[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Battered Men
The first reaction upon hearing about the topic of battered men, for many people, is that of incredulity. Battered husbands are a topic for jokes (such as the cartoon image of a woman chasing her husband with a rolling-pin). One researcher noted that wives were the perpetrators in 73% of the depictions of domestic violence in newspaper comics.
Battered husbands have historically been either ignored or subjected to ridicule or abuse. In 18th-century France, a battered husband "was made to wear an outlandish outfit and ride backwards around the village on a donkey". Even those of us who like to consider ourselves liberated and open-minded often have a difficult time even imagining that husband battering could take place. Although feminism has opened many of our eyes about the existence of domestic violence, and newspaper reports often include incidents of abuse of wives, the abuse of husbands is a rarely discussed phenomenon.
Billboards, radio and TV ads across the country proclaim that "every fifteen seconds a woman is beaten by a man." Violence against women is clearly a problem of national importance, but has anyone ever asked how often men are beaten by women? The unfortunate fact is that men are the victims of domestic violence at least as often as women. While the very idea of men being beaten by their wives runs contrary to many of our deeply ingrained beliefs about men and women, female violence against men is a well-documented phenomenon almost completely ignored by both the media and society.
The idea of women being violent is a hard thing for many people to believe. It goes against the stereotype of the passive and helpless female. This, in spite of the fact that women are known to be more likely than men to commit child abuse and child murder......
