Domestic violence against men is violence or other physical abuse towards men in a domestic setting, such as in marriage or cohabitation. As with domestic violence against women, violence against men may constitute a crime, but laws vary between jurisdictions. Intimate partner violence (IPV) against men is generally less recognized by society than intimate partner violence against women, which can act as a further block to men reporting their situation or otherwise seeking help.
While women are substantially more likely to be injured or killed in incidents of domestic violence, men are less likely to report domestic violence to police than women. Men who report domestic violence can face social stigma regarding their perceived lack of machismo or other denigrations of their masculinity, the fear of not being believed by authorities, and being falsely accused of being the perpetrator. For men and women alike, domestic violence is among the most under-reported crimes worldwide.
Intimate partner violence against men is a controversial area of research, with terms such as gender symmetry, battered husband syndrome and bidirectional IPV provoking debate. Some scholars have argued that those who focus on female-perpetrated violence are part of an anti-feminist backlash, and are attempting to undermine the problem of male-perpetrated abuse by championing the cause of the man, over the serious cause of the abused woman. Others have argued that violence against men is a significant, under-reported problem, and that domestic violence researchers, under the influence of feminism, have ignored this in order to protect the fundamental gains of the battered women's movement, specifically the view that intimate partner abuse is an extension of patriarchal dominance. One of the tools used to generate statistics concerning IPV perpetration, the conflict tactics scale, is especially contentious.
Prevalence Statistics of India In India, 3.6% males have ever faced physical violence by their wives as per the National Family Health Survey - 5, 2019-21.
Estimation difficulties
Determining the rate of intimate partner violence (IPV) against males can be difficult, as men may be reluctant to report their abuse or seek help.
Statistics indicate that under-reporting is an inherent problem with intimate partner violence irrespective of gender. Supplementary studies carried out in 2001 and from 2004 onwards have consistently recorded significantly higher rates of intimate partner violence (committed against both men and women) than the standard crime surveys. The 2010–2011 report found that whilst 27% of women who experienced intimate partner violence reported it to the police, only 10% of men did so, and whilst 44% of women reported to some professional organization, only 19% of men did so. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that 97.2% of men do not report domestic violence to the police, compared to 82.1% of women. In a 2005 report carried out by the National Crime Council in the Republic of Ireland, it was estimated that 5% of men who had experienced violence had reported it to the authorities, compared to 29% of women.
Researchers have demonstrated a degree of socio-cultural acceptance of aggression by women against men as opposed to a general condemnation of aggression by men against women. Male-on-female intimate partner violence has been shown to cause significantly more fear and more severe injuries than female-on-male violence. This can lead to men not considering themselves victims, and/or not realizing the IPV they are experiencing is a crime.
Underreporting Some men fear that if they do report to the police, they will be assumed to be the abuser, and placed under arrest. Some male victims fear that people will assume that the woman is the real victim, and must have been acting in self-defense or retaliating for abuse.
Surveys have indicated small proportions of men (less than 20% of victims) will tell the police or a health professional about their victimization. This is perhaps due to well-grounded fears that they will be scorned, ridiculed, or disbelieved by these authorities. A recent research paper by Dr. Elizabeth Bates from the University of Cumbria found that a common experience for male intimate partner violence victims was that no one believed them, or were responded to by laughter, including the police. Some men may not report to police as they did not want to expose their partners to the consequences committing violence, such as causing his partner problems at work. It can also be difficult for male victims to understand that they are the recipients of violence rather than the perpetrator.
Estimates of male victimization
In England and Wales, the 1995 "Home Office Research Study 191" surveyed 10,844 people (5,886 women and 4,958 men) between the ages of 16 and 59, finding that for the previous year, 4.2% of men had experienced intimate partner violence. Over a lifetime, this figure increased to 14.9% of men. Of the 6.6 million incidents of intimate partner violence in 1995, 3.25 million involved male victims, with 1 million incidents resulting in injury. Since 2004, more detailed annual records have been maintained as a supplementary survey attached to the annual Home Office Crime in England and Wales reports. These reports have consistently recorded significantly higher rates of both male and female victims of intimate partner violence than the standard crime surveys. In the case of male victims, the figures range from a high of 4.5% in 2007/2008 to a low of 3.1% in 2009/2010. In the Republic of Ireland, a 2005 report carried out by the National Crime Council found that 15% of women and 6% of men had suffered severe intimate partner violence in their lifetime, equating to roughly 213,000 women and 88,000 men. In Northern Ireland, police records for 2012 listed 2,525 male victims of domestic violence, an increase of 259 cases from 2011. In 2018, 19.3% of reported domestic violence victims in Scotland were male.
In the United States, the National Violence Against Women Survey carried out by the Department of Justice in 2000, surveyed 16,000 men and women, finding that 7.4% of men reported experienced physical assault by a partner their lifetime, and, 0.9% of men reported experiencing domestic violence in the past year. The Canadian General Social Survey found that 7% had experienced intimate partner violence from 1994 to 1999, and 6% between 2000 and 2005.
Data concerning campus rape, such as from a National Institute of Mental Health and Ms. Magazine study, has found a 1 in 7 sexual assault rate for men in U.S. colleges.
In New Zealand, the twenty-one year Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, published in 1999, reported that of their sample of 1,037 people, 27% of women and 34% of men reported being physically abused by a partner, with 37% of women and 22% of men reporting they had perpetrated intimate partner violence. Also in New Zealand, a 2009 report by the Journal of Applied Social Psychology evaluated samples of university students (35 female, 27 male), general population (34 female, 27 male), and incarcerated participants (15 female, 24 male), and found that 16.7% of the male respondents reported physical abuse (12.9% for students and 15.4% for convicts), while 29.5% reported bidirectional (i.e. both partners commit IPV) violence (14.5% for students and 51.3% for convicts).
The 2006 International Dating Violence Study, which investigated intimate partner violence amongst 13,601 students across thirty-two-nations found that "about one-quarter of both male and female students had physically attacked a partner during that year". It reported that 24.4% of males had experienced minor intimate partner violence and 7.6% had experienced "severe assault".
In 2012, two Swedish studies were released that showed men experienced IPV at rates similar to women—8% per year in one study and 11% per year in the other.
In the United Kingdom, there was a survey that indicated that 9% of males had experienced some form of partner abuse. A growing body of international research indicated that men and women experience Intimate partner violence in some similar proportions. An example might be a recent survey from Canada's national statistical agency that concluded that "equal proportions of men and women reported being victims of spousal violence during the preceding 5 years (4% respectively)."
Perceptions Stereotypes of men being proactive, powerful, and controlling, and "40 years of feminist tradition" that assumes women are the sole victims of intimate partner violence can make it difficult for men to be believed by others, and can even make it difficult for men to believe people when they are told that they are the victims of partner violence. It is very common for men to avoid reporting or admitting to cases of domestic violence due to various reasons, such as fear of ridicule, embarrassment, and the lack of support. This taboo subject is often trivialized and ignored by society, which makes it hard to determine how prevalent this issue is. Due to the lack of support services and health care professionals, male victims often do not receive the necessary assistance.
Society Intimate partner violence against men is generally less recognized by society than intimate partner violence against women.
In a segment for the TV show Putting It Out There on BBC Three, a social experiment was carried out where a woman threatens a man and a man threatens a woman, using the same body language and words, at the same location. They did this for 90 minutes, and it took a few seconds until someone helped the woman. For the woman, seven people attempted to help in the 90 minutes, whilst for the man no one stopped to help. In the experiment, a few people were laughing and taking pictures of the man being threatened by the woman.
Support services Parts of support services, especially family protection and child welfare, do not recognise that men can be victim and/or do not understand the psychological control that they may be under due to their partner.
Police Victims in Australia reported that when reporting their victimization to support services, they were responded to with ridicule, doubt, and arrests. Police may also refuse to listen to their side of the story.
Legal system Analyses of research indicates that frequently the legal system fails to view women who use intimate partner violence against controlling male partners as victims due to gendered high expectations on women to be the "perfect victim" and the culturally pervasive stereotype of the passive, "cowering" battered woman.
Women who assault their male partners are more likely to avoid arrest than men who assault their female partners, because female perpetrators of intimate partner violence tend to be viewed by law enforcement agencies and the courts as victims.
Psychologists Psychologists rate that the behavior of the husbands are more likely to be psychologically abusive than wives doing the same actions.
Social stigma Male victims of violence may face socio-cultural issues such as judgement by male peers, or having their masculinity questioned. For some men, admitting they are the victim of female perpetrated intimate partner violence could feel like admitting that they do not follow the established social role for men, and may be an admission they are unwilling, or unable, to make.
Minimisation and justification