CA Bar Journal Runs NCFM-LA Letter re Male DV Victims

Way to go, Marc!

"Men are victims, too"

Text:

As an attorney who works with male victims of domestic violence, I was very offended by your article, “Safety and services under one roof” (August). Every example of domestic violence in the article was male-on-female, and the article was prefaced with a drawing of “the difference between the family’s old life and their new life after Dad is gone.” Male victims are stigmatized and ignored enough as it is without having to read articles like yours.

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According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control, “approximately 1.5 million women and 834,732 men are raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States” (i.e., at least 36 percent of the victims are men), which is at ncjrs.org/ txtfiles1/nij/181867.txt. California State University maintains an online bibliography of over 174 studies showing “women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners” at csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm. One of the studies is the most comprehensive analysis of existing research on the topic ever published (Archer, Psych. Bulletin, 11/00), which found that 38 percent of injured victims are men and that self-defense does not explain the female violence.

A report by the California Research Bureau shows that thousands of men seek shelter-based services every year. But Health & Safety Code §124250 excludes them from the services, including motel vouchers and court advocacy, because of their gender. So they have to travel hundreds of miles to the Valley Oasis shelter in Lancaster, the only one that will help males, in order to escape the violence. They have faced over 30 years of exclusion, neglect and outright sexism from the domestic violence industry because they do not fit the feminist man/bad woman/good model.

I hope you will be more fair and honest next time in how you depict this issue.

Marc E. Angelucci, President

National Coalition of Free Men

Los Angeles chapter

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