One in Three Campaign Podcast 002: Intimate Partner Abuse of Men Workshop - Part 1




One in Three Campaign Podcast show

Summary: We feature highlights from the Intimate Partner Abuse of Men Workshop held on Wednesday 16 June 2010 in Perth, Western Australia. The workshop was aimed at service providers plus anyone who works with victims and perpetrators of family and domestic violence, and considered the implications for service providers of the Edith Cowan University Intimate Partner Abuse of Men research. In this, the first part of the workshop, Dr Greg Dear explains the methodology of the study.  Listen now (MP3) Dr Greg Dear: Okay. My main brief for this opening presentation is to explain the – give you an overview of the methodology and the rationale for the study, the background to it. But I’m actually going to step away from that topic for a little bit and go a little bit further into the background than I was asked to. Those of us who have worked or who do work in the family violence field will be very familiar with the sort of, the two pain pillars, if you like, of understanding the dynamics in abusive families and families where there are ongoing patterns of violence. First is fear and intimidation, and the second is a term that has arisen over the years, power and control. Intimidation is often more about terror than simple fear. Control, power and control, is not just about being in charge, but is about subjugation and humiliation. It’s about the abusive use of power rather than the – and the coercive use of power as opposed to the power that exists in all relationships, sometimes in healthy ways involving negotiation and assertiveness and sometimes in unhealthy ways. There’s a couple of things that I thought I knew and was confident in knowing and have known for many years and most people who have interacted with the family violence field, family law field, violence field generally over the years seem to know these things as well. I’m just going to throw them up as questions though. Okay, is it really violence, if there has been an ongoing pattern of emotional, social, and financial abuse, both controlling and intimidating, but no physical assaults – no physical abuse. For many years I had a competent answer to that question and I think I still do. I’m not going to ask for a show of hands but just leave that as a question rather than as a statement. Is it domestic violence if on one occasion he pushed her and threw a coffee mug, not at her, in the heat of an argument, but there is no ongoing pattern of power and control and no fear on her part? Is it against the law for a partner in a relationship to verbally abuse, belittle the other, including humiliation in public, causing intense shame and depression in the abused person? Perhaps I should restate that question, as “should it be against the law?” It’s against the law to do it in the workplace, I’m not allowed to do it to students, we’re not allowed to do it in a whole range of public areas, junior football coaches, netball coaches aren’t allowed to do it to their players, parents aren’t allowed to do it from the sideline. Is it against any rule or regulation, formal regulation of society, to do it in a relationship? As I said, maybe the question is better put as, “should it be against the law?”  A couple of anecdotes that I’ll try and get through quickly. Actually I will do a show of hands on this one. Who has knocked down the back half of their house in order to build an extension? Anyone here had a massive renovations in their house while trying to live in it? Okay, I thought there might be more people than that. Perhaps the rest of you have repressed that traumatic memory. But for most people, it is a terrible experience. I’m going to give you a little anecdote: my daughter, when she was three-years-old, she’s now 16, but this is still clear in my mind. We were having a dispute with our builder when we were building an extension out the back of our house an