Abusive Men Describe the Benefits of Violence - Voice Male magazine

For many years, I facilitated courtmandated groups for men who batter. In the early 1980s we were concentrating on healthy relationship skills building, emotional identification and selfcontrol, and anger management, among other related issues. Then battered women in Duluth, Minnesota, began gathering to discuss the impact of the violence on their lives. What emerged was that the men who beat them not only physically assaulted them, but also controlled where they went, who they talked to, what they wore, where they worked, if they worked, how the money was spent, when, with whom, and how they had sex, how the kids were raised, how the domestic labor was split in the household. You get the picture. Basically, the men got to control the women to get what the men wanted… and the threat and use of violence was the bottom line that ensured it would happen. Now I was training men in weekly groups at the time to use assertiveness when in conflict with their wives or girlfriends, teaching them

saved by

• Espen Slettnes