{"id":2306,"date":"2012-10-04T09:50:28","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T17:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ubcmhac.sites.olt.ubc.ca\/?p=2306"},"modified":"2012-10-04T09:50:28","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T17:50:28","slug":"a-different-set-of-terrified-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcmhac\/2012\/10\/04\/a-different-set-of-terrified-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"A Different Set of Terrified Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Different\u00a0Set of Terrified Eyes<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe provide help and support for victims of domestic violence!\u201d\u00a0 is usually the headline. You read on and it all sounded very promising: \u201cno stigma, non-judgmental, help and support, safety\u201d. All these words you desperately needed. So you picked up the phone and were ready to call, until something caught your eye: \u201cour mission is to fight as hard as we can to end violence against women and children.\u201d It even had a picture of the face of a terrified woman on the bottom of the flyer.<\/p>\n

Wait a minute, something is missing here. How did they know if you were a woman or not? If you were\u00a0 calling the suicide crisis line or seeking help for anxiety, they wouldn\u2019t know about your gender until they heard your voice or met you in person, right?<\/p>\n

But in this case, they seem to know. They seem to be sure that if someone is a victim of domestic abuse, she must be a female, despite this 2005 study<\/a> which estimated the likelihood of the victim of domestic abuse in Canada being a male is almost the same as being a female (6:7).<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, to the government and the mental health field, these some 546,000 men per year do not exist. In Canada, not a single government-funded service or program targets male victims of domestic abuse. There is a shelter and crisis line<\/a> in Calgary which targets men who want to leave a violent situation at home, but it receives no government support.<\/p>\n

Pretty harsh, huh? When it comes to mental health issues, it is not news that men are less likely to report their problems, let alone seek help, due to the gender stereotype the society places on them. In fact, another 2006 survey<\/a> reports that 83% of domestic police reports are filed by female victims and only 17% by men. But at least you would expect something to be done for the 158,656 men who were courageous (or desperate) enough to speak up.<\/p>\n

Take a moment and think about this. We no longer (I hope) consider depression or anxiety in men as weaknesses in character; why do we still force the victimized ones to hide in the closet?<\/p>\n

Sources and More Information:<\/p>\n

Another side of domestic violence<\/em><\/a>, The Reporter<\/p>\n

It is not just women who are victims of spousal violence<\/em><\/a>, CBC News<\/p>\n

The Gender Paradigm in Domestic Violence Research and Theory<\/a>,<\/em> Dutton & Nicholls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Different\u00a0Set of Terrified Eyes \u201cWe provide help and support for victims of domestic violence!\u201d\u00a0 is usually the headline. You read on and it all sounded very promising: \u201cno stigma, non-judgmental, help and support, safety\u201d. All these words you desperately needed. So you picked up the phone and were ready to call, until something caught […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24981,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[561,795,1020240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","category-general","category-mental-health-correspondent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcmhac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcmhac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcmhac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcmhac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24981"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcmhac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcmhac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcmhac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcmhac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcmhac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}