Chinese male victims in intimate partner violence in the United States: examining help-seeking behaviours through a systems perspective

SamaelET · 2022-06-15T18:04:30+00:00

Few researchers who studied intimate partner violence (IPV) have focused on the relationship between the needs of male victims and their help-seeking behaviours. In addition, there is a lack of research relating to the needs of Chinese male victims of IPV. To facilitate research in this area, the authors utilized a dynamic systems perspective to build a conceptual framework to examine the help-seeking behaviours of Chinese-American males who are victims in violent relationships. This conceptual framework uses a social focus and analyses connections among major system components, such as culture, society, family, and the male victim as an individual.

Four key systems concepts are applicable to studying Chinese-American male victims’ behaviours: (1) System connectedness: how broader systems including culture, society, and family affect and shape attitudes within individual systems; (2) Cultural context: how cultural values direct our gender-based behaviours; (3) Social expectations: how the social and family systems discourage or hinder men from seeking help; and (4) Reactions to maintain equilibrium: how male victims learn to protect themselves from destructive interruptions that threaten the equilibrium

In the Chinese cultural context, collectivism, Confucianism, religions, immigration experience and the cultural factors linking to help-seeking behaviours need to be explored in order to explain the help-seeking behaviours of Chinese male victims of intimate partner violence.

Chinese culture has been characterized as a collective culture. Collectivism describes society’s moral, political, or social outlook that emphasizes relational interdependence, and the importance of collectivity, rather than separate individuals (Choi and Han 2009). Collectivists focus on community and society, and give priority to group goals over individual achievements. Individuals assimilate this collective orientation through education, family connections, socialization, and religious/spiritual practices. Chinese Americans maintain a common Confucian heritage that stresses the importance of hierarchy and harmony, sense of family and community belonging, and the values of tradition, security and conformity (Hsu 1981, Schwartz 1985, Tu et al., 1992). Social harmony, the ultimate goal of Confucianism, aims to achieve civility, respect, courtesy,humility, and trust, and results partly from individuals knowing their place in the social order and playing their role well

With a strong root in cultural expectations, the Chinese approach to relationships can still be linked to avoidance of shame, collective actions, conformity to norms, deference to authority, emotional self-control, use of achievement to gain family recognition, filial piety, and harmonious relationships in the social and family contexts

Two concepts have been used in IPV literature focused on Chinese-American men. First, the concept of ‘face’, which is regarded as a social value awarded from the social circle to an individual or family, is defined in Chinese literature as a cultural mechanism to maintain social harmony (Chang 2008). A society’s social norms are determined by the viewers of the behaviour. In the Chinese community, men who experience family problems should not report to outsiders in order to save ‘face’ within the family and not to be viewed as deviant. Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting Services Inc. (2008) issued a special report about domestic abuse and identified the fact that men in general who seek help are ignored, ridiculed and even accused of being the initiator of the crime. Although there were no studies focused on Chinese men’s issues, this report reflected the reality that Chinese-American men perceive that their culture prohibits men from showing physical and emotional weaknesses. In order to avoid being seen as weak, Chinese-American men use silence and thus minimize the likelihood of encountering blatant discrimination and biased attitudes against their victimization. Chinese cultural expectations hold that men should not complain about their family matters. Male victims not only face service barriers when they seek help from others, but also experience discrimination from law enforcement officials and legal service providers who do not believe complaints from men, especially regarding being physically assaulted by women (RADAR Services Inc. 2008). Because of cultural expectations and the desire to avoid shame and ridicule, Chinese-American male victims usually do not seek services they need.

In Chinese culture, men are expected to avoid actions carrying negative connotations, so that they will not be stigmatized as ‘unusual’ or ‘abnormal’. Two American studies indicate that the societal response favours female victims and discriminates against male victims. In a study measuring court responses to protection requests, applications of American Abuse Prevention Orders usually favoured female plaintiffs; 34% of requests from men were deferred or turned down, compared to only 10% of requests from women (Basile 2005). Carlson and Worden (2005) studied 1,200 residents in New York and found that the respondents were more likely to define men’s aggressive behaviour in unlawful terms than women’s. There has been no study focusing on how Chinese-American male victims have received treatment in IPV situations. In general discussions, when abused men attempt to report abuse, they are treated with gender bias and harsh comments such as ‘Look at the size of you! Maybe she was just defending herself’. ‘You must be controlling too’ (Hoff 2001, Male Victims of Domestic Violence 2009). Furthermore, how the media portray IPV significantly affects public perception in forming a gender-based perspective that IPV is male-to-female violence and that it involves sex and pregnancy (Russo and Pirlott 2006).

Literature has suggested that Asian and Pacific Islander American men view self-disclosure as a sign of personal weakness, preventing them from seeking help, particularly counselling [...] This practice is closely related to the doctrine of Buddhism, in which suffering is viewed as a part of human existence and enduring pain as a precursor to character development (Kernicki 1997, Yamashiro and Matsuoka 1997). Stigmatization and discrimination against male victims of IPV reflect the societal responses that explain why men are less inclined to seek help.

Chinese males may not view marital/partner violence or their victimization a serious problem, rather, it is a shame and loss of face to the family for unravelling family secrets/matters that keep many Chinese males from seeking professional help. The close-knit structure of Chinese family and community may prompt most Chinese Americans to seek help from within family and informal support networks. For instance, Yeh and Wang (2000) found that Asian Americans including Chinese Americans had more positive attitudes toward seeking help for mental health problems from family members (parents and siblings), friends, boyfriends and girlfriends than from counsellors

In conjunction with cultural expectations, acculturation may influence help-seeking attitudes and responses to mental health services (Leong 1986). In a study by Kim and Atkinson (2002), 112 Asian-American clients including Chinese Americans with higher acculturation and low adherence to Asian cultural values regarded White American counsellors as more empathic than did less acculturated clients.

At the individual level, Chinese male victims’ responses to IPV and their behaviours in seeking help can be elucidated in four areas. First, IPV is a violation of cultural and societal norms in Chinese society, which leads to the reaction of denial. According to the Five Relationships of Confucianism, the occurrence of IPV disrupts the couple system and stability. IPV is so unacceptable that it not only violates the social norm but also transgresses the norm of family harmony in Confucianism. Furthermore, in Chinese culture, seeking help from others, either professionals or family members and friends, means sharing one’s disgrace with outsiders. IPV with men as victims is an absolute humiliation to the whole family in Chinese society. Chinese men are therefore unwilling to disclose incidents of abuse.

Title	Chinese male victims in intimate partner violence in the United States: examining help-seeking behaviours through a systems perspective
Author	SamaelET
Upvotes	3
Comments	2
Date	June 15, 2022 5:35 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Male_Studies
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Male_Studies/comments/vczzjn/chinese_male_victims_in_intimate_partner_violence/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Male_Studies/chinese-male-victims-in-intimate-partner-violence.1215839 https://theredarchive.com/post/1215839

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