Intimate Partner Violence against Men: The Humiliation Component

                                                                          

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Intimate Partner Violence against Men: The Humiliation Component

Humiliation is caused by the violation of personal boundaries of a victim, because of the moral and physical aggression by the other person. (Linder, Evelin Gerda 2006).

Humiliation means the enforced lowering of a person or group, a process of subjugation that damages or strips away their pride, honour or dignity. (Nora Femenia 2008). To be humiliated is to be placed against your will and often in a deeply hurtful way, in a situation that is greatly inferior to what you feel you should expect. Humiliation entails demeaning treatment that transgresses established expectations. It involves acts of force, including violent force. At its heart is the idea of pinning down, putting down or holding to ground. Indeed, one of the defining characteristics of humiliation as a process is that the victim is forced into passivity, acted upon, made helpless. (Linder, Evelin Gerda 2005).

The experience of men who were subjected to humiliation as a component of domestic violence could better be described by the victims, whether emotionally or physically.

For Lazare (1987), the experience of being humiliated by the aggression or violence from a loved one means:

•           Feeling exposed, stained, stigmatized.
•           Given a reduced social position, dwarfed by force.
•           Degraded, dishonoured or devalued
•           Attacked with ridicule, insult and/or contempt.

We define violence as all types of abusive maneuvers against a member of the family. These may be all sorts of abuse, from physical to emotional abuse, and denigration. It is accepted that the easiest way to discern motivation is the desire or compulsion to maintain control over others in the same family circle, and exercise power over them.

These forms of abuse are able to produce physical or mental harm to the abused people, and even motivate them to commit suicide.

Emotional or psychological abuse as a form of domestic violence includes the use of humiliation to control what the victim can and cannot do by using restriction of information and decision-making. This causes the victim to do things that make him feel embarrassed or diminished in public and in private. (en.wikipedia.org 2880).

Humiliation of man by his spouse can be in many forms including:

•          Prevent the man from going out
•          Prevent the man from coming in
•         Denying the man access to his car key
•          Deprive him of sex
•          Obstructing him from giving instruction to his children
•          Denying him of access to his children if separated
•           Denying him of rest at home – pouring water to wet the man’s bed

Any of these or a combination of more the one of them could be applied against the man by his spouse in order to have control over him.

In assisting the humiliated man, separating him from the abusive spouse should not be the first option. The fundamental cause or causes of this act of humiliation should be established and addressed accordingly. It is important to note that act of humiliation do not come without being accompanied by bitter complaints and degrading comments from the abusive woman as we could have in statements like:

•          “Are you a man at all?”
•          “You are not going out today. Of what benefit has it been to the family?”
•          “Look at you! Good for nothing man.”
•          “You better die and let me know that I don’t have a husband.”

The mediators and other social counsellors should work on the driving factors of these statements in order to assist the male victim out of humiliation in the relationship with his spouse. Rather than only advocating against the social ill of the menace called domestic violence, particularly against men, being proactive would be safer for the victims.

However, this help can only come if the male victim is willing to report the situation, and be “man” enough to disclose his personal shortcomings in the relationship while the dispute is being resolved. This is likely to bring the much needed peace in such affected home.

Research has shown that so far, there have not been too many approaches proposing methods of repair, not only on the effects of domestic violence against men, but also to identify and cure the humiliation component included in the attack.

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