The battered husband syndrome

Oncefa2 · 2022-06-13T13:10:38+00:00

This paper is considered an early groundbreaking paper about domestic violence, and about female-on-male violence in particular. Suzanne Steinmetz worked with Murray Strauss for many years and both are considered pioneers in the field of domestic violence research.

The term "battered husband" actually predates the idea of a battered wife, despite some people insisting that the battered husband syndrome is "reactionary" against the battered wife syndrome (I prefer the term "battered spouse" to agender the concept).

A battered spouse is a spouse that "snaps", sometimes violently, after years of being on the receiving end of abuse.

This is more common in men because there's less sympathy, and therefore less help and resources, for male victims of domestic abuse than for female victims.

One of the main points of this paper was to document evidence about the normalisation of female-on-male violence in society and in the media, including in older print newspapers and comics.

Some of her research looked at popular comic strips from as far back as the early 1900s to demonstrate that female-on-male abuse, not male-on-female abuse, is what's accepted and normalized by society.

This normalisation of violence against men is what makes it difficult for men to contextualise their situations as abusive. Which often allows things to get worse until they finally take things into their own hands.

Abstract

Utilizes historical data, comic strips as a reflection of popular values, and the data derived from several empirical studies to examine the problem of husband abuse. This phenomenon is not uncommon, although many tend to ignore it, dismiss it, or treat it with "selective inattention." The reasons why men do not report their victimization and why they stay in an abusive situation are examined, and some of the myths commonly held about men's place in the family, their attachment to their offspring, and their ability to easily move in and out of relationships are questioned. The need for a more comprehensive approach to the study and treatment of family violence that views the problem as another manifestation of a basically violent society is emphasized.

You can get a pdf here:

http://www.papa-help.ch/downloads/Steinmetz_The_Battered_Husband_Syndrome.pdf

I'm not sure what kind of website that is, but it's what Google Scholar recommends.

The original publication was in Victimology volume 2, 1977-78 pg 499-509.

It is a bit dated, and is a tad "gynocentric" at times, but there are some good secondary sources (which are even harder to find) cited in the paper. I also think it's useful to document and look at this from a historical perspective, just to see how far this field of research has come over the years.

Title	The battered husband syndrome
Author	Oncefa2
Upvotes	19
Comments	1
Date	June 13, 2022 12:53 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Male_Studies
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Male_Studies/comments/vbbj76/the_battered_husband_syndrome/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Male_Studies/the-battered-husband-syndrome.1215845 https://theredarchive.com/post/1215845

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