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2000 43: 89International Social Work
Joan Orme, Lena Dominelli and Audrey Mullender
Working with violent men from a feminist social work perspective
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i s w
International Social Work 43(1): 89–105
Sage Publications: London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi
0020-8728[200001]43:1;89–105; 010523
Working with violent men from a
feminist social work perspective
● Joan Orme, Lena Dominelli and Audrey
Mullender
The suggestion that women should work with men who have
oppressed women by the use of violence in their personal relationships
is controversial. In the UK, for more than two decades
feminists have drawn attention to the consequences of male violence
for women. In working with survivors of domestic violence,
the emphasis has been on woman-centred practice which makes
women safe and empowers them to make decisions about leaving
the violent relationship. While priority has to be given to such
interventions, to work only in this way does not address the main
problem, male violence.
This article begins by examining why work should be undertaken
with violent men, providing a theoretical analysis of male violence
from a feminist perspective. Arguments for and against women’s
involvement in work with men are discussed, and ways in which the
work can be handled are considered. The conclusion is that group
work which draws on feminist insights and practice is the most
productive way forward.
Why work with violent men?
The position that all men are violent, or have the potential to be
violent, towards women and that women are non-violent, sets men
apart from women, suggesting that there is something essentially
Joan Orme is Reader is Social Work Studies, and Lena Dominelli is Professor of
Social and Community Development, University of Southampton, Southampton
S017 1BJ, UK. Audrey Mullender is Professor of Social Work, University of
Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK. [email: orme@socsci.soton.ac.uk]
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different about men which makes them violent. Such a stance
contributes to a debate which, in the first instance, has privileged
the position of men and the continuation of patriarchy (Storr,
1968), and in the second has led to radical and separatist feminist
approaches which accept a set of dualities of male/female characteristics,
but attempt to privilege the female (Daly, 1978).
However, both positions are challenged by the capacity for
women to be violent (Orme, 1994) and the existence of non-violent
men, or at least men who have not resorted to violence in their
personal relationships (Segal, 1987). This has led to explanations of
violent behaviour other than its innateness in males which see
masculinity and femininity as the result of socialization or social
construction.
For example, feminist analyses have highlighted women’s socialization
into a ‘femininity’ which is caring, passive, acquiescent and
non-violent (Gilligan, 1993), but which may have militated against
women. Privileging peacefulness may have made women suppress
their own aggression and anger (Gordon, 1989). Femininity copes
with, and survives the consequences of, violence without necessarily
resorting to violent acts, but such behaviour has led to
expectations of women’s tolerance of men’s violence which has
meant that social work has focused on women and their reactions to
violence, rather than on the violent behaviour of men.
A more positive approach is to recognize that the capacity for
change exists and provides opportunities to modify and control the
behaviour. This is not to imply that violent men require sympathy
and understanding, or need to be ‘managed’ by their partners to
avoid violence and abuse. To do so would be to treat them as
lacking in autonomy and individual agency, unable to take responsibility
for their own actions. Women are subject to pressures, but
do not resort to similar behaviour, and if women can function
without resorting to violence, then non-violence is an option for
men.
However, if social work is to intervene in situations of violence,
focusing on male behaviour, then there has to be some rationale for
the intervention. Because not all men commit acts of domestic
violence, explanations of male violence to their partners can
become framed in terms of individual pathology, into unhelpful
distinctions between typical and aberrant males (Liddle, 1989). For
example, studies which appear to justify male violence as a direct
result of experiencing abuse when young, or related to unemployment,
underemployment or social isolation, while attractive to
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social work, might be seen to excuse male violent behaviour, or at
least explain the aberrance. They imply victim status for the perpetrators
of violent acts and are dependent upon an analysis, or set of
expectations, which might not prescribe what is naturally male, but
outline what is normally male and give explanations for those who
do not conform to the norm (Segal, 1990). If the construction of
masculinity is being used as a justification or rationalization of male
behaviour it becomes a relevant site for social work intervention.
The reasons for this are threefold. First, the relationship of the
individual to their environment is a legitimate focus for social work.
Early feminist analysis of social work practice rejected individualized
approaches because they pathologized women and men,
blaming them for their circumstances (Wilson, 1980; Hanmer and
Statham, 1988). In privileging women’s personal experience, feminism
has stimulated new approaches to theories and methods of
intervention which can be applied to work with men (Orme,
1998).
Second, feminist thought has celebrated difference, and social
workers work with difference. To argue that men behave in a
particular way because it achieves dominance and maintains the
power of patriarchy, does not acknowledge the differential experiences
of males within different cultures. If it is possible, and
desirable, to argue for different constructions of femininity, or to
challenge stereotypical assumptions which oppress and degrade
women, then it is possible to accept challenges to gendered assumptions
of masculinity, a hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1987;
Liddle, 1989).
This hegemonic masculinity recognizes that woman abuse occurs
in all social classes, but that it is differently perceived or understood
by social workers. Studies which suggest that it is more likely to
occur in low-income families, or families where the husband is
unemployed, because employment ‘authorizes’ patriarchal power,
evade the suggestion that masculinity depends on the demarcation
of public and private responsibility (Messerschmidt, 1993). For
example, working-class and/or unemployed men are considered
more violent because they do not conform, they ‘lack traditional
resources for constructing their masculinity’ (Messerschmidt, 1993:
149). They cannot exercise power in ways which are approved by
hegemonic masculinity; they resort to violence. However, caution
must be exercised with such studies, because it may be that unemployed
men are more likely to be dependent upon state institutions
than men from other socio-economic groups and as such have their
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personal circumstances and behaviour more open to public view.
This is not to condone their violent behaviour, but to draw attention
to the different manifestations and interpretations of this behaviour
according to class, colour, culture and ethnic background. This is
particularly important for international perspectives of domestic
violence, where differences have to be valorized but global social
work values upheld.
It is for this reason that feminism argues that ideas and practices
that are oppressive to women have to be recognized and challenged
by social work practice. Identifying masculinity or masculinities as
comprising, or being dependent upon, violence to maintain power,
domination or control, is to treat both the domination, and the use
of violence to maintain it, as the norm. Women experience domestic
violence as coercive, oppressive and therefore aberrant. To have
it accepted as normative does not help their self-perception, or their
need to escape the relationship or to have the behaviour changed
(Stanko, 1985).
The internalization of relations of domination, or the experience
of oppression, relies on three elements of oppression. Personal
sexism includes the misogynist beliefs and prejudices individual
men hold; institutional sexism involves the belittling of women and
their achievements through daily routines, policy and practice; and
cultural sexism reflects the socially accepted values and norms
which justify the subordination of women to men. Sexism can be
defined as the presumed right of men to dominate women (Lorde,
1984). Hegemonic masculinity’s drive to assert and legitimate
men’s needs above those of others and enforce these as the only
ones which are of interest, underpins the dynamics which affirm the
subordination of women, but also of some men (Hearn, 1987;
Brittan, 1989). It is for this reason that social workers should work
with violent men.
However, it could be argued that to work with men is to problematize
them, to pathologize them in a way that feminists have
argued against in connection with women. More positively, to work
with men, perceiving them as constructed by economic inequalities,
acknowledges human agency, and recognizes that men have a
choice: they can act or respond in different ways, they can opt to be
non-violent. This is particularly important if working with the
experiences of individual men reveals that their behaviour reflects
an ‘emotional, psychological and bodily investment in hegemonic
masculinity as a way of being’ (Liddle, 1989: 772). If such an
investment is, as Liddle claims, ‘accompanied by a degree of uncer-
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tainty, tenuousness and ambivalence which is quite incompatible
with the sort of unitary ‘‘male personality’’’, then it may be possible
to work with these uncertainties and ambivalences.
Social workers can and do work with men, as offenders, as users
of mental health services and as members of families experiencing
problems which are the focus for social work intervention, most
often to do with children. However, such work, while focusing on
masculine acts (e.g. abuse, offending and violence), rarely examines
masculinity and in situations of domestic violence it is often women
and children who are at the centre of social workers’ attention and
concern.
The arguments for working with violent men put by women
therefore rest on the proposition that it is in women’s longer-term
interests to have work aimed at changing the behaviour of violent
men (Dominelli and McLeod, 1989). Such changes involve the reeducation
of men in ways that promote behaviour capable of
enhancing women’s well-being. Unless men work on their behaviour,
the incentive for men to change will be absent and little will be
done by men spontaneously. But if working with violent men is seen
as a legitimate project for social work, who should undertake the
work?
Who should undertake the work with violent men?
Feminists who give a rationale for working with men might be seen
to be arguing that women should do this work. However, requiring
women to work with violent men could be seen to put them once
more into the role of nurturing men, often with little in return for
their efforts (MacKinnon, 1989). That the oppressed should continue
to service the oppressor is considered by some to be inimical
to women’s interests. Why should women expend their energies on
men who already receive a disproportionate share of social resources,
when there is continuing work to be done with women to repair
the damage done to them by men (Hanmer, 1977)? There have
been instances of men’s groups working with perpetrators of
domestic violence receiving substantial resources to carry out their
activities whilst Women’s Aid refuges which provide services to the
majority of women seeking to escape assaultive men are so critically
underfunded that their continuation is in jeopardy (Mullender,
1996).
To avoid this, work with abusers should only ever be one plank
of a co-ordinated and structured approach to the problem of male
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violence towards women in intimate relationships, and to advocate
such work means arguing for additional resources, not redistribution.
Women who have been abused need as much or more help
than their abusers: empowerment groups and advocacy services for
women (over and above emergency services), running alongside a
men’s programme, are a minimum expectation. As long as work in
the field of domestic violence is underfunded then there will be a
tension between the need to work with men and women, and the
need to protect will be compelling. However, if work is only
undertaken with women then this will mean that they continue to
be held responsible for men’s behaviour while nothing is done to
change that behaviour.
There can, however, be no clear choices about the combination
of workers to be involved in this work. Increasingly in group work
there are assumptions about male/female working partnerships, but
such partnerships can leave the woman exposed and require excellent
preparation. The involvement of women or of male co-workers
as working pairings brings different sets of issues.
If women are to work with violent men, then they should have a
choice, and agencies should not force them into doing this work
(Perrott, 1994). But women cannot be guaranteed the right to
exercise choice in this matter. Women probation officers, for example,
have reported instances of women who have expressed the
opinion of not wishing to work with violent men being allocated
these ‘clients’ by their managers, and those who have maintained a
stance of not working with violent men, for reasons of safety or
personal preference, have found their promotion prospects damaged
because their managers deem them unable to undertake the
whole range of tasks their post requires. In circumstances in which
their professional competence is being questioned, women may feel
compelled to work with ‘clients’ who threaten their physical and
emotional safety in order to avoid being labelled inadequate (Dominelli,
1991).
If all men have the capacity to be violent, then there are staff
members who are perpetrators of violence to women, and those
who are survivors of this violence. For either group, there will be
resonances and, more particularly, the intervention might well be
oppressive. For example, Perrott illustrates from her contact with
female probation officers that women working with male abusers
may become the subject of their fantasies, and those working with
male colleagues in groups of abusers may find themselves the sole
defender of women and children (Perrott, 1994). This is particularly
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so when ‘owning’ or confronting the offence involves reciting (and
perhaps reliving) the violence that was perpetrated. She concludes
that feminist workers who consider male violence to be a male
problem to be resolved by men will feel compromised by having to
work with perpetrators on an individual basis, or in groups.
Moreover, women who work with violent offenders have to be
supported in avoiding the danger of colluding in the reinforcement
of patriarchal relations through this work. Resisting the pressures
to perform in certain ways may be difficult to achieve because
gender-role stereotyping in these situations tends to be subtle and
not easily identifiable. It is also unfair that women should be placed
in the position of having to deal with such abuses of power. Hence,
it is vital that women in such positions have a consultant or
supervisor, support groups and networks, all of which can respond
to their needs as they define them. This may mean that they have to
go outside the formal structures of the workplace if such support
networks are absent or cannot be formed within it. Above all,
women workers who feel they are being stereotyped or sexually
harassed need to know that their concerns will be taken seriously by
managers and that they will respond appropriately.
Alternatives are that work should be done with violent men, but
it should be undertaken by men with pro-feminist sympathies
(Hudson, 1989), and that safeguards should be established to prevent
men who work with other men from colluding with each
other’s sexism. Many of the problems which have to be addressed in
working with men, whatever the social work setting, are embedded
in the internalization of sexism and patriarchal relations by both
men and women. For male workers, working with violent men
requires that they acknowledge their own masculinity. This may
manifest itself in attempts to control women by colluding in defining
women as ‘the problem’. They must ensure that they confront
men’s violent behaviour and compel men to take responsibility for
what they do.
The internalization of men’s dominant position by women and
men means that violent men can escape being challenged when
engaging in denial, minimizing, victim blaming and exaggerating
their own efforts. To address this range of problems, whoever
undertakes the work with violent men will have to encompass a
number of different activities which include: development of cognitive
behavioural skills, development of relational and reflective
skills, and the redefinition of masculinity.
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Feminist group work
Once it is acknowledged that work should be undertaken with men
to confront abusive attitudes and behaviour, feminists’ concerns
focus on models of intervention. While group work offers opportunities
to confront, model and change behaviour, the methodology
and philosophy underpinning particular groups have to be examined.
There are dangers in adopting any approach which is not
sufficiently confrontative in style and feminist in orientation. Men
who are abusive will deny, distort or defend their abusive behaviour
– unless they are heavily challenged by the group workers and by
one another. It is important for aspiring group workers to separate
out the underpinning explanations upon which models for work
with abusive men are based, the techniques they utilize and the
eventual aim they seek to achieve.
The critique of programmes currently running provides an identification
of key components of a framework for groups which are
necessary to ensure that work with male abusers is carried out along
feminist principles. Three types of theory have emerged from the
literature as core to current models of intervention: social learning,
intra-psychic and socio-political. Some of these do not necessarily
achieve the aims of feminist principles.
For example, the limitations of group work based on social
learning theory are that to date they do not distinguish between
men’s protracted, intimidating and escalating sexual abuse and
violence, and other violences, including women’s resorting to violence;
violence is portrayed as a habit which can be modified by
techniques (Deschner, 1984). Criticism of abusers’ programmes
based on an intra-psychic model is that they risk collusion. Dwelling
on the past could merely allow abusive men to point to formative
experiences outside their control as an excuse to feed into their
denial, without ending the violence. For these reasons, Mullender
(1996) considers social action as a group work orientation which
can support men’s efforts to take collective responsibility for violence
beyond a sometimes indulgent focus on the self, into
female-directed activities to affect the social experiences of
women.
Pro-feminist groups
Group work based on the socio-political context facilitates a profeminist
stance which regards men’s abuse and denial,
rationalization and justification – of the impact of their behaviour
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and of their responsibility for it – as endemic in a patriarchal society
and as needing to be actively confronted in intervention. In other
words, its underpinning theory is socio-cultural, not psychodynamic
or behavioural. From this analysis it can be seen that pro-feminism
is not a group work model as such, but a set of beliefs and structures
which give priority to a feminist understanding and feminist con-
cerns.
Strictly speaking, the Duluth model developed in the Domestic
Abuse Intervention Project – the one adopted and adapted most
widely by feminists and pro-feminists in the UK – is a hybrid of
cognitive behavioural work to achieve individual change, on the
one hand, and education to put this into a socio-cultural context, on
the other (Pence and Shepard, 1988; see also Pence and Paymer’s
manual on the approach, 1986). Hence the use of the term ‘psychoeducational’
for the model. The ‘psycho’ or counselling aspect uses
cognitive behavioural work focused on anger management to teach
men to use ‘anger logs’ to identify their own triggers, together with
the internal dialogue or ‘self talk’ that escalates the incidents, the
feelings they have at the time, and the points at which they could
behave differently – for example by taking time out from the
situation. Although this work is not undertaken without a context,
since the concepts of control and dominance are used throughout to
explain the purpose and function of abuse, men could learn to avoid
physical violence without becoming less psychologically controlling,
so it is of limited value in bringing about a change of
attitude.
Educational groups focus on male and female social and cultural
roles. If it is accepted that abuse stems not from anger but from a
belief system wherein men are convinced they have a right to
dominate and control, and men force their relationships to become
deeply embedded in such assumptions, then that belief system has
to be confronted for abusing men. Pence and Shepard recognize
that cognitive behavioural anger management and socio-cultural
re-education are ‘in some ways, contradictory perspectives’ (1988:
289) but see them as needing to be combined so that men can both
stop being violent and stop believing that women should be com-
pliant.
Pro-feminist re-educational groups make heavy use of the
behavioural techniques based on social learning theory, but within
a context of insisting that what has been learned can be unlearned
by a man who is confronted to accept responsibility for his own
actions. In other words, re-educational groups do not work with
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behaviourism in a deterministic way but with a strong cognitive
overlay (i.e. regarding people as aware of what they are doing and
able to make choices). These groups also place far more weight on
the social context within which men’s violence is functional, intentional
and purposeful and where it is upheld by the socio-political,
economic and cultural context.
Whether or not a group is pro-feminist cannot be ascertained
from the gender of the group workers, but is dependent upon the
underpinning analysis of male behaviour and the desired outcomes
of the intervention. In this context some men’s self-help groups run
by men’s voluntary organizations appear to be insufficiently profeminist
because they do not hold themselves accountable to
women. It might be more accurate to see pro-feminist groups not as
a subdivision in methodological terms – since the self-avowed profeminists
include psychotherapists (Jukes, 1993), cognitive
behaviourists, and others – but to see pro-feminism as an essential
prerequisite for all group work with abusive men. This prerequisite
would include major themes of pro-feminism: accountability, antioppressive
and anti-racist practice, and evaluation.
Accountability to women
Some projects in the UK are framed by men’s agendas and there is
little attempt made to avoid the risk of collusion with, for example,
the men’s wish to avoid separation. Accountability means that such
work has to be alert to the needs of women, making groups
answerable to women for their standards as well as for content and
process, and is not dependent upon the organizational framework.
In the British context, groups which are rooted in an inter-agency
domestic violence structure are more likely to operate along profeminist
lines, as are those which insist on court-mandated referrals
to stress the criminal nature of abuse.
Women’s safety If even a proportion of men change as a result
of groups, then this will contribute to women’s safety. However,
there are doubts about the overall efficacy of interventions and if it
were to emerge that groups made men more dangerous, or dangerous
in different ways – perhaps under a veneer of having changed –
then this would give grave cause for concern. The priority for men’s
programmes should be to ensure women’s safety; there should be
no automatic assumption that any individual man is ‘safe’ during or
after attendance at a group. This has implications for programmes
which involve women to offer support and validation. Contact with
women during their partners’ membership of a group is essential,
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not to involve the women in the mechanisms for change but to build
in measures for their safety, to give them an objective picture of the
group (including its lack of guarantees of success), and to offer
them access to support (Morley, 1993).
Increasingly programmes in the UK are establishing parallel
services for men and women, offering contact to female partners
out of concern for their safety. In one project, when a man is
referred to the group, one of the conditions of joining is to give his
partner’s address and telephone number (if he knows it) to the
men’s worker who passes it to the Women’s Support Service
(WSS). The signing of the confidentiality waiver gives the men’s
worker the right to contact the women’s service, who warn the
partner if the man’s demeanour in the group (or talk of discovery of
her whereabouts or of expiry of an injunction, for example) makes
him appear a threat. The police will also be contacted if specific
threats are voiced. The women’s worker informs the woman if her
partner fails to attend or is excluded from the group, so that he
cannot mislead her, and she is advised that the WSS is still there to
support her if required, quite independent of the question of the
man’s membership of the group.
Wider accountability to women Any men’s project should also
be accountable to women through a wider structure in which work
with women and women’s viewpoints are central components.
Morley (1993) emphasizes how crucially important it is that there
should always be a strong women’s voice, representing the perspective
of those who work with, and those who have survived,
violence, in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation
of men’s programmes.
In the establishment of the former CHANGE project in Scotland,
women’s perspectives on the past performance of all the
relevant legal and welfare agencies, including specific criticisms of
the criminal justice system, resulted in an emphasis on the criminality
of abusive behaviour, the invocation of legal sanctions and the
rejection of pre-trial diversion to the programme where prosecution
was difficult. Such an approach runs counter to the argument
that criminalizing domestic violence reinforces hegemonic masculinity
by exposing men further to manifestations of state violence
through the criminal justice system. It can also be criticized for
creating tension between accountability to the courts and accountability
to women.
It is clear that no agency should launch into establishing a
programme for abusers with referrals from the courts without
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formalizing the links with women’s organizations (including black
women’s organizations), for example through an inter-agency
forum and a representative management committee, so that all
issues can be debated from the perspective of women’s interests.
The criminal justice system may have a different agenda. A forum
with strong women’s membership can also keep men’s workers in
touch, for example, with the need not to make over-stated claims
for what they can achieve and with the imperative of keeping
women’s safety to the fore.
Accountability of workers Changing a masculinity which is
problematic, for example needing to dominate and resorting to
violence to do so, requires rethinking the ways in which men’s
existence is validated and legitimated. Redefining masculinity
along less aggressive and more nurturing dimensions obliges men to
change their behaviour regarding their relationships with other
men so that these become more collaborative, and with women so
that relationships between men and women can become more
egalitarian (Dominelli and Whitehead, 1994). For men to establish
a new basis for relationships amongst men and across the gender
divide it is necessary for them to work on themselves individually
and in groups. However, focusing exclusively on men who are
identified as perpetrating violence is insufficient to achieve the
broader social change which is required. It is not just individual men
who have to change, society’s definition of masculinity also has to
become a target for change. Only in this way can the cultural
approval of men’s right to control others be challenged and
reversed.
Anti-oppressive and anti-racist practice
Feminist-inspired groups attempt to avoid any discussion of families
of origin as causal factors for men’s abusive behaviour, keeping
the focus on men’s responsibility for their own actions; group
members may be offered contacts with counselling services elsewhere
to work on other personal issues. Such approaches can be
associated with women blaming, and can constitute oppression of
women in subtle ways, even if this is unintended.
Equally, intervention in domestic violence by black men can
contribute to further oppression. Racial stereotypes of violent
black men make their position much more complex than that of
white men from the moment an allegation is made through to the
point of conviction (Wilson, 1980). Black men have different relationships
with state institutions, particularly the police, the criminal
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justice system and the immigration system, which are deeply implicated
in perpetuating injustice against them (Mama, 1989). If
imprisoned, racism in the prison setting makes their position much
worse (Dominelli et al., 1995).
Racism therefore puts black women who have been beaten by
black men in a double bind. Within black communities, considerable
pressure is exerted on them not to report assaults to the
(white) authorities because doing so could be used by white people
to fuel racist stereotypes about violence in black communities,
might lead to overly punitive criminal justice responses and might
endanger a man’s immigration status as well as that of themselves
and their children (Mama, 1989). Black women have therefore
developed their own facilities for dealing with domestic violence in
a more supportive environment (Guru, 1987; Mama, 1989). White
people cannot avoid the responsibility of addressing racism within
mainstream services by assuming that black women’s voluntary
initiatives are all that is needed (Dominelli, 1988) and pro-feminist
programmes for intervention have to address racism as part of the
socio-political context.
Evaluation
Ideally, no new programmes should be set up without evaluation
being built in. It is, of course, crucial to know whether violent men
can change as a result of intervention because, even if their partners
leave, there are frequent reconciliations and abusers often perpetrate
violence in a series of relationships (Gondolf, 1987).
One problem with evaluation is that on close examination of
group work programmes it becomes quite difficult to define, let
alone to measure, success. The issues involved include: confused
causal influences within the programme or between the programme
and other factors such as criminal justice or relationship events;
lack of objectivity in practitioner evaluations; major differences
between abuser self-report and partner reports of continuing abuse,
or lack of clarity about the source of follow-up reports; the impact
on follow-up self-reports of programme membership itself; definitions
of abuse confined to violence which may overlook continuing
emotional terrorization; lack of control groups; untypicality of
programme attenders (lower socio-economic groups are overrepresented
and minority ethnic groups under-represented) and,
doubly, of programme completers; the impact on follow-up statistics
of couples separating and reuniting; underfunded and
unsystematic evaluation; and follow-up periods which are far too
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short to measure real success (Eiskovits and Edelson, 1989; Edleson
and Brygger, 1986; Chen et al., 1989; Domestic Abuse Project,
1989, 1991; Edleson and Grusznski, 1989; Poynter, 1989; Johnson
and Kanzler, 1990).
Many studies do report successes in reducing overt violence. For
example, Edleson and Tolman (1992) report a success rate in the
region of 53–85 percent. However, evidence is as yet far from firm
and success is rarely achieved in giving women a life completely
free of the domination and fear imposed by these men. A more
sobering finding is that although two-thirds of completers in the
Domestic Abuse Project were reported non-violent, most persisted
with controlling or threatening behaviour (Edleson and Syers,
1990). This is especially worrying in that women may be more likely
to return to men who have at least sought help, even if they have
dropped out of the group or failed to respond to it. The danger
involved in the lack of guaranteed success is a very strong reason for
never setting up a men’s project in isolation. It needs to be linked
with other services (and social policy changes) which are designed
to help women be safe – and to grow in the confidence required to
seek safety or outside intervention when necessary.
Conclusion
This article has sought to give a perspective on working with
violence within the domestic sphere. In arguing that feminists
should consider working with men who have committed acts of
abuse, feminist theory has been used as a basis for constructing
understandings of male violence which acknowledge the complexities
of male experience and the need for caution in assuming that
simply working with men without due consideration of the basis for
the work and the potential outcomes is not enough.
In giving an overview of existing projects the argument is that
work in this area should aim to enable men to learn how to relate to
others, namely women, who have rights which must be observed,
including the right not to be attacked. The methodologies go
beyond anger management approaches to specific domestic violence
focus of programmes for men convicted of assaults on women
partners. A significant component is the promotion of gender
awareness. This requires men to take personal responsibility for
their actions in abusing women by neither externalizing their problems
nor seeking to blame others. Thus the agenda feminists are
placing before men is a social and political agenda which demands
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they take action individually and collectively. Probation officers
and social workers can subscribe to this agenda by ensuring that
their work with violent men follows feminist guidelines.
Note
A version of this paper was presented at the IASSW Symposium at the NGO
Conference of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 1995.
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