APPENDIX 10
Memorandum submitted by Dr M J George,
FRSA
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The prejudice and discrimination practiced by
the Government and State against male victims of domestic violence
is such that the former Skimmington punishment of such men is
now incorporated into official doctrine and policy so as to constitute
an abuse of male victim's Human Rights.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
This submission is by Dr M J George, FRSA an
academic who has published numerous research papers in academic
journals concerning domestic violence since 1994. He also made
submissions to the 1992 Home Affairs Select Committee, the 1995
Special Public Committee (HofL) enquiries into domestic violence
and Home Office, Cm 5847, 2003. He has been a frequent speaker
at conferences and in press and media.
INTRODUCTION
1. Despite the submission of evidence of
male victims of female perpetrated domestic violence to each of
the three previous Parliamentary inquiries into domestic violence
(1974 and 1992 Home Affairs Select Committee, 1996 Public Bills
Committee of the House of Lords) and to the 2003 Safety and Justice
consultation (Home Office Cm 5847) their findings and recommendations
have addressed the subject of violence and abuse between intimate
partners as something that exists almost exclusively or only by
males against females. Submissions on behalf of male victims were
ignored. No specific witnesses have ever been called to give expert
testimony on male victims and the considerations and recommendations
and legislation such as the Violence, Crime and Victims Act, 2004
that have followed have assumed erroneously that, at very best,
measures appropriate to female victims will suffice when applied
in the alternative.
HISTORY REVISITED
2. In published academic evidence (1,2,3)
it has been shown that a long standing historical prejudice and
discrimination existed against male victims of female perpetrated
domestic abuse which formerly expressed itself in public humiliations
of male victims, known as Skimmington processions(3). Whilst these
were lay phenomenon their existence over centuries clearly signalled
official sanction. Indeed official backing of prejudice and discrimination
against male victims was evident at the very highest levels of
government and legal system as demonstrated by a former Lord Chancellor(2).
3. In the modern era such lay prejudice,
discrimination and victimisation of male victims has ceased to
be enacted publicly. However, it has been argued that the prejudice
that gave rise to the Skimmington remains and is now practiced
as a discrimination and abuse of Human Rights of victimised men
within the policy and consideration of domestic violence by Government
and State institutions such as the Law, Police, Social Services
and Local Government agencies(2,3,4).
4. Hence it has been advanced that it is
now within the formalised mechanisms of Parliament, the Law and
the operation of the State that a modern form of the Skimmington
exists to the detriment of men who have suffered violence and
abuse from female partners, but who refuse to use violence and
abuse against their female partners(2,3,4).
PREJUDICE AND
DISCRIMINATION
5. A number of sources all indicate that
male victims experience prejudice and discrimination in the apparatus
of the modern State(1,2). This is even evident from the material
available from the House of Commons Select Committee. The Committee
should take on board the strength of prejudice that has been found
to exist against male victims, as opposed to the sympathetic response
female victims receive. This is aptly illustrated by an academic
study that asked people to respond to three scenarios; a victimised
wife, a victimised male homosexual and a victimised husband(5).
The victimised wife was more positively rated than either victimised
males and the female perpetrator less negatively rated than either
male perpetrators. Most significant was the fact that the heterosexual
husband victim was rated much less favourably than the homosexual
male victim. Given the well recognised virulent prejudice against
male homosexuals the finding that the heterosexual male victim
is the subject of an even greater prejudice puts the prejudice
commented upon above into its full context. It is severe and extreme.
It is little wonder given this finding that this severe prejudice
finds expression as discrimination in Government and State policy
towards male victims of domestic violence, both homosexual and
particularly heterosexual victims.
THE POWER
OF MYTH
AND THE
MYTH OF
POWER
6. In the construction of domestic violence
as an issue of public concern it is easy to see, given the above,
how women victims quickly became acknowledged and deserving of
sympathy and support from the public, government and hence state(2,4).
In fact concern for female victims since the 1970s was just a
re-awakening of concerns that had been expressed in Victorian
times when Parliament sought to provide protection to women by
invoking harsher penalties against wife beaters(2,3). However,
with a growing women's movement willing to advocate for female
victims the prejudices against male victims that found a focus
in previous times in the Skimmington were to pervade such advocacy
to the detriment of male victims whose existence and plight was
either denied or trivialised. For instance the repeated use of
the myth of the "rule of thumb" has been oft repeated
by women's advocates to seek to deny even the possibility of male
victimisation(4). In reality evidence shows that over a long period
of English history women victimised by male partners could use
the law to seek protection and redress against them as is shown
by Westminster Quarter Session records 1680-1720(4) as well as
numerous other examples. The reality is that no such "rule
of thumb" ever existed that allowed men to chastise wives
lawfully, even though some through history have thought that it
may have existed(4). So whilst the plight of women victims is
now highlighted in society dark forces of prejudice work to deny
and trivialise male victims and their plight by the use of "fictive"
statements and "groupthink" propaganda(4) to reinforce
the use of the Skimmington in official practices associated with
domestic violence.
7. The purpose of this propaganda is, however,
the same as the message of the Skimmington—to reinforce
the notion of men as head of the household and powerful. The Skimmington
in its punishment of male victims was designed to tell all men,
in furtherance of the ideas of "oikos" derived from
ancient Athens, that they should not disclose the realities of
their domestic situation so as to keep the notion that men were
"head of the household" alive rather than the reality
that men and women have lived with one another over history negotiating
and agreeing the distribution of relationship power in the majority,
although not all, of relationships(4). Thereby, in general, men
have not been "head of the household" in anything but
stereotypical conception(2,4) but they dare not declare it. In
so doing the reality of their domestic situation in many cases
as "altogether another story" has remained hidden.
UNDER REPORTING
MALES, UNDER
RECORDING AUTHORITIES
8. Key within the considerations of Parliamentary
committees looking at domestic violence has been statistical sources
which give measures of intimate victimisation. The sources that
seem most used and relied upon are either criminal justice statistics
or those derived from the British Crime Survey. It can be argued
that it is exactly these statistical sources that under-estimate
male victimisation, which is compromised by a general reluctance
of males to report any kind of victimisation, let alone domestic
abuse by a female.
9. For instance, it has been found in studies
of male on male violence that even when serious injuries are sustained
males are often reluctant to acknowledge they have sustained injury
in an assault or are reluctant to report to Police or other agencies(6).
This is also true in studies of intimate assaults whereby, for
instance, in a study in Leicester Royal Infirmary less than 50%
of male victims of domestic assaults were willing to identify
the perpetrator(7). There is considerable evidence that where
men suffer assaults by female partners a number of factors result
in failure to report. Fear of ridicule, not seeing what their
partner has done as a crime and accepting female violence as "just
something to be put up with" are amongst a considerable number
of rationalisations used by male victims which result in failure
to report.
10. However, the statistical validity of
such sources is also compromised by the failure of recording of
instances of male victims by police and other agencies which may
also be traced back to the generalised, yet severe, prejudice
against male victims already explained. A yet more insidious distortion
of such official statistics is that male victims often complain
and some studies have found that female perpetrators often use
threats to make complaints to the Police as part of their abuse
of male victims. This was found in a survey undertaken for Channel
4 Dispatches programme in 1999 (for details see http://www.dewar4research.org)
where female perpetrators were more likely to phone Police than
has been found for female victims and did so more frequently.
Hence a distortion of the figures can occur whereby a female is
mistakenly ascribed as being a victim, whilst a male victim is
mistakenly ascribed as a perpetrator. Consequentially these male
victims were very critical of the police. An Australian study
has examined cases in which males claimed to have been victimised,
whilst their female partner claimed to have used violence in self-defence(8).
By taking the testimony of the women's children and their own
mothers it was established that in almost all the cases studied
the woman was the real perpetrator and the vast majority of women
admitted this when confronted by the evidence of their own children
and mothers. However, in many cases the authorities, such as Police
and Family or Criminal Courts, had believed women's initial claims
and had acted against the men in some way. Hence a particularly
disturbing aspect of the exercise of the prejudice and discrimination
against male victims is the latitude it allows violent abusive
women to manipulate agencies such as the Police and Courts to
further victimise and abuse their male partners.
VIOLENT FEMALES
AND INJURED
MALES
11. Amongst the problems of identifying
male victims is the lack of the ability of even highly trained
professionals, like psychiatrists, to be able to recognise violent
females. In studies undertaken on the assessment of dangerousness
(ie propensity to commit violence) by psychiatrists it has been
found whilst they assess dangerousness in males at much better
than chance levels, they assess dangerousness in females at less
than chance levels(9). In other words even highly qualified medical
professionals would be better off using a blindfold and a pin
to assess which females are potentially violent according to this
research. This state of affairs results from an obsession within
the field of criminality and violence research on male violence
such that the characteristics of the violent male are well established,
yet almost un-researched in the case of violent females(10). Given
this it is no wonder that Police Officers, for instance, often
get it wrong when attending domestic incidents where the victim
is male.
12. Much research on domestic abuse has
established that many male perpetrators have personality disorders.
However, personality disorders are the one psychiatric diagnosis
most biased along gender lines whereby males are more likely to
be seen as anti-social and hence culpable, but females hysterical
and thus victims, even when the actions of both are equally anti-social(11).
Research has identified that female perpetrators of domestic assaults
often show the same characteristics of personality disorder established
as a feature of male perpetrators(12).
13. Despite such evidence the general perception
is that, as males are on average bigger and stronger than females,
assaults by females on males are unlikely or not serious or injurious
when they occur. This presumption that size and strength inhibit
women's assaults on men is belied by research conducted by this
author that showed women were two times more likely to assault
a man, rather than another women, across all categories of relationship
from stranger to intimate(13). For serious assaults this imbalance
rose to 4:1. Women prefer to assault men as many men feel they
cannot respond likewise and women use this male chivalry to their
advantage to make assaults with impunity.
14. To overcome size and strength differences
assaultative women often use weapons when assaulting male partners.
For instance burns units see men who have had boiling liquids
thrown over them by female partners(14) and a vast array of weapons
are described as being used by male victims, including the proverbial
rolling pin, but more worryingly often sharp, pointed or heavy
objects(1,2). In several studies of admissions of victims to emergency
departments it is the male victims who are described as having
suffered the most serious injuries and are more likely to have
lost consciousness (1,2). Moreover male victims also report the
same kind of severe emotional and psychological trauma as female
victims at being victimised, whether injured or not(15).
15. It is an irony of the hidden plight
and enforced invisibility of male victims that their existence
and prevalence is given credence and unimpeachable testimony by
assaultative women. In academic surveys which seek to investigate
what assault adult intimates have either suffered or perpetrated
upon one another it is women who report prevalently that they
have assaulted male partners (see http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm)
and more prevalently than women, themselves, say they have been
assaulted by male partners. An interesting testament to this disclosure
of the situation of male victims by women is contained with a
government study; Home Office Research Study 191(16). Seeking
to check the influence of partners being present when respondents
answered the survey the Home Office researchers found that in
the case of male respondents the presence of a female partner
increased male victimisation prevalence. Quite simply some males
declined to identify they had been assaulted by their female partner,
but when present their female partner corrected them and reminded
them she had assaulted them (6 at page 98).
CONCLUDING REMARKS
16. This submission presents evidence to
the Committee to highlight the fact that without the committee
being able to overcome the present prejudiced and biased "groupthink"
surrounding domestic violence, that keeps male victimisation hidden
and unaddressed, it will not have any credibility in its deliberations
nor change policy and practice so that the Human Rights of male
victims do not continue to be violated so completely and assiduously.
The Committee needs to act to inform the institutions
of State such as the Police and Courts that no longer can the
lines of a poem on the plight of battered husbands
"No concerned jury damage for him finds
Nor partial justice her behaviour binds"
written by the writer Marvell, a contemporary
of Shakespeare, be allowed to hold sway such that the bias towards
females and against males in domestic violence policy and practice(17)
is changed to one of equality and justice which is manifest and
real.
REFERENCES
(1) George, M J (1994). Riding the donkey backwards:
Men as the unacceptable victims of marital violence. Journal
of Men's Studies, 3, 137-159.
(2) George, M J (2003). Invisible touch. Agression
and Violent Behaviour. 8, 23-60.
(3) George, M J (2002). Skimmington revisted.
Journal of Men's Studies, 10, 111-127.
(4) George, M J (2007). The Great Taboo and the
role of patriarchy in husband and wife abuse. International Journal
of Men's Health, 6, 7-22.
(5) Harris, R J & Cook, C A (1994). Attributions
about spouse abuse: It matters who batterers and victims are.
Sex Riles, 30, 553-565.
(6) Shepherd J (1990). Violent crim in Bristol:
an accident and emergency department perspective. British Journal
of Criminology 30, 289-305.
(7) Smith, S, Baker D, Ducan A, Bodiwala, G (1992).
Adult domestic violence. Health Trends 24, 97-99.
(8) Sarantakos, S (2004). Deconstructing self-defence
in wife-to-husband violence. Journal of Men's Studies, 12, 277-296.
(9) Lidz, C, Mulvey, E & Gardner, W (1993).
The accuracy of prediction of violence to others. Journal of
the American Medical Association, 269, 1007-1011.
(10) Ogilvie, E (1996). Masculine obsessions:
an examination of criminology, criminality and gender. The
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 29, 205-226.
(11) Ford, M R, Widigier, T A (1989). Sex bias
in the diagnosis of histrionic and antisocial personality disorder.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 57, 301-305.
(12) Bates, F (1981). A plea for the battered
husband. Family Law 11, 92-94; Simmons, C, Lehmann, P,
Cobb, N & Fowler, C (2005). Personality profiles of women
and men arrested for domestic violence: An analysis of similarities
and differences. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 41,
63-81.
(13) George, M J (1999). A victimization survey
of femal perpetrated assaults in the United Kingdom. Aggressive
behaviour, 25, 67-79.
(14) Duminy, F J & Hudson, D A (1993). Assaults
inflicted by hot water. Burns 119, 426-428.
(15) Hines, D A & Malley-Morrison, K (2001).
Psychological effects of partner abuse against men: A neglected
research area. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 2, 75-85.
(16) Mirrlees-Black, Catriona Domestic Violence:
Findingd from a new British Crime Survey self-completion questionnaire.
Home Office 1999.
(17) Brown, G (2004). Gender as a factor in the
response of the law-enforcement system to violence against partners.
Sexuality and Culture, 8, 3-139.
1 October 2007
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