5 Myths About Domestic Abuse Everyone Believes

By Anonymous,  J.F. Sargent,  Shannon R. ,  Diane Solheim,  Windy Phillips

Perhaps the only good thing we can say about domestic violence right now is that we know it when we see it. The Ray Rice video and the pictures of what Chris Brown did to Rihanna's face have cemented a solid image into the public consciousness, giving us a framework to point at and say, "That! Yeah, that! Let's get that right on out of here." Which is good, right? The "know your enemy" part of the fight against domestic abuse is taken care of.
Except we kinda don't know the enemy at all. And since one in four women and one in seven men will be abused in their lifetime, this is kind of a big blind spot. We spoke to six different victims of domestic abuse -- male and female -- and found out that lots of these cases don't look like the plots of Lifetime movies ...

#5. No, It Isn't Always A Tough Guy Beating A Submissive Woman

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When we say "domestic violence," most of us get the same image in our head: a man, probably a white guy with a southern accent, probably wearing a sleeveless white shirt, standing over a woman who cowers on the ground in fear. But while that happens, that's only a tiny sliver of the whole picture. For instance, we mentioned about three sentences ago that, while domestic abuse happens less often to men, it still fucking happens. And of the women who've reported at least one instance of domestic violence in their life, more than half say it was "bidirectional." That's how it went for "Lindsay":
"We had our first argument at his parent's house in the yard at 2 a.m. We started wrestling, both of us back and forth. He got in my face and yelled at me, and I punched him right in his face, so he grabbed me and we started wrestling in the yard ... I had a nice little violence streak myself, so it made the whole process destructively fun."

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In this case, "fun" may be s bit subjective.

But after Lindsay got pregnant, the dynamic changed:
"That's when the fear set in, because I was so sick and had no way to defend myself. He kept going, and it got worse ... he dragged me down a flight of stairs by my hair and threw me over a balcony."
See, here's the thing: Even bringing up the concept of a woman getting physical with a man is borderline offensive to some, because it makes it sound like they're equally at fault, and that therefore no one involved can be considered a victim. The reality is that mutual abuse can mean one party gets slapped, while the other gets put in the hospital; one lives in fear for their life, the other is merely annoyed. What we do know is that women are twice as likely to get injured from abuse, simply because guys generally are bigger and stronger than them.

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Which isn't exactly the best factoid for guys unwilling to pick on someone their own size.

But, as wrong as it is to say that men have it as bad, it's equally wrong to pretend male victims don't exist. The two men we spoke to both said that they had trouble believing that they were victims themselves, let alone convincing other people:
"The first one that I remember the most vividly is when she threw a DS at my head," said Dean. Another time, they were shopping and, "there was a problem with her card, and after it went through it, ended up overcharging her. I tried to reach over and comfort her, but she dug her fingernails into my arm and cut my wrist open." And that right there is another misconception. It isn't always about huge blow-ups and dramatic beatings; it can also mean smaller, but constant, abuse that slowly wears away the victim's sense of self-worth and urge to protect themselves.
Oh, and when Dean finally called the police on his abuser, he almost ended up being the one arrested.

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Which isn't surprising, since the idea that domestic violence only flows one way is pretty damn ingrained.

Once again, these cases get used as ammo by people trying to argue which gender gets it worse, but at the end of the day, the same gender roles wind up screwing everybody -- just in different ways. As Will says, "There are very few people who could ever believe I was unsafe, or I was manipulated or used. How can a man be physically scared of a woman, let alone emotionally? That doesn't compute to society. Men aren't meant to have emotions. We are supposed to be the rock or whatever."

#4. Not All Abuse Is Physically Violent

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Unless you're a special kind of asshole, you probably agree that beating the everloving hell out of someone you love is bad. That's why the hallmarks of any movie or public service announcement about domestic violence are bruises, broken bones, and black eyes -- maybe covered with makeup or flimsy excuses, to drive home how shameful victims find the experience.
Even if we don't see someone actually in physical pain, we're shown the signs that some kind of physical altercation took place. In reality, abuse is a lot more complicated than that. Studies consistently find that victims of abuse find the emotionally abusive acts more devastating than the physical violence, and that oftentimes, the most traumatic part of the physical abuse is the fear it inspires -- fear that is the same whether they're getting hit, or only feel like they might. Two of the people we spoke to, Sarah and Shannon, never suffered physical abuse at all.
"I remember telling my ex that it would hurt me less if he hit me," Sarah said. "One of the worst was when I was sitting on my bed, and my daughter was a few months old, and I was trying to cover my baby's ears while he was screaming at me and throwing blankets and calling me a fucking bitch. He used to tout 'I've never hit you,' as if it was something to be proud of."

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"Don't hit people" is a lesson you were supposed to learn the same year as "Don't shit in
your pants." Neither are something to brag about as an adult.

Sometimes the abuse is manipulation, like how Shannon's ex repeatedly told her he was going to kill himself. "He took my keys, went back to my room to get a knife he had given me to keep him from killing himself, and then he wouldn't leave. I had to call my friends at 5 a.m. to get him out of my room. Later, a girl took me aside and told me that he had planned to do this. He had told his boss that he wouldn't be in that morning."
What these stories have in common is that the victims and perpetrators both knew that no one would take claims of abuse seriously if they didn't have a black eye, or at least a few bruises to show off. Shannon said that because she was never beaten, she didn't think it was abuse. Hell, the abuser probably didn't, either. "What, does this look like a mullet and a tank top to you? I'm not one of those guys."