Ireland: Ahead of US

Here's information about the 1st European Conference on Male Victims of Domestic Abuse.

Mary T. Cleary set up the AMEN helpline for male victims of domestic abuse in December 1997. Since then the helpline has been inundated with calls for information and support from men and their families. Following the founding of AMEN in December 1997 this formerly taboo subject has featured in many newspaper articles and radio and television programmes.

Read Amen's article "The Male Victim" on MenWeb, and visit the Amen Web site.

The British Home Office has issued a new research report that shows that men are equally likely to suffer from domestic violence. Here are excerpts from two neews stories on it, and a link to the report itself. You can download an Adobe PDF format version of the 136-page report to see for yourself.

DISPATCHES
9pm Wednesday 6 January  Repeated at 1pm on Thursday 12 January 1999
A six foot security guard is knocked unconscious, stabbed and beaten - by his five foot high girlfriend. A weeping police officer describes how his wife tried to suffocate him with a pillow while he was sleeping. In a specially extended Dispatches reporter DEBORAH DAVIES reveals the extraordinary results of the largest ever survey of male victims of domestic violence.

Last year Dispatches exposed the truth about domestic violence against women in a survey which revealed that the law was failing to protect these women. The programme produced a flood of letters from men saying that they were victims too. Now Dispatches talks to men about why they have suffered and have no faith in the police, and to women who were violent to the partners they loved.

The proportion of male victims of domestic violence is small compared to women but the true scales of the problem is hard to assess as little research has been done about it. The Dispatches survey received responses from over 100 men. Dispatches has asked Professor KEVIN BROWNE of Birmingham University - an expert in domestic violence - to analyse its survey. The survey provides a comprehensive picture of the shocking nature and degree of violence that women are capable of on inflicting on their male partners.

        ..... more ....

Australia, too, is ahead of the U.S. The Men's Rights Network has a nationwide network to help battered men:

The Men's Rights Agency
Freecall: 1800 818 004.
E-mail: mra@ecn.net.au
Web: http://www.ecn.net.au/~mra
    (click on Domestic Violence on the left-side menu)
Brisbane headquarters (07) 3805 5611 or fax (07) 3200 8769.

Peter Olszewski's story Violent Femmes from the March 1999 issue of Australia's Men's Health magazine tells his own story and ocncludes with a list of Australian resources available for battered men.

All Men Are Bastards. Dodgy figures and suspect ideological interpretations give the impression that violence by men against women is rampant says JOHN COOCHEY. The reality is very different. Article by John Coochey. Published in The Independent Monthly, November 1995

Manhood Online (Australia)

This site centers on the work of Steve Biddulph, author of Australian bestseller Manhood. Their "Manzine" has lots of interesting articles. The site also serves as a coordinating point for Men's Work around Australia. A calendar listing national and regional men's events and a resource catalog round out the offerings.

Stuart Birks, director of the Centre for Public Policy Evaluation at Massey University, New Zealand, has a family violence page with detailed coverage of the situation in New Zealand. He also has a solid and comprehensive list of links to good information about battered men and violent women, and about controversies in gender-polarized domestic violence research.

Domestic Violence in Washington: 25,473 Men a Year
According to a Nov. 1998 Department of Justice report on the National Violence Against Women Survey, 1,510,455 women and 834,732 men are victims of physical violence by an intimate. In Washington, that's 42,824 women and 25,473 men. That includes 2,754 on whom a knife was used, 5,508 threatened with a knife and 11,016 hit with an object. Here are the data.

Help for Battered Men Practical suggestions, Hotline numbers, on-line resources. Print it out and hand it to a man you think may be battered--your caring opens him up to talking about it.

Men's Stories Here are some personal stories by battered men, and links to sites with more of them. The more we talk about it, the more we tell our stories, the more we increase public awareness that men are battered and encourage battered men to get the help they need. Send us your story, so we can post it here (anonymously, of course, unless you tell us differently.)

What's Wrong with the Duluth Model? The "Duluth Model" is the approach most widely used for perpetrator treatment--but it gender polarizes the "people problem" of domestic violence.. What's wrong with the Duluth Model? It blames and shames men. It's based on ideology, not science. It ignores drinking, drugs and pathology. Only one cause, only one solution. There's no real evidence it works. It ignores domestic violence by women. Women who need help can't get it. It's taught by wounded healers.

Latest Research Findings National Violence Against Women survey shows 37.5% of victims each year are men. Men are at real risk of serious physical injury. Murray A. Straus looks at controversies in DV research. Martin Fiebert examines reasons women give for assaulting men. JAMA emergency room study shows equal number of men, woman victims.