Working with Battered Women: a Handbook for ... - Hot Peach Pages

MYTH: Women provoke violence.FACT: All couples argue from time to time over a variety of marital issues: children, money,sex, etc., and these arguments are not likely to be diplomatic and "fair" in each instance.However, all couples do not resolve these conflicts through violent means. The actions of abusevictims may indeed trigger the assault but that is different from causing or provoking the assault.Those triggers are common, normal everyday actions on the part of the woman and it isimpossible for her to anticipate her partner's reactions. Some triggers include:• not having supper ready on time/having supper ready at the regular time and asking himto come to the table,• not spending enough time with the kids/spending too much time with the kids and notenough time with him,• asking for grocery money/not having enough groceries in the house.In the early stages of a violent relationship, women try very hard to do whatever their partners wantof them in the hope of avoiding the violence.MYTH: Men abuse their female partners because they are mentally ill.FACT: The incidence of violence against women in relationships is too high to be explained bymental illness. If this myth were accurate, one in every eight Canadian men could be mentally ill.Studies show that psychopathic personalities or other forms of mental illness among men whobatter are rare. Men who batter have not been found to be measurably different from non-batteringmen except that they usually have adopted a very traditional stereotypical role, which makes itdifficult for them to express their emotions.If we label abusive men as having a problem that comes from inside them personally instead ofstemming from their socialization, then the weight of responsibility can be shifted from us as asociety and from the batterer, and placed entirely on the man's illness. Again, it also makes us "feelbetter" to believe that if only "mentally ill" men batter and we don't know any mentally ill men, noone we know could possibly be a batterer.MYTH: Men abuse their partners because they are under stress.FACT: This myth suggests that violence is a response to stress caused by role expectations, lackof resources, etc. It does not explain why the chosen target of the violence is most often anintimate partner. It also does not explain why women under stress do not attack men with the samefrequency. Nor does it explain why there are many men under stress who do not beat theirpartners.15