Domestic violence is not a woman’s problem. It’s not a men’s problem, and not even a children’s problem. It’s everybody’s.
Up to this point, the professionals and actors and ideologues running the grievance industry will be agreeing with me. Well, they might, if this article was posted somewhere other than AVfM, and the author was somebody besides John the Other. Ha.
But they hardly ever use the term Domestic Violence anymore. Instead, what was once domestic violence now called “violence against women”. The actors in the grievance industry use this phrase to imply, falsely, that domestic violence encompasses only male abusers and only female victims. The grievance industry even has a theoretical model for domestic violence called the Duluth Model[1]. It’s a conceptual framework used to inform almost all the policies and public rhetoric of the domestic violence grievance industry.
The Duluth Model posits that violence and abuse between intimate partners is definitionally male violence, and that victimization in domestic abuse is definitionally female victimization.
In the Duluth Model, all violence and abuse is male-sourced, even that which is perpetrated by women. Female-initiated violence and abuse does not exist, because all such violence or abuse must, in the framework of the Duthuth model, be either in self defense from a male aggressor, or in response to pre-existing male-initiated abuse and violence. Indeed, the Duluth Model posits a psychological framework of domination, control and aggression onto the male psyche, as if masculinity itself is a malignant, violent mental disorder.
All violence is male. All victimization is female. Female abusers don’t exist, male victims don’t exist. In fact, the causes of violence within intimate relationships, such as poverty, mental illness, drug addiction, alcoholism, poor communication or coping skills, childhood trauma, PTSD and other causes, none of these things exist either. Or, if they exist, they do so separate from, and with no causal relationship to domestic violence or abuse. In Duluth, all abuse is male, and masculinity is a synonym for “abusive”, “aggressive” and “violent”.
In short, the Duluth Model is a pseudo-intellectual justification for cultivating hatred and fear of men.
It is obviously unacceptable to nakedly and deliberately promote hatred of an entire biological demographic based on a character of shared innate identity. Unless that group is the male sex. They’re the humans for whom it is politically correct to treat as wholly disposable; to treat as not even human, to kill in vast numbers while enacting our nation’s foreign policy and to imprison and murder in vast numbers while enacting domestic policies. Our children, when they happen to be male, are entirely disposable.
And this is why the Duluth Model, which cultivates hatred and fear towards men and boys is so widely accepted. If the Duluth Model had targeted Jews, or blacks, or christians, listed just as examples – it would never have flown. However, when hatred of men is cultivated, nobody looses their minds. That’s just part of the plan.
That the Duluth Model is a quasi intellectualized wrapper for hatred isn’t it’s only problem.
The Duluth Model and all programs informed by it promote, maintain, and escalate violence against women. That’s right, the Duluth model is a framework for addressing domestic violence which escalates and cultivates the violence it pretends to oppose – that’s violence which victimizes women.
This is obviously an incomplete description of the problem. But because most people don’t actually give a flying rat fuck about violence impacting men or children in violent relationships, we’ll limit this discussion to the fact that the Duluth Model serves to preserve the conditions of violence it’s public cheer-leaders pretend to oppose. Women are, after all, the only people whose injury or death really matters to anybody. Don’t believe me? Just turn on the evening news, and listen for the phrase women and children. That’s your cue to know when a tragedy involving the deaths of groups of people should really tug on your heart strings.
As a framework to inform effective measures against domestic violence, the Duluth Model is completely useless. However, as a narrative to appeal to our natural desire to protect women, it is almost perfect. This is particularly true because it’s emotional appeal bypasses reason, tapping directly into instinct. It’s also a superb narrative to use in fundraising. By totally ignoring the actual causes of partner abuse, (such as drug addiction, poverty and mental illness) and by focusing on a fictional violent boogeyman as the claimed principal feature of male identity, the Duluth Model ensures the continuation of domestic violence, and it’s attendant utilization of real world violence in fund-seeking storytelling.
And that’s what it’s really all about. But what about women actually victimized within single-directional violent relationships? Collateral damage? No. Their damage is not merely collateral, it is the desired outcome. Women brutalized or otherwise harmed within violent relationships are marketing material for Duluth Model fundraising. The remaining greater fraction of dysfunctional, abusive and violent relationships, where those victimized are men, women and children? Those people, who constitute the overwhelming majority of people suffering within violent relationships are the collateral damage, and they can go pound sand. Actually reducing violence within such dysfunctional relationships doesn’t make money for Duluth Model ideologues and profiteers. So, in the framework of the Duluth Model, fuck those people. They don’t count, they don’t exist, and if they suffer, or die, nobody gives a damn.
Well, almost nobody.
But we’re the ones commonly called rape apologists, misogynists, and incest supporters. Cute, hey?
Obviously, you needn’t let any of this trouble you. Go back to sleep, make a donation to your local women’s crisis center, wear a white ribbon, and take your view of “violence against women” from the people whose salaries depend on maintaining the popular, cultivated narrative.
Thank you for your kind attention.
[1] http://www.theduluthmodel.org/about/index.html
The Duluth model cultivates violence against women
