What is the “Duluth model”?

SpicyMarshmellow · 2025-09-18T20:02:29+00:00

The Duluth Model was founded in the early 80's in Duluth, Minnesota, by feminist Ellen Pence. It's a lot of things.

It's an organization, with its own official website and even a youtube channel.
It's a framework for understanding the issue of domestic abuse.
It's a policy initiative.
It's a community coordination strategy for linking together the resources and response protocols of courtrooms, law enforcement, and victim resources.
It's a batterer intervention program.

It explicitly frames the issue as male perpetrator/female victim. If you browse their website and youtube channel, you will find them literally bragging about their influence on law enforcement policies targeting men exclusively with mandatory arrest policies. Their literature claims that male entitlement is the root cause of all domestic abuse. Their most recognizable piece of media is their Power and Control Wheel, which is written entirely in gendered language and includes "Using Male Privilege" as one of the spokes of the wheel. Ellen Pence herself recanted later in her life, admitting that she was ideologically driven and organized her research pseudo-scientifically such that it could only confirm the findings she wanted. But after decades of working in the field, she finally admitted that her experience contradicted the ideology that fueled her for most of her life.

It's hard to concretely measure its influence, but I wager that it's the most influential force on the issue in the western world. The sorts of policies and strategies it advocates for are extremely widespread, and the beginning of their spread coincides with its founding. Its language and views are even more widespread. And if you go looking through almost any victim resource online or in-person, you will find the Power and Control Wheel always prominently displayed.

This is incredibly important to me, because I was trapped in an abusive relationship for 20 years. For the last 10 years of that relationship, I was only staying to protect the kids. Five years post-separation, and I am still confident that the most likely outcome of trying to leave any earlier would have been the death of my son, and my son agrees with that assessment.

CampfireMemorial · 2025-09-18T19:23:49+00:00

The model is important because many US domestic violence policies are based upon it.

The model is multifaceted; the part most germane to this sub is the presumption of guilt of men. What this means is that during domestic violence/abuse calls police are required to arrest the man, if there is no definitive evidence proving he is the victim.

This skews violent arrest and crime stats, inflating male-perpetration rates, which is then used to excuse disproportionatly-high sentencings for men.

TLDR: when you have bigotry in-law, it creates a feedback loop of self-sustaining discrimination.

Edit, because I have a few more minutes: We also need to think about how an innocent man being removed from the home during a DV call affects a divorce. The occupant of the shared home is drastically more likely to be rewarded the home during a divorce. The same is true of custody of any shared children; because having a living space is one of the required steps toward building a stable life for a child.

helloiseeyou2020 · 2025-09-18T20:28:53+00:00

As a gesture of good faith I request that you come back and engage. There is no shortage of strong, informative replies here and 99% of feminists guests asking about men's issues do a driveby OP and then never come back

MelissaMiranti · 2025-09-18T19:55:41+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/s/yyNFWqTxeZ

Neveah_Hope_Dreams · 2025-09-18T23:14:36+00:00

The Duluth Model is a system that says that only women suffers from abuse and that they are not capable of abusing others. And feminists pushed for this in the mid 20th century. It's basically the reason why male victims of domestic violence don't get believed in a taken seriously and why female abusers don't get the appropriate punishment.

TheDdken · 2025-09-19T10:07:30+00:00

The Duluth model is one of the many models based on the faulty assumption that domestic violence is the tool used by men to subjugate women.

So it lionizes women who can't be viewed as perpetrators (it's always self-defense if it happens). Its purpose is to "re-educate" men so that they get rid of their patriarchal urge to control women.

Needless to say multiple studies show that it's grossly ineffective. Everyone loses: - women who will be subject to the same level of domestic violence - men who will be demonized, and ignored if they are victims of female-to-male domestic abuse.

This is what radicalized me against radical feminism.

SvitlanaLeo · 2025-09-18T20:03:26+00:00

This is a model about which the co-founder said the founders were essentially wishful thinking: finding a way to prove what they wanted to prove, when in reality there was no real evidence that the behavior of abusive men is determined by socialization in a patriarchal system and the desire to assert patriarchal authority. This pseudoscience, widely supported by American feminists, forms the basis of the system for combating domestic violence in the United States.

ThePrimordialSource · 2025-09-19T12:06:24+00:00

Another example is Mary Koss, a feminist activist and researcher on rape who believed men can’t be traumatized by being raped by women, petitioned governments to reduce protections for male sexual abuse victims and skewed her studies to falsify the data and show way lower rates of male sexual abuse victims than there actually are.

Glad-Way-637 · 2025-09-19T01:28:49+00:00

20 bucks says this person never answers any of the responses here. Curious and sympathetic my ass.

Punder_man · 2025-09-19T23:01:34+00:00

There has been many great responses to what exactly the model is..
I'd like to focus on its relation to feminism and why we are so fixated on it.

Firstly, the model was drafted, published and pushed by feminists..
As other responses has pointed out the model is based upon flawed biases and assumptions rather than facts and evidence.

And yet, despite this there has been zero effort by feminists to have this model repealed and replaced with a model based upon facts, evidence and reality.

The reason for this? Well it should be obvious but, despite the issues with the model it still benefits women and so why would feminists want to remove something that benefits women in the name of fairness or equality?

That is partially the reason why its something that is so fixated upon in this sub, as the Duluth Model is a clear example of feminist actions which directly harm men for the benefit of women.
Its a clear example of the fact that despite feminists constantly touting that feminism is a "Movement for equality" and is "For men too" its all nothing but lies and obfuscation.

Edit: i'll also note that as of the time of this edit, my comment is the most recent in this thread and u/ExternalGreen6826 still has yet to respond to any of the points made here..

I'm starting to believe that they did not post their question in good faith...

AskingToFeminists · 2025-09-22T11:55:48+00:00

You want to do some reading ? Here are a few threads to pull : https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1njjg9f/comment/nfkvmx4/?context=3

And if you are to read "what feminists have to say about that", I highly recommend you read both Ellen Pence's own words and "the feminist case for acknowledging women's acts of violence, both linked in that comment above.

If you find no issue with the later, you are welcome to discuss it with me, I should be able to point out a few lines that shouldn't sit well with anyone with a shred of honesty.

marchingrunjump · 2025-09-19T07:29:09+00:00

The Duluth model - with all its problems - influenced the Istanbul convention which is actively being pushed in Europe. Istanbul is not as lopsided as the Duluth model but is 50-60% similar in view of the subject.

ExternalGreen6826 · 2025-12-15T14:34:52+00:00

Would love to come back to this post and dive into the links and arguments given the time

I apologize I didn’t respond to this post as much as I could, it caused me overload and burnout

I heard curry say that Crenshaw erased the rape of black boys in her studies

Granted while if true, feminists should own up and take accountability for these crimes

However it doesn’t mean one should discard feminism, it’s ok and healthy to except flaws, it’s how we progress 🩵

2025-12-22T00:59:39+00:00

I was never planning on staying in Duluth. Got off the greyhound, slept in my hammock on the beach for 3 weeks and just didn't leave lol. Duluth is the only town where nobody hates their hometown. Anywhere you go, can be the coolest place ever and a lot of people say "it sucks here " I noticed it right away.....Every single person I ran across had the same vibe. Straight up saying "I'm from Duluth, Ill Probably never leave Duluth, and if you decide to stay you'll freaking love it too!

Title	What is the “Duluth model”?
Author	ExternalGreen6826
Upvotes	73
Comments	78
Date	September 17, 2025 5:25 PM UTC (10 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1njjg9f/what_is_the_duluth_model/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/what-is-the-duluth-model.1562290 https://theredarchive.com/post/1562290

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