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In a new program, the government of the United Kingdom is asking teens across its isles a few simple questions: What is abuse, would you recognize abuse if you saw it, and, most importantly, would you stop yourself?
The Web site, squarely aimed at teenagers with its graffiti-inspired logo and paint-splattered background, definitively says, “This is Abuse.” An FAQ is set up to help a person identify if they are a victim of abuse, along with help lines, assistance Web sites, and all sorts of other resources aiming to stop both domestic and partner abuse before it starts or gets worse.
All in all, this is an excellent idea. In a country where approximately 50 percent of people report experiencing domestic abuse at some point in their lives, this is a smart move on the part of the government, and will hopefully help to cut down on the prevalence of a rather heinous crime. Unfortunately, the designers of the program and the informative Web site are missing about 40 percent of their target audience.
They’re ignoring the men.
It’s not necessarily their fault. Be honest, how many of you reading this column saw “domestic abuse” and immediately thought “male victims of?” It’s a rather silent proportion of the statistics, as more often than not the women are given top billing in domestic abuse issues. As well they should; women do experience a great deal of the abuse with men as the perpetrators. Men understand that there is a societal taboo about bringing up the subject because it can just be uncomfortable to talk about.
Most anti-abuse programs are aimed at educating women to recognize if they are victims, and at men to recognize if they are perpetrators. This is both a healthy and valid way to view things, and does help to lessen a severe problem in our society.
Unfortunately, there’s really no option for people to see the reverse of this problem, namely men experiencing abuse from women, and the “This is Abuse” Web site simply underscores the problem. A video on the Web site provides a primary example. A teenage couple is relaxing on a bed together, watching TV. The guy wants to have sex, and starts egging the girl into it, but the girl refuses. He starts getting very pushy, and she starts getting scared. Outside the room, the same girl is banging on invisible glass, watching herself being abused, and yelling at herself to “get out of there.” Eventually, the guy makes a threat and the girl relents.
Where it gets interesting is at the bottom of the page. There’s a link for a “Guys” version of the video. Curious, I clicked to watch it, hoping that maybe we’d get to see the same situation but through a different lens, teaching males how to identify if they are experiencing the same sort of abuse from their girlfriends. Though in retrospect, I really should have known what to expect. In keeping with the tradition of ignoring the silent men, the “Guys” video is the exact same video as before, except with a male doppelganger pounding on the glass yelling at himself to “stop it!”
I facepalmed.
Everything on the Web site is geared toward identifying female victims and male perpetrators. The FAQ questions run the gamut from, “My boyfriend says everyone is having sex but I still don’t feel ready. What should I do?” to, “My girlfriend says I am pressurising[sic] her to have sex, but we have been going out for ages and I think it’s the right time.” On the entire Web site, there is only one mention of male victims of abuse; if they want more information, they can call a toll-free number to get information, but only on Monday through Friday, between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. (excluding a lunch hour). If you’re a female victim of abuse, or even a male victim of abuse in a homosexual relationship, there are 24-hour hotlines you can call and get any information you want and get it fast.
When it comes down to it, it seems as if the entire Web site, and the government in general, is ignoring the fact that women can abuse just as easily as men can. The 40 percent figure I quoted above was from an independent study of male abuse victim patterns conducted by the ManKind Initiative, a national charity in the United Kingdom that takes it upon itself to raise awareness of male victimhood.
This clashes harshly with the number often quoted by the government of the United Kingdom, which states that men only make up 15 percent of the victims. The government gets its number through the reported crime statistics, showing a large reporting gap. What’s worse, the same official statistics show that only 5.9 percent of women in these cases are actually prosecuted for any type of abuse.
If I were a man in the United Kingdom reading these statistics, I’d feel as though there was no one on my side. Groups like the ManKind Initiative help by offering legal support, a safe place to live and a shoulder to cry on. As a man in the United States, seeing a charity group offering whatever they can makes me feel somewhat at ease. But then I revisit the government-sponsored “This Is Abuse” Web site, and I realize that until a cultural shift takes place and we, as an enlightened, western society, change from a female-oriented view of domestic abuse to a gender-blind, victim-oriented view, the crime will continue to go under-reported and under-prosecuted.
The government program claims that what they present “Is Abuse.” They only know 60 percent of it.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Nathan Bellis at Nathan.bellis@colorado.edu.
