I know nothing personally about the situation of Asia, except that it’s usually much less egalitarian than here, at least from what I read or hear of it.

That being said, I’m not sure that men can just up and leave, at least here (Canada/US). Having children complicates the issue as well. If the woman is the abuser, and there are children, if he leaves, he leaves their children with the abuser. If he leaves with them, he’s a kidnapper. And well, where would he go? No shelter, very little help if any and the law has trouble believing it could even have happened to him.

So I’m not sure its all one-sided, or that women only respond with murder when its all been bottled up for years. I think many would respond with moderate non-lethal violence, with or without a weapon. If anything, DV murder have women as responsible of only 1/4 of it.

We were just discussing this topic of DV and Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) in class the other day and debating whether such a strong, pro-longed psychological effect on the victim could be raised as a defence for murder.

I say a resounding yes! These women have suffered so much at the hands of their boyfriends/husbands/partners that they descend into a state of learned helplessness which leaves them virtually no alternative to escape. Sure, antagonists argue that they could just leave, but they are oversimplifying things by a long stretch.

It is not that easy to just pack up and leave particularly because women are usually more ‘tied down’ by the house, the children, etc. Even though society has progressed, there are still a lot divisions along gender lines. Let’s not kid ourselves, the woman is always expected – and most of the time ends up – taking care of the household. She will invariably have a harder time than the man to just up and leave.

This is exacerbated by the fact (especially here in Asia) that leaving your husband is a very shameful thing to do. The contrast is quite stark. It is not uncommon for men to leave the family; sometimes it is even encouraged and accepted by society. However, when the woman does it, it is like raising a red flag for the entire community to criticise her for her actions. The modern world has a long way to go if it cannot erase the shame from women-related status and concepts (e.g. loss of virginity)

Furthermore, the slightly sexist but undeniable fact that most men are physically bigger and stronger than most women contributes to this god-awful cycle of domestic violence and abuse. It is unrealistic to think women can retaliate (and win) in a fist-fight against their attacker. Thus, they are driven to the point where they have to use a weapon to get an advantage of their opponent. And to improve their chances, they usually do it when the man is asleep.

Unfortunately, this means they can rarely raise the defence of duress and/or provocation because firstly, they were not under the threat or fear of imminent death or serious bodily injury (the attacker was asleep), secondly, they had an undue advantage (knife or weapon vs unarmed man in PJs), and thirdly, they were not provoked at that instance by the words or conduct of the man. And the last driving nail into the coffin is that the murder was clearly intentional and premeditated.

However, that being said, I don’t think that we should put these poor women up on trial for something that should have never happened to them in the first place. As the famous song from the musical Chicago went “He had it coming, he had it coming/He only had himself to blame/If you had been there, if you had seen it/I betcha you would have done the same”

As a guy, I am sickened by the way some of my kind behaves towards women in general – treating them like dirt and doormats to be trampled on. In a perfect world, men should treat women with all due respect, love and honour. Hopefully, with greater awareness being raised about such pertinent (but sadly hidden) issues, we will one day become a society that truly has equality and justice for all.

I read an article or study recently on some other blog about how there were many women who reacted with taking it personally or blaming the guy, when he didn’t want to have sex when they wanted it. But that was mostly anecdotal stuff.

If it’s true on a large enough scale (which I can’t know), then fixing that problem would require a change of attitude in both men and women.

Same for the weak part about women. This idea seems to be common in both men and women. Men who will ‘do it for them’ and women who will ‘ask men to do it for them’ when it comes to anything requiring some moderate physical effort.

My mother as anecdotal evidence of this: She thinks working in warehouses is “men’s work”, not because of the male/female ratio of workers, but because its physical work primarily. And yet she’s far from conservative.

I’m not sure how to fix the harmless perspective except by making it known that women can be violent, or criminal, are not angels that are morally superior to women. In other words, it involves killing the Victorian era narrative about women.

Although this might appear negative for women, giving them a share of responsability in criminality instead of excusing it is recognizing women as full citizens, capable of both good and evil, and thus capable of leading, voting and making decisions – because they know how to be responsible. In other words: This can only improve their professional reputation. Open up more opportunities to high executive positions.

Given how difficult it is to get people to publicly acknowledge the female-perpetrated sex offenses against male victims aren’t somehow a positive thing, even with ridiculously young victims, it’s hardly a mystery. When women do it, the cultural narrative leans strongly against recognizing it as a real harm. Erasing the sexist ideas that women are oh-so-weak/harmless and that all men want sex with anyone all the time will go a long way towards acknowledging the problem.

I think this would be interesting because if men can justify themselves with “all men do it” or “many men do it”, then how do women who abuse (who may very well be in much fewer numbers, but data is scarce to have a real idea) justify their abuse when all they hear is “women never do it” or “only crazy women do it”.

Male and female victims of female abusers are the forgotten ones in all DV and rape prevention advocacy. Their being victims, or as you say, bystanders, of that abuse, may contribute to some becoming abusers in the future, and until we take care of those victims, the problem will not be eradicated completely.

Also, programs to reform abusers might need to be reformed themselves to be more efficient. Rely more on objective data than ideology (the Duluth model fails to take into account any other reason than power and control for abuse). They should be tailored to the future-reformed abuser in order to have a smaller or inexistent recidivist rate.

I’ll give an example to make this more concrete. Say I’m an abuser. Telling me about general theories of why “people like me” abuse probably won’t talk to me, and I’d just ignore it. But if someone takes time to understand the individual psychology under it, then we might get further and I might follow the therapy to genuinely reform myself instead of just following the court order to avoid prison.

Also prison sucks for reform purposes. But that’s another topic.

My comment might seem as a sort of derail, and you might say I don’t speak of all angles. I see it as complementary – not replacing – the actual system in place that goes to prevent violence (sexual or otherwise) against women. Because all angles need to be considered to eradicate the problem.

So I’m not a troll, a MRA or an abuser. Just someone who wants all DV and sexual assault to end, all of it. And for victims to be treated by good services, but all victims.