Men can set up their own abuse refuges!’
It’s a common retort I too often hear when sharing information on the complete lack of refuge for male survivors of abuse – 99% of which is for women.
So good question - what is stopping men from helping the men that need them?
Why can’t men do what women did for women?
Well to help you better understand I’m sharing with you four stories from four of the most well established experts on domestic violence in the world.
The experts who (quite literally) wrote the book on how we study domestic abuse, who laid the foundations, did the earliest investigations into family violence, and who even opened the first and largest women’s refuge in the modern world.
They were each pioneers; behind them countless books, studies, papers, and decades upon decades of first hand experience.
And yet, when each of these experts attempted to study male survivors – they had their lives, and the lives of their family threatened.
Bomb threats, pickets, public harassment, cancel campaigns and vicious rumours circulated to stop them from helping and understanding abused men.
So maybe the question should not be, ‘why aren’t men helping men’, but rather ‘who’s stopping then?’
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Source –
Gelles https://tinyurl.com/3pbyewa3
Pizzey https://tinyurl.com/yrppnuzb
Images by Christopher Burns and Alex Perz from Unsplash