Today I’d like to talk about a topic that is not often discussed in our society: male victims of domestic violence. The statistics show that female victims make of the majority of domestic violence cases, but males can also fall victim to intimate partner violence.
Men experience abuse in ways similar to females. They can be victims of physical, mental, verbal, emotional, sexual, and financial abuse. Their children can also be used as leverage. In same-sex relationships the partner can threaten to give away the victim’s sexual identity. The perpetrator can control the victim in the same ways as a female victim is controlled.
Unfortunately, there is much less data on male victims of domestic violence than for female victims. However I found that ‘One out of fourteen men has been physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabitating partner, boyfriend/girlfriend or date at some point in their lives’.1 Also, 40% of gay and bisexual men will experience abuse at the hands of an intimate partner.2
What can we do to help? We can offer the same tools to a male victim as a female victim. We can listen, help him come up with a safety plan, and inform him of domestic violence resources in the area. Although this issue is less prevalent than domestic violence against women, it is still unacceptable and is a crime.
Any type of violence should not be accepted in our society today.
I hope you have a great week and remember if we can help just one victim, we’ve done our job!
Katelin Maloney
- Thoennes, N., & Tjaden, P. (2000) Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women; Findings from the National
Violence Against Women Survey. National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Greenwod, G.L. (2002) “Battering and Victimization among a Probability Based Sample of Men who have Sex with Men.” American Journal of Public
Health, 92, 1964-1969.