Our thanks to Steve for this substantial piece, on the BBC website, amazingly. They can do it if they try. An extract:
After sixty years of controlling behaviour and physical violence, Jim changed his blood-stained shirt and walked back to his wife who was making them a coffee after smashing him in the face.
He had asked her to let the cat in while he cut the grass outside.
But instead of turning left to the kitchen, he turned right, walked out the door and kept on walking away from his life of abuse.
With only the clothes he wore, he didn’t look back, and at the age of 78, he started his life again.
Jim is one of a growing number of men telling other men it is okay to admit to being abused by women.
According to official figures, almost 20% of reported cases of domestic abuse in Scotland involve male victims, but charities and victims believe the actual number is much closer to 50%, due to the reluctance of men to speak up. [J4MB emphasis. A remarkable admission for the BBC.]…
Jacqui (the man’s daughter) credits the charity Abused Men In Scotland (AMIS) for saving her father.
Iris Quar works for the charity. She explained why men find it difficult to come forward.
She said: “The gender role men are given in society means they find it hard to understand and recognise what is happening to them and when they do it is very difficult for them to talk about it.
“Regularly they begin with: ‘I am not an abused man’, but then go on to tell the most horrendous stories of domestic abuse.
“Once men go into that downward spiral of control they are robbed of everything – their home, their job, their self determination.”
