Let's hear it for the boys...elsewise known as men are human too...

I've been thinking about male-bashing a lot lately.  One of my regular blog reads is Dr. Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist in Tennessee. Her specialty, as it were, is violent kids and what makes them tick, but she also delves into men's issues on a fairly regular basis.  I had already tucked away an idea for a piece on bias against men, when that very subject came up on huckleberries online a day or so ago. I guess my commentary was erudite to merit being front-paged by editor Dave.  The article in question being about a domestic violence march. Nothing wrong with that: domestic violence sucks. It is SO not a good thing. Problem is, there is a lot of research out there that contradicts the popular opinion that relational violence moves in one direction and one direction only. That being from the man to the women.  And this particular march being named "Walk a mile in her shoes" makes it very clear that it is their belief that men are aggressors and women are victims. Always. Or at least almost always.  It appears to be designed to drum it into male craniums that they need to understand this issue as the exclusive domain of women and to take pause that their particular gender division has been extremely naughty in this regard. 

Aside from the obvious, that being that most men wouldn't dream of engaging in this type of behavior in the first place, there is also a problem with the very, very nebulous research that might support this particular point of view.  Are you aware that the woman who founded the first "battered women's shelter" in the UK in 1971 was treated with disdain by feminists because she made the discovery that domestic violence was meted out in about equal measure by women upon men as vice versa? She wrote a book, which was yanked out of print, but is actually available online here.  Obviously it's a long read, but worth it if you would like a more in-depth look at this issue and don't just want to take this as my opinion on a highly controversial issue.  She has written quite extensively on violent women  and what she has found is sobering.  In addition to the findings that there is just as much, if not possibly more, violence going in the woman-to-man direction as vice versa, she ALSO made the not terribly surprising discovery that many times victimized women are dishing it out just as much as they are taking it. In other words: there is no clear victim and no clear perpetrator of violence in a lot of these situations: they are BOTH violent in pretty equal measure. It is often the woman who picks up the phone, though, and reports it as if she is the victim of a violent man. And usually, no one questions that. Who is really being served if no one asks the hard questions to find out what is really going on in any one particular situation and instead makes assumptions based on a skewed agenda????

I have to say that her findings are not incredibly surprising to me.  I have personally known of several family situations in which women inflicted bodily harm on their husbands.  The kicker though, is that this violence was treated very, very differently by both family members and society at large. In one particular instance, the man received an injury serious enough to require sutures. Yes, he had behaved badly preceding the event in question. But come on...you and I both know what would have happened had the situation been reversed and the wife had been the one injured by an object thrown by her husband in a moment of frustration. It goes without question that he would have been booked, charged, criminalized and quite probably done some jail time. It would not be a humorous family story recounted as evidence of a "hot temper" and proof of just how annoying hubby could be. I can think of other situations that replay similar dynamics. A small sample to be sure, but still....I have no reason to believe that my observations are unique.

As the mother of a son, I have reason to be concerned. I don't want my boy to grow up in a society where he is presumed to be guilty of bad character until proven innocent simply because he's a guy.  It would be lovely if relational issues could simply be seen for what they are, rather than assumptions made that one party or the other is more or less likely to be at fault for no reason other than that they are male or female. Know what I mean???

I've just about had it with this. I have seen in my own life, when my husband and I were trying to work out some marital issues, that far more slack was cut to me than to him. I didn't want to be seen as a victim: I wanted our problems fixed.  Only objectivity could help accomplish that one. Objectivity being something that is sorely lacking when these types of issues get framed as men/women issues instead of merely human ones. 

Everyone deserves an unbiased assessment of whatever their own situation might be. They deserve social services that bother to find out the details instead of pouring people into predetermined roles that have been politicized, for whatever reasons. To do any less is the height of the very unfairness and injustice that these same people rail against. 

There ARE a few voices crying out in the wilderness for accuracy instead of the current witch hunt atmosphere. If more people speak out, perhaps a more objective atmosphere will prevail. Both men and women are capable of the basest of human behaviors against their partners. Should that really be such a difficult concept to grasp???

Note: I have deliberately placed a ton of links and resources in here so that you, dear readers, can do your own research on this matter and not just take this as my own possibly biased opinion. Happy reading....