Content warning: This story deals with intimate partner violence. If you're in immediate danger or need urgent medical support, call 911.
Most of us don't think about men as possible victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), but they can be, if not in as great numbers.
Males experiencing violence in their relationship often turn to harmful coping strategies due to limited services and persistent social stigma, according to a new Simon Fraser University study, titled, “I Thought About Killing Myself, but a Part of Me Insisted on Getting Help”: Coping Experiences of Male Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence.
By the numbers
Statistics Canada notes that women experience gender-based violence at much higher rates, most often perpetrated by men.
Between 2011 and 2021, police reported 1,125 gender-related homicides of women and girls in Canada. Of these homicides, two-thirds (66%) were perpetrated by an intimate partner.
Globally, according to the World Health Organization, 30% of women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or non-partner sexual violence or both.
These figures explain why there is a need for a focus on support for survivors and prevention of such violence against women.
However, they don't negate that it can and does happen to males.
Men comprise about 20% of all IPV cases reported to police in Canada and about 20% of IPV homicide victims, according to Statistics Canada.
Unhealthy coping strategies
The SFU study found that “male IPV victims were much less likely than female victims to seek formal or informal support while in abusive relationships.”
"I see it as a comprehensive issue. We can't just see it as 'violence against women,' or 'violence against men.' This is all connected," said Alexandra Lysova, SFU criminology professor and co-author of the study, which was published in the Journal of Family Violence.
Many male victims cope with abuse by avoiding addressing it altogether, according to the study.
"Many deny the abuse, withdraw from social activities and relationships, and throw themselves into work to avoid what’s happening at home," Lysova said, in a news release.
The federal government publishes an online page devoted to male victims of such abuse.
"Some men and boys find it hard to talk about intimate partner violence because of pressure to seem strong, in control, like they don't need help,” it reads.
Lysova's SFU team’s study is based on the Statistics Canada General Social Survey on victimization as well as interviews with 16 male survivors.
In 2022, Lysova, who has been researching intimate partner violence for more than two decades, was awarded the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for her work on this issue of male victims of abuse because it is "a field that can sometimes be fraught with polarizing and politicized debate."
She said that abuse toward male partners manifests as physical violence, such as being hit with things thrown at them, kicked, slapped, or attacked with weapons.
However, she said the most prevalent abuse is psychological aggression, such as controlling behaviours.
Non-physical signs of abuse include: emotional withdrawal, anxiety, depression, financial control, social isolation, and manipulation, the SFU release states.
"We're talking about reports that women control their communication. They look at the emails, they ask the questions about who they meet, where they go," she said, adding that this mirrors the behaviour of abusive men.
A relatively new form of abuse seen is legal and administrative abuse.
"What it means is that the female partner threatens or even uses the legal system against the male partner. So they say, 'You know what, if you don't do that, I'll just call the police right now and they will come. They will come and they'll arrest you.' Or, 'You know what happens if I apply to court, you'll never see your children again.' And in some ways they are correct ... men often are identified very quickly as perpetrators, even if that is not the case, even if it is much more complex."
Ultimately, the study concludes that its results underscore “the importance of developing gender-inclusive support systems for all victims of partner abuse and [it] calls for reshaping societal perceptions of masculinity to create a judgment-free environment where male victims feel empowered to seek help.”
Double standard
Lysova said the cultural double standard that portrays men only as capable of being perpetrators is prevalent, and that violence towards men is often seen as less serious or even as a joke.
There is a current trend on TikTok, for example, where women joke that they are going to hit their husbands with a car.
If said about women, this, rightly, would not be socially acceptable any longer.
"Everybody would be saying, you cannot say that, you cannot do that. You can never hurt a woman. But when it comes to boys, when it comes to men, it's like the majority of the people just don't care," she said.
She says it is bigger than IPV, it is about how we accept violence among men.
"[The prevalence of violence against men] is not prioritized in our society, as if it's not that important somehow. And to me, this is a very big, big mistake," she added.
"Not only because we should care about men, because men are human beings and because they're part of our life and part of our families, but because they are part of these families and couples, and my strong vision is that if we help men, we will help families. We will help that relationship, and the children ... in this relationship, we will help them as well."
Fewer places to turn
Lysova notes there are fewer places to turn for men who are victims of IPV, who do want to seek help
Ashley Oakes, executive director of PearlSpace, noted the evolution of IPV supports in the Sea to Sky Corridor and beyond.
“PearlSpace provides sexual assault response services to all survivors regardless of their gender and can support with both recent and historical sexual assault. What we don't have is emergency transitional housing for cis-male survivors of intimate partner violence,” she said.
“The women's transitional housing sector was born out of grassroots activism in the 70s and 80s, with volunteers taking women and children fleeing IPV into their own homes and housing them temporarily. From that movement, data began to be collected that eventually led to the first provincial funding models for transitional housing programs,” she said.
“Since those early days, funding and operating models have continued to evolve. Today, the mandate for operators who receive funding from BC Housing through the Women's Transitional Housing Supports Fund is for programs to provide housing services for women, gender-diverse people and children who are at risk of violence, or have experienced violence.
“The lack of services for male survivors of IPV in the province—and likely throughout the continent— presents an opportunity for service provision that is delivered by agencies with expertise in supporting men to ensure male survivors have access to the supports and resources that meet their needs.”
Where to turn
While there are fewer supports for men, they do exist.
- Men’s Therapy Centre: Offers support for anyone who identifies as a man, who has experienced emotional, physical or sexual trauma in childhood or as an adult.
- Canadian Centre for Men and Families: Provides therapy and counselling, peer support, a legal clinic, fathering programs, mentorship and support services for male victims of trauma and violence, in addition to delivering front-line programs and services to families in crisis.
- Fraserside Community Services Society: Emergency shelter accessible to men with children. In-house counselling is also available.
- Canadian Suicide Prevention Service: A safe space to talk, 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
- VictimLink BC: Confidential, multilingual service available across B.C. Provides information and referral services to all victims of crime and immediate crisis support to victims of family and sexual violence.
Sea to Sky Community Services: A spokesperson for Sea to Sky Community Services told The Squamish Chief that while on occasion they indirectly support male victims of intimate partner abuse through other programs, when it becomes evident abuse is occurring, the only dedicated resource they offer is through its Community-Based Victims Services program for the Southern Stl’atl’imx Nations.
This program provides general emotional support, information resources, and referrals.
The spokesperson said in the past, Sea to Sky Community Services have received a private donation which enabled them to provide supplemental funding to male clients who were accessing private counselling in the community (the Counselling Assistance Fund), but they currently do not have the funds to reinstate that program.
If any readers feel so inclined, a donation can be made to help reinstate the fund by selecting the Counselling Assistance Fund in the drop-down menu.
We want to include as many resources as possible, so please reach out and let us know any we have missed, [email protected].
Read the whole SFU study here.
