Mons Badonicus

CONTENTS

THE FAIRER SEX

Short Stories on Male Privilege

No. 18

The Frying Pan

'If we are to fight discrimination and injustice

against women we must start from the home

for if a woman cannot be safe in her own house

then she cannot be expected to feel safe anywhere.'

- Aysha Taryam

My honeymoon was memorable for less usual reasons: it was the first time my wife assaulted me.

It happened like this. We were lounging by the hotel pool, my wife dozing, or seemingly; while I had my head in an academic journal - I'm a history lecturer. That was how it all started - The Journal of Patriarchal History. The research which so fascinated me (an analysis of a plasterwork frieze in Montacute House, Somerset) brought on one of those ironical, delicious and woeful realisations that make history so rewarding a subject. I mean, when you realise that things have not changed, that things have not improved, that things are no better, because, simply, human nature is just the same - we have the same problems as always; it's just that they take different forms. (History rhymes rather than repeats; a saying mistakenly attributed to Mark Twain). As a result, I looked up and made one of those non-verbal sounds of appreciation: a slight exhalation; a slight smile; a slight chortle.

I was then ambushed; for repeated blows to my head were administered by my wife with her rolled-up magazine, along with, for good measure, some shoves and pushes. I raised my arms to defend myself, but the blows, the shoving and the pushing continued. 'How dare you?' she kept shouting. 'How dare you?' Changing her grip on the rolled-up magazine, she brought it down poniard-like.

The pool was crowded and I was greatly embarrassed. I glanced around, while defending myself with raised arms: I saw rubberneckers, blatant as well as furtive; and smiles, amused as well as embarrassed. There was also schadenfreude. Lots and lots of schadenfreude. A superabundance of it.

A woman in a red bikini walked by, turning her head as she did so, feasting her eyes with relish and smiling. Passing us, she even turned and walked backwards a few paces. 'You go, girl!' she shouted. 'Serves him right!' She laughed and punched the air jubilantly; for, although the nature of my transgression was unknown to her, in her eyes I was not only guilty, but also condignly punished.

I began pushing back, and made a grab or two at my wife's magazine. At this, a couple of men whose faces had formerly displayed so much schadenfreude, rushed over to us. 'Hey, hey', one of them said, 'Men don't hit ladies', while the other restrained my arms.

When my wife calmed down, she disclosed the nature of my transgression. When I had looked up from my journal, and given that slight exhalation, slight smile and slight chortle, my eyes had rested - seemingly - on a concatenation of curves that reclined on the opposite side of the pool. I explained to my wife that, rather than savouring these sinuous curves, I had in fact been examining the contents of my own head.

Today I wonder how I did not see my wife's ambush as a warning of things to come. What I remember most of all, is convincing myself that this was a one-off.

A few months into our marriage, one morning while I was leaving for campus, my wife came to me with a university publication in which my department was featured, and which she'd found in my study. She asked why I had 'kept' this from her. I replied that I had not 'kept' it from her; I had just not thought about it. She prodded a photograph with her forefinger, and asked if I thought this female lecturer pretty. Now wary, I shrugged and replied noncommittally. She asked if this lecturer would be joining me later that year for the conference in Italy. I said I had no idea.

My wife began shouting. She said she knew what men are like, and that I'd better behave myself. She was yelling a few inches from my face; I felt her spittle on my cheeks. I backed away, but she advanced toward me. I nearly fell over a chair. She chased me around, shouting repeatedly 'Don't you dare walk away from me!', and, each time we were stationary, she used her fingernails on my face.

When I escaped from the house I ran for the car. As I drove off, in the rear-view mirror I saw my wife standing in the driveway. She appeared to be crying. Borderline personality disorder came to my mind.

I pulled over, briefly, to examine my face. I counted nine scratches in all. Six lay in random directions, as if I'd forced my way through a prickly hedge. But three of them, across my right cheek and making an angle of forty-five degrees, demarcated a facial motorway, their cause obvious to the naivest observer. Some of the other scratches were shallow, but these three wept red tears.

I detoured to a department store, and went to the lady's cosmetic section to enquire about makeup - perhaps these injuries were disguisable. When I walked up to the counter, the saleswoman eyed the scratches. She asked what had happened to me. I said I'd rather not talk about it. 'A jealous woman, no doubt', she said, smiling. But when I failed to respond appreciatively, the smile in her eyes disappeared, and remained in her lips only.

When I gave my lecture that morning, two scratches still seeped slightly. But it was not just that: I realised I was still shaken: there were tremors in my voice, which the students almost certainly noticed. I had difficulty keeping my mind on the lecture; I repeated needlessly, corrected myself numerous times, and stuttered, things I never otherwise do.

Throughout the day, face-to-face conversations with colleagues and students followed a familiar pattern. Roving eyes would take a tour of my face, wondering and wandering, before looping back to my own eyes. Unsatisfied and evidently still curious, some eyes took several such excursions. But only one person ever asked what had happened. I said I had fallen into a cupboard.

In the refectory at lunchtime a man and woman were talking a few yards away. The man looked at me, found that I returned his gaze, then quickly looked back to the woman. He said something I couldn't hear. 'Probably just defending herself', I overheard the woman say, laughingly.

My wife and I were both wine-bibbers, but I learned to fear the wine-bibbing. This was because of the way my wife 'flipped'. It always happened at the same point: three quarters of a bottle. When conversing pleasantly, I would say something wholly innocuous, or seemingly so, at least to me; at which my wife's face would assume an angry expression, and she would yell her screed, which I came to know very well, as many items reappeared each time. I found her ugly; I had never got anywhere because I was useless; my mother was an obnoxious bitch; I spent too much time working; I never helped around the house; I leered at other women. She would push, shove and scratch; and throw the nearest object: the tv remote, a book, a piece of fruit, a shoe. On her first few 'flips' I tried to reason with her, to calm her down, to bring her back from this irascible state; but I never succeeded, not once, and gave up. Sleep was the only cure; yet when she sobered up, she was ignorant of her conduct, or at least said so. Curiously, however, when we drank in public, she never once 'flipped'.

Night-times became tortuous. Prior to my marriage I fell asleep easily, as I was able, like some electronic device, to 'switch off'; whereas my wife, since she was worrisome by nature would lie awake on the slightest vexation. I suppose she resented the ease with which I slept, insofar as she would, after waiting patiently until I gave signs of sleep, by my slower and deeper pattern of breathing, administer a prod or shove, then begin berating me: that her problems were nothing to me, that I was useless, that I worked too much, that I did not love her, etc. As the months advanced, the prods and shoves turned into kicks and punches.

This disruption of sleep, so capriciously and callously administered, affected my nervous system, as I now developed a sleep disorder. We all have the experience, albeit rarely, of reaching the threshold of slumber, only to jolt awake; yet we can divine no cause. This behaviour is, possibly, a relic of primitive instinct, left over from our arboreal ancestry, in which falls from height were fatal. Only, in my case, the threshold of slumber was now an insurmountable hurdle. I would feel myself sink down, and down, and down, then wake involuntarily with a jolt. Imagine, if you will, a soldier on guard duty at night, desperately tired, and knowing that, if found asleep at his post, he will be court marshalled and shot. Imagine how such a soldier would respond, on realising his eyelids have fallen. In my own case, my body's 'sleep program', if you will, was suddenly interrupted by some primeval survival mechanism; I would emit a nonverbal sound, an arm or leg would leap, seemingly of its own will, and I would regain full consciousness. Since this disturbed my wife, I received a fresh round of admonishment.

We agreed that I should move into the spare bedroom. Each night, however, I placed an ornamental stand behind the door, which would overturn noisily, should the door open. I rarely, however, slept until 4am, and even then, it was shallow and unrestorative. Obviously, this took an inevitable toll on my constitution.

I sought out a psychotherapist. However, I had one consultation only. At first the therapist thought I was there for myself, but then I explained the problems my wife was having. He said he should see my wife, rather than me. I said I was her husband; that it was my duty to help her, to look after her; that I loved her; that I wished to be a more empathetic partner; that I should start by obtaining professional advice. He looked at me strangely, and asked if I thought I might be a victim of domestic abuse. I grew angry, and told him that I was not a victim of domestic abuse - I was only there to help my wife in whatever way I could. He asked me if I knew what 'white knight syndrome' was. I said that this was going nowhere useful. I made my excuses and left.

Even so, wiser counsel began exerting itself, albeit slowly, as I pondered the therapist's curious remarks. I recalled seeing some relevant leaflets, posters and flyers at the local library, and went to consult them. They depicted, without exception, a woman cowering beneath a male fist.

I found similar leaflets at the GP's surgery.

Internet sites were illuminating. On the homepage of one such site, which was strewn references to female victims of domestic abuse, I spotted a small hyperlink: 'Help for men'. When I clicked on this, I was taken to another webpage titled: 'I am an abuser'.

I called three or four domestic abuse helplines. The first one greeted me with this automated statement: 'You are not alone: thousands of women are being abused just like you'. When I got through, I found that they only helped women. I said that the helpline was state-funded. The woman replied that men do not suffer like women; that men can take care of themselves, they do not need help like women. In the background, a female voice said with sing-song sarcasm: 'It happens to men too, you know'; there were then several laughs. Another helpline was open 24/7. When I called this number, I was given an alternative for 'men', which, as it happened, was open 9am-3pm, four days a week. The woman who answered sounded sympathetic, but then she said, 'what evidence can you provide to show that you're the victim?'. She went on to say that male abusers call this service to learn how to 'game the system'. I asked if the other line screened women the same way. She said with an offended tone that they did not 'screen' anyone.

I will pass quickly though the next three years, during which my wife was violent, I would guess, on about twenty occasions, by which time we had two children, a boy and girl. During these three years I told stories about my injuries to relatives, friends and colleagues. I worked from home, to avoid scrutiny. I felt ashamed and embarrassed. I saw how the battered husband appears as a regular trope in TV comedy. I knew that if I told anyone, then the word 'henpecked' would appear unsympathetically on the horizon. In retrospect, I now know that I was enormously lucky on one occasion, because, on punching me in the face, my wife broke her finger. Such a husband, as I will explain, is then in a very risky position indeed.

I will proceed to my wife's last assault, which was, as it happens, another ambush: as I came through the front door, I was smashed in the face with a frying pan. (Later, I even found spots of blood on the wall paper.)

My wife wanted to know where I'd been. While managing the pain and holding my nose, I said I'd been at my night-class, as she well knew. She said she did not believe me. She knew, apparently, that night-classes are used as 'cover' for adulterous liaisons.

I was unable to placate her, and, fearing another blow, I held her by the forearms while she twisted and turned. The screaming and the yelling though continued; she escaped, ran to the kitchen, and began throwing things.

A new screed commenced: I would not be believed; I would not get custody; I would never see our children again; I would be turned out of the house; no-one else would want me; I would end up in a bedsit; I would live on pocket money only, while she took everything. During this screed, flying plates smashed against the wall, their smithers a testimony to her delusional anger.

The doorbell rang; it was immediately followed by a loud knocking. We both froze in tableau vivant, and two or three seconds of silence ensued.

'This is the police', shouted a male voice. 'Open up'.

The knocking now gave way to thumping.

I opened the front door.

'We've been called to a disturbance,' said Officer One, a huge man.

'My wife's just assaulted me', I said, letting the two police officers in, while holding a reddening handkerchief to my nose. I now saw my trail of blood on the hall carpet.

'Shut up and stand over there', said Officer One.

'Hey, hang on - '

'I told you, shut up.' The raised forefinger was palm outwards, other fingers clenched. Two seconds of silence, eye-to-eye. 'Stand over there'. The forefinger fell through a right angle, now pointing to the bay window. Two seconds of silence, still eye-to-eye. 'I won't tell you again'.

I obeyed; a cur confined to his basket.

Officer One now joined Officer Two, a dumpy woman. The two of them began talking quietly to my wife.

'Are you alright, love?' Officer Two said with extreme solicitousness.

My wife was crying.

The conversation continued inaudibly for a few minutes. While my wife spoke, Officer Two looked in my direction a few times. The two officers scrutinised my wife's forearms closely.

Presently my wife went into the kitchen, and the two officers strode over to me.

'Is this yours?' asked Officer One, picking the wine bottle up from the coffee table. He held it up to the light, swilled it, ascertained its emptiness and put it down.

'It's my wife's', I said. 'I've not touched any this evening'.

'Oh?' said Officer One. He leaned forward and sniffed, then put the wine bottle down, having lost all interest in it.

'Your wife has bruises on her forearms', said Officer Two. 'They look rather like finger marks, as if she's been grabbed forcefully. What do you have to say about that?'

In saying this Officer Two came closer, waddling slightly and folding her arms, maintaining eye contact and frowning.

'Well obviously I had to restrain her. She went berserk.'

'Why?' asked Officer One, also with arms folded. 'What did you do?'

'Done? Nothing. How on earth do you think I got this?' I pointed to my nose. 'Do you think I whacked myself in the nose with a frying pan?'

'Women don't do that sort of thing without good reason' said Officer Two. 'She says that you're argumentative.'

'What?! It was a sneak attack. A complete surprise.'

'Look - we don't know what happened', said Officer One, feigning emollience. 'We weren't here. For all we know, you attacked your wife and she was just defending herself.'

'She struck first.'

'Some women do strike first - they're still defending themselves. They're fearful - they can't afford to risk the man striking first. Your wife says she's afraid of you. Of what you might do.'

'She's afraid of me? I'm afraid of her!'

The two officers grinned, while exhaling gusts of disbelief.

'You're afraid of her, huh?' said Officer One. What are you - six-two, six-three? Look how short she is. A tall man isn't afraid of a short man - unless he's a wimp, that is - so why are you afraid of a woman? You need to man up.'

'Grow a pair', said Officer Two.

The upshot was this: they arrested me as the 'primary aggressor'. I was cuffed, then escorted through the front garden to the waiting police car, in front of an audience of twitching curtains. A hand was placed on my head, as if my body was unlikely to assume a sitting position without guidance. As I ducked down, I saw a group of students walking along on the other side, all of whom were looking at me. I recognised one of them from my tutorial group.

The machinery of the state then swung into action. And it assumed its pre-programmed role: my wife's protector.

The whole affair ended up in court. The magistrate gave me a simple choice: defend myself legally, with my wife as my adversary, state-funded and state-defended; or attend a course. I took the path of least resistance: I attended the course. It was called Men Exploring Nonviolent Solutions. I asked my solicitor if there was a complementary Women Exploring Nonviolent Solutions. He laughed - rather like the magistrate had laughed, when I said I was frightened of my wife.

This course - which cost me a week's salary - was run by Deluge, a charity that ran a women-only domestic violence helpline, and to whose coffers I was now contributing, at the insistence of the state.

This course followed the Duluth Model, which, I quickly learned, is a feminist-driven concept of domestic violence. We were told that domestic violence is a crime committed against women because they are women; that domestic violence stems from society's misogyny; and that domestic violence is part of the patriarchal power structure. We learned how male violence stems from unequal gender relations, toxic masculinity and male privilege. The domestic environment, we were told, effectively cages women with wild animals, something men rarely comprehended.

Yet the other men on this course had faced similar situations to myself: I saw no evidence that they were wild animals, nor did any of them articulate any particular desire to control or subjugate their wives. Rather, they had called the police, some of them with visible injuries, only to find themselves arrested as the 'primary aggressor'. Or they had faced blunt refusals to do anything. They were told, often, that wives act only in self-defence; and that male abusers pretend to be victims. The official policy seemed to be this: if a man beats his wife, then arrest the man; and if a woman beats her husband, then arrest the man. We all agreed, between ourselves that is, that if your wife 'kicks off', then you must get away - and you must never call the police. This is because, if your wife suffers so much as a broken fingernail, then, even with a knife sticking out of you, you were nonetheless deemed the primary aggressor.

One attendee had called a helpline, only to find, an hour later, two police officers on his doorstep - his number had been passed to the police and traced. The police were there to establish if his wife was safe[1].

We all sat in a circle, each man being invited in turn to confess his sins. When it was my turn, I failed show the required contrition, much to the instructor's annoyance. I explained how wine caused my wife to 'flip'; someone suggested I might record her during these episodes, surreptitiously of course, as evidence. The instructor grew angry; she said that alcohol was not responsible for domestic violence, and that, if your wife drinks, then it's because of the patriarchy. I said my wife probably had mental health issues, possibly borderline personality disorder. The instructor claimed I was 'in denial', or that I did not realise I was an abuser.

This anger management course changed my life, but not in the way its organisers intended, because I already knew I could manage my anger: I have a pacific temperament. This next remark may seem a bit strange: only at this point did I see myself as a victim, and begin re-taking control of my life. Equally important, was that I no longer regarded it as my task to help my wife.

By this time, I had researched the subject of domestic violence extensively for myself, and I was able to challenge every statement on the course. The instructor, however, did not appear to embrace my corrections with any great zeal.

We were told that perpetrators of domestic violence are 'overwhelmingly' men - a statement that is not only ubiquitous, but also accepted uncritically. I asked for a more precise figure. The instructor was unsure, but suggested that 'overwhelmingly' meant 98-99%. I then cited the Office of National Statistics (ONS), a governmental department that our own government continues to ignore, even while promulgating our nation's domestic abuse laws. According to the ONS, one in three victims are men; but that is conservative, as it ignores those who remain silent, those who do not (yet) recognise themselves as victims, those who the police ignore, and those falsely blamed as perpetrators. I referred to Erin Pizzey, the founder of the women's refuge movement, who realised that women can be just as violent as their husbands, and she received death threats for saying so.

We were told that men have the advantage, being bigger and stronger. I said that that was only part of it - women are far more likely to launch sneak attacks, waiting until a man is preoccupied, until his back is turned, or until he is asleep. I said that women are far more likely to use weapons, even if it's a kettle, an iron, a shoe or a frying pan. I said that women are far more likely to throw things. I said that women are far more likely to use scolding or caustic liquids. I said that women pay other men to carry out assaults, yet this strategy escapes the statistics, since it is not classified as domestic violence.

I asked for evidence that the Duluth Model 'worked', in the sense that it reduced the frequency of domestic violence. No evidence was provided. At this point I drew out a sheaf of research showing that, no, it did not work; for there was no solid, empirical evidence to support it.

I added that male instinct was to protect women, not to attack them. I said that men would rather not strike women. I said that violent women exploited men's reluctance to strike back.

Finally, I likened this course to a 'Maoist re-education camp', where ideology mattered more than evidence, facts, data or statistics.

I was, of course, identified as a troublemaker, taken aside more than once, to be berated and warned. Eventually I was thrown off the course as a 'disruptive influence', and ended up again in front of the beak.

The magistrate was puzzled, and when the situation was explained to him, he stated that Deluge were not allowed to throw me off the course: I was to attend. Deluge were not present, but responded by letter with a denial, claiming, falsely, that I had said my wife was crazy, that I was in denial, and that I was unable to recognise myself as an abuser.

My case fell into legal limbo, and then into abeyance, because I had now resolved to leave my wife. To this day I still have a battle to see my children: my wife routinely stymies my visitation rights, and the family courts refuse to enforce their own decisions. But that is another story.

My sleep disorder did not disappear suddenly: it just grew less and less frequent, and I now get it once or twice a month. However, I no longer sleep with an ornamental stand behind the bedroom door.

I will end with how I began, namely Montacute House and its remarkable plasterwork frieze. This artwork, which is found in the great hall, tells a story in two frames. On the left, a woman hammers her husband's head with a clog; on the right, her husband sits painfully astride a pole, while paraded around as a public spectacle. This, an extra-judicial form of punishment, is an ancient custom known variously as the Skimmity Ride, the Skimmington Ride or the Charivari. (In other depictions on the same theme, a man is strapped down, abused by a crowd, and pelted with rotten fruit). The explanation is simple. In former times, the wife who battered her husband was not punished. Rather, her husband was punished instead, for the crime of 'allowing' his wife to batter him.

History doesn't repeat, but it sure does rhyme.

Endnotes

· Bettina Arndt, (1160) Duluth DV re-education programme – one man's amazing story - YouTube

· Canadian Association for Equality, (1121) Learning the Hard Way - One Man's Ordeal with Domestic Violence - YouTube

· Canadian Association for Equality, (1365) Julio shares his experience with domestic violence & the justice system - YouTube

· Cook P.W. (2007), Abused men - the hidden side of domestic violence, Prager.

· Justice for Men and Boys, (1161) 7 June 2020: William Collins's presentation, "Domestic Abuse is a Men's Issue, Too" conference - YouTube

· Justice for Men and Boys, (1206) 13 August 2020: ManWomanMyth - Domestic Violence - Stalking, TV and `Film - YouTube

· Justice for Men and Boys, (1206) 13 August 2020: ManWomanMyth - Domestic Violence - Two Women a Week (part 1 of 2) - YouTube

· Justice for Men and Boys, (1364) 18 December 2021: James Mackie, “My Experience of Domestic Abuse”, interview with Mike Buchanan - YouTube

· Justice for Men and Boys, (1367) ICMI20: Robert S Wells - "My Experiences of Domestic Abuse as a Police Officer and Survivor" - YouTube

· Mackie J. (undated). It does happen to men - a diary of abuse by a male survivor. Printed by Amazon