An abused spouse is arrested when police arrive on the scene. Another abused spouse sees charges dropped against the abuser because of “insufficient evidence,” even though the abuser admitted guilt to cops and the court. These situations are real, but the victims of these abusive relationships weren’t women—they were men, men who now have a support group created by a therapist trying to expand the discussion about what constitutes domestic violence and who its victims are.
“Abuse is not gender-specific,” says therapist Hilary Madsen, who runs the Real Relationships support group from her Sugar House office. “It has to do with one person trying to have power and control over another person.” Madsen says that, clinically speaking, abuse doesn’t only entail punching and hitting but also includes verbal abuse, “emotional terrorism” or one parent using children against the other. Given these factors, Madsen says, men are abused as often as women—and often without the same support from friends, family or even the law.
Since June, Madsen’s support group has provided men who have faced abuse with an outlet to share their experiences, review current research and literature on domestic violence and helped them learn ways to avoid the cycle of abuse so they can have healthier relationships.
Allen Malstrom felt almost as much abuse from the legal system as he did from his wife. On numerous occasions, Malstrom says, his wife struck him and then immediately called the police. Despite the fact that Malstrom was bleeding and injured by the time the police showed up and despite his wife having no injuries, he was arrested every time as the perpetrator.
“It was terrible,” Malstrom says. “Not only did I have to deal with this domestic situation and getting hit, but then going to jail for it.” Eventually, Malstrom decided to take out a protective-custody order against her. At the hearing, the judge reversed the order and gave his wife a protective order against him. In the ruling, the judge cited that he “was obviously bigger than her.”
Shortly after that court ruling, Malstrom lost custody of his children. The last time he saw them was 10 years ago, when they were taken out of the courtroom, kicking and screaming. “It’s been hard to bear. It’s a cross I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
Madsen says that current domestic-violence laws nationally—while hard-fought accomplishments of the women’s movement—have also unfortunately reinforced the notion that men are only abusers and never the abused. This, she believes, is based on the Duluth model of domestic-violence treatment, which contends that domestic violence is caused by male privilege. Madsen, however, points to research conclusions made by California State University professor Martin Fiebert, who surveyed research arguing that women initiate domestic violence as much as men do, oftentimes using weapons to compensate for their smaller size, and with 38 percent of injured victims being men.
Other studies, however, indicate women initiated intimate-partner violence in self-defense. A study in the 2010 treatment journal Trauma Violence Abuse studied 23 surveys of female domestic violence and found in all surveys, women cited self-defense as motivation for their violence, although the authors of the study also pointed out that retaliation and self-defense were often conflated in surveys and that two-thirds of surveyed women did cite coercive control as a motivating factor for their violence.
For Alissa Black, a crime-victims advocate with the Murray Police Department, male privilege still causes domestic violence—just not for men. “If they’re trying to be gender neutral and take out the paradigm of male privilege, that’s good for [male victims’] situation,” Black says. “But it doesn’t work for female victims of domestic violence, where male privilege [causes abuse] on a daily basis.” Black also says that there are as many resources—including victim restitution and access to shelters, for example—for male victims of domestic violence as there are for female victims. Whether or not male victims are ready to seek help is another issue. Madsen says many male victims meet resistance—not just with the legal system but also with family and friends when it comes to seeking help.
“There’s a lot of compassion for women and children in these situations,” Madsen says. “For men, there’s not compassion. If anything, there’s mockery.”
“Brandon,” a member of the group who asked that his name be withheld, succeeded in at least getting a charge of domestic violence to stick against his then live-in girlfriend, but it cost him a close friendship in the process.
“This girlfriend living with me earlier this year was abusing alcohol and painkillers, and she would get violent,” Brandon says. “She was verbally abusive, too, swearing at me and calling me all sorts of names; she accused me of being with other women, smacked me … she also bit me on several occasions.” Brandon says the final encounter happened when he was taking his girlfriend home from a concert and refused to let her drive because she’d had too much to drink. As they struggled over the keys, Brandon says, he was struck repeatedly and his girlfriend leaned over from the passenger seat and bit him on the back, hard enough to break skin.
“It was really crazy,” Brandon says, adding that she bit him several other times at his apartment, but the difference here was that a nearby paramedic witnessed the attack and could vouch that Brandon was the victim of the attack. While the charge stuck, he still had to take the protective order himself down to the jail to serve it on his girlfriend. A mutual friend of Brandon’s and his girlfriend told Brandon that his ex was sorry about the assault and they should just reconcile, calling Brandon’s protective order “chicken shit.”
“Terry,” another member of the group who asked that his real name not be used because he still has pending legal actions in his case, took out a protective order against his wife in July, hoping to gain court-ordered therapy for her in order to save their marriage. Terry says she had often verbally abused him in front of their 4-year-old daughter, struck him on multiple occasions and once threw a plate against his face, an injury resulting in a scar above his lip.
Instead of the court ordering anger management, the court “supported” the couple’s existing marriage counseling, with the only change being that he had lost his parenting rights. While his wife had admitted to abusing him to the police as well as in court, Terry was told by local prosecutors that there was insufficient evidence to charge domestic violence.
Without a set schedule, Terry only sees his daughter a few hours a week.
“When I go to pick up my daughter at her grandparents place, my daughter tells me, ‘You can come inside, Daddy. I’ll make sure Mommy doesn’t yell at you or hurt you,’ ” Terry says.
For Madsen, it’s hard not to notice the disparities in the treatment. In many situations, she says, court-ordered domestic--violence treatment for men is automatic and under no circumstance would a court simply shrug its shoulders and say two admissions of guilt are “insufficient” evidence of domestic violence if it happened to a woman.
“People get it when you switch gender roles,” Madsen says. “People pick up that it’s not a gender issue—it’s abuse.”
For more information about the Real Relationship support group contact Hilary Madsen, 801-696-3166, or e-mail hilary.madsen@gmail.com
"Terry" continues to thank everyone for your support, wih a viritual hug or handshake as appropriate. IT seems like with Valentine's Day coming up, we should place a special emphasis on this situation.
Hilary,
We at the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Mean and Women are pleased to hear of your new support group for male victims of IPV. Thank you.
October was Domestic Violence Awareness Month and throughout the month domestic violence advocates and the media's attention was focused on bringing more awareness to and promoting the eradication of men's violence against women.
However, not all intimate partner violence (IPV) fits into this neat little package.
IPV against men has always been a hot button issue. The mere mention of male victims in a gathering of traditional domesti violence advocates creates great controversy. While domestic violence advocates may know men are victims they insist that their victims service agencies (over 2,000 of them in the US) should focus exclusively on ending violence against women by men because women are the most injured and prevalent victims. As a result, serious
outreach and services for the male victims of IPV
are sorely lacking.
Studies indicate that men are victims of assault by their partners in 25% of the reported cases in the U.S. each year. The disparity between the needs of those victims and the services available is large. The gap must be closed and that can only be done through education, services and
advocacy.
While resources for men are still scarce, awareness is increasing and hopefully
more services will follow. IPV is not a gender issue, it is simply a human issue.
Visit us at dahmw.org for further information or call 1-888-7HELPLINE (1-888-743-5754)
We are adding Madsen's group to our Resource List and are wish her and her group members the best.
When I began to read this article, I felt that this issue was kind of stupid. I mean usually, men are far stronger than women and usually they are able to overpower them irregardless of who initiates contact. While reading this article I realized, that although this may be true, that does not neccessarily mean that the man wants to behave in that manner.
Most men are able to recognize that courts are biased and they usually get the shaft when the police arrive. Seeing it over and over again. I get the feeling that the man Brandon in this article is one such person. As a result many men avoid seeking help alltogether. In fact I sincerely believe most men want to avoid conflicts in relationships as often as possible.
As I began to read further into it however, I realized that like women who have been abused, the men find it difficult to start or follow through with the steps neccessary to protect them self. The problem is even greater for men and the lack of available resources to help them follow through.
It isn't a gender specific problem, not being able to find the resources to get yourself out of an abusive situation, it is a problem most victims of abuse struggle with all the way around male or female. However there are more available resources to assist women. When children are involved this only escalates the problem by creating a forced attachment of communication between the victim and the abuser. Some victims struggle to follow through for fear of reprecussion with regard to their relationship and visitation with their children. It is truly sad.
I have been to court on several occassions and watched personally as protective order after protective order entered the court in both Utah and Juab Counties. Surely, the amount of protective orders being sought by women outweighed the ones sought by men. However, in comparing the two different court programs within those specific counties I found a discrepancey. Utah county courts almost always sided with the women, even when both parties agreed there was either mutal abuse between them or abuse patterns more prevalant by the actual protective order seeker. In nearly every case the woman was granted the protective order in Utah County irregardless of the situation.
In Juab County however, I noticed a great variance. The court system was way less bias toward men. In many of the cases, where women or men were abused at the same time and the woman or man were the ones actually seeking the order of protection, the judge was fair, and issued protective orders against both or the woman depending on the situation. In many of the cases, they were referred to the local mental health for therapy, both the victim and the abuser.
While living in Juab County I had the unfortunate experience of being in an unhealthy relationship that escalated to violence and the police being called on more than one occassion. An interesting thing happened though, after the third time of the police being called to our home one of the officers got pissed and said he was sick of coming out here. He told me he could see it was just going to escalate and end up with someone getting hurt or dead in this situation. Told me I had a problem that I needed help getting out of and he was going to force me to make it end. He charged us both with domestic violence in front of children and then went to the county attorney and requested an order of protection against us both from having contact with each other. His justification for this was that I was not protecting my own children by allowing an abusive person to continue to be around my children, even though it was the man that was initiating and abusing. I was allowing it to happen because I really didn't want to deal with taking action to make my life better. Why who knows..but it worked. It also should be a mandatory requirement in domestic violence cases that both get charged and get the help they need. If they both get the help potentially the charges can be dropped as happened with me.
This does have to begin with the police department taking this specific action as happened in my case though and forwarding and following through with the county attorney and courts to see that something is done as in my particular case. Most departments don't feel they have the resources or time to deal with "family matters" when there are more important crimes to pursue. Which is ironic considering that most ongoing domestic violence cases end up being the next capitol crime they investigate or the next felony charge they investigate.
This was a wake up call for me personally and I was forced to make some changes in my life to protect myself, my children and also my ex from having a potentially more dangerous situation occur. I was pissed off at first at the officer for doing this. It took a few months of going to court and also the counseling that was ordered for me to realize that he had forced me to do the right thing.
To this day I am grateful that Juab County Sheriff Department and the Juab County Attorney took the matter into their own hands and forced me to take a step back and look from the outside in at my unhealthy behavior and relationship and forced me to make a change for the better in my life.
It is sad that other courts and police officers, just don't feel there is enough resources and time to bother doing this same thing. It also has a lot to do with the stigmas that are placed on both victims and abusers irregardless of whether they are male or female. I do believe that more men would step forward if they knew for sure that there would be equality and fairness handed down from the system which is really there to help all victims male or female.
There should be a domestic violence mediator in place in all courtrooms to address this need to create a fair evaluation of both parties and submitt a fair unbiased recommendation to the court for every protective order that passes through the door.
Police shoud be more intuitive and action taking on the first or second call. Like the officer that helped me and be able to recognize and sympathize with helping male or female victims of abuse even if it means forcing them like in my case.
Each department should have a set group of investigators to address this growing need and evaluate with an open mind every domestic case and charge that they come across and take the action necessary to prevent abuse from happening in the future whether or not, it is male or female that placed that call.
This is "Terry" from the article. Thank you for all your support. The battle continues - my protective order is not enough to get contempt of court Re:Parent Time filed against my spouse. I'm getting legal counsel, but I may have to file for legal separation JUST to get parent time established in writing! In the meantime, this continues to be emotional and psychological abuse to both me and my daughter (who also happens to be on the protective order with me.) I have my issues, my spouse hers, but our daughter shouldn't be in the middle of all this.
Thank you, CW & Eric Peterson. This is a real issue that needs real solutions.
Agree with Tom M's comments, completely.
Would also like to add that it's time for women to stop playing the victim card while attributing it to gender.