The Language of Abuse: Why Male IPV Survivors Struggle to Speak Out

By Glory Kobia 

In conversations surrounding male victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), the focus is often on encouraging men to speak out. But what happens when victims have a limited vocabulary to articulate their experiences and they feel their community has no space to hear them?

The Language of Abuse Is Often Gendered

The language available to talk about intimate partner violence is implicitly gendered. When we picture a victim of IPV, we instinctively picture a smaller, weaker person facing a large, strong perpetrator. In incidents and stories of abuse, we are listening for obvious power

differences, physical battering, and control.

The gender stereotypes surrounding society’s understanding of abusive dynamics in intimate partner violence  was not devised randomly,

but was shaped by real patterns and observations. On average, adult men possess more physical strength than adult women. Women are also disproportionately affected by IPV, and historically, men have had more structural power.

The Invisible Forms of Violence

The general public’s understanding of domestic violence remains restricted to physical forms of violence. Subtler forms such as emotional, psychological, financial, and sexual violence frequently fly below the radar.

Rigid gender stereotypes and expectations increase the visibility gaps for male survivors. Men, according to this script, are naturally aggressive, stoic, and dominant. Women, on the other hand, are naturally maternal, caring, and docile. In instances where the abuse is not obvious or expected, it gets harder to recognize or describe it.

The Linguistic Mismatch and Social Penalty for Victims

Traditional masculine ideals are associated with dominance, strength, and control; hence, the language has little place for vulnerability. Talking about victimhood requires acknowledging a loss of control and being in a vulnerable position. To a male survivor, these two identities can feel incompatible as the victim position contradicts what a man is expected to be.

When a man overcomes the initial barrier and is courageous enough to speak out about his victimization, he flips a societal script that requires him to be stoic. This, in turn, can create cognitive dissonance within his community, and to resolve the discomfort, people may respond with

shaming, ridicule, or silence. In some cases, he may become a cautionary tale for those attempting to speak out, which creates a vicious cycle of violence and silence.

Reconstructing the Narrative: The Hidden Language of Victimization

Because direct expressions of vulnerability for men carry social risk, male victims may often find alternative ways to describe their experiences without losing status or being ridiculed.

If they maintain the dominant position in the narrative; it’s easier for their community to validate their experience. Describing the nature of the victimization as merely a lack of respect is the safer language to use.

Research on male survivors of intimate partner violence supports this pattern. In a qualitative study by Jessica J. Eckstein (2010), male victims resorted to internalizing their experience through self-blame or externalizing it through societal blame. They rationalized their experiences through acceptable frameworks of masculinity. A few, however, rejected those rigid expectations by positively reclaiming their masculine identities through embracing vulnerability.

The Shift in the Language for Abuse

To understand the true nature of intimate partner violence for male victims, we need to expand the space and language available for naming abuse. Through this, we can easily recognize and validate vulnerability and victimhood regardless of who experiences it, and support all victims as they seek justice and attempt to heal. By maintaining rigid ideals of who a man should or can be, we render their moments of vulnerability inadmissible, therefore denying them their full humanity.

Sources

Eckstein, J. J. (2010). Masculinity of Men Communicating Abuse Victimization. Culture, Society & Masculinities, 2(1), 62–74. https://doi.org/10.3149/CSM.0201.62