THE MALE BATTERER

From “Understanding Domestic Violence” by Barbara Corry, M.A.

Men who batter come from all socioeconomic backgrounds, races, religions, and walks of life. The abuser may be a blue-collar or white-collar worker, unemployed or highly paid. He may be a drinker or non-drinker. Batterers represent all different personalities, family background and professions.  In sum, there is no “typical batterer”.

The majority of batterers are only violent with their wives or female partners. For example, one study found that 90% of abusers do not have criminal records, and that batterers are generally law abiding outside the home. It is estimated that only about 5 to 10% of batterers commit acts of physical violence against other people.

Although there is no personality profile of the abuser, there are some behaviors that are common among men who batter their partners.  These include:

1.      Denying the existence or minimizing the seriousness of the violence and its effects on the victim and other family members.

2.      Showing extreme jealousy and possessiveness which often leads to isolation of the victim, other family members and friends.

3.      Refusing to take responsibility for the abuse by blaming it on loss of control due to the effects of alcohol or drugs, frustration, stress or the victim’s behavior.

4.      Holding rigid, traditional views of sex rolls and parenting or negative attitudes towards women in general.

Typically, when trying to understand why men batter, people want to look for what is “wrong” with them, believing they must be sick in some way. However, battering is not a mental illness that can be diagnosed, but a learned behavioral choice. Men choose to batter their partners because the choice is there to make and, until recently, there has been no negative consequence for these actions.

Battering is the extreme expression of the belief in male dominance over women. To understand why men may choose to batter, it is important to look at what they get out of using violence. Abusive men use physical and emotional force to maintain power and control over their relationships with their female partners. They have learned that violence “works” to achieve this end.

The Batterer is often a victim of abuse and can manifest certain symptoms found in all trauma victims. Among these are:

1. He does not allow himself to feel normal emotional reactions. He appears to have over sensitive or numb reactions to life around him.
2. He shuts out or shuts off people when discussing certain aspects of his behavior.
3. He has amnesia for some of his specific behavioral patterns, or tries to justify his actions.
4. He has wide mood swings between happy and depressed or angry. The mood swings may be very sudden without any advanced warning.
5. He has feelings of detachment from society or personal relationships. He feels that he is on the outside and people will not let him participate.
6. He is easily startled and may have sleep disturbances, bad dreams, periods when he can not sleep for extended periods of time.
7. He is always trying to protect his vulnerability; he is irritable and has difficulty concentrating.

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