Male Survivors of Abuse by Women Can Heal Without Misogyny

Article here. Excerpt:

'There are two commonly understood reasons why we fail to comprehend women’s victimization of men as abuse. The point of this post is to present a third compelling reason, then unpack the implications for professional helpers—attorneys, investigators, therapists, victim’s advocates, and so on—who, in their work, may come across male survivors of abuse by women.

While this under-discussed problem warrants more visibility for many reasons, chief among them is the reality that we create more misogynists—someone with a strong hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women—by neglecting the healing of male survivors of abuse by women. Lacking the tools and language to unpack and articulate their pain can lead male survivors of abuse to scapegoat all women and, sometimes by extension, gender non-conforming folks, too.

Patriarchy already deprives boys and men of emotional freedom and outlets, limiting the “appropriate” range of emotional expression boys and men can engage in, at the expense of their own emotional, physical, social, and spiritual well-being. And because we socialize boys and men to externalize emotions, to perpetuate this emotional void for male survivors of abuse by women is to perpetuate their vulnerability at our own expense.'