"Confronting Abusive Beliefs: Starting From Women's Experience"
Here are:
I would like to pass on some information from our latest newsletter "Making Waves" about a program in Vancouver. It is the most encouraging development I've seen in the field of working with batterers - not only because women's safety is central, but because batterers themselves see the program as something that can work for them - unlike "anger management" theory which does not consider or change the real problem.
On January 19th 1996 Family Services of Greater Vancouver Family Violence Intervention Program held a workshop titled: "Confronting Abusive Beliefs: Starting From Women's Experience". Family Services workers spoke about how their program has changed over the years, from a focus on anger management and men's psychological needs, to a focus on women's safety. They reported that the program was much more successful once the new focus was put into place, and the following Men's Program Components were agreed to by all workers and participants:
- Prepared by the Family Violence Intervention Project, Family Services of Greater Vancouver
In this section are Tom Graves' comments on the above, with original information and program details in italics (edited as appropriate).
I would like to pass on some information from our latest newsletter "Making Waves" about a program in Vancouver. It is the most encouraging development I've seen in the field of working with batterers - not only because women's safety is central
A simple question: why is women's safety assumed to be central? (More to the point, why is perceived 'safety' of women - and only women - the sole presented criterion?)
but because batterers themselves see the program as something that can work for them - unlike "anger management" theory which does not consider or change the real problem
Agreed, "anger management" techniques alone solve nothing: they are only a tool - though an important one - in the more central issue of the development of self-responsibility.
Family Services workers spoke about how their program has changed over the years, from a focus on anger management and men's psychological needs, to a focus on women's safety.
In other words, it is now to be deemed that men have no significant needs, and that men have no 'safety' concerns - not even psychological concerns - because abuse by women does not exist.
They reported that the program was much more successful once the new focus was put into place,
'Success' is nowhere defined. From some of the 'Components' below (especially 1 and 2), the nearest to a definition that can be derived is "a situation in which it is fully accepted that women have all rights and no responsibilities; that men have all responsibilities and no rights; that women have the absolute right, if they so wish, to abuse without impunity; and that men are legally liable both for their own and women's actions" - the latter, from Naomi Wolf's comments in Fire With Fire, being a huge step backwards for women.
and the following Men's Program Components were agreed to by all workers and participants:
1. 100% belief in women's acccount of abuse.
Anyone who seriously proposes this as a statement of fact can only be described as insane, living in cloud-cuckoo-land, or both. Even the most casual of observers would have to admit that women are at least as capable of men of misunderstanding a situation - at the very least - and imagining abuse where none actually existed. Even the most inadequate of observers would have to admit that women are, at times, capable of exaggeration, and even fabrication: it is known, for example, that at least 55-60 percent of Family Court claims by women of child sexual abuse by their partners are, as a minimum, imagined or fallacious, let alone malicious and known-false.
That said, there is a great deal of validity in proceeding as if the 'woman's account of abuse' was factually true: but there is a world of difference between that and saying that that account is true...
2. 100% responsibility of men for abuse.
Ditto: it is generally useful to proceed as if this is true, but it is seriously insane to proceed on the basis that this is true - especially if no distinction is drawn between responsibility and blame. Each person can only be responsible for their own behaviour; it's not that they shouldn't be responsible for others, but that they cannot. (There's a useful distinction between being responsible for self versus responsible about others.) Only if that is fully understood can we usefully argue about "100% responsibility of men for abuse"; yet it must also be fully and totally accepted that women also have "100% responsibility ... for abuse". A valid women's programme must also assume that those women have exactly the same responsibility - in the strict sense of 'response-ability' - as men; otherwise it will enshrine concepts of 'women as victim', which actively disempowers women, and hence is not only an act of abuse but - since it teaches women to rely on blame and on use of third-parties rather than look to their own power and responsibility - actively teaches women to abuse.
3. Abuse is an act of choice based on ideas of entitlement and privilege.
Rubbish. This is indeed a class of abuse, a source of abuse, but only a minor one - even the original heavily-biased Duluth programme accepted this (it's just one of their eight categories). This appears to be a direct offshoot from cuckoo one-way concepts of entitlement and privilege, which describe exactly the same situation (e.g. employment) as a 'privilege' for men, but 'oppression' for women. Abuse is far better understood as an act of choice based on an attempt to offload responsibility and/or fears to any Other; the chosen mechanism for such 'export' varies according to the individual and the context (Duluth lists eight general categories, and even that excludes common classes such as sexual abuse); such behaviour is most certainly not restricted to adult males (as is demonstrated immediately by a simple gender-inversion of the descriptions in the Duluth Wheel). Personal power is closely related to personal choice: yet here _all_ choices are assigned to the male, which inevitably disempowers the female - so this Component is, in itself, abusive to women. It also, circularly, assigns responsibility to males, but then decries it as an 'entitlement and privilege', for which such males are deemed responsible (i.e. to blame) - this kind of double-bind is classed under Duluth as emotional abuse, and is itself an act of abuse.
4. Abuse is defined by impact, and understanding impact is necessary for meaningful change. Questions about impact are therefore a central reference point.
'Impact' is not defined; it appears, from other Components, to be defined - and circularly - solely in terms of women's perceived 'safety'.
5. Worker positions self as advocate for women's safety. Questions about woman's experience and perspective are therefore central; and questions about what woman might see as evidence of safety are also central.
A simple question: why? This appears to be entirely circular: "worker positions self as advocate for women's safety", because women's experience and perceptions are deemed central; they are deemed central because worker are required to position themselves so, which is then taken as 'proof' that they are central. Note again that men's experience - including physical experience - is deemed to have lesser (possibly zero) priority by comparison with women's perceptions of reality: as discussed elsewhere, this is a direct recipe for insanity of all parties. That this appears to be described as 'success' is more than a little tragic...
6. Questions about privilege/status are more relevant than psychological experience/accounts.
Rubbish. This is a politicised statement which is entirely circular and self-referential, and has little or no psychological validity other than as part of a framework for psychological abuse of the person deemed 'responsible' (i.e. males, in this context). 'Privilege' and 'status' are social concepts, 'psychological experience/accounts' are personal: what we have here, when linked with Components 1 and 2, is a statement that socially constructed concepts of women's 'safety' - usually based on abysmal observation (if any) - have absolute priority over men's psychological experience or accounts, and that, conversely, that women's psychological experience/accounts - "100% belief in women's accounts of abuse" - has absolute priority over men's physical experience (let alone psychological experience)
7. Work with women for their safety:
Genuine information and genuine risk-assessment is vital; but if the 'information nights' and 'risk assessments' provide the kind of misinformation and wild exaggerations that we've seen elsewhere (such as the "one in four women are regularly abused by their partners each night" in the 'She' article this month), then they're best described as psychological and emotional abuse of women.
8. Central assessment question is: "How does it work for a woman's safety to have a man in the group?" rather than "Will he respond to treatment?" or "Will he change?".
To have this as the only criterion is an act of abuse, both of men and of women. Another crucial question sidestepped here is "who defines 'safety'?" - the 'workers', or the women actually involved in the relationship. Given that personal growth and empowerment are closely linked with risk-taking and personally facing fear, an arbitrary definition of 'safety' from outsiders (especially if based on the kind of 'matronising' 'woman-as-victim' pseudo-definitions common in cuckoo theory) is more likely to disempower the woman than to empower her - and hence would be an act of abuse (for which, in this model, only the man - rather than the huge structural flaws in the model itself - would be blamed...).
9. Confidentiality policy: We will exchange information about men with women and/or police and/or service providers based on our best judgment of what is safe. Therefore, the contract is: "Are you prepared to work with us, with the understanding that we will not agree to any exceptions or disclaimers about confidentiality when women and children's safety is at risk?" Contacts with women are always confidential; information exchange is for the purposes of facilitating risk assessment for those experiencing impact, namely, women and children.
Notice that contacts with women are always confidential; contacts with men are in no way confidential, and subject to the 'best judgement' of people, who, judging by the statements in the foregoing Components, have serious problems distinguishing politicised fantasy from reality. It is extremely unlikely that a man - even a known abuser, let alone the one-quarter of all males in such incidents who are actually the primary victims of abuse - would be in any way safe to place himself under the control of such people; that such men are required to do so by the court system - or even by police instructions, which are required (e.g. in South Australia) to apply to all reported incidents of abuse, regardless of context - indicates just how far state-sponsored third-party abuse of males has now gone.
10. Move from self-focus to other-focus, and ask men: "So, this is your account/experience/view, what would your partner's be?"
This is useful and valid, but only if the self-focus is also fully acknowledged. If the sole permitted focus is on the Other, and personal reality is constantly denied (as appears, from the foregoing Components, to be the case), the end-result will always be personal insanity of varying degrees. Unless self-focus is fully encouraged - as a minimum, for the purpose of developing 'response-ability' - then this Component can only be classed as an act of abuse.
11. Intention is irrelevant: impact is key.
Since 'impact' is never defined, this statement is all but meaningless; but since, in practice, intention and responsibility are very closely interwoven - responsibility cannot be developed without intention - it is completely counterproductive to state that 'intention is irrelevant'.
This claim is common in cuckoo theory, and its primary purpose appears to be its use as a tool for Other-blame - in other words structural condoning and incitement of abuse by the self-styled 'abused party'. If my intention is to assist someone - for example, I offer to provide technical assistance - it is possible, for example, for the Other to interpret that offer as a put-down (e.g. as denigrating their ability). If the sole criterion is perceived 'impact', with only the 'aggrieved party' defining 'impact', and with intention being deemed 'irrelevant' and all responsibility being assigned to the perceived 'abusive party', we have a recipe for serious social insanity: the end-result will be that the society becomes entirely focussed on the random whims of self-declared 'aggrieved parties' who become increasingly incapable (having no feedback on intention) of anchoring their perceived reality in physical or shared reality (the usual definition of sanity), with those who do take responsibility being increasingly abused for doing so (and thus become less and less willing to take responsibility, given the massive disincentives for doing so). This is the kind of society about which Robert Hughes warns in The Culture of Complaint, but at least that disaster-area was gender-neutral; this isn't...
12. Deconstruct explanations for mutuality/equality of responsibility/abusiveness by examining impact.
If 'impact' is determined - as appears to be the case - solely by women's perceived reality, with no reference to physical reality or to men's perceived reality, then such 'deconstruction' will be entirely circular: since it is already presumed that men are "100% responsible for abuse", the only possible 'explanation' possible in such 'deconstruction' would be that this is so because men are assumed to be 100% responsible for abuse...
- Prepared by the Family Violence Intervention Project, Family Services of Greater Vancouver
I would suggest, bluntly, that these people may have extensive experience of working with the perceived experiences of women, but have very little grasp of physical reality - especially the physical reality as described by Straus, Gelles, Steinmetz et al., in which women are actively involved as perpetrators in three-quarters of all significant inter-partner abuse, and the primary perpetrators in one-quarter of such abuse. There is no cross-link in this model to the other, perhaps more serious, aspect of family violence, namely child abuse - possibly because such gendered models are blatantly unusable in such a context (for example, I have yet to see any cuckoo manage to explain how a gendered model can be used to explain how a six-month-old male infant is "100% responsible for abuse" after being severely battered by its mother...), and possibly because the known primary perpetratrors of such abuse are not only women, by a huge margin, but also because, unlike fathers (whose child-abuse is statistically close to gender-neutral), mothers are highly sex-specific in their child-abuse, abusing boys far more often than girls.
It was acknowledged that the model at present has only been used for heterosexual relationships, and more work will need to be done to work with lesbian and gay relationships.
Attempting to apply this gendered model to homosexual relationships - particularly lesbian ones - illustrates immediately that it is not only unusable in any context, but is actually an active programme of abuse (in the Duluth definitions of abuse) of those deemed "100% percent responsible" (i.e. males), and an active disempowerment of those deemed 'not responsible' (i.e. females). There's no doubt that, within their own terms, the intentions of the "Family Violence Intervention Project, Family Services of Greater Vancouver" were good; but since, in their own terms, we're supposed to agree that "intention is irrelevant; impact is key", we would have to describe their entire programme as intentionally abusive...
This type of programme has only one advantage: it is simple and easy to understand, because everything is based on circular, self-referential pseudo-definitions of responsibility, impact and success. In practice, it is a perfect illustration of the old adage that "for every complex problem there is at least one clear, simple, easy-to-understand wrong answer"...
Only when it is fully understood that everyone has 'response-ability' for and about abuse does 'success' - in the sense of empowerment of all parties to prevent further abuse - become feasible. A simple revision of the Duluth model, to make it gender-neutral yet still fully focussed on responsibility, does work, in any context of abuse (I've used it with lesbian domestic abuse, for example), and unlike the original is not inherently abusive to any party. Here is my preliminary version of such a revised model.
Further information on the program:
The program was developed by Mary Russell of the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia, and Jobst Froberg of Vancouver Family Services. It was funded through the Federal Government's Initiative on Family Violence. We have been distributing it and still have a few free copies of the manual in our office, and I believe it is being republished by Sage in the U.S. I understand that the program was attended by men who came on a voluntary basis, not in response to court orders, a point of some significance for evaluation of this experience.
Jill Hightower, B.C. Institute on Family Violence, Vancouver, Canada
On the point of 100% belief in women's account of abuse, 100% responsiblity of men for abuse, Lonnie Hazlewood responded:
A word of caution. The nature of beliefs systems is to look for information that supports the belief and to reject information that is contrary to the belief. The 100% belief is what I referred to, when I directed a men's treatment program, as erring on the side of safety. Of course women misrepresent reality related to abusive incidents out of a wide range of motivations. The downside of this belief for men ordered through the criminal justice system is obvious.
Compiled by Stuart Birks
28 March, 1996