Domestic Abuse & Violence: An Issue for Men

by Tom Heuerman, Ph.D.

Melanie, my wife, and I recently completed 48 hours of training at the local rape and abuse crisis center. We will volunteer our time and speak to groups about emotional, physical, sexual and domestic abuse.

The schedule was grueling: two evenings a week for a month and two Saturdays. Approximately 20 people made the big commitment and will volunteer as public speakers, advocates who take crisis calls during off hours, and court watchers who keep track of cases in the legal system.

The Many Different Types of Domestic Abuse

The training sessions were emotionally difficult for me. The speakers taught us about the different type of domestic violence: incest; stalking; cyber-sex; date rape; pedophilia; emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. They also taught us the many difficulties victims face with themselves, within families, in the legal system, and in our society, which often prefers to deny such horrible things. As I listened to the monstrous things some men do to some women and children, I felt ashamed to be a man.

A woman described how her father sexually abused her from age 9-15. Then her 12 year old daughter spoke about how a foster child had sexually assaulted her when she was three years old. I admired their courage and appreciated the gift of their experiences.

I felt sadness and sorrow for the women and children abused by men. I felt outraged at the men who do such things. What went wrong with so many men?

I call on policemen, lawyers, and judges to learn about abuse and the dynamics of abusive men. The ignorant bear some measure of responsibility for what happen to women and children. Some of you think you don't need to learn. Trust me, you do need to learn. I was a Secret Service Agent, a senior business executive, and an organizational consultant. I needed to learn. So do you.

Judges and lawyers who work in family law should be required to be educated about abuse and the dynamics of abusers. Without that education, they can be manipulated easily and unwittingly collude with the abuser. The local rape and abuse crisis center will be happy to help them. Lundy Bancroft's books: "Why Does He Do That" and "The Batterer as Parent" should be required reading for every attorney and judge who work in family law.

Judges, lawyers, and policemen need to model respectful behavior and root the legal system of abusers. Often, as in all systems, the unethical and abusive people in the justice system go unchallenged. Members of the legal system who do not bear witness bear responsibility.

Robert Greenleaf, author of the seminal work on leadership, "Servant Leadership," wrote that the insane, the irresponsible, the immature (and, I might add, the abusers), have been with us forever. The problem is the good people who go to sleep and do not stand up and bear witness for human suffering of every kind. When we refuse to look abuse in the face, we make a big mistake: we cooperate with abuse when we do not confront it.

We need to stand up courageously, whatever our walk of life, and hold abusers accountable: in the home, at the school, on the athletic field, throughout the workplace, and in the courts.

Solution: Raise Our Boys Differently

We created the men of today. We need a new model for men. Head coach Biff Poggi and assistant Joe Ehrmann, a former NFL football star turned minister and volunteer coach, taught the players on the Gilman High School (Maryland) football team a new model of masculinity. They call their program of football and developing young men "Building Men for Others." (See Ehrmann's book, "Season of Life.")

Joe Ehrmann

I have spent almost the last twenty years as a minister. Most of my work is in the inner city of Baltimore, dealing with issues of poverty and systemic racism and family disintegration. I would say that in order to make America a more just and fair society, I would boil it down to the single greatest crisis.

And that primary, critical issue is a concept of what it means to be a man. If we don't fix our understanding, and get some proper definition of masculinity and manhood, I don't think we can address other issues.

Masculinity, first and foremost, ought to be defined in terms of relationships. It ought to be taught in terms of the capacity to love and to be loved. If you look over your life at the end of it…life wouldn't be measured in terms of success based on what you've acquired or achieved or what you own.

The only thing that's really going to matter is the relationships that you had. It's gonna come down to this: What kind of father were you? What kind of husband were you? What kind of coach or teammate were you? What kind of son were you? What kind of brother were you? What kind of friend were you? Success comes in terms of relationships.

And I think of the second criterion - the only other criterion for masculinity - is that all of us ought to have some kind of cause, some kind of purpose in our lives that's bigger than our own individual hopes, dreams, wants, and desires. At the end of our life, we ought to be able to look back over it from our deathbed and know that somehow the world was a better place because we lived, we loved, we were other-centered, other-focused.

How did the Gilman High School football team perform under their guidance? They had back-to-back undefeated seasons in 1998 and 1999 that put them at the top of state rankings. Poggi and Ehrmann measured success in two ways: by wins and losses and by the amount of ministry they've done with their kids to prepare them for lives of meaning and value to others.

Women also need to help raise little boys differently: teach them to define success by their relationships, commitment to something greater than themselves, and by their courage to stand up to injustice in all its forms. Women can also teach young girls to speak up about men's violence. Then abusers will have no where to hide.

What affects one single woman out there…
affects families, affects neighborhoods,
affects the city, affects all of us.
John Harrington
St. Paul, Minnesota Police Chief

What will you do to make a difference in the lives of women and children around you?

Some statistics from the Department of Health and Human Service's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lend perspective:

Approximately 1.5 million are raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner each year.
Nearly two-thirds of women who reported being raped, physically assaulted, or stalked since age 18 were victimized by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, boyfriend, or date.
The health care costs of intimate partner rape, physical assault, and stalking exceed $5.8 billion each year….

The Centers for Disease Control Risk Behavior Survey for 2003 reports: 1 in 11 adolescents reports being a victim of physical dating abuse each year.

1 in 4 adolescents reports verbal, physical, emotional or sexual abuse each year.
1 in 5 high school girls reports physical or sexual abuse by a dating partner,
Adolescents who are victims of dating violence are not only at increased risk for injury, but are also more likely to report binge drinking, suicide attempts, physical fighting, and current sexual activity.