Whilst we may disagree on the details, we can all find common ground in the belief that all survivors of abuse deserve support, and all perpetrators need justice. And that should include vulnerable men and boys. It doesn’t matter if they make up 30% of survivors, 20%, or even 1%, they are entitled to help too, just like anyone else, and should not be left behind. But the fact is male survivors of abuse are not a rounding error; they make up a signifiant portion of those abused, and they are never advocated for, or even protected. They are left out in the cold, quite literally living in tents in friends gardens, or sleeping in their car, or on the streets. They are a reflection of our failure, and of the betrayal of those obligated to support them. Organisations duty-bound to help survivors, funded by tax payers, who have instead decided to forgo men in need, in order to prop up their own political agenda, and egos. The concept of ‘gendered violence’ within DV is a not a calling card of progressivism, or compassion, it is a farce. “The great lie”, says Erin Pizzey, founder of the world’s first abuse refuge for women. “An ecological fallacy”, says Prof Don Dutton, one of the world’s greatest experts in DV. “They’re fanatics”, describes the late Professor Murray Straus, the founding father of the field of Family Violence itself. It needn’t matter. No matter how many world leading experts speak out, no matter how many hundreds, or thousands of studies they hold up – the stark truths they present, are rejected as just too unpopular. And so when it comes to domestic violence, we are looking at the problem through an ideological keyhole, unable and unwilling to open our minds to the full ugly truth – that women can do anything a man can, and that includes abuse. What do you think? - Study  Images by Oleg Kryzhanovskyi, Luke Braswell, Getty, and Sander Sammy

2024-03-28