As this blog has become somewhat of a journal for me, I must admit to being creatively uninspired lately. The practicalities of the mundane life dominate the mindscape. Going through offers of employment, finding a new place to live, scheduling and finalizing the upcoming photography roadtrip with the Artistic Photography Collective in Vancouver.
For me, I find these tasks procedural and they follow their own course once you kick it off but my thinking mind isn’t really focusing on those things, it’s reviewing the passing of my very close friend, my sons I’m not seeing as much as I need to, money, a new business idea and quite surprisingly; #mentoo.
I’m not sure the hijacking of the #metoo hashtag on twitter is necessarily appropriate but the sentiment is true (Ed. I didn’t highjack it). As I have described before, I am an advocate for Men’s Mental Health and supporting men who suffer from addiction, abuse, trauma related issues and understanding anger. The more I follow the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trial and the public response and the media circus, the more I have this weird sense of relief. I’ve heard many stories and I have my own story and it’s like a little, but very loud voice in me yelling “YOU SEE? IT DOES HAPPEN TO MEN! YOU WON’T LISTEN BUT YOU FINALLY SEE!”
This issue has been personal. I wrote a paper on the subject in Uni and have continued to follow research I can now say (after working on my own issues surrounding this) that this is not men vs women. The generalization is more damaging than healing and the sooner we can accept that we all harbor the ability to abuse another, the faster we can support those who perpetrate it and those who are victims. Ever heard “hurt people hurt people”? If we only support the victims, then how do we stop the abuse? Interpersonal violence and physical, emotional, sexual, and financial abuse can happen to any gender or identification of such.
One of the biggest bias I found I had was the belief that men abuse but women defend. The mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance I went through was insane. This deep seated belief drilled into me as I came up surrounded by women and societal portrayals did not match my own experiences. We twist things again and again to fix it, until it breaks. I found sense and answers in my research. For instance:
The National Violence Against Women (NVAW) survey found that 21.5% of men and 35.4% of women reporting a history of cohabitation with a same-sex partner had experienced physical abuse in their lifetimes; the corresponding rates for men and women with a history of only opposite-sex cohabitation were 7.1% and 20.4%, respectively 4.
What struck me about this was that if men were predominantly the abusers, why is the number so high for women in same sex relationships compared to opposite sex relationships? There were no men present!
… exact prevalence rates are difficult to determine, IPV among lesbian women seems to occur at rates equal to or higher than rates among heterosexual women (Edwards, Sylaska, & Neal, 2015; Walters, Chen, & Breiding, 2013). Based on a recent meta analysis, the mean prevalence estimates of lesbians’ physical IPV victimization and perpetration are 15% and 12%, respectively (Badenes-Ribera, Frias-Navarro, Bonilla-Campos, Pons-Salvador, & Monterde-i-Bort, 2015).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5321207/
How common is lesbian partner violence?
About 17-45% of lesbians report having been the victim of a least one act of physical violence perpetrated by a lesbian partner. Types of physical abuse named by more than 10% of participants in one study included:
Disrupting others eating or sleeping habits
Pushing or shoving, driving recklessly to punish, and slapping, kicking, hitting, or biting.
Sexual abuse by a woman partner has been reported by up to 50% of lesbians.
Psychological abuse has been reported as occurring at least one time by 24% to 90% of lesbians.
The research usually has been done with mostly white, middle-class lesbians who are sufficiently open about their sexual orientation to have met researchers seeking participants in the lesbian community. Subsequently, these findings may not apply to women who are less open, less educated, or of other ethnic backgrounds.
https://mainweb-v.musc.edu/vawprevention/lesbianrx/factsheet.shtml
These are good examples of the kinds of results you find when you dive into the scholarly peer-reviewed studies carried out by very reputable institutions with sound methodology to their studies. Needless to say, they’re worth listing to.
Women have the ability to be violently, emotionally, mentally and sexually abusive. A minority are more prone to resorting to abusive behavior than others. A smaller proportion behave abusively due to significant psychological disordered traits. An even tinier percentage have a diagnosable personality disorder. But here’s the thing. It does happen more than many of us realize. Sadly, in my experience, a high number of guys didn’t see it as abusive, they saw it more as an emotional reaction by a woman and as long as they didn’t hit back, no big deal really. To my recollection, I don’t think one guy has not added “I didn’t hit her back though” into their description of events. This is a common reply and part of proclaiming innocence before accused. If violence is mentioned as characteristic of a relationship, we jump to male incited violence.
If you got to here, thanks for being open-minded. I have taught my sons that there is never an occasion (unless it’s life threatening) where hitting or physically abusing a women is acceptable and teach them the same applies to the opposite or same sex. As men, we need to know that it’s not ok. It may not have hurt or bruised. Not ok. She may have just been ‘emotional’. Not ok. She was just trying to get a rise out of you? Not ok. Dude, it’s not ok and there’s lots of us who have been through it and learnt it’s not ok. You’re not weak or being dramatic or being childish.
You can no more make someone hate you than you are able to make them love you.
In other words, people act that way because that’s who they are not because you make them act that way. People can become better versions of themselves but they can’t not be that person anymore. Their behavior (when judged over a period of time) is who they are and their words are often who they aim to be. The body, when under duress, cannot lie and is often when our lips find it the easiest. If we are a person who needs to feel safe by means of power or being right, interrogative communication, ‘poking the bear’, cold shoulder, or coercive tactics, then you are probably going to realize you are doing it.
Yeah, think about it, if you knew it was hurting the other person or damaging the relationship or yourself that badly, you wouldn’t do it would you? Unless, you were in that tiny minority who would benefit from professional help. So I guess how you take criticism becomes important. How right do you need to be?
This applies to everyone regardless of gender, self-identification and sexual preference. I must also add that as Dr. Phil says: ”No matter how flat you make a pancake, there’s always two sides.”
Well, I’m going to call it here and get back to the stuff I really need to do and I will get back to photography next week. Cheers.