A Couple Key Aspects of Domestic Violence Against Men That Few People Are Aware Of

I have been working on my graduate thesis on domestic violence against men for some time now. Specifically, it's on the lack of awareness that professional counselors have regarding the key aspects of domestic violence against men (that is, assuming the counselor believes that there actually is such a thing). One key aspect of this subject that I rarely come across is the fact that along with the actual physical violence that women direct towards men's bodies, there is a tremendous, tremendous amount of violence directed towards men's property. True, in a lot of the anecdotal information from male victims there will be mention of what I have come to call "domestic vandalism," and once in a great while in the literature on domestic there will be the slightest mention of damage to men's property, but I have yet to see any formalized rhetoric (book chapter or article) or scientific study on the subject.

Now that I think about it, this particular subject could be broadened to include the instances where women take men's possessions and refuse to give them back unless some condition is met, so I guess we could enlarge my phrase to, "domestic vandalism and/or theft." I can assure you that in pursuit of my thesis I have read and heard tons of information on domestic violence against men, some of it scientific studies, some of it articles and some of it books, and I have rarely see any attention paid to this problem. To the best of my knowledge there is absolutely no scientific study that's ever been done on "domestic vandalism and/or theft." To get this problem into the public eye, perhaps it would be good if people started routinely using this phrase; it'd make it easier to slip into conversations on the subject. Plus, I've never seen or heard of an aggregate monetary figure being computed on the amount of (let's get started with using the phrase, I'll drop the quotes) domestic vandalism and/or theft by women against men. (Oh, and by the way, don't think that such illicit acts aren't done by men, it's just not nearly as common.)

Can you imagine it someday? Tom Brokaw leads off the evening news with, "Reports from the Univ. of so and so School of Sociology estimate that men in the United States incur a total cost of $125 million dollars a year in domestic vandalism and/or theft." The other aspect of domestic violence against men that probably gets talked about even less, but is more important, is the method with which women are able to gain an upper hand on men in violent encounters. As much of the literature on the subject states, women are able to get an even footing with men in violent encounters, or even an upper hand, with the use of some sort of weapon. It can be just about anything from a broken glass to a baseball bat to an automobile. But after reading scores upon scores of anecdotes from male victims, the fact that women often will turn to a weapon is certainly something we should keep in mind, but in most cases a weapon is not what really gives a woman the upper hand over a man. What puts a woman in the dominant position over a man physically is the same element of warfare that every general through out history has known to be the most potent of weapons (and I can't emphasize this point enough) - it's the element of surprise!

In countless incidences where men have been seriously injured by women, the women used at least some surprise to gain the dominant position. In one instance, a man was walking down the steps, and he wasn't aware that his wife was behind him; she gave him a good shove; As a result, he broke his kneecap and suffered a concussion. In another, a man was lounging by a hotel pool listening to his walkman when his wife came up behind him with a tire iron: concussion and a broken finger. In yet another, a man with no shirt on was walking through the hallway of his home, and his wife suddenly jumped out in front of him from one of the open bedroom doors. She flogged him with a straightened wire hanger: multiple cuts. With this factor in mind it's easy to see how the need for shelters for men is even more important than we had thought. Everybody has to eat, sleep, shower, shave, sit and relax, so in a sense men whose wives are routinely violent are constantly at risk - they never know when it might happen.

To add to this element of surprise is the fact that, for some men - especially naive ones, even when a woman is standing within an arm or leg's reach right in front of them, and then suddenly becomes violent, there is still an element of surprise at work - the man trying to get over his shock that a woman would actually do such a thing. Let's face it, we are all still raised on this false "sugar and spice" view of females, and for some of us it takes a long time to get over this conditioning. Pardon me but I just have to digress for a moment on this particular point.

As I look down at the back of my left hand, I am clearly reminded of the moment when I got over this conditioning. I was a sophomore in high school, and it was the first week of classes. I had been assigned to sit next to a pretty, coifed junior girl; she was to be my biology lab partner. Naturally, I felt like a complete idiot. Here, she was all of one year ahead of me in school, very attractive and wearing a very feminine outfit, frills and lace and such. I never knew what to say to ugly girls that I didn't have much interest in. The guy sitting in front of us was a complete dip who routinely hassled everybody, male or female. He continued razzing my biology partner about something, and at one comment she became enraged. Suddenly, she lifted her hand high in the air, bearing a sharpened pencil, and looked right at the back of my left hand, resting on our lab table. As her hand was suspended there, I distinctly remember thinking that she was about to stab me and then thinking to myself, "No way. She's a girl." To this day there's still a tiny black fleck on the back of my left hand, the part of the lead that went in so deep I couldn't dig it out.

Remember, as in warfare, it's all about the element of surprise, just ask any general worth his salt.

Bill Kuhl

bridgewater6729@yahoo.com