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Silent Victims: Male Victims of Domestic Abuse

    So, the issue of domestic violence has always interested me. Typically, we think about a woman stuck in an abusive relationship with a man. Why is this? Awhile ago I was scrolling around on YouTube and happened to see this video.

    Now I know there is some speculation  out there about if these are genuine reactions or not, but none the less it brings to mind a good point. There are a lot of amazing organizations out there doing awesome work to help female victims, but what about the men? I know I was guilty of it before watching this video. I never really thought about the roles being reversed. I ended up doing a research paper on this topic and the results were quite amazing.

• According the Mankind Initiative, a male victim advocacy group, in the U.K there are only 17 spaces available for men at shelters. Whereas for women there are over 4,000.
• A 2011 study, conducted by Douglas & Hines, had male victims seek help from domestic violence agency groups around the United Kingdom. 302 took part in this study and of that they found that over 78% were told “we only help women” and 63% were suggested that they themselves were the batterer. 
•  A study, conducted by the University of Washington, found that adolescent females that were habitually violent were more likely to become abusers in their adult life. 
•  According to the Ministry of Justice, in 2010/11 over 200,000 females, including juveniles, were arrested in the U.K . Of those arrests 34% were classified under the offense “violence against a person”. This was the highest percentage of any offense.  When comparing these statistics and the University of Washington study, you can see a possible contribution to the large numbers of abused males in western societies. 
• In research journal published by Taylor & Francis, interviews were done with counselors who had their first experience helping a male victim of abuse. In these interviews didn't concentrate on the victim but more so the counselor and their struggles with the concept of masculinity.  All six of the participants response was “How can this be happening to a man?”.  This study is a great example of how even domestic abuse counselors can struggle with the concept of masculinity when it comes to women abusing males. 

    This is just some of the data I found when doing research on the issue but, with it   I've noticed that an increase in violent females, lack of support for victims and the distorted concept of masculinity have all contributed to female on male abuse in western societies. There needs to be a bigger voice out there for male victims of abuse, this voice can hopefully bring up the awareness of the issue and bring down it's occurrences. 

*Please comment and get involved in the discussion. What do you think about the information above, do you know someone who is being abused (male or female)? Do you have any information on the subject that you would like to share?

Domestic Abuse Hotlines:

• The National Domestic Hotline (US)- 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
• NAPAC (UK)- 0808 801 0331
• Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria (AU)- 1800 737 732

Deviance brings change. 

Purpose

    It's been awhile but, I'm back. I was dealing with the past semester and just didn't have time to write on here. I've decided to take this semester off....probably not the smartest thing for a 24 year old sophomore in college to do but hey I just couldn't make it work this semester. In lieu of a proper education I guess I will be filling my time with writing on here while we prep for the "big move". Oh, yeah I guess I should fill you in on that. My husband is finally getting out of the military after 7 1/2 years and we are only 5 months away from being home sweet home (Tampa, Florida) and I'm so excited. Anyways, enough about me on to more important things like THE BLOG!!!

    So, I've been thinking about covering some more controversial and in depth topics, maybe in spark up some debates on here? I love a good debate! As an Atheist I'd like to cover more topics that have their roots in that aspect. Not necessarily about whether there is or is not a divine...anything but, more about issues I find unjust or giving my opinion on a certain matter from the non-religious view point. Also, as a International Studies major my main interest is in the Human Rights department. I'd love to use this blog as a vessel to expand the knowledge of unjust actions against people that are happening all around the world. I don't want this blog to be about only me I want this blog to have a bigger purpose.

 Deviance sparks change.  

Racial Confusion

So this is more of an opinion post. It's something that has really irritated me and I was thinking about it the other day and I thought to myself....I should blog this... Get my feelings about it out with slim chance of any one reading it. So here it is....


So, I'm racially mixed. My father is Turkish (still lives there) and my mother is a full dose of the Caucasian cocktail (Dutch, English, Polish, Irish, etc...). When you see me though you can tell I'm not just "white" (speaking biological features only right now). I'm constantly asked if "¿Habla español?". When people ask what I am (sometimes I try and have people guess, because no one ever remembers Turkey.) and when I say Turkish I always get a "Really?? I thought you were like Colombian, Brazilian, Dominican, etc...".
Nope, I'm Turkish. Despite my father not being in the picture I'm very attached to my Turkish roots. My cousin is also Turkish so hey, at least I'm not alone.
What this post is really about though is comments and arguments I've heard in the past and I wanted to address them. I act white & my mom is white, I get it. Does that make me "white"? Would you tell a half white & half African-American person that they are white? Would you go up to a Korean person who's married to a Caucasian person and say "Nope, you're not in an inter-racial marriage." Probably not right? Why though?
I got in an debate with someone once, for the record I'm married to a Caucasian man, a friend of my sister's (my sister is also mixed, Japanese and Caucasian) who is Caucasian said in passing she thought that people should marry whoever they wanted, but that she did believe that races should try to stay together (I'm paraphrasing, it was more like "African-Americans and Caucasians getting married is weird" again still very much paraphrasing, but pretty much she thought whites and blacks should stick to their own races.)
I was in complete shock, I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped and everything. Here is a paraphrasing of the dialog we had (by the way this took place like 3 1/2 years ago so I can't remember word for word.)


Me: "Are you kidding me right now?"
Person: "What?"
Me: "That's a pretty ignorant thing to say... I'm mean hey, I'm in an interracial marriage."
Person: "No you are not!"
Me: "Um, excuse me?"
Person: "You're white."
Me: "No, I'm not. I'm half  "white"."
Person: "Carolyn, you're white."
Me: "What makes you consider me as "white"?"


At this point I was outraged, mostly at the fact that what she said about interracial marriages but they proceeded to tell me I was white and not in an interracial marriage? Please, tell me....am I crazy? Should I consider myself solely white? Where is the cut off? Please tell me where I can reference the socially constructed scale of who is considered racially different and who isn't?


People tend to make comments when I'm around. I've heard people speak ill or make snide remarks about the Muslim people to me......TO ME.....and these are people I like KNOW. I just sit there with this face -> O.o dumbfounded and
thinking to myself....you do realize half of my family is Muslim, right?

I used to work at a pizza joint and we had this Indian family who would come in regularly. They were vegetarian so they wanted the pizza cut with a clean blade. Totally understandable, right? My supervisor would always make comments to me like "Oh great, the haggi's are here!" "go back to your own country" and comments about them being Muslim...? I know, I have no clue.
Thoughts in my head at the time....
THEY ARE INDIAN, NOT MIDDLE EASTERN! THEY ARE HINDU NOT MUSLIM!!!!!! And even if they were middle eastern, Muslim or both.....YOU'RE BEING SO IGNORANT!!!
I finally flipped on him (who was well aware of my ethnic identity). I said,
" Seriously, stop it. please? You do realize not only and I middle eastern, my family is Muslim."
He apologized and I could tell he meant it..... maybe now he thinks twice before he makes comments like that?



Input please? Am I crazy? Am I over-reacting? Has anyone else had this issue? Am I "white"?!

Why is everyone so racially confused?!?!?!??!

In the beginning....

So, I've completely changed up my blog. I swear, I'm actually going to follow this one through. I always say that though. Normally, I would start this rambling on about who I am, my likes and dislikes, so on & so on...like a bad dating profile. I'm doing this different this time, if you want to know about me my page is linked. Though, I will preface this blog by telling you grammar is not my strong suit. Sometimes I get "comma happy", I don't know if you've noticed, and sometimes I get in the zone and no exclamation point or run-on-sentence in going to stop me.
I have no idea, as of this moment, what this blog is going to be about. I know I'm passionate about human rights (hence the current blog title). Although, my intention is not to turn this into a blog of continuous ramblings and rantings of a young human rights advocate, because there are just so many of those,  it probably will be that some days.
So, here I am, listing to some good old  Bob Crosby and the Bobcats (Way Back Home) and eating my breakfast which consists of a buttered maple french toast bagel and my Frozen Elsa mug (Yup, I'm a grown woman and I have a Frozen mug...I'm awesome)  full of coffee with sugar-free creamer to make up for the butter covered bagel. I can't help but to look down and wonder am I having a good hearty
"conflict-free" breakfast?? I know I'm not and it's quietly irritating me more with ever sip & bite. It's actually overwhelming to think about. I mean....even down to the paper towel I wrapped my bagel in. I think this is why a lot of people give up on researching where their products come from. I just had a bagel and coffee at home and my coffee mug alone could possibly be the product of child labor!! Or, my coffee....not environmentally friendly? Not fair trade? I DON'T KNOW!? Am I a horrible person?? Oh man, I'm working myself up.

Maybe I'll come back to this tomorrow....hahahaha.