Photo illustration by Paulina Olivares, Advanced Technologies Academy

Guys are victims too
Domestic violence affects both genders

By Christine Jung, Advanced
Technologies Academy

Everyone knows that men are physically stronger and tougher than women, so there’s no way a guy can be a victim of an abusive relationship, right? Because of that very stereotype, however, abused men are not receiving the help that they need.

Let’s start with what domestic violence is. Domestic violence is the abuse of one’s partner or domestic spouse; it can come in three forms: physical, mental and/ or sexual. In America, more than three women and one man are murdered by their partners each day. Females are more common victims of domestic violence; they make up about 85 percent of victims of intimate partner violence. However, just because women are abused more often doesn’t mean that men aren’t affected as well.

The stereotype that men are bigger and stronger than women is preventing victimized men from getting the help they need. MenWeb.org, an online site for men to share their stories without revealing their identities, has many examples of how men are being abused by their spouses. In these different stories, though, a common pattern can be seen. The men, who are larger than their spouses, try to be “real men” and just take the beatings and insults from their partners. Then it gets to the point where the women are so overly aggressive that the men call the police for back up.

Instead of listening to the stories of the males, however, the government officials tend to automatically believe the tale that the females make up and the man ends up with a restraining order.

In one specific story, a man was advised by his lawyer to leave a “paper trail.” Every time his wife went on a drunken rampage he would call the police and get his side officially recorded so that he’d have proof in the system.

Men should not have to leave “paper trails” or put up with abusive spouses because the government officials side with the “fragile” women. The stereotyping of both men and women obscures people from seeing the true side of the story.

A father of a victimized man added on MenWeb, “Women do not have the right to use their relative smallness and weakness, and the fact that decent guys are brought up not to hit them under any circumstances, as an excuse to declare open season on the men they live with. No one deserves to be hit or to have their valuables destroyed.”

Another reason why men are not getting the help they need is because men being “pushed around” by their women is a comical idea in our society. On television shows and movies, scenes of enraged women throwing dishes and insults at their husbands evoke laughter from the audience. However, are these acts not examples of domestic violence? What if one such scene was reversed? Imagine a “big, strong man” throwing objects and swearing at his “petite, weak wife.” If the scene had been directed like that, it probably would have caused an uproar and immediate hatred toward the male character. The idea of a man being abused is amusing and humorous in the community, so men are not taken seriously.

The most our national government has done for abused men was reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. This act was reworded so that it applied to both genders. Men’s rights activists have been citing numerous statistics to show that women can be equally as aggressive as men.

However, even with this act, our society is still not doing enough for the abused men, and it seems that this act is the most that can be done nationally for abused men right now. Which is why we need action.

That’s where advocacy groups come in. Advocacy groups are groups of people working on behalf of or strongly supporting a particular cause. There are virtually no shelters, advocacy groups or programs for abused men to go to. Advocacy groups need to be created for men so they can have places to turn to when they are being abused. These advocacy groups could aid the men with shelter as well as counseling, since the mental state of some of these men might be unstable due to their mentallyabusive spouses. They would also need to get the word out that help does exist for abused men and that these men are not alone.

Society should not assume that all men will be okay because they are “stronger” than their spouses. Domestic violence in our society must be dealt with regardless of gender and stereotypes.

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