Challenging the narrative on DV

On a day when government leaders are meeting in Australia to discuss what they describe as "gendered violence" of "male violence against women and children", I thought it would be appropriate to share my first experience with domestic violence.

My maternal grandfather was the only grandparent I had the opportunity to get to know. Two grandparents died before I was born and the other passed when I was but an infant. I remember Grandpa as a stoic and rather aloof character, but he was widely regarded as a gentleman by his community. He started out as a young railway porter, but lived an interesting life of 84 years of hard work, including being a repeatedly elected as a mayor in suburban Melbourne and receiving many honours for his years of dedicated service to his community in public life.

I vividly remember Grandpa living on his own in the 1970s and 80s in a modest suburban house and maintaining a huge self-sufficient back yard that was abundant with fruit, vegetables and flowers and always immaculate. He truly had a green thumb and he always brought a basket of his own produce when he would regularly come and visit us.

When he passed after suffering a debilitating stroke, I was barely into my teens.

After his funeral, I was asked (rather awkwardly) by my parents if I knew how to transfer a recording made on a reel to reel tape onto a cassette. I said I’d give it a go.

With little prior explanation, I was presented with an audio recording with a woman’s voice shrieking loudly and shouting abuse for long periods, with the sounds of what sounded like crockery smashing in the background. There were several recordings of separate incidences on the same tape. Grandpa’s voice was also audible, trying to calm her down and defending himself, with little success. I was shocked and traumatised by this discovery, but I can barely remember it now.

This was my first exposure to what I would later understand to be domestic violence. Grandpa was very cunning in making those covert recordings back in the early 1970s on his reel to reel tape deck, as it would turn out. The machine was kept in his garden shed, where he would retreat when her abuse began.

Grandpa had remarried after my grandmother passed, having been happily married to her for 43 years and with two adult daughters. His second marriage must have been a short and turbulent relationship. She liked the liquor apparently. Grandpa never reciprocated, never reported her abuse to the police, never got counselling and never talked about it publicly. It must surely have been an embarrassment for someone with such a high public profile. He kept it private, and he took the only options available at the time – he recorded evidence of the abuse and eventually, he divorced her. In my memory, she was never spoken of, and I only heard about her after she surfaced to challenge his will after being left out of it, or receiving a token amount. The recording (now on a more convenient cassette, thanks kid) was sent to her lawyers, who quickly dropped the claim and were not heard from again.

My own parents are still together after more than 50 years of marriage, and I cannot recall them ever having a fight. Sure, they’ve had disagreements and maybe there was a raised voice here or there but they never lasted long or degenerated into any form of violence. "Never go to bed angry," was sage advice from my father. He always respected my mother and treated her as his equal, which she is. They never hit or abused me. They truly love each other. So, I never really expected my own marriage to degenerate into violent arguments. To be fair, it only did so twice, but I wasn’t the aggressor on either occasion. I was running away from it. When we got to the Family Court stage, of course I was accused of it. I even had an ADVO served on me, although it was overturned on appeal, but by then the damage was done. My relationship with my beloved daughter, whom I have now not seen in over seven years, was deliberately and systematically destroyed, but that's another story...

The point of this piece, I guess, is that the only instances of domestic violence I have personally experienced in my 50+ years have all been perpetrated by women against men. I was motivated to put this in writing because of the sheer weight of public narrative we are force fed day after day that it’s only women (and “their” children) that we need to protect from domestic abuse, because men are exclusively the perpetrators and women are always the victims. Nobody dare challenge that narrative or else risk being decried as a misogynist, an “MRA” (why is it noble to be a feminist, but vile to speak up for men?) or even a perpetrator. Perhaps that is why I observe that most of the voices advocating for male victims of domestic abuse and coercive control are actually courageous women, like Erin Pizzey, Cassie Jaye, Karen Straughan and Bettina Arndt.

So, I find myself questioning the narrative that we should “believe all women” or even “believe all children” when they "disclose" abuse. Surely all allegations of abuse should be reality tested? Is it just her word against his? Where is the evidence? Why don't we want to end violence against everyone? Why are men always not only left out, but blamed, often justified with some very skewed or subjectively researched statistics.

8.6 Australians die every day by suicide. 75% of those who take their own life are male (ABS, 2022). Maybe that's where you will find the hidden statistics of the male victims of DV who didn't make a report because they knew it would be futile. As for finding any support, shelter or compassion... well, good luck lads. But who cares? It's just dead males. Do men and fathers have any value in modern society, or are we truly disposable?

Fortunately for him, Grandpa was onto it. Always collect evidence. You are certainly going to need it if you are to be believed as a male victim.

• Endnote: 49.25% of family violence murder victims over the past two years have been male according to the latest release of the ABS Recorded Crime - Victims dataset. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-victims/latest-release