Male victims: domestic violence is not about gender

IN introducing an item on domestic violence on the Late Late Show on 20 October, Pat Kenny began by stating that “as many men suffer physical abuse at the hands of their wives and partners as women.”

The remarkable thing about his introduction was not the statement, but the reaction to it. Virtually all emails to the show accepted the veracity of his statement and many expressed the view that men in such situations should receive the same level of support as women.

Had Pat Kenny made the same statement 10 years ago, it would probably have been met with denial, derision and indeed ridicule. That was the reaction that Amen encountered initially.

For those of us who have been working to raise awareness of this issue it is gratifying to know that it is now almost universally accepted that men and women are equally likely to be victims and perpetrators of domestic violence.

The old “men are the perpetrators; women are the victims” stereotype has finally been discredited.

While Amen can claim some credit for highlighting the reality of male victims, there is now irrefutable, evidence to support the position we have consistently held over the years.

In July 2005, the National Crime Council, in association with the Economic and Social Research Institute, published the first ever large-scale study undertaken to give an overview of the nature, extent and impact of domestic abuse against women and men in intimate partner relationships in Ireland. Among the notable findings in the study are:

*29% of women and 26% of men suffer abuse.

*13% of women and 13% of men suffer physical abuse.

*29% of women and only 5% of men report to the gardaí.

This study is regarded by the Government as the definitive piece of research on domestic violence.

Another study of patients attending their family doctors, published in September, found that 52% of men and 43% of women in this setting experienced domestic violence.

The author of the study, based at Trinity College Dublin, said it was “inappropriate to continue to address this issue as solely a woman’s problem”.

Even though most people now accept the well-established fact that men and women are almost equally likely to be victims of domestic abuse, there are still some so obstinate that they seek to perpetuate the discredited simplistic view that domestic violence consists only of violent men abusing women.

It is regrettable that those who have been allowed to dominate the discourse, and influence public policy, exclude the experiences of male victims and present partial statistics which ignore the findings relating to male victims.

To exclude the figures for one gender is misleading and dishonest.

Regrettably, some State institutions collude in this dishonest representation of the issue. For example, last December, Minister of State, Noel Ahern, launched a Code of Practice for use by projects within the Community Development Programme which purports to deal with domestic violence but ignores male victims.

Given that it has been clearly established the domestic violence is a social and family issue, which involves men and women abusing each other in almost equal numbers, it is time for the Government to change its approach to this problem.

Government agencies must openly reject the myth that domestic violence is a gender issue. It is a social and family issue, the causes of which are many and varied and cannot be explained by any simplistic, single theory. They should abandon policies and structures which deal only with violence against women and exclude male victims.

They must also ensure, as a priority, that the same level and quality of supports are available to male victims as are available to female victims.

At the beginning of the 21st century, when equality is deemed a worthy aspiration, it is time to reform sectional, partisan initiatives such as the National and Regional Steering Committees on Violence against Women to include male victims and their representatives.

Senator Sheila Terry in a recent Seanad debate commented: “I ask the Minister for Finance to look sympathetically on the organisations which deal with women and men experiencing domestic violence and that these organisations be funded sufficiently to deal with the problems.”

Other public representatives and social commentators should follow Ms Terry’s lead and should include male victims in their considerations of domestic abuse.

Mary Cleary, founder and coordinator of Amen