With the way that the issue of Domestic Violence (DV) is characterised by the mainstream media & by feminist run DV campaigns, you could be forgiven for thinking that women are its only victims. I mean, when was the last time you saw a poster that said “Stop Violence against Men”?

I’m guessing never.

However, I bet you’ve seen dozens, if not hundreds, of posters that say “Stop Violence against Women”. Right?

What if I told you that close to half of all DV victims are male? Don’t believe me? I’m not surprised.

This is so far outside of the public narrative on DV that is promoted by feminist groups & disseminated by the media, that most people simply refuse to believe it, even after they are shown the statistics that prove it’s true. The public has been told that women are DV victims & men are DV perpetrators for so long now that even being exposed to the hard cold facts won’t dissuade most of them from their deeply rooted belief in this hateful piece of fiction.

The video posted below is from the US & uses the audio from a real domestic violence public awareness campaign. Even though it’s from the US, it is still entirely relevant to the Australian situation as the same attitude towards DV exists in Australia as it does in the US.

In the US, there is good research available that shows that nearly half of all domestic violence victims are men. In Australia, the number is similar, usually quoted as at least 1 in 3. However, the actual figure is likely to be closer to the US figure of 1 in 2 since there has been little Australian research done into the issue & there is a large problem in that, as American research has shown, men are far less likely than women to see the violence they experience as abuse & are also far less likely than women to admit to being victims, even when they do, due to the attached social stigma.

The little research that has been conducted in Australia is problematic as the questions asked typically use language that men are less likely to identify as being applicable to their situation. What is needed is more research & surveys that focus on describing the events in question rather than categorising them as abuse or not abuse. Only then will we know the true extent of the problem.