Why Victims of Female Perpetrators Are Ignored: Part 1 (The Duluth Model)

The “Power and Control Chart” that shows how men commit various acts of domestic abuse. Notice that the model solely focuses on men-on-women abuse. From the official website of the Duluth model, www.theduluthmodel.org.

TW: Sexual assault, domestic violence, misogyny, and misandry

Welcome to the official first edition of Why Victims of Female Perpetrators are Ignored, a series where I examine the causes and consequences of diminishing or flat-out erasing the stories of people who have been abused by women. Today, we are looking exclusively at men who are abused. This will be common, as it was part of the original title and aim of the series, “Why Male Victims of Female Abuse are Ignored.” Of course, I will delve into other people who have faced abuse, but because most cases document women-on-men abuse, that will be the aim of most of my pieces in this compilation.

Before diving into our topic, here are some facts. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), 1 in 9 men will have experienced some form of what is known as intimate partner violence (IPV), which has been defined by the SHAPE office of Wesleyan University as “a pattern of threatened or actual violence used to gain power and control over a partner/member of an intimate relationship.” In that SHAPE article, they mention a range of abuses, including physical, sexual, emotional, financial, reproductive, and even technological. We will delve into each form of abuse throughout this series, but the importance of mentioning this is…