Saturday, October 13, 2007

The undertold facts of domestic violence

Men often victims of sexual assault

Ashley Oliver, CT News Reporter

Tuesday, October 2; 10:45 PM

In a May 2007 study, the Centers for Disease Control found that more than 800,000 males in the United States are raped or physically assaulted by their female partners every year.

The National Coalition of Free Men (NCFM) is expressing concern during domestic violence awareness month this October that this study has been unfairly ignored because of the media's gender stereotyping.

The organization looks at the way sex discrimination affects both boys and men and focuses on a number of different issues, including male victims of domestic violence.
"The media has been misframing domestic violence for too long and there is just not enough awareness about male victims," said Marc Angelucci, President of the Los Angeles chapter of NCFM. "The media tends to use unreliable crime data and ignore sociological data which is much more accurate."

Because the media has been accused of distorting the general publics' view of domestic violence, the NCFM is worried that men won't come forward when they are the victims of violence by their intimate partner.

"We need to educate the public that male victims are not alone and are not wimps, and that they need to seek help and report it," Angelucci said. "They are in more danger than they think."

NCFM is concerned that male victims will maintain their silence and that the problem will continue and add to the overall cycle of domestic violence.

"They have no outreach and few services, and they continue to just 'take it like men' until someone gets hurt," Angelucci said.

This year's CDC report counters any ideas about men not being assaulted by female partners or injured because of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). The NCFM is determined to make people aware of this in hopes of dissolving the stereotype that females almost always fall victim to male criminals.

"It's important that the public is aware that domestic violence is happening in both directions and at significant levels; that it is not just a male crime, and that it is damaging no matter what gender commits it," Angelucci said.

CDC studies show the gravity of IPV for men and women alike. In the year 2004, IPV resulted in 1,544 deaths with 25 percent being men. Updated in 2003, the corporate cost of IPV in the United States was $8.3 million from medical care, mental health services and lost productivity.

"Children are damaged just by witnessing (domestic violence) regardless of the severity," Angelucci said.

Experts from various domestic violence organizations agree that children who live in an environ-ment where IPV is present are more likely to carry it into their own family than children who grow up with parents in a healthy relationship.


In order to prevent IPV altogether, it's important to prevent a physical, emotional, threatening, or sexual issue from even emerging between couples in the first place.
According to the CDC fact sheet on domestic violence reports, "Strategies that promote healthy dating relationships are important. These strategies should focus on young people when they are learning skills for dating."


Source: here

5 comments:

Ghost said...

Of course this goes against everything we are told about men and women. Most men under the age of 35 really believe that their fathers and grandfathers were oppressive monsters.

Amazing. Abuse rates by men and women are about equal, but that doesn't play well with the audiences out there.

Anonymous said...

There would be no women's rights and feminism if their fathers and grandfathers were oppressive monsters. The problem is that the grandfathers dropped the ball and stopped being monsters.

We now suffer for it.

Letters To My Daughter said...

Until I was falsely accused of domestic violence by my wife I had no idea how pervasive this is. It is a tragedy not only for the victims of baseless accusations but also for our children whom are made to suffer not knowing who to believe and what is actual truth. It is shameful and sadly, there seems to be no end in sight to violence against men first by their spouse and then by the justice system if they aren't the first to cry foul. Thank you for the very disturbing statistics. I am shocked to see how widespread this behavior has become.

Anonymous said...

As a Los Angeles Domestic Violence Criminal Lawyer I have repeatedly seen abuses in the criminal justic system. I want to applaud your blog for bring this to light.

Masculist Man said...

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