Can someone explain the problem with the Duluth Model for me please

I_FUCK_UP_RECIPES · 2015-08-21T12:14:54+00:00

Try to remember that when you debate, you're debating for the audience, not the opponent. Your goal is to persuade passive viewers of your post, not the person you're arguing with.

Generally people who have chosen to debate an issue are implacable and you're not going to change their mind.

So choose the setting of your debates more carefully. If you're arguing on someone's blog, the only viewers are going to be the blog owner and people who read it specifically to hear their POV--not exactly an ideal setting for you to try to disassemble the point.

Rather, I think it'd be better if you got the men on that blog talking--privately, through direct messages--about a better place for them to share their personal experiences. Because that sounds like it's your actual goal, not an academic explanation of why the duluth model was effectively treating men and women differently under the law.

Imnotmrabut · 2015-08-21T18:25:02+00:00

The Duluth Model misuses data to create underlying false assumptions biased against men.

It pedals itself as being about the Psychology of abuse and yet refuses to use Psychology in management and treatment of abuse. "Models eschew psychological treatment even of empirically established factors supporting habits of intimate abusiveness. They have, in effect, removed a psychology of abusiveness from intervention and replaced it with a gender political model. In contrast to this model, research from several longitudinal peer cohort studies shows that a propensity for IPV is predictable in both genders during adolescence."

This rebuttal comes from Dr Donald Dutton, one of the world's leading authorities on the Psychology of both perpetrator and victim in IPV.

Transforming a flawed policy: A call to revive psychology and science in domestic violence research and practice - Aggression and Violent Behavior 11 (2006) 457–483, doi:10.1016/j.avb.2006.01.007

Abstract: Intimate partner violence (IPV) continues to be social problem in the United States. Unfortunately, legislation aimed at solving the problem has been based on models of IPV that are not empirically supported. One example is“psychoeducational”intervention models legislated by the courts in many states. These models eschew psychological treatment even of empirically established factors supporting habits of intimate abusiveness. They have, in effect, removed a psychology of abusiveness from intervention and replaced it with a gender political model. In contrast to this model, research from several longitudinal peer cohort studies shows that a propensity for IPV is predictable in both genders during adolescence. Yet treatment or prevention of psychological risk factors is either neglected or negatively legislated. This paper reviews the prevailing criminal justice intervention model, provides examples of how the paradigm supporting this model distorts interpretation of research and compares this flawed research with methodologically superior studies suggesting a different and potentially more effective approach.

Best of all, this 2006 paper was attacked publicly and subjected to critical analysis which many were unable to understand. Dutton, the consummate professional then responded;

Abstract: Gondolf has criticized our review as being selective and suggests that the Duluth model is more promising than we had concluded. We note that his own outcome study showed a failure rate for a Duluth program of 40%–identical to the mean rate of the studies we reviewed. We see his critiques as representative of the very mindset we described in our original paper–that of the gender paradigm. We review some of the shortcomings of Gondolf's critique as representative of this mindset. Our conclusion about the failure of the Duluth program remains unchanged.

In our paper, “Transforming a flawed policy” we reviewed empirical evidence that contradicted the feminist “gender paradigm” claim that intimate partner violence (IPV) was primarily a gender issue. Incidence statistics, we argued, demonstrated that in North America, personality disturbance and not gender, was a better predictor of IPV. All policies that were based on the gender paradigm were, ipso facto, flawed by being improperly premised

The Duluth model: A data-impervious paradigm and a failed strategy - Aggression and Violent Behavior 12 (2007) 658–667, doi:10.1016/j.avb.2007.03.002

The bureaucrat/activists of certifying agencies and “batterer” treatment programs have become “true believers,” disregarding research that does not support their views (Dutton & Nicholls, 2005). They are enthralled with the power that comes with having one's philosophy hold sway and the control they feel from influencing criminal justice policy. Ironically, they often attribute these very “power and control” motives to abusive men. There is no other explanation for resisting treatment that would disprove their philosophy but make the lives of women safer. Is time to relinquish this hegemony of policy and allow the treatment of abusive men, women, and families by professionals who can make clear judgments about appropriate treatment (e.g., couples therapy, family therapy, and group therapy for one or both of the couples' members) and end the current dysfunction in criminal justice process. Treatment modalities exist that show great promise but are not tried for political reasons. Psychologists, social workers, and other helping professionals have not only a broader array of research-based behavioral change technologies available to them, but also a commitment to rigorous codes of ethics. These codes of ethics may vary in the details, but all leave no doubt as to the primacy of human dignity, growth, and safety. Further, these codes of ethics promote dynamic, scientific views of practice excluded from the approved interventions promulgated by the state certifying agencies (APA, 2002; Howard, McMillen, & Pollio, 2003).

Those with continued allegiance to the patriarchal view should stand back and ask themselves if their primary motivation is to advance the safety of women and families or to preserve a self-interested political stance. The patriarchal view played an important role in addressing domestic violence. If not for the early groundbreaking work of victims' rights advocates and feminist activists, it is not likely that domestic violence would be so recognized as an important social welfare and public health issue. In the evolution of public policy responses to social problems, the path often followed is an initial politicizing of the issue, followed by programs, followed by evaluations research, followed by a more detailed specification of etiology, risk, and program response. This process has been impeded by the ideological strictures inherent in the patriarchal view. The science has moved well beyond the policy. It is time for the policy to change.

Dutton has spoken often on the misuse of ideology over evidence for the promotion of Feminist Politics. One of the best talks was given at the 2008 “From Ideology to Inclusion: Evidence-Based Policy and Intervention in Domestic Violence." February 15-16, 2008, Sacramento, California.

Dutton's talk sounds daunting but is very easy to follow and a real eye opener. It's on YouTube and published there by John Hamel, the driving force behind PASK, the world's largest DV study and analysis published 2013.

"Biased Assimilation, Belief Perseverance, Groupthink and the Social Psychology of the Domestic Violence Movement"

As Dutton says in his book "Rethinking Domestic Violence";

"Feminist activists have had a powerful effect on social policy in North America. Criminal justice intervention is much more aggressive than it was in the early 19705. Feminists have also inﬂuenced court-mandated handling of arrested perpetrators. Eschewing psychological explanations for wife assault, feminists have opted instead for "interventions" based on a "psycho-educational model” developed in Duluth, Minnesota.“

The initial effect of the feminist paradigm in practice was to focus so exclusively on male intimate violence that female violence was overlooked entirely; not denied, just never discussed. Corvo and Johnson outline the bedrock view of feminist thought: "that battering (by males) is NEVER provoked, hereditary, out of control, accidental, an isolated incident. It is not caused by disease, diminished intellect, alcoholism/addiction, mental illness or any external person or event. it is a means for men to systematically dominate, disempower, control and devalue women it is greater than an individual act, it supports the larger goal of oppression of women.”"

Donald G. Dutton (1 January 2011). Rethinking Domestic Violence. 103. UBC Press. ISBN 978-0-7748-5987-5.

Hope that lot helps.

Piroko · 2015-08-21T13:22:21+00:00

Explain the duluth model

The assumption that men are always at fault for domestic violence.

Explain what is wrong with the duluth model

It's sexist. Also, it ignores that most domestic violence is reciprocal.

Doulich · 2015-08-21T16:10:49+00:00

The Duluth model is all derived from Patriarchy theory, which asserts that "men have privilege, women do not" (privilege = systematic power in this case). That's what is wrong with it. Then it asserts that, since men have all the power in society, only they can abuse women, as women do not have any power to abuse men.

What the Duluth Model then does, in its worldview, is takes the "male privilege" which supposedly exists, increases female privilege and decreases the male privilege to compensate. This is by giving the victim all sorts of powers, such as a lower burden of proof, easy restraining orders, and others.

Appomattoxx · 2015-08-21T13:59:26+00:00

Here is the definition of the "Duluth Model":

A community using the Duluth Model approach: Has taken the blame off the victim and placed the accountability for abuse on the offender. Has shared policies and procedures for holding offenders accountable and keeping victims safe across all agencies in the criminal and civil justice systems from 911 to the courts. Prioritizes the voices and experiences of women who experience battering in the creation of those policies and procedures. Believes that battering is a pattern of actions used to intentionally control or dominate an intimate partner and actively works to change societal conditions that support men's use of tactics of power and control over women. Offers change opportunities for offenders through court-ordered educational groups for batterers. Has ongoing discussions between criminal and civil justice agencies, community members and victims to close gaps and improve the community's response to battering.<

http://www.theduluthmodel.org

njskypilot · 2015-08-21T19:20:47+00:00

The Duluth model basically assumes that women are the abused and men are the abusers, even though there is little proof in fact to support such claim. My ex has accused me several times of DV and has filed three separate TRO's against me even though no DV was present during all incidents. She used the DV laws which are based on the Duluth model to great effect in getting the court to separate me from my children. By her filing DV complaints and TRO's the court system literally jumps through hoops to protect her as the "victim". In practical terms this put the alleged abuser in a very tough spot because unlike criminal court, in family court the allegation is assumed true and the burden to prove innocence is upon the alleged abuser(95%of the time the man). The Duluth model is responsible for tearing apart thousands of good and loving fathers from their children. It is singlehandedly the most destructive academic theory to divorced families in the US and should be banned as the defacto standard model in DV cases.

Blutarg · 2015-08-21T16:14:22+00:00

The problem is it sucks.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2sc8cm/study_the_duluth_model_is_a_failure/

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://igualdadeparental.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Dutton-D.G.-Corvo-K.-2007-The-Duluth-Program_-A-flawed-and-data-impervious-paradigm.pdf&ved=0CB8QFjAAahUKEwjszb_BybrHAhXEMYgKHdeoAZg&usg=AFQjCNG5XTwIFMtyr3kG9awnMmFkuv9fYQ&sig2=_IAWnUfThhRPBG4WI_czng

victorymonk · 2015-08-21T19:02:41+00:00

It's sexist. It literally says that when women do DV it's different:

When women use violence in an intimate relationship, the circumstances of that violence tends to differ from when men use violence. Men's use of violence against women is learned and reinforced through many social, cultural and institutional experiences. Women’s use of violence does not have the same kind of societal support. Many women who do use violence against their male partners are being battered. Their violence is used primarily to respond to and resist the violence used against them. On the societal level, women’s violence against men has a trivial effect on men compared to the devastating effect of men’s violence against women.

http://www.theduluthmodel.org/about/faqs.html#women

Notice that it is not true. The idea that women use DV primarily for self-defense is plainly wrong. Here:

One prevailing belief is that men are the violent batterers and women are the victims (Jacobson & Gottman, 1998). Findings supporting this belief include that women are more likely than men to be injured and to express fear in response to intimate partner violence (Cascardi, Langhinrichsen, & Vivian, 1992; Jacobson et al., 1994). However, contrary to what could be expected from the “women are the victims” perspective, data indicate that women’s perpetration of violence is surprisingly frequent, perhaps more so than men’s, and it is not always in self-defense. Moreover, typical motivations for women’s physical aggression include anger/tension release and retaliation for a partner’s past behavior—including emotional abuse (Hamberger & Lohr, 1997). Recently, using meta-analysis, Archer (2000) also demonstrated that women even initiate dating violence more frequently than do men. Likewise, wives in violent marriages are as verbally hostile and negative during conflict situations as are their husbands (e.g., Jacobson et al., 1994). Finally, bidirectional violence is perhaps the most common pattern for violent couples (Vivian & Langhinrichsen-Rohling, 1994).

Source: http://rzukausk.home.mruni.eu/wp-content/uploads/Intimate-Partner-Violence-Research.pdf

They literally exclude male victims of DV, because it is based on "the feminist theory underlying the Duluth Model is that men use violence within relationships to exercise power and control." (wiki)

MasterZapple · 2015-08-21T14:10:28+00:00

I'm on my phone, but try googling "Duluth Model: A Data-Impervious Paradigm and a Failed Strategy"

There are free pdfs. It's a scientific criticism of the model. They explain the problems in detail.

double-happiness · 2015-08-22T12:20:44+00:00

The Duluth model says that "On the societal level, women’s violence against men has a trivial effect on men compared to the devastating effect of men’s violence against women."

But the use of the phrase 'On the societal level' is actually a massive weasal word, it makes absolutely no sense in the context of DV, because by definition, DV doesn't take place on the societal level, it takes place 'behind closed doors' (so to speak) in micro-level contexts. I'll list a few examples just to make that point properly clear:

Examples of societal level violence: - War - Revolution - Riots - Lynchings - Pogroms / 'ethnic cleansing' - Gang violence

Examples of individual level violence: - Violence within romantic couples (IPV) - Familial violence - Abuse of the disabled and elderly by carers - Violence amongst children and teenagers - Violence between colleagues in a workplace

A good 'rule of thumb' is that the participants in individual level violence actually know each other by name.

So the use of the phrase "On the societal level" in the above passage is a meaningless and misleading phrase, included merely to make the speaker sound knowledgeable, and disguise the true implication of the whole sentence. What it should say is, "women’s violence against men has a trivial effect on men compared to the devastating effect of men’s violence against women." That is a claim that would need to be examined on its own merits, but I think the problems with using the phrase 'trivial' in the context of domestic violence should be fairly self-evident.

wisty · 2015-08-22T14:32:15+00:00

The way it's generally used:

DV is used by men, who rationally / instrumentally use it to control women. (There's also cases where women hit men, but it's a woman-child acting out of anger, not a thinking adult male using violence as a tool).

This ignores the fact that most violence is (generally lower class) people who can't solve problems without raging and hitting each other, often with escalating cycles of retaliation (they argue, shout, then it escalates to hitting, with the woman getting the worst of it).

The pseudo-religious dogma that men who hit women are all cunning masterminds, not acting out of dumb emotion, cripples prevention methods.

Appomattoxx · 2015-08-21T23:34:39+00:00

The CDC conducted a National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey in 2010. http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf

Buried in the findings were some interesting statistics. For example, on page 44, they found that in the last 12 months, 3.6% of women had been slapped, pushed or shoved by an intimate partner. The corresponding figure for male victims was 4.5%.

They also reported that 0.6% of women reported being raped by an intimate partner. The corresponding number for men was 0, because they defined rape as "forced penetration".

They also found that 0.5% of men had been "forced to penetrate", (which they did not classify as "rape") (Page 43) and the overall 12-month rate of "Other Sexual Violence" against men was 2.5% for men, vs. 2.3% for women. (Page 42)

The findings are buried, but they're in there. And they're consistent with non-feminist research, which shows that women are as likely to resort to violence against intimate partners as men.

Nevertheless, it's men who overwhelmingly get arrested, prosecuted, and convicted, because the system is biased against men at every step in the process.

There are even, anecdotally, cases of men calling for help, only to be referred to batterer's intervention programs, or to wind up getting arrested themselves.

And then there's this, from Jezebel:

Have You Ever Beat Up A Boyfriend? Cause, Uh, We Have

Psychiatry News has a piece out this month about how men shouldn't be overlooked as victims of domestic violence, saying that:

Women are doing virtually everything these days that men are—working as doctors, lawyers, and rocket scientists; flying helicopters in combat; riding horses in the Kentucky Derby. And physically assaulting their spouses or partners.

According to a study of relationships that engage in nonreciprocal violence, a whopping 70% are perpetrated by women. So basically that means that girls are beating up their BFs and husbands and the dudes aren't fighting back. With Amy Winehouse busting open a can of whupass on her husband last week, we decided to conduct an informal survey of the Jezebels to see who's gotten violent with their men. After reviewing the answers, let's just say that it'd be wise to never ever fuck with us.

One Jezebel got into it with a dude while they were breaking up, while another Jez went nuts on her guy and began violently shoving him. One of your editors heard her boyfriend flirting on the phone with another girl, so she slapped the phone out of his hands and hit him in the face and neck... "partially open handed." Another editor slapped a guy when "he told me he thought he had breast cancer." (Okay, that one made us laugh really hard.) And lastly, one Jez punched a steady in the face and broke his glasses. He had discovered a sex story she was writing about another dude on her laptop, so he picked it up and threw it. And that's when she socked him. He was, uh, totally asking for it.

Because, you see, hitting men when they won't hit back is, uh, empowerment?

TheRavenousRabbit · 2015-08-21T12:51:14+00:00

I'd say, the first thing you do (If able.) is to draw up a whole load of references to men actually being a large part of victims for domestic violence as well. Maybe screen it on a whiteboard or something? It shouldn't require too much effort and then say "This is the amount of studies that show that men are also the victims of domestic violence and to assume that those victims are the creators of the violence they suffer is nothing short of victim blaming"

Use their techniques against them, pull at heart strings and use the whole "victim blaming" angle.

ralphswanson · 2015-08-22T18:34:00+00:00

The Duluth Model was the only explanation for DV used in our law school. It is feminism in action: all problems are caused by male privilege and female are always vicitms. Amazingly it ignores real causes like alcohol, emotional problems, and communication skills.

Miskwaa · 2015-11-23T00:45:04+00:00

The others have all made great comments, so perhaps mine might be redundant. The primary problem with the duluth model is that it was based on a political solution with many assumptions to deal with something as complex as human violence. If you read the originating documents themselves or Ellen Pence's PHD dissertation ( I don't know how it got through review, frankly. I have an M.S. in Biology and her entire dissertation does not contain one single supported fact), there is no examination or definition of what violence is, who is doing it and perhaps some variables why. It begins with an assumption...men only use it and it is part of the marxist-class-oppressed analysis. It cares about only one form of violence, and this is perhaps because Ellen herself hated men. Whenever you read her, men simply do not exist as beings what so ever. They are not mentioned. Michael Paymar..well...frankly I think he is just a babyboomer liberal who believed whatever his prejudices said.

Sasha_ · 2015-08-21T22:10:50+00:00

It was created by feminists, so it's shit.

2015-08-22T04:13:33+00:00

In a nutshell it tries to portray all violence that occurs in a domestic setting with abuse - a one sided situation where one person exerts control over another, and uses violence and fear to maintain that control.

Abuse obviously occurs, but the vast, overwhelming majority or domestic violence is a result of people fighting, not abuse. That is, there is a mutual conflict, disagreement or argument that leads to physical exchange, usually mutual. While women may often come off worse from a physical altercation, they are just as often the instigator of the violence to begin with.

The problem is that the Duluth model demands a certain kind of common domestic conflict be always misrepresented as abuse of a woman by a man, with severe implications for how it is treated, e.g. automatically arresting the man regardless of what the evidence says about who was at fault.

What is this a problem? Because it results in people being accused of crimes they did not commit, denies innocent men protection from domestic abuse, is often used to gain advantage in family law situations, and is broadly an part of the systematic violation of men's rights.

DavidByron2 · 2015-08-21T14:32:49+00:00

Well generally it's not a good idea to allow hate movements to set government policy.

Title	Can someone explain the problem with the Duluth Model for me please
Author	Xemnas81
Upvotes	35
Comments	49
Date	August 21, 2015 11:48 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/3hu6p1/can_someone_explain_the_problem_with_the_duluth/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/can-someone-explain-the-problem-with-the-duluth.972861 https://theredarchive.com/post/972861

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