Domestic violence organization loveisrespect posted an article asserting that intimate partner violence is a one-way street. Due to vague power dynamics, only one partner’s behavior can be considered abusive, while the other is merely the victim of manipulation. Here’s a rebuttal I posted to the comments.
The logic here is asinine and presents a false dilemma. Allow me to demonstrate with an example.
Person A is in a relationship and abuses their partner. Person B is also in a relationship and abuses their partner as well. Both of their partners decide to end their abusive relationship and dump them. Once single, Person A and Person B find each other and begin dating. Like before, they both start exhibiting the same abusive behavior towards each other as their previous relationship.
What happens then? Does all tendency for abusive behavior magically vanish from the psyche of one partner, and any instance of abuse by them instead becomes self-defense and shifted blame? Are they no longer accountable for any of their abusive actions due to some nebulous “power imbalance”? Or is there some evil anti-cupid who goes around making sure only non-abusive people enter relationships with abusers?
This sounds like Duluth-inspired logic used to justify abuse perpetrated by women. Ideologically biased researchers believe that domestic violence is caused almost exclusively by “patriarchal dominance” (sounds a lot like the article’s “imbalance of power” line), and thus only men can be abusers towards women and not the other way around. But once they conduct their research, they discover up to HALF of all perpetrators of violence in relationships are women. (Read the works of UNH professor Murray Straus for more info… http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V75-Straus-09.pdf) How do they explain away this discrepancy between their beliefs and reality? By claiming any instance of female abuse is actually an act of self-defense, blame-shifting, etc. Of course, the fact that lesbians have higher rates of domestic violence than straight couples throws a wrench in the whole theory. This article may be gender neutral in spite of this (as are most of the resources on this site, props for that), but that doesn’t absolve it from presenting inaccurate and potentially harmful misinformation.
The section on blame-shifting is rather ironic. It’s telling readers in abusive relationships that their partner will try to shift all blame for the abuse on them, and suggests that the reader instead shift all blame from themselves onto their partner. In other words, telling the reader to behave *exactly how an abuser would act*. How do you think this will play out in a mutually abusive relationship (considering they aren’t actually a myth?) Here’s some broader advice that applies to any and all abusive relationships, no matter which partners are abusive. Get out of it. Once your abusive relationship is in the past, you can examine it in hindsight and determine what part (if any) you had in perpetuating the abuse. Even if you had none, it’s still your responsibility to avoid entering abusive relationships in the future. Take accountability for your actions and use your insight to improve your future relationships. Don’t be the helpless victim this article expects you to be.
(edit: moved the introduction to the main post since it was hidden on some pages)
So they deleted my comment and closed the comments section. I feel so flattered!!!













