The Hypocrisy of Attacking Shelters for Male Victims of Domestic Violence

“Feminism is about equal rights” is the number one response to any criticism that feminism just doesn’t care about men. It is even the literal dictionary definition of feminism, in many cases. But take note of the first half of that sentence:

“Feminism: The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.”
Oxford Dictionary

One of the key problems with feminism is that the first half of that sentence almost always trumps the second. Feminism is about women’s rights first and foremost, hence the name, and it does not care one jot for men’s rights. In fact, it is almost perpetually in absolute opposition to them. Take for example this article by a feminist openly opposing the very idea that male victims of domestic violence should get ANY help whatsoever. Let’s take a closer look at her reasoning and see how ridiculous it is.

“News came out this month that a Domestic Violence shelter for male survivors opened in Batesville, Arkansas. According to the article, it is the first shelter for male survivors in the country.”

Fix this in your mind when reading this article: what she is objecting to is literally the only dedicated shelter for men in the USA, with exactly nine places for abused men. It is brand new and barely getting started, and yet this is far too much support for male victims, in her opinion:

“But… money going towards this shelter means that money did not go towards other services for women,”

In other words: she openly admits that even a single shelter supporting male victims is one too much for her, since every penny spent on men is one that is not being spent on women. But maybe she is just really ignorant of the state of male victimhood? Nope. She openly admits men are victims too, thus stripping herself of even that defence:

“Before I get too “Debbie Downer,” I want to first acknowledge that male survivors of domestic violence are a real and important thing, and male survivors face stigma and other gendered issues that women don’t. Men that have survived domestic violence should have resources…”

This part is meant to assure the reader she actually does care, but in the context of her argument that zero shelters for men should exist, it is a critical admission: she does not care. She does not care at all. If she did, she would be celebrating the opening instead of trying to undermine the very concept of male domestic violence shelters. Her mentioning of this fact is an outright attempt to manipulate readers by appearing to be sympathetic and fair-minded towards male DV victims.
Her selfishness is brazen and readily apparent but, of course, she has a justification for her selfishness. Or rather, a deflection:

“women, who make up about 80% of DV victims and survivors, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.”

That figure is, of course, outdated and based on the highly faulty premise that every single victim of DV reports the crime. But men are known to be highly afraid of even talking about DV, never mind reporting it. In recent times this stigma is changing. In 2011 studies show that men made up more than half of the 10.1 million victims of domestic violence in the USA. In other words, about 53% of tall DV victims are male, and 40% of all severe cases are male victims (See previous link). And that is even with the stigma on reporting the crime for men. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever seen a woman openly hit a man in public or seen people ridicule a man for being hit by his female partner. Women are far more violent than men because they know they can get away with it. Men are also conditioned to never his a woman. Ever. Even if the woman is attacking them. For anyone who has ever witnessed this kind of bullying, the lack of help for men is almost as scary as the response if the man dares to fight back. This alone damns the entire public and feminist narrative on Domestic Violence.
But lets put all of that aside.
Lets assume that that, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, she is right that only 20% of DV victims are male. Why is it that feminists, not just our Debbie Downer here, think giving resources to 1/5 of all victims is a waste? Why do they think men and boys should be discriminated against just because they happen to be in the minority cohort of DV victims (which they actually aren’t)?
Obviously if 20% of DV victims are male, then 20% of the resources for DV victims should go to men – which would mean about a 20% raise in their funding. That idea plainly scares the writer of this article – she is terrified that if men are given parity and equality, women will have to give up some of the pie. Obviously, we could very well just increase funding for men without cutting any for women, but that isn’t the route her argument takes. Taking this article as a whole, she clearly does not believe men are equal to women, or that male pain is equal to female pain. But that isn’t her only deflection:

“from October to early February, only five men have used this nine-bed facility. Because of the gender disparity of survivors, it’s likely that these resources would have served many more women at this point.”

In other words, the fact men are frighted to use this singular facility, and don’t know it exists, is evidence the shelter should be given over to women for their exclusive use. This zero-sum argument is morally reprehensible and relies on the idea that if a service is brand new it must instantly be stacked to capacity 24/7 or be considered totally useless. This would be an appalling attitude to have to a new technology or businesses, never mind actual human beings in fear for their lives. This argument is especially bad when you remember that the author herself openly states that this is the first DV shelter for men in the entire country. In her stated belief, having just one shelter to handle ALL male victims of domestic violence is too much. Even if you go by here 20% figure, that is still tens of thousands of people. If not hundreds of thousands.
But her implication is worse than that. She seems to believe that ANY shelter for men whatsoever is a waste of resources. How can anyone say that? It’s actually far too little – and there’s just no way a reasonable or moral person can come to any other conclusion. Logically, if 20% of DV victims are male, it’s impossible to provide adequate help with ZERO shelters and ZERO funding available. You might debate the ratio of shelters to victims, but the problem with zero is it’s absolute value – it can’t ever be enough, regardless of how little the need is, as long as a need exists. Zero is zero.
Remember that she has already admitted:

“male survivors of domestic violence are a real and important thing, and male survivors face stigma and other gendered issues that women don’t.”

But yet she actually spent hours of her time on an article that actively opposes and discourages the existence of any shelters for men in the entire country. You may think she has already shown her cards by admitting to being selfish, and to not caring enough about male pain to allow one single measly nine-bed shelter. But it gets worse – she opposes the very concept of men having rights at all.

“I am perhaps especially wary of Domestic Violence shelters for men because one of Men’s Right’s Activists rallying cries is “why aren’t there domestic violence shelters for men”? They ask this without ever acknowledging that the whole reason that interpersonal violence is even seen as problematic in the first place is because of feminism.”

Even if feminism did not openly claim to be ‘about equal rights’, this argument would make no logical sense at all. Right now, and right in front of you, a feminist author is opposing the very existence of male shelters, yet is also claiming that DV is only seen as a problem because of feminists… it’s pure doublespeak. And just two paragraphs above that, she said:

“Once again, it’s not that these five men [currently using the shelter] don’t deserve gender competent services, because they absolutely do.”

Yet she is “wary” about the very existence of shelters for men? Why? It’s quite probably because she is viewing the problem through a heavy ideological lens:

“Domestic violence is one enactment of patriarchy”

This spiel is part of the typical unproven feminist statement that domestic violence is a result of ‘patriarchal gender hierarchies’ and ‘the dynamics of gender roles’ – a nonsensical word salad with no basis in reality whatsoever. Not only is it bonkers, it has been proven time and again to be such baseless ideological spam that science and feminism are now seen to be in opposition. We know for a fact that it’s very possible for a man to be a victim of domestic violence in over 53% of all cases, so her ideological statement (not even an argument) is meaningless. You may as well say ‘domestic violence only affects a minority of the population, therefore we shouldn’t spend a penny on it’. It’s an appalling logical fallacy.
Even if men were only victims 40% or 20% or 1% of the time, it would still be nonsense owing to the fact that Patriarchy is totally irrelevant to her argument… unless she is claiming men don’t deserve shelters because they are male. Which she seems to be doing:

“Maybe I am wrong about this, and maybe this is a super feminist men’s shelter. I hope that I am.”

“It is also crucial that the gendered aspects of domestic violence are at the forefront so we can attack the toxic elements of masculinity at its roots as we work towards a world without interpersonal violence.”
In other words, it would appease her no end to know these emotionally scarred male victims of violence by women were being browbeaten by an ideology that sees their maleness as literally being toxic. This is as good as outright stating that she thinks their victimhood at the hands of women is their own fault and that they deserved it.

“but the fact that 80% of survivors are women and therefore women’s shelters are overflowing with people and the men’s shelter have beds to spare is one of the ways this plays out.”

But what other men’s shelters she talking about? She said herself that this is literally the only one in the country… so which other shelters are being left with empty beds? She is spinning out these four unused places (at the time of her writing) to cover an entire continent! Places you can bet were filled as soon as abused men saw that they existed. And again, she is suggesting that 20% is too low of a number to warrant a shelter… this is essentially discriminating against a population because they are in the minority.

“Gender and its concepts and contexts are very important when talking about domestic violence. Whether the violence is perpetrated by a man, woman, genderqueer, or other non-binary person, domestic violence is always a gendered issue, and that needs to be taken into account.”

But how does gender factor into an instance of domestic violence where a man is the victim and a woman the abuser? How does her feminist patriarchy theory come into play here? She seems to answer this later with:

“No matter who the perpetrators or survivors are, toxic masculinity is always a part of domestic violence and I am skeptical that a shelter for men would spend time indicting the system that makes domestic violence so common (i.e. patriarchy) beyond dealing with the stigma that male survivors face.”

Ah, the usual blame the victim tactic. But wait…she’s talking about male victims and the “stigma that men face”, and yet, at the same time, she opposes the very existence of a single men’s shelter! In the course of a single article, she has gone from being selfish, to being tyrannical, to utterly contradicting her own logic. All in the space of a few words. But this is just what deeply ideological and abusive people do – they use convoluted language that sounds like it’s a valid academic concept, write it in a reasonable tone, so it sounds legitimate to a reader. They make it appear as if it’s balanced and thought out, but pick it apart, and you can see blatant inconsistencies, and logic that just doesn’t make any sense.
Has this article affected you, or would you like to get involved in funding shelters for male victims of domestic violence or starting your own?
If you would like to get help or get involved, we recommend The Mankind Initiative if you live in the UK. Especially if you need someone to call.  You can also tell your story over at our forums, support the people who do, or help us spread the word by linking back to this article.