If Your Man Knew What to Say, Here’s What He Might Say If He Knew You Feared His Potential For Violence...
Excerpted from Warren Farrell's Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say.
(Permission to reprint granted by Warren Farrell.)
See www.warrenfarrell.com
and
www.warrenfarrell.info.
Is Abuse The Result Of Patriarchy?
Item. Among lesbians who had prior intimate relationships with men,
32%
had experienced physical aggression from
any
male
partner;68
45%
had experienced physical aggression from their
most recent female
partner alone.69
Item. When lesbians and heterosexual women (matched for age, race, education, and socioeconomic status) were given identical questionnaires, 9% of heterosexual women reported being raped by a man during a dating relationship; 7% of lesbians reported being raped by a woman during a dating relationship.70 Statistically the difference was insignificant.
Lesbian violence shatters the myth that women abuse only when
men
drive them to it. It dispels the myth that male power and male privilege create violence against women. Lesbians do not have much male power and privilege.
Lesbian rape further dispels the myth that rape is also an outgrowth of male power and privilege. We can claim that patriarchy causes lesbians to batter and rape – as some feminists do – but if patriarchy causes all the bad that lesbians do, it must also cause all the good that lesbians do.
Is Abuse The Result Of Power – Or Powerlessness?
The domestic violence community often assumes men abuse women due to feelings of male power and privilege. Their treatment programs usually incorporate this assumption.
As it turns out, the evidence supports much different conclusions: that
when
women
abuse, they are sometimes in a position of power, sometimes powerlessness, and sometimes both simultaneously. When men abuse, they are much more likely to be in a position of power
less
ness
– the act of abuse being a momentary act of power designed to compensate for underlying experiences of powerlessness. Here’s the evidence for that paradigm shift, starting with women...
An elderly woman is more than four times as likely to abuse her husband as the other way around.71 Think about why. If an elderly man is eight years older than his wife, he is an average of 15 years closer to dying – suffering from arthritis or other ailments. She becomes her own caretaker and his caretaker. He is in about as powerless a place as he can be, and he abuses very little. She is much more powerful in comparison to him, and abuses much more.
But
she doubtless
also
feels the powerlessness of being tied to her caretaking responsibilities.
Similarly, two-thirds of mothers with children six years or under hit them three or more times per week.72 A recent study of
confirmed
child abuse found mothers committed the abuse 58% of the time, fathers 16%, and both parents 13%.73 We can view this three ways: as mothers exercising their power over their children; as mothers experiencing their powerlessness
vis-a-vis
their children; or as both. The mother is obviously more powerful, and just as obviously more likely to abuse when the baby is screaming, not smiling: The screaming makes her feel powerless and the feelings of powerlessness tempt physical violence. (Think of how often we hear on the news of a mom putting her infant in a dumpster: The mom has the power to kill, but it is almost always a young single mom with few resources.)
Why are women more likely to abuse men who are powerless while men are more likely to protect women who are powerless? Or, put another way, why, if he feels powerless, is
he
more likely to be abusive
and
she is also more likely to feel abusive?
She perceives him as no longer being able to protect her, so she acts on her instincts to get rid of a man who can’t protect her.
(Remember, she survived for millions of years by selecting protectors, which means knowing how to weed out men who can’t protect her.) Put another way, female abuse of men who can’t perform is instinctive. She feels powerless when he feels powerless.
Among lesbian women, the abused woman was likely to feel that the problem of the batter
er
was
de
pendence, not power.74
So among women, feelings of power or powerlessness – or some combination of both – seem in various ways to catalyze abuse.
Among men it seems to be different. In 1997, the American Psychological Association’s official journal, the
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, found domestic violence by men was more likely to be associated with indicators of power
less
ness than it was when women were violent. The researchers found that physical violence among men was more strongly associated with unemployment, low educational attainment, few social support resources, the use of drugs, personality disorders, and depression75 – all pretty strong indicators of an underlying experience of powerlessness.
Men’s greater physical strength would seem to indicate men’s violence toward women involved male power. As I discussed above, this is tricky, because men learn to use that strength to protect women and will beat up or even kill a man who uses it against a woman. It is when the power of his masculinity
breaks down
that he is most likely to be violent
toward a woman.
Many people resist looking at the powerlessness of the batterer because we have been assuming the batterer was a man and we didn’t want to blame a woman who was battered. In love, though, both people can feel powerful or both can feel powerless.
The treatment implications are enormous and create much hope. Large numbers of psychologists, social workers, Y’s, and battered women’s shelters counsel a man who batters a woman to give up his assumptions of male privilege and power. If a woman batters a man, it is by definition in self-defense – he has the power.
This “victim-either-way” rationalization leaves men feeling blamed either way; it increases tensions and, therefore, the battering of spouses and the breakup of marriages. It leaves millions of children raised without the love of their dads. It is, though, good for the lawyers and therapists.
