A couple of years ago I wrote an initial reflection on working with perpetrators of domestic abuse when I was relatively new to the work. Since then, sadly the service has closed as the funding ended. This is not uncommon in this field; victim services are barely funded enough so perpetrator services can be a hard sell. So, given this sad ending, I wanted to reflect on this amazing work and what I’ve learned about working with perpetrators, and about what we need to do as a society to help men. Due to the nature of this work, no names or identifying information about the organisation or individual involved will be used.
 
I’m a counsellor in private practice but I worked three days per week for a domestic abuse charity, doing group and 1:1 work on a perpetrator programme. I started as a group facilitator and then I got more involved, doing assessments and also doing one-to-one Behaviour Change sessions. I was surprised that I could even do this work, I’d always been drawn to it but thought I was just being naïve at first! I remember when I first started training to be a counsellor, we were asked if there were any clients we wouldn’t want to work with. Some of my peers said offenders/perpetrators (especially those who had harmed children) and as much as I respected their choice, I became aware that I was one of the few who particularly wanted to work with these groups. They are the most stigmatized and shamed, and who arguably may need us the most. I knew if I could get into this work somehow, I definitely should. It felt so important.
 
I thought the concept of perpetrator programmes was great; as well as helping people leave abusive relationships, we had an opportunity to go to the root of the problem and help break the cycle. It feels like our domestic abuse victim services are just firefighting at times, doing the very best they can do with the funding and resources available. Domestic abuse is about patterns of power and control, so when an abusive relationship ends, there’s always a risk that either person could enter into another abusive relationship. These are generational cycles which many people don't realise that they're in. I wanted to help break the cycles and help the ripple effect, ultimately to help partners, future partners, children and grandchildren be safer too.

My first observation of a perpetrator group was eye-opening. I was struck by the level of openness and honesty from the group members. I also admired the challenges offered by the facilitators, whilst holding a non-judgmental and compassionate space. I knew it was for me instantly. I was worried I might be scared and would want to literally run out of the room, but something in me just felt right. For somebody who was a timid child being told by many to “be more assertive”, I surprised myself by becoming a confident, challenging facilitator! The most important part of this work was the support from the team. My co-workers, supervisor and manager made this possible; it’s crucial to have a good team to be able to “hold” this work and manage risk.
 
I’ve always been fascinated by why people do what they do. I don’t believe that people are just “bad” or are born “evil” or “monsters”, it’s just not possible. People who hurt others have often been hurt themselves. They may have had difficult relationships, or sometimes struggle to have meaningful relationships at all. There can be attachment and child development issues, past abuse and trauma. The complexities and nuances of what makes a person harm others are complicated and different person-to-person, but everyone deserves the chance to be heard and shown respect and compassion. The perpetrator programme offered this balance of being challenged and held accountable, whilst being strengths-based, compassionate and empathic.
 
Many perpetrator programmes are just for cis-gendered men, but this doesn’t mean other people aren’t abusive of course. There needs to be more provision for programmes for a range of genders, sexualities and relationship arrangements. However, there is barely enough for men at the moment, and men are the most common perpetrators of abuse. This can be a confronting thing to talk about, especially online, as there can be backlash, defensiveness and “what-about-ery”, e.g. “but what about all the men who are abused?” This is a valid point, but can often be used to derail the conversation about male violence. We need to name it to help solve the problem.
 
In my view, patriarchal norms and expectations harm everyone. As a woman, I feel I was socialised to adhere to the male gaze, meaning I needed to try my best to be attractive to men and give them what they wanted. My self-worth was wrapped up in what men thought of me. I gave their opinion more worth than my own, about my own body! These messages came to me from films, TV, family, friends…it was the water I swam in so I never questioned it. It was just normal. When I started learning about feminism later, I had a lot of unpacking to do. I realised that I upheld unrealistic standards of myself, but also, I was helping uphold masculinity standards too.
 

Masculinity comes with its expectations, norms and demands. On the programme we would explore the “man box”, all the things that keep men trapped in the expectations of their gender, and the consequences for stepping outside the box. The pressures and expectations can include, not being “emotional”, not crying, being tall and muscular, being “the provider”, not showing vulnerability etc. Sadly, this meant the men often had learnt to push down their emotions, as they were unacceptable. Many had never learnt how to talk about emotions and never had that modelled for them. Part of the magic of group work is having the space to talk to each other, which in turn helps model vulnerability and provides practice in communicating about emotions. It’s an experiential, powerful intervention, as well as the psychoeducation, exercises and discussion on the programme. These together, the relational group dynamics and the programme topics and themes each session, created an intense but very impactful intervention. It felt like such a gift and a privilege to do this work and witness this.
 
As facilitators, our strength is in being compassionate but challenging. Trying to hold somebody accountable by making them feel belittled or told off is just not going to work. It triggers the shame that so many of these men have deep down, that is so hard to let out, let alone speak about. Their shame can feel too much, so it’s often the cause of defensive behaviours. When you’re not used to being vulnerable, it can feel terrifying. We needed to help hold this shame whilst they explored and worked on themselves and their behaviours. We often talked about the “pit of shit” (was “shame” but “shit” became more fun), and how getting out of it required them to clamber out onto the path of accountability. But it’s hard to climb out whilst stuck in the sticky, muddy shame, especially for those with low confidence and self-esteem. It brings a paradox for some who would consider these men not to be deserving of feeling better about themselves, but this is the very thing needed to climb out of the pit and take responsibility.

We loved an iceberg on the programme. We’d draw the angry behaviours at the top (i.e. what you can see, e.g. shouting, slamming doors), with the underlying emotions below the surface, e.g. fear, vulnerability, shame. A theme I often noticed was jealousy. This often linked with underlying feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem. The controlling behaviours stemmed from the jealously and inadequacy, and fear of abandonment. This could have been impacted by experiences in previous relationships and likely caregiver relationships in early childhood. An insecure attachment can be a common factor with some men on these programmes, in my experience.
 
Entitlement, in the context of being entitled to women’s bodies, may be more likely to stem from societal and cultural influences which tell men they have a right to women’s bodies. We see this a lot in the “manosphere” (men’s rights activists, incels etc) which many might argue is getting worse now we are in the “Andrew Tate era”. It seems the idea of being an “alpha” is becoming important again (which to me is men literally putting themselves in the constraints of the man box), and with this comes the idea of power over women (and other men). Ultimately, I believe so much of this is rooted in fear of losing power. Women and trans/non-binary people are taking up more space now and having more power, and this is seen as a threat to men. It’s not of course, it’s an opportunity for us to dismantle patriarchal and traditional gender norms and expectations, which would help us all.
 
What it means to be “masculine” needs more flexibility and more empathy. We need positive male role models who can help other men, standing against harmful behaviour but in a way that doesn’t shame them. We need media literacy for children and young people to help understand and reduce the risk of online grooming into the “manosphere” and ethical use of pornography. We need women to stop upholding gender expectations on men too and support them to be able to feel safe to show emotions. We need to stop the increasing transphobia and make it safe for people to be themselves. We need better representation of vulnerable men on TV and in films. We need to stop normalising abusive and controlling behaviours in the media. We, as a society, have a lot of work to do. But we also need to have compassion and remember the humanity in people, and believe that some people are absolutely able to change. I’ve seen these changes happen; men have become better fathers, they’re able to understand themselves and their behaviours so much better, and they now model to their kids that it’s OK to be vulnerable, and how to take accountability. We need to keep breaking these cycles for generations to come.
 
I did a talk with Online Events about this too, if you’d like to find out more or purchase a recording CLICK HERE.

I also offer other workshops, please check out my workshops page for what’s coming up. 
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Disclaimer: I wrote these blogs a long time ago! I'm leaving them up as I don't want to delete my journey and I think showing growth is important. But it means that some of my views, and some language I use, is now different. Please be mindful of this, and that the content might be triggering, if you choose to read on.


​Warning: contains triggering subjects

There have been a few serious attacks in the news recently. It’s hard doing the ‘normal’ adult thing at the moment, just getting up and going to work like it never happened. It’s a strange world we’ve built for ourselves. My thoughts are with the victims and their families and friends, and I’m eternally grateful to our NHS. I appreciate people not wanting to give the attackers airtime, but we need to notice something happening here – most terrorists are men. Need a statistic? Here you go:

“Overwhelmingly, the majority of people arrested for terrorism related offences are male: of the 3,157 people arrested between 11 September 2001 and 31 December 2015, 92% were male.”
- From ‘Terrorism in Great Britain: the statistics - Parliament UK’

If you’re unfamiliar with Men’s Right’s Activists (MRA’s), they’re mostly men (#notallmen) and they’re mostly not doing much for men’s rights (#notallMRAs) but instead are mostly trying to take down feminists (how many more times can I use the word ‘mostly’?) The thing is, I agree with some of the things they’re supposedly concerned about – father’s rights, domestic violence against men, high male suicide rates, to name a few. It’s just unfortunate that so many of them seem to be horribly racist, sexist and homophobic. They seem to dislike anyone who isn’t a straight white man. This is only based on my short ventures into the ‘manosphere’ (a general name for the men’s rights online community), so I realise it’s from my limited perspective. If you are an MRA and you have a campaign you’d like us to join to legitimately help men’s rights, then do come forward. Many women might be happy to help you out.

I have to protect myself from going too far down the terrifying rabbit hole known as the manosphere. There’s so much hatred there. But I’ve been trying to understand masculinity and how men are becoming so angry they’ll stab people on trains, blow themselves up or drive vans into crowds. Not forgetting, killing themselves too. The male suicide rate in the UK is three times the female rate.

Maybe gender expectations are one of the roots of the problem. I might be seen as too compassionate but I’d rather try to understand why these men have such a lot of anger. In my experience of Men’s Rights Activists online, they seem bitter and hurt and are looking to provoke people, especially feminists, into saying something horrible to them. When people retaliate, it then proves their point. It proves their ‘free speech’ argument right, validating their view that they’re the real victims, hence making them even more pissed off about it all.

However, maybe they are the victims. Maybe they’re victims of a society that tells men not to show emotion. We tell boys not to cry. We tell them to be strong and tough. We teach them that anger is the only acceptable emotion. They have to play with boy toys which are often more violent than girls toys (but girls have equally damaging gender role expectations in a different way). They’re taught to ‘man up’ to deal with their problems. They’re taught that asking for help is a weakness, and that kindness and compassion are girly and weak traits.

Men need gender equality just as much as women, sometimes I think even more so. ‘Feminism’ is a tricky word now because MRA’s see feminists as being cruel and angry, which some of them are. They’re pissed off from a lifetime of living by the rules of the patriarchy so I can see why, but it’s no excuse to be hateful. However, there are a lot of feminists, like me, who think feminism means the same as gender equality. It’s just a word anyway, what matters is the intention behind it.

These men, so unhappy with the imbalance of the world, are affected by the same patriarchal society that feminists are so unhappy about too. If there was just a way for there to be a compassionate, understanding dialogue between the two groups, we might find a way forward. But both sides are firmly in their opposing online worlds, having their own little bickering sessions amongst themselves. Feminists are arguing over who can be the best feminist (and over what the word actually means for that matter) and MRA’s are too busy having competitions about how masculine they can be (they have a whole Alpha/Beta thing going on).

And through just literally typing that last sentence, I realise how ironic that is.

It seems like gender equality is treated as a luxury, but it’s really becoming a necessity now. People are dying, and that’s not solely the fault of toxic masculinity of course, but surely there’s no harm in giving it a go. Gender roles aren’t helping anyone now and it’s time we moved on. We need to break the rules around conforming to be a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’. Just whatever you like. You don’t have to name it and you don’t have to justify yourself to anyone.

We need an injection of empathy and compassion now. We need to try to stop placing blame and focus on what we can do, as individuals, to be kinder. Blaming Muslims or immigrants isn’t getting us anywhere. Terrorist attacks happen in the name of religion only in the minds of the attackers, but the basis of most religions is to be kind, forgiving and generally just don’t kill each other. It’s the person that kills people, not the religion. Often terrorists are quite young men who have been susceptible to radicalisation. We need to think about why they’re drawn into that in the first place and why they decided to become violent, unlike all the millions of other Muslims who don’t.

Thinking about it, they might not be too different from the Men’s Rights Activists or white supremacists who attack innocent people on trains, or storm into schools with guns. Despite being the opposite type of extremists, both are angry at the world. Angry at people for treating them badly maybe? Angry for not having the power and control they think they deserve. I doubt whether these men had been shown another way to channel that anger.

The man who stabbed people on a train in Portland was said to have mental health problems. I’ve personally never seen this same consideration for Muslim terrorists. We need more provision for mental health services, but we also need to help break down the stigma around asking for help. If there is more acceptance around men showing emotion, there could be a chance of helping men who may want to hurt themselves or others.

Kindness and be learned in the same way hatred can be. Our brains can always adapt, it just takes that initial push to start trying to see another perspective. We’re not going to solve the problems in society quickly, or indeed at all, but we can try to make a kinder, non-judgmental, equal world for the generations to come.

Stay safe. Be kind.