Violent No More: Helping Men End Domestic Abuse

Rating:
Summary: Available at Last
Review: I just completed a training in treatment of men who abuse women with Anne Ganley, PhD, who has worked many years in the field and is the acknowledged expert in this part of the country. This is the main book she recommends for men themselves to read, and it has been hard to get for some time. We're lucky it's back in print. Violent No More helps readers to understand how a culture of violence and dominance teaches men to rely on violence to get their needs met in intimate relationships, and yet how those needs can never be adequately met without developing the skills required for equal mutual relationships. It teaches these skills and inspires men to learn them. It is tough love for men who need both confrontation with truth and a path to love.

Rating:
Summary: Male Choice as well as Privilege
Review: The view of women or children as possessions poses a distorted view of the world for men, since at their option, they can either choose to treat them well or poorly, be attentive or neglectful, cultivate respect or fear. Too often, they make choices based upon using the often swift, and expedient method to control what they see as a positive outcome: the result they seek with minimal output on their part. Failing to appreciate the autonomy of the "individuals" who rely upon their wisdom as well as their purse, they begin to feel all-powerful and in control. This view of measuring masculinity may well be centuries old, and cultivated to encourage the protective instincts of males in their roles as providers as well as protectors. But it reduces their charges to little more than inanimate objects as possessions, to do with as they please, and as if they had no feelings that could be harmed; or that the harm done is irrelevant. The mere fact that males have choices is a world previously unknown to women, who, by and large, have had no choice. Seen by an economic system as dependent upon males, they and their children have always been at the mercy of their males, and their choice of treatment. The greatest failing of mankind, itself, was to give men this choice since it is wholly subjective in purpose, manner and method. The fact that the author maintains that illusion by suggesting that men have a choice is preposterous, and characteristic of the flaws that have been built into society that permits men to become batterers in the first place. The choice of when or upon whom violence is acceptable to use in humanity was a lesson very early in Christian teaching with the don of Cain and Abel, the Great Flood, and Soddom and Gomorrah which were not well learned, and give the impression that anger is godly, and an appropriate response to displeasure. While we might have learned that when Cain killed Abel, the banishment was the point and effect of using violence, instead we incorporated the acceptance of violence in the daily affairs of men as a necessary consequence of settling differences. This unjust premise has yet to be effectively challenged successfully. It is very much a "male" view of privilege as well as responsibility in the defense of oneself, and one's community. It is an age old problem that paves the path to war and as expected, wars have been the result. The failure of men to view their masculinity without war and violence is questionable and often seen as weak, and passive. For this reason, the perpetuation of the privilege to use violence to solve any problem is suspect, and may well be ignorant. Keeping the peace is rarely a sufficient criteria of measuring the level of violence that exists in a community since what is seen usually takes no account of what is unseen. A code of violence for living is the code men must refuse to accept to achieve peace, and to earn respect, and maintain dignity. Violence robs men of dignity and respect.