• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Marc Angelucci, president and founder of the L.A. chapter of the National Coalition of Free Men,

Correction appended

Stanley Green is no stranger to domestic violence. His then-wife once attacked him in an L.A. County parking lot, leaving him with lacerations, contusions and internal injuries including skeletal damage and a misaligned rib cage. When police arrived on the scene, Green said they assumed that she was the victim, especially after she claimed he had been trying to steal their co-insured car. “They didn’t believe me because she was the woman and she was the doctor and I was just an engineer,” said Green, a Stop Abuse for Everyone speaker and YWCA training volunteer. “So this is about gender and class.” When he asked the police how he could file a report on the assault, Green said they would not help him because they did not believe his story. “They said, ‘We’re not taking reports from you. You’re lucky we’re not hauling you off to jail,’” he said. Green is one of an unknown number of male victims of intimate partner violence. As campus groups hold events during Women for Change Week this week, organizers and campus officials are noting that men can also be victims. Though the majority of reported victims of sexual violence are female, male victims “comprise a large, hidden class who face severe public neglect,” said alumnus Marc Angelucci, president and founder of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Coalition of Free Men. “The politically correct way to talk about it is women victims and male abusers,” said Angelluci, who has spoken at the UCLA Clothesline Project display. Green said domestic violence service has improved for male victims since he was attacked in December 1990 but still has a ways to go. Until recently, only the Valley Oasis Center in Lancaster provided full services to male and female victims. “While men can now get services in some programs ... they still get a lower standard of service,” Green said. He said he was abused before the car incident and continued to be abused after it, including at a church potluck. He tried calling many local domestic abuse centers listed in the phone book seeking advice; he found that they only serviced female victims. His ex-wife never took responsibility for her actions, and Green was unable to persuade prosecutors to press charges against her. Though authorities rejected his case several times, he said he was not discouraged because the trauma therapy he underwent following the attack helped him become more assertive. Following the national outreach of the past few decades encouraging female victims of sexual violence to come forward, the number of cases reported increased. The same needs to be done for men, Angelucci said. Tina Oakland, director for the UCLA Center for Women & Men, said the center’s men’s outreach programs are for this purpose. Though more women go to the center seeking help, Oakland said this does not mean that men are not also victims, but added that not as many men come forward and men tend to wait longer to do so. However, she said the center’s programs designed specifically for men have had successful turnouts. “We know that there are some circumstances because of gender socialization that are harder for men,” Oakland said. “(Intimate partner violence) is no less traumatizing for a man than it is for a woman.” The center also has a Web site and forum, www.eguy.ucla.edu, specifically for men to discuss sensitive subjects with other men. “There are things that men are willing to discuss with other men around that they’re less willing to discuss (with women present),” Oakland said. Oakland and Angelucci said some men do not go to the authorities because they often feel shame and embarrassment, especially if the abusing partners appear smaller and weaker. “They think they can take it,” Angelucci said. “You keep it private; you deal with it somehow.” The prevailing attitude that men are the perpetrators and women are victims has also impeded public knowledge of intimate partner violence against males, Angelucci said. “The movement that drove the (awareness of domestic violence) has been a feminist moment, and they have wanted to frame it a certain way,” Angelucci said. UCLA Clothesline Project executive co-chair Alexis Flyer, who graduated last quarter, said society has preconceived notions about domestic violence. “That’s a big stereotype – that survivors are all women,” Flyer said. “(Domestic violence against men) happens a lot more than we think.” Angelucci said he is thinking of having members of the community make papier-mache masks during future Clothesline displays to show how male victims are neither seen nor heard. Though Angelucci has not discussed the possibility directly with the UCLA Clothesline Project yet, co-chair Julie Siegel said she thought it was “an awesome idea.” “I think that’s really empowering,” she said. “A lot of male survivors are silenced because they don’t feel that they have as many resources as female survivors do.” Angelucci stressed that the influence of domestic violence, no matter how mild, goes beyond the partners involved; it also affects their children, who will learn from their parents’ example. “The worst victims of this are their children,” Angelucci said. “We need to inform male victims and their children that there are not alone. We need to make the statistics known.” The coalition also transports male victims to Valley Oasis and provides them with emergency shelter if needed, Angelucci said. As recently as March, members helped two men from the East Coast get to the Lancaster center because no one else would shelter them, Angelucci said. One of the men is still at the center. “We need to drop the gender politics and realize that this is a human issue and not a gender issue,” Angelucci said. “Everyone needs service and treatment when they’re victimized.”