One of the things I like about #feminism, is how it leaves nobody behind.
No matter the minority, no matter how few, every individual matters.
We see this within feminism’s admirable support for intersex individuals, or those with vitiligo, both affect about 0.5–2% of the population, yet both have their own campaigns, toys, logos, days of awareness and even flags.
And I’m glad to see them.
Yet, we don’t see this approach with men who are abused – they are a slice of the pie far bigger than 2%, and are erased from intervention strategies, minimised in awareness campaigns and quite literally, left out in the cold.
There is no support for abused men.
None.
If you’re one of the thousands of men being abused, neither of the UK’s two major abuse charities will allow you into any of their refuges, and nor do they have refuges for men either.
Think about it this way - ‘one in four survivors is systematically excluded from domestic violence support, by our publicly funded refuges.’
And the more they are excluded, the more these men will fail to see themselves as victims too.
The more we tell them “its not possible”, the more they will believe us, and go home.
So is it possible to see men as human too?
Is it possible to treat the issue, not the gender?
Is it possible for @refugecharity and @womens_aid, who run all of the UKs refuges to… well… do your job?
Do your job.
Do your job and protect those being abused.
That’s it.
This is not an opportunity to discriminate and exclude those most vulnerable and in need, to peddle bunkum science, to spout dogma and lobby the government and insist DV is treated as a women's issue (yes they are doing that, right now).
It’s an opportunity to literally, do your job - protect all survivors, not just those most politically convenient to you.
Do your job
~
Sources
[1] ONS Domestic Violence https://tinyurl.com/4b3pdbar
[2] https://tinyurl.com/2p8kraj5
Independent Article https://tinyurl.com/2p8u798v
Global Homicide https://tinyurl.com/yckz42xp
Stranger Violence https://tinyurl.com/yveu2ntx
Images by – Jacob Owens, Majestic Lukas and Warren Wong from Unsplash
Illustration by Alice Noir from the Noun project