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Abstract
Being a man as thought of in the context of our social construct has many
requirements. Men are required to be strong, smart, protectors, and providers. These
stereotypes that we have placed on men make it difficult for us to view males as victims.
Victims are considered to be weak, those who cant defend themselves, we leave the term
victim for women, the elderly or children. By boxing up genders into specific personality
traits and doing the same to terms like victim we neglect anyone who doesnt fit perfectly
into the parameters of what is a victim, and if a male being a victim doesnt fit into our
parameters of what a man is supposed to be then he must not really be a victim. This causes a
rift with male victims causing them to choose their masculinity or their victimization, our
specifications of the term not allowing them to be both victim and man.
In this paper I will address the way in which male victims of domestic abuse are
viewed by society in terms of victim blaming. I will also address how men react to
victimizations such as domestic abuse. I will examine how the categorization of violence as a
male act has caused male victims to be ignored. Lastly I will address victim services set up
specifically for male victims. This paper will show how the genderization of victimology
although in some cases has succeeded in helping victims, it has also caused disregard and a
generally acceptable ignorance of male victims of domestic violence.
would imply that dominance has nothing to do with the pervasiveness of violence amongst
couples. In fact most couples that report violence in the home admit that the violence is
mutual in nature.
The actuality of the circumstances of intimate partner violence is that the most of the
recently conducted studies have shown that men not only experience domestic abuse in the
same numbers as women but they also deal with their victimization similarly. (Stanko &
Hobdell 1993). Despite the large amount of men victimized by domestic violence the studies
and papers written on the topic are still inclined to focus on women, and their often sensitive
responses to such violence. We tend to ignore the anger men are prone to feel in result of
victimization because as the largely considered stronger gender we view them as better
capable of dealing with the trauma that is physical violence.
The focus on women as the victims of domestic violence may also be hindering our
ability to properly study the victimization of men. The lack of information on male victims in
this regard may be due to the fact that researchers have been focused on the female victims
of domestic abuse ever since the topic became more widely accepted.(McNeely & RobinsonSimpson, 1987) We have spent decades embracing domestic violence as a womans problem
and now possibly the lack of information on male victimization of this sort has more to do
with the fact that we are not looking for information, or we are not using the right methods to
get information because this field has been so woman centric for so long. We are now faced
with the information that men are fairly regularly victimized in this particular way but we are
largely left without information on how this victimization effects them. (Shepherd, 1990)
Male victims of domestic abuse have become such an under recognized aspect of
victimology that studies focused on the adverse mental and physical effects of inter-partner
violence all but exclude them entirely. Males, although occasionally respondents in studies
about inter-partner violence are rarely the most prominently studied or assisted subset of
victim. Published treatments and referral recommendations specific to men are all but nonexistent. (Coker, Davis, Arias, Desai, Sanderson, Brandt & Smith, 2002) Two explanations
for the lack of research done regarding male victims of domestic violence exist. Firstly men
do not require specific treatment but would rather respond well to the standard victim
services that we currently have in place, in this case womens services are unnecessary and
could simply be relabeled and functioned into simply being victims services. Another option
is that we have once again confronted a huge aspect of victimology that suffers due to the
neglect of male victims. There for the most part is a complete lack of publication on male
specific needs when dealing with the victims of domestic violence, signaling either a lack of
findings or more likely a lack of research altogether.
The trend of domestic abuse against woman has very much followed that of all other
crime rates, it has decreased significantly. Domestic abuse perpetrated against men in
contrast has increased. An increase in under reporting by woman caused by the endorsement
of awareness regarding the issues that women are facing in regards to domestic abuse could
be one reason we have seen a significant decrease in the reporting of domestic abuse by
women. The regularity that we are confronted with the idea that women are being victimized
this way can lead to underreporting simply because the problem appears to be more trivial if
the victimized population is well represented. The increase in male reported victimization by
their partners could also be disregarded as a result of an increase in reporting and not actual
victimization. The better representation of a victimized population can lead to an increase in
reporting. Victims of domestic violence have never had so many resources available to them
as they do currently. The decrease in female victimization however appears to be systematic,
and with the rising number of men reporting domestic abuse, it has become clear that abuse
against men is just as prevalent an issue as the abuse against women. (Straus & Gelles, 1986)
the differences of men and women, in how they cope and in how we can help them cope but
there comes a needless genderization that further oppresses both genders.
Victim blaming is a prominent issue in victimology, but it is more prevalent amongst
certain victimized groups. The idea of victim blaming and the ideal victim go hand in hand.
The closer a victim fits our idea of the ideal victim the less likely we are to blame them for
their victimization. Victims are often blamed for putting themselves into dangerous
situations, this is one aspect that we can largely disregard when referring to male victims of
domestic violence. As a society we have enough trouble admitting that women are even
capable of domestic violence, we would never consider that particular situation to be
dangerous for a man. There are other factors of victim blaming that more widely include men
experiencing inter-partner violence. Womens acts of violence are often written off as self
defense even if this is not the case. We have a difficult time justifying the violent
unwarrantable acts of women, they arent a concept that we have largely been confronted
with up until this point.
Neglect isnt even the worst thing we do to men regarding their victimization. Men
are often seen as the instigators of their own victimization. When questioning how the
victimization came to happen we involuntarily and sometimes voluntarily accuse victims of
their own parts of victimization. (Berger & Searles, 1985) The criminal justice system in
general has moved towards the neglect of the victim. Causing the victim to be essentially
relabelled as the witness of the crime done. (McShane & Williams, 1992) We neglect victims
as a whole and then further neglect certain types of victims, victims that dont fit our specific
standards and given the alarming numbers of people who have been victims of a crime in
their lifetime it is little wonder that many question the ability of the Criminal Courts to
provide justice for the victim.
The difficulty with current studies and approaches to victimization of men by women
is we feel the need to justify our interest in women as perpetrators. If we are going to look at
domestic violence against men, we feel the need to note that we do realise men are less likely
to be seriously injured by domestic violence but its still an important issue because in
committing domestic violence against men, women face the very real possibility of
retaliation. It implies that domestic violence against men is of importance simply because we
are interested in protecting women from retaliation that could cause serious injury. We
should feel no need to justify a study of violence against men, or a study of women as
perpetrators because victimization should move beyond the bounds of gender. Our
preconceived notions of what a victim looks like or acts like is holding us back from helping
people who may feel that they are without support.
to address with this idea. Firstly it is hard to measure the female movement towards equality
versus their increase in perpetration of domestic violence. Women have obviously made
many strides towards equality, entering the workforce, earning the right to vote but it is
nearly impossible to measure the overall social equality with men. Next as far as the statics
are concerned domestic violence against women has decreased greatly in recent years while
domestic violence against men has increased. The numbers could speak truly to the
occurrence of domestic violence or they could be skewed by many things.
The media coverage and awareness of domestic abuse has caused some of stigma
towards its victims to be depleted. These are only some of the reasons that could account for
the decrease in women reporting domestic violence and the increase in men reporting.
Assuming that the statistics are accurate though it would still be impossible to measure the
increase in equality between sexes versus the increase in male inter-partner victimization or
the increase of women as perpetrators of domestic violence. Largely all the new statistics
serve to do is quash the idea that domestic partner violence has anything to do with gender
inequality. Feminists would argue that gender inequality causes violence against women,
they would also largely argue that men are more likely to commit domestic violence against
women. (Yodanis, 2004) With the new numbers on the general equality between genders
regarding domestic violence feminists in particular move to attack the statistics defending
female offenders as simply defending themselves or less likely to seriously injure a male. All
in all, it is possible that there is a connection between gender inequality and domestic
violence. Does the increase of females perpetrating domestic violence against men speak to
the increasing equality between genders, its definitely worth looking into.
Male victims have made no such leap forward in regards to public empathy. Mens
victimization in general is often met with the same type of scrutiny that female rape victims
face. They are met with questions of the authenticity of their victimization.(Lecture, January
23,2014) Our society has a very specific idea of what a victim looks and acts like, an ideal
victim.(Christie, 1986) One of the very first characteristics that exclude men from the ideal
victim status is their gender. The neglect of male victims of domestic violence has been a
result of an overcorrection of the extended omission of the plight of women.
specifically for mens victim services. (Cheung, 2009) This lack of prevalence, even on the
internet, where basically everything is readily available may be the most accurate portrayal
and societys general disregard for males and victims of domestic violence.
Conclusion
In this paper I have addressed the genderization of victimology. I explored gender and
gender roles and how the perception of gender roles has caused the further victimization of
both men and women. Ive discussed the most recent findings on the gender of perpetrators
of domestic violence as well as the possible reasoning behind the decrease in reported female
victims of domestic violence and the increase in male victims of domestic violence. In this
paper I also explored the gender specific language of victimology and discussed how a more
gender neutral lexicon would serve better to include all victims.
I also discussed how our gender specific language and general lean towards male
victims has caused a lack of information on male victims, specifically domestic violence
victims. The feminist focus on reversing our patriarchal society has made the general
inequalities against women clear but in doing this theyve painting men as the perpetrators
and women as the victim. This has further hindered our ability to see men as victims,
particularly of crimes perpetrated by women. Next I address the prominent issue of victim
blaming and perpetrator justification, highlighting how we use our current ideas of gender
norms to portray mens attackers as simply self-defendants and men as the real perpetrators. I
briefly address the issue of the laws endorsement of gender specific terminology and
portraying women as victims, stresses how this furthers the schema of victimized women but
continues to repress victimized men.
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