| Some battered women take objection to the idea of | | | | positioning in a relationship wherein one party |
| helping abused men as though this poses a conflict of | | | | establishes and maintains an unequal distribution of |
| professional commitments. However, I see it | | | | power within the relationship. |
| differently. | | | | Battered Men as Victims of Domestic Violence |
| In my own practice of helping battered women, I'm | | | | Men in abusive relationships are victimized just as |
| keenly aware that many of the male abusers that | | | | female abuse victims. They are verbally abused, |
| they are entangled with were raised by controlling | | | | emotionally abused and in some cases they are also |
| abusive mothers. | | | | physically abused. |
| My belief is that if we are to end domestic abuse, it | | | | The battering that they endure is the controlling |
| is our professional responsibility to address intimate | | | | female's effort to keep them in a subservient |
| partner violence in all of its forms, including that of | | | | position, one of being under her thumb. And the |
| female batterers as well as male batterers. | | | | brutality that they come to know carries emotional |
| Domestic Abuse Is a Human, Genderless Relationship | | | | scars just as it does for women abused by their |
| Condition | | | | male partners. |
| Abuse is fundamentally about control. Violence may | | | | These abused men experience all of the same |
| be a manifestation of domestic abuse, but domestic | | | | psychological consequences as battered women in |
| violence is fundamentally about control. | | | | abusive relationships. They lose contact with their |
| This control can take the form of dictating another | | | | own inner voice through the conditioning |
| person's decision-making, failing to factor in the rights | | | | characteristic of abusive relationships. |
| and liberties of the unempowered party and, more | | | | They harbor shame and guilt, loss of self-worthiness, |
| obviously, regulating multiple areas of a couples | | | | and psychological disassociation with their essential |
| mutual personal lives. | | | | core. |
| Women are as capable as men in assuming this | | | | They adapt to the implied rules of domination and |
| domineering/controlling role in a relationship. Even | | | | control within the relationship. And ultimately they |
| though traditionally one expects the controlling party | | | | grow to resent their enslavement and self-imposed |
| to be the physically larger person and the socially | | | | entrapment. |
| endorsed "man" of the house, women wear these | | | | If you are an abused man or know of a man |
| pants just as do men. | | | | victimized in an abusive relationship, seek to break |
| Domestic abuse is genderless. It's more about | | | | the cycle of abuse before it spirals out of control. |