultural 
differences in raising men and women).  I also think this book 
would be excellent for men or women who are trying to understand
someone they love who was abused as a child.

Finally, for any victim (male or female) reading this note, you 
are not alone!  The victimizer lied to you and treated you wrongly!  
You deserve the best in life and there are others who will try to 
help you.  But you must start the ball rolling yourself, you have
to realize that you are no longer helpless.  You CAN recover and
it IS worth it!

Good luck!

Kerry

    The following note has been contributed by a member of our community
    who wishes to remain anonymous.  If you wish to contact the author by
    mail, please send your message to QUARK::MODERATOR, specifying the
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    your name attached  unless you request otherwise.

				Steve






This note is in response to the discussion about women committing domestic
violence.

I grew up in a house with an alcoholic mother and a largely absent father.
I attribute my father's absence to the fact that he was heavily imbued
with the notion that he should work very hard to provide a strong financial
base for his family. Although he was quite gentle he could be quite stern.

My mother was quite abusive to me and my sister. Once when she was quite
drunk she thought that I was going to hurt my sister and beat my face
repeatedly until it bled. Why questioned about my appearance the next day
in school I lied to protect her.

I regularly received such punishment. When my sister learned that she
could manipulate my mother by lying to her about what I did the frequency
of such punishments increased.

At one point I had had enough. As my mother's arm was raised to
hit me I reached out and grabbed her wrist. Since I was much stronger than
my mother I was able to easily force her arm down to her side. I then let
go of her arm. At this point there was intense fear in her eyes. I felt a
certain sense of pride in being able to avoid more physical torture.
This pride was very short lived. The following night I received a very stern
lecture from my father that I was to never, NEVER under any circumstance to
ever "hit my mother again". My mother's alcoholic unclear perception was
that I was the perpetrator.

As painful as these incidents are, and as angry as I was at my sister for
lying to my mother, watching my sister being beaten was far more painful
that receiving such treatment myself. One incident will go with me to the
grave. My mother regularly used a one inch by three inch pine wood plank to
"spank" (such a wonderful euphemism for hit) us. One night at the dinner
table her rage was tempestuous. She lashed out at my sister with such furry
that my sister ran in terror and started going upstairs to her bedroom. My
mother was running after her and hitting her so hard that when the plank
deflected from her buttocks and hit the stair it shattered.

All of this is overshadowed by the final chapter. Seven years ago my
mother had a very long affair with another man. She decided to divorce my
father. I psychically knew what she was doing and confronted her with it.
She lied and denied my assertion. Three days after the divorce with my
father was final, she called me up and begged me to attend her wedding with
her new partner. It was quite a scene.

My mother crushed my father financially, morally, and emotionally. The
largest loss that my father suffered was the loss of my other sister (much
younger than me or the first sister). He was awarded visitation rights but
had to travel 600 miles to do so. Roughly 50 percent of the time that she
was supposed to spend with him during summer vacations, etc. never
materialized due to various "problems" of my mother's which had to have
higher priority. He became very depressed and started drinking a lot. His
depression worsened and became (to use the clinical phrasing) psychotically
depressed. He committed suicide three years ago.

I hope that this note helps to dispel three myths:

    1) Women are not aggressive, manipulative, or intensely violent

    2) Women are at less risk than men due to their (in general)
    smaller physical size

    3) Emotional abuse is disregardable

In closing:

To this day my mother is still very manipulative of me. As has been
mentioned elsewhere in this forum, there is a certain hold that she has on
me. I feel ripped in half emotionally due to the combination of this and
the basic natural love that one feels for a parent. When she divorced the
man that she married after my father, she called me up on the phone begging
(this is a literal quote) "I cannot take your hatred any more. Please send
me $5000 to divorce XXX". Because I could afford to, and because I knew
that XXX was an anus face I did so.

To this day my mother has never apologized for anything that she has done
to me. This is in spite of the fact that she has been in AA for many years
(making amends is part of their program) and has since earned a degree in
drug and alcohol counseling. When confronted with some of her behaviors
she claims "I do not remember doing those things". But no apology. 

I guess in closing I would like to say that I get really fed up hearing how
men are responsible for all of the problems that women suffer. After what I
have experienced in my family and other relationships I feel that it is
an equal load to be shared by all.

Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 03:25:05 GMT
Lines: 360
 
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 92 12:28:42 -0700
From: [email protected] (Dave Gross)
To: [email protected]
Subject: The battered men article you requested
 
 
    "Even if the statistics collected in the last several years are
    completely wrong and only one in 14 victims of spousal abuse are
    men, these are men who are hurting and need services that are
    currently not available."
 
		   Husband Battering by Dave Gross
 
    "When the subject of battered husbands was raised on British
    television and the London Times did an article on the subject,
    hundreds of calls came in from male victims to a special helpline
    set up by a Women's Aid group (Rooke 1991)."
 
    "Husband abuse should not be viewed as merely the opposite side of
    the coin to wife abuse.  Both are part of the same problem, which
    should be described as one _person_ abusing another _person_.  The
    problem must be faced and dealt with not in terms of sex but in
    terms of humanity" (Langley & Levy 1977, p. 208).
 
    =============================================================
    H u s b a n d   B a t t e r i n g   b y   D a v e   G r o s s
    =============================================================
 
      The first reaction upon hearing about the topic of battered men,
 for many people, is that of incredulity.  Battered husbands are a
 topic for jokes (such as the cartoon image of a woman chasing her
 husband with a rolling-pin).  One researcher noted that wives were
 the perpetrators in 73% of the depictions of domestic violence in
 newspaper comics (Saenger 1963).
 
      Battered husbands have historically been either ignored or
 subjected to ridicule and abuse.  In 18th-century France, a battered
 husband "was made to wear an outlandish outfit and ride backwards
 around the village on a donkey" (Steinmetz & Lucca 1988).
 
      Even those of us who like to consider ourselves liberated and
 open-minded often have a difficult time even imagining that husband
 battering could take place.  Although feminism has opened many of our
 eyes about the existance of domestic violence, and newspaper reports
 often include incidents of abuse of wives, the abuse of husbands is a
 rarely discussed phenomenon.
 
      One reason researchers and others had not chosen to investigate
 husband battering is because it was thought to be a fairly rare
 occurrence.  Police reports seemed to bear this out (Steinmetz 1977),
 with in some cases a ratio of 12 to 14.5 female victims to every one
 male victim.
 
      But another reason is that because women were seen as weaker and
 more helpless than men due to sex roles, and men on the other hand
 were seen as more sturdy and self-reliant, the study of abused
 husbands seemed relatively unimportant.
 
      In 1974, a study was done which compared male and female
 domestic violence.  In that study, it was found that 47% of husbands
 had used physical violence on their wives, and 33% of wives had used
 violence on their husbands (Gelles 1974).  Half of the respondents in
 this study were selected from either cases of domestic violence
 reported to the police, or those identified by the social service
 agency.
 
      Also in 1974, a study was released showing that the number of
 murders of women by men (17.5% of total homicides) was about the same
 as the number of murders of men by women (16.4% of total homicides).
 This study (Curtis 1974), however, showed that men were three times
 as likely to assault women as vice-versa.  These statistics came from
 police records.
 
      [The murder statistic was no big news, by the way.  In 1958, an
 investigation of spousal homicide between 1948 and 1952 found that
 7.8% of murder victims were husbands murdered by wives, and 8% were
 wives murdered by husbands (Wolfgang 1958).  More recently, in a
 study of spousal homicide in the period from 1976 to 1985, it was
 found that there was an overall ratio of 1.3:1.0 of murdered wives to
 murdered husbands, and that "Black husbands were at greater risk of
 spouse homicide victimization than Black wives or White spouses of
 either sex" (Mercy & Saltzman 1989)]
 
      The subject of husband-battering had finally been addressed, but
 not to the great satisfaction of anyone.  Although it had finally
 been shown that there was violence being perpetrated both by wives
 and husbands, there was no information about relative frequency or
 severity, or who initiated the abuse and who was acting in self
 defense.  Furthermore, some researchers became concerned that the use
 of police or social services references in choosing subjects to study
 might be biasing the results.  In short, they recognized that
 battered husbands might be nearly invisible next to their female
 counterparts.
 
      In 1976, for instance, in a critique of the Curtis report (which
 found women less likely to assault, but as likely to murder, as men),
 Wilt & Bannon wrote that "nonfatal violence committed by women
 against men is less likely to be reported to the police than is
 violence by men against women; thus, women assaulters who come to the
 attention of the police are likely to be those who have produced a
 fatal result."
 
      In 1977, Suzanne Steinmetz released results from several studies
 showing that the percentage of wives who have used physical violence
 is higher than the percentage of husbands, and that the wives'
 average violence score tended to be higher, although men were
 somewhat more likely to cause greater injury.  She also found that
 women were as likely as men to initiate physical violence, and that
 they had similar motives for their violent acts (Steinmetz 1977-78).
 
      Steinmetz concluded that "the most unreported crime is not wife
 beating -- it's husband beating" (Langley & Levy 1977).
 
      In 1979, a telephone survey was conducted in which subjects were
 asked about their experiences of domestic violence (Nisonoff & Bitman
 1979).  15.5% of the men and 11.3% of the women reported having hit
 their spouse; 18.6% of the men and 12.7% of the women reported having
 been hit by their spouse.
 
      In 1980, a team of researchers, including Steinmetz, attempted
 to address some concerns about the earlier surveys (Straus, Gelles &
 Steinmetz, 1980).  They created a nationally representative study of
 family violence and found that the total violence scores seemed to be
 about even between husbands and wives, and that wives tended to be
 more abusive in almost all categories except pushing and shoving.
 
      Strauss & Gelles did a followup survey in 1985, comparing their
 data to a 1975 survey (Strauss & Gelles 1986).  They found that in
 that decade, domestic violence against women dropped from 12.1% of
 women to 11.3% while domestic violence against men rose from 11.6% to
 12.1%.  The rate of severely violent incidents dropped for both
 groups: From 3.8% to 3.0% of women victimized and from 4.6% to 4.4%
 for men.
 
      In 1986, a report appeared in Social Work, the journal of the
 National Association of Social Workers (Nov./Dec. 1986) on violence
 in adolescent dating relationships, in which it was found that girls
 were violent more frequently than boys.
 
      Another report on premarital violence (O'Leary, et al) found
 that 34% of the males and 40% of the females reported engaging in
 some form of physical aggression against their mates in a year.  17%
 of women and 7% of men reported engaging in severe physical
 aggression.  35% of the men and 30% of the women reported having been
 abused.
 
      Also in 1986, Marriage and Divorce Today, a newsletter for
 family therapy practitioners, reported on a study done by Pillemer
 and Finkelhor of the Family Violence Research Laboratory of the
 University of New Hampshire.  The study, based on interviews of over
 2000 elderly persons in the Boston metropolitan area, found that 3.2%
 of the elderly had been abused.  52% of the abuse victims were men.
 
      The idea of women being violent is a hard thing for many people
 to believe.  It goes against the stereotype of the passive and
 helpless female.  This, in spite of the fact that women are known to
 be more likely than men to commit child abuse and child murder (Daly
 & Wilson 1988 report 54% of parent-child murders where the child is
 under 17 were committed by the mother in Canada between 1974 and
 1983, for instance.  The Statistical Abstract of the United States
 1987 reports that of reported child maltreatment cases between 1980
 and 1984 between 57.0% and 61.4% of these were perpetrated by the
 mother.  Nagi 1977 found 53.1% of perpetrators were female, 21% male
 and 22.6% both.  Note that because mothers tend to have more access
 to children than do fathers that these results should not be
 interpreted to mean that were things equal, women would still commit
 more abuse).
 
      In addition, a study in a doctoral dissertation by psychologist
 Vallerie Coleman of 90 lesbian couples, showed that 46% had
 experienced repeated violent incidents (Garcia, 1991).
 
      Results like these are greeted with great suspicion by those who
 see domestic violence as a political issue to be exploited rather
 than a social problem to be solved.
 
      Coramae Mann, a criminologist at Indiana University, studied the
 case records of all murders committed by women between 1979 and 1983
 in six major U.S. cities.  Her findings contradicted commonly-held
 ideas about women who murder, and she was criticized by some people
 for this.
 
      "They would raise the question, 'Well you have these poor
 battered women.'  I said these weren't poor battered women.  Many
 already had violent criminal records.  They weren't weak or
 dependent.  They were angry."
 
      Strauss & Gelles commented in their 1986 report that "violence
 by wives has not been an object of public concern...  In fact, our
 1975 study was criticized for presenting statistics on violence by
 wives."
 
      Yet domestic violence is an issue framed in the media and in the
 political arena as one of male perpetrators and female victims.
 Violence in gay and lesbian relationships is rarely discussed, and
 violence against men in heterosexual relationships less so.
 
      When it is addressed, there is a response.  When I became the
 caretaker of a memorial fund for a male victim of domestic violence,
 I unexpectedly took on the role of counselor for men calling from all
 over the country to talk to me at length about their or their
 father's victimization.  When the subject of battered husbands was
 raised on British television and the London Times did an article on
 the subject, hundreds of calls came in from male victims to a special
 helpline set up by a Women's Aid group (Rooke 1991).
 
      The terms "wife beating" and "battered women" have become
 political expressions, rather than descriptions of reality.  And
 because the issue of domestic violence has been substantially taken
 out of the arena of serious sociological study, and thrust into the
 political arena, the definitions of spousal abuse, and the proposed
 remedies to spousal abuse, will be political ones -- not necessarily
 ones which reflect the reality of the existing problems.
 
      In a book on domestic violence, Roger Langley and Richard C.
 Levy conclude a chapter on battered husbands by saying, "Husband
 abuse should not be viewed as merely the opposite side of the coin to
 wife abuse.  Both are part of the same problem, which should be
 described as one _person_ abusing another _person_.  The problem must
 be faced and dealt with not in terms of sex but in terms of humanity"
 (Langley & Levy 1977, p. 208).  Ironically the book in which this
 quote appears is entitled "Wife Beating: The Silent Crisis."
 
      Legislation about domestic violence is always orientated toward
 the female victim.  For instance, in 1991, Senator Joseph Biden again
 introduced the "Violence Against Women Act" which at this writing has
 passed the senate Judiciary Committee.  It has a section called "Safe
 homes for Women" which specifically allocates funds to "women's"
 shelters (Biden 1991, also see Boxer 1990).
 
      Also note actions like that of Ohio governor Richard F. Celeste
 who granted clemency to 25 women who were in prison for murdering
 their husbands.  The reason he gave for this was the "Battered Woman
 Syndrome" which, obviously, no man can claim as his defense
 (Wilkerson 1990).  There is very little concern shown either for the
 idea of making spousal abuse a capital crime with the victim as
 extra-judicial executioner, nor for the idea that perhaps some of the
 men who murder their spouses might be suffering from an analogous
 "Battered Man Syndrome."
 
      There is only one case I am aware of in which a man was able to
 use a similar defense.  Warren Farrell writes about it in his book
 _Why Men Are the Way They Are_ (Farrell 1986, p. 231):
 
         Betty King had beaten, slashed, stabbed, thrown dry acid on,
         and shot her husband.  Eddie King had not sought prosecution
         when she slashed his face with a carpet knife, nor when she
         left him in a parking lot with a blade in his back.  Neither
         of these incidents even made the police records as
         statistics.  She was only arrested twice -- when she stabbed
         him so severely in the back and so publicly (in a bar) that
         the incidents had to be reported.
 
         All these stabbings, shootings, and acid-throwings happened
         during a four-year marriage.  During a subsequent shouting
         match on the porch of a friend's house, Betty King once again
         reached into her purse.  This time Eddie King shot her.  When
         an investigation led to a verdict of self-defense, there was
         an outcry of opposition from feminists and the media.
 
      Farrell compares this case, in which "a two-second delay could
 have meant his death," to that of the celebrated case made into the
 television movie The Burning Bed in which the protagonist murdered
 her husband while he slept.
 
      In conclusion, I think that the available data show that husband
 battering is a serious problem, comparable to the problem of wife
 battering.  Even if the statistics collected in the last several
 years are completely wrong and only one in 14 victims of spousal
 abuse are men, these are men who are hurting and need services that
 are currently not available.
 
      There is such a strong stigma against being a battered man,
 carried over from mideval times when the battered man was considered
 the guilty party, that special attention should be paid to reaching
 out to these victims.  Simply opening up "Women's Shelters" to men is
 not enough.
 
 
 
                                  References
 
        Biden, Joseph "Violence Against Women Act of 1990" (S. 15) 1991.
 
        Boxer, Barbara "A Bill to combat violence and crimes against women
    on the streets and in homes" (H.R. 5468) 101st Congress, 2nd Session,
    August 3, 1990
 
        Curtis, L.A. Criminal violence:  National patterns and behavior
    Lexington Books, Lexington MA, 1974
 
        Daly, M. & Wilson, M. "Parent-Offspring Homicides in Canada,
    1974-1983" Science v. 242, pp. 519-524, 1988
 
        Farrell, Warren Why Men Are the Way They Are McGraw-Hill, New York,
    1986, p. 231
 
        Garcia, Jane "The Cost of Escaping Domestic Violence" Los Angeles
    Times May 6, 1991
 
        Gelles, R.J. The violent home:  A study of physical aggression
    between husbands and wives Sage, Beverly Hills CA, 1974
 
	Langley, Roger & Levy, Richard C. _Wife Beating:  The Silent Crisis_
    Pocket Books, New York 1977
 
        Marriage and Divorce Today "First Large-Scale Study Reveals Elder
    Abuse is Primarily by Wives Against Husbands" December 15, 1986
 
	Mercy, J.A. & Saltzman, L.E. "Fatal violence among spouses in the
    United States, 1976-85" American Journal of Public Health 79(5):
    595-9 May 1989
 
        Nagi, Saad Child Maltreatment in the United States Columbia
    University Press, New York, p. 47, 1977
 
        Nisonoff, L. & Bitman, I "Spouse Abuse:  Incidence and Relationship
    to Selected Demographic Variables" Victimology 4, 1979, pp. 131-140
 
        O'Leary, K. Daniel; Arias, Ilena; Rosenbaum, Alan & Barling, Julian
    "Premarital Physical Aggression" State University of New York at Stony
    Brook & Syracuse University
 
	Rooke, Margaret "Violence in the Home" RadioTimes 16-22 March 1991
    p. 8.
 
        Saenger, G. "Male and female relation in the American comic strips"
    in The funnies:  An American idiom M. White & R.H. Abel editors, The
    Free Press, Glencoe IL, 1963, p. 219-223
 
        Sexuality Today Newsletter "Violence in Adolescent Dating
    Relationships Common, New Survey Reveals" December 22, 1986 (reporting
    on a report in Social Work  contact Karen Brockopp) pp 2-3.
 
        Statistical Abstract of the United States 1987 table 277
 
        Steinmetz, Suzanne K. The cycle of violence:  Assertive, aggressive
    and abusive family interaction Praeger Press, New York, 1977
 
        Steinmetz, Suzanne K. "The Battered Husband Syndrome" Victimology
    2, 1977-1978, p. 499
 
        Steinmetz, Suzanne K. and Lucca, Joseph S. "Husband Battering" in
    Handbook of Family Violence Van Hasselt, Vincent B. et al. editors,
    Plenum Press, New York 1988, p. 233-246
 
        Strauss, M.A., Gelles, R.J., and Steinmetz, S.K. Behind closed
    doors:  Violence in American families Doubleday, New York, 1980
 
        Strauss, M.A. & Gelles, R.J. "Societal change and change in family
    violence from 1975 to 1985 as revealed by two national surveys" Journal
    of Marriage and the Family 48, po. 465-479, 1986
 
        Wilkerson, Isabel "Clemency Granted to 25 Women Convicted for
    Assault or Murder" New York Times December 21, 1990
 
        Wilt, G.M. & Bannon, J.D. Violence and the police:  Homicides,
    assaults and disturbances The Police Foundation, Washington DC, 1976
 
        Wolfgang, M. Patterns in Criminal Homicide Wiley, New York, 1958