What do you think?
Rate this book
Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
In this groundbreaking bestseller, Lundy Bancroft—a counselor who specializes in working with abusive men—uses his knowledge about how abusers think to help women recognize when they are being controlled or devalued, and to find ways to get free of an abusive relationship.
He says he loves you. So...why does he do that?
You’ve asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men—and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn
• The early warning signs of abuse
• The nature of abusive thinking
• Myths about abusers
• Ten abusive personality types
• The role of drugs and alcohol
• What you can fix, and what you can’t
• And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely
“This is without a doubt the most informative and useful book yet written on the subject of abusive men. Women who are armed with the insights found in these pages will be on the road to recovering control of their lives.”—Jay G. Silverman, Ph.D., Director, Violence Prevention Programs, Harvard School of Public Health
He says he loves you. So...why does he do that?
You’ve asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men—and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn
• The early warning signs of abuse
• The nature of abusive thinking
• Myths about abusers
• Ten abusive personality types
• The role of drugs and alcohol
• What you can fix, and what you can’t
• And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely
“This is without a doubt the most informative and useful book yet written on the subject of abusive men. Women who are armed with the insights found in these pages will be on the road to recovering control of their lives.”—Jay G. Silverman, Ph.D., Director, Violence Prevention Programs, Harvard School of Public Health
408 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 2002
5663 people are currently reading
47620 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,368 reviews
January 22, 2009
This is a must read for any woman who has been or is in an abusive relationship. Bancroft explains in great detail why some men treat their girlfriends or wives so abhorrently . This book taught me that it's not external influences that causes a man to be mean and angry--like he had a bad day at work, he is stressed about money, his childhood, or whatever excuse he uses--it's a fundamental value system he has about women. He learned this value system most likely from his father or another abusive man in his life. Or he learned this value system from society in general that teaches men that women are property, that men own women, they are entitled to, and they deserve control over them. Even the most liberal sounding man can have this value system. Another very valuable lesson I learned from reading this book is how to recognize the red flags of an abusive man. The saddest realization I learned is that it is very rare for an abusive man to change. In order for him to change, he has to recognize he has a problem and seek a therapist who will help him learn a new value system. This almost never happens. It is most prudent for women to leave an abuseer rather than stick around and wait for him to change because change most likely isn't going to happen. If you know a woman in an abusive relationship, encourage her to leave, because even if he's nice some of the time, the fundamentals are there to stay.
February 19, 2011
This book was a lifeline for me during a verbally abusive relationship I was struggling with. What Lundy says is so spot on, that you get a sense he has been a fly on the wall in your house, quietly listening and taking notes, for years. The other thing that struck me is just how very boring and predictable my partner's abusive behaviour was. I was never in any physical danger so my comments only apply to my situation but, once the scales fell from my eyes, nothing my partner said could ever hurt me again, because I'd figured out his game. Once I knew what to look for - tactics such as dismissing, distorting, diminishing, avoiding, passive aggression etc - it just did not affect me anymore. In my case the relationship ended once my partner realised that he no longer had the power to make me feel negatively about myself, but by that time, thanks to Lundy's book, I had already figured out that the man I thought I had fallen in love with never actually existed.
This book is life altering.
This book is life altering.
September 17, 2009
My favorite point from this book: abusive men want to think (and have others think) that their abusive actions spring from complicated and deeply buried traumas in their pasts. But the cause of abuse is actually quite simple and clear - it is the abuser's belief that they have a right to control their partner's actions and thoughts.
March 19, 2018
A fantastic book about abusive relationships that clarifies misconceptions about abuse, provides compassionate support to victims and survivors, and discusses the societal factors that contribute to violence in relationships. I love how Lundy Bancroft dispels so many myths about what makes abusive people abusive: that they do not know how to express emotions, that their abuse stems from issues with alcohol or from mental illness, that they are abusive because they were abused themselves, etc. Rather, Bancroft shows that abuse is about the values systems and beliefs of abusers, such that they care more about controlling, berating, and hurting their partners than they care about understanding and honoring their partners' emotions, needs, and health. He backs up his well-written assertions with several case examples and testimonies from abusers and victims he has worked with throughout his extensive career.
In addition to sharing tons of insightful information about how abusive men think and operate, Bancroft provides kind, potentially life-saving strategies and resources for victims of abuse to escape and to start their healing process. He writes with conviction about this pervasive issue while maintaining a deep empathy, gentleness, and dedication for and toward abused individuals. As someone who has experienced abuse in my own life, I feel so moved and grateful for how Bancroft both supports people with similar experiences to mine as well as holds our abusers accountable for their actions. This passage about how we must remember to side with the abused and not the abuser serves as one of many revelatory ideas:
"I have almost never worked with an abused woman who overlooked her partner's humanity. The problem sit he reverse: He forgets her humanity. Acknowledging his abusiveness and speaking forcefully and honestly about how he has hurt her is indispensable to her recovery. It is the abuser's perspective that she is being mean to him by speaking bluntly about the damage he has done. To suggest to her that his need for compassion should come before her right to live free from abuse is consistent with the abuser's outlook. I have repeatedly seen the tendency among friends and acquaintances of an abused woman to feel that it is their responsibility to make sure that she realizes what a good person he really is inside - in other words, to stay focused on his needs rather than on her own, which is a mistake. People who wish to help an abused woman should instead be telling her what a good person she is."
I deeply appreciate how Bancroft holds society accountable for contributing to abuse. By teaching boys that they can do whatever they want instead of showing them how to nurture and respect people, and by turning a blind eye to all the songs, movies, pornography, etc. that normalizes violence toward women, we contribute to abuse. Bancroft thus reveals that we all can also contribute to creating a world without abuse, by supporting and believing survivors while fighting the toxic elements of our culture that condone the mistreatment of fellow humans. I would recommend this eye-opening, impressive book to everyone and anyone, especially those who want to educate themselves about a salient issue plaguing society. I will end this review with an iconic passage from the last part of the book, which showcases hope amidst the darkness:
"If you choose to believe that your life could be free of abuse, or that the whole world could be, you will be taunted by similar voices, some originating inside your own head. Some people feel threatened by the concept that abusive is a solvable problem, because if it is, there's no excuse for not solving it. Abusers and their allies are reluctant to face up to the damage they have done, make amends, and live differently in the future, so they may choose to insult those who address the problem of abuse. But the taunts and invalidation will not stop you, nor will they stop the rest of us, because the world has come too far to go back. There are millions of people who have taken stands against partner abuse across the globe and are now unwilling to retreat, just like the woman who gets a taste of life without the abuser and then can't live under his control anymore, because the taste of freedom and equality is too sweet."
In addition to sharing tons of insightful information about how abusive men think and operate, Bancroft provides kind, potentially life-saving strategies and resources for victims of abuse to escape and to start their healing process. He writes with conviction about this pervasive issue while maintaining a deep empathy, gentleness, and dedication for and toward abused individuals. As someone who has experienced abuse in my own life, I feel so moved and grateful for how Bancroft both supports people with similar experiences to mine as well as holds our abusers accountable for their actions. This passage about how we must remember to side with the abused and not the abuser serves as one of many revelatory ideas:
"I have almost never worked with an abused woman who overlooked her partner's humanity. The problem sit he reverse: He forgets her humanity. Acknowledging his abusiveness and speaking forcefully and honestly about how he has hurt her is indispensable to her recovery. It is the abuser's perspective that she is being mean to him by speaking bluntly about the damage he has done. To suggest to her that his need for compassion should come before her right to live free from abuse is consistent with the abuser's outlook. I have repeatedly seen the tendency among friends and acquaintances of an abused woman to feel that it is their responsibility to make sure that she realizes what a good person he really is inside - in other words, to stay focused on his needs rather than on her own, which is a mistake. People who wish to help an abused woman should instead be telling her what a good person she is."
I deeply appreciate how Bancroft holds society accountable for contributing to abuse. By teaching boys that they can do whatever they want instead of showing them how to nurture and respect people, and by turning a blind eye to all the songs, movies, pornography, etc. that normalizes violence toward women, we contribute to abuse. Bancroft thus reveals that we all can also contribute to creating a world without abuse, by supporting and believing survivors while fighting the toxic elements of our culture that condone the mistreatment of fellow humans. I would recommend this eye-opening, impressive book to everyone and anyone, especially those who want to educate themselves about a salient issue plaguing society. I will end this review with an iconic passage from the last part of the book, which showcases hope amidst the darkness:
"If you choose to believe that your life could be free of abuse, or that the whole world could be, you will be taunted by similar voices, some originating inside your own head. Some people feel threatened by the concept that abusive is a solvable problem, because if it is, there's no excuse for not solving it. Abusers and their allies are reluctant to face up to the damage they have done, make amends, and live differently in the future, so they may choose to insult those who address the problem of abuse. But the taunts and invalidation will not stop you, nor will they stop the rest of us, because the world has come too far to go back. There are millions of people who have taken stands against partner abuse across the globe and are now unwilling to retreat, just like the woman who gets a taste of life without the abuser and then can't live under his control anymore, because the taste of freedom and equality is too sweet."
July 8, 2025
Abusers everywhere should be terrified that this book exists and shatters all the mythology and bullshit surrounding their abusive behaviors and attitudes. I genuinely and truly think that every woman must and should read this book. You will be able to help yourself and your loved ones so much more effectively with the knowledge this book empowers you with. Lundy Bancroft, as a man and an expert in the field of combatting intimate partner violence, identifies the specific ways that patriarchy and psychotherapy and the courts and all of our culture enables and in fact invites men’s abusiveness that terrorizes their female partners and children. Save yourself and/or the women in your community by reading this book!!!
June 19, 2015
this book is SO GOOD. Bancroft describes the abuser mentality in a way that demystifies the cycle of abuse for survivors. As someone who works with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, as well as a survivor myself, I recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand and end abusive relationship patterns.
This book also helped me understand and demystify colonial dynamics-- read Said's description of the construction of the Orientalist on the fictional body of the "Orient" and/ or "Oriental"; or Fanon's statement in Black Skin, White Masks: "The feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the European’s feeling of superiority. Let us have the courage to say it outright: It is the racist who creates his inferior.” Something else I took away from it (after reading it with Said) is how it helps articulate/ reveal patriarchal processes of gendering.
This book is EXCELLENT and I have given copies to numerous friends striving to understand hierarchical power dynamics. Its title is offputtingly heterosexist, but Bancroft describes his use of male/ female pronouns throughout the book in his introduction, addressing the fact that just as patriarchy and sexual violence privilege male-assigned people, in his experience male-assigned people perpetrate much more of that kind of abuse, especially toward female-assigned people in heterosexual relationships.
This book's gender politics could be more radical and inclusive but at the same time does a great job of addressing the role of hierarchical violence in enforcing binary gender roles within a heteropatriarchal system.
This book also helped me understand and demystify colonial dynamics-- read Said's description of the construction of the Orientalist on the fictional body of the "Orient" and/ or "Oriental"; or Fanon's statement in Black Skin, White Masks: "The feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the European’s feeling of superiority. Let us have the courage to say it outright: It is the racist who creates his inferior.” Something else I took away from it (after reading it with Said) is how it helps articulate/ reveal patriarchal processes of gendering.
This book is EXCELLENT and I have given copies to numerous friends striving to understand hierarchical power dynamics. Its title is offputtingly heterosexist, but Bancroft describes his use of male/ female pronouns throughout the book in his introduction, addressing the fact that just as patriarchy and sexual violence privilege male-assigned people, in his experience male-assigned people perpetrate much more of that kind of abuse, especially toward female-assigned people in heterosexual relationships.
This book's gender politics could be more radical and inclusive but at the same time does a great job of addressing the role of hierarchical violence in enforcing binary gender roles within a heteropatriarchal system.
April 30, 2015
I wish everyone would read this book. If you're like me- you tip toe around the most brutal and disgusting facets of life. You make excuses, or think, "it could be worse." Read this book as many times as it takes. I would have never thought a book so could accurately capture my personal experiences or those I have heard and read and seen. Lundy Bancroft has done humanity an incredible service in publishing this book; I truly hope that we might yet hope for a future untarnished by the things contained therein. I no longer feel alone, and I feel more empowered than ever in my knowledge. There are now many books on this same topic, but none of them are as succinct and rational as this one. You can't hem err and ahh around this book.
Buy this book for your sisters, your friends- it should be REQUIRED reading for every woman- especially young girls. It is unfortunate- but it is so easy to make excuses and deny facts- especially when you are working with someone as excruciatingly endearing, charming, and intelligent as many of the men who employ these tactics.
Buy this book for your sisters, your friends- it should be REQUIRED reading for every woman- especially young girls. It is unfortunate- but it is so easy to make excuses and deny facts- especially when you are working with someone as excruciatingly endearing, charming, and intelligent as many of the men who employ these tactics.
July 10, 2022
An interesting psychological work about abuse.
“It is not his feelings the abuser is too distant from: it is his partner’s feelings and his children’s feelings. Those are the emotions that he knows so little about and that he needs to get in touch with.”
He reframes abuse as something not done because of bad feelings, but because of a lack of empathy for the feelings of others. He reframes the problem of abuse as not one of anger, but of the actual conscious choice to abuse partners.
“The sad reality is that plenty of gentle, sensitive men are viciously abusive to their female partners.”
Abusive partners, in the experience of this author as an abuse counselor, do not usually “lose control”; they make justifications for their actions. He explains it thus: “Their value system is unhealthy, not their psychology.” Any connection between emotional abuse and mental illness has gone unproven.
He reframes often-repeated ideas about low self-esteem and childhood abuse as the causes for further abuse, and points out that for every abuser who was abused as a child, there is another victim of abuse who does not themselves abuse.
Okay so, to be real, I dislike some of the assertions about men and women in this book — the author’s experience in abuse counseling has been that many men who are abusers themselves accuse their ex-girlfriends of being crazy, and this is really important to point out, but also, the straight-faced assertion that straight women (straight women, because this author does believe lesbians can abuse. I don’t think he’s aware of bi people yet no one tell him about them) are literally never abusive to their partners is... it’s interesting, and it also is going to require a lot more citation. I do like the lens that abuse is caused, in the vast majority of cases, by patriarchy — but like, never? never? literally never has a wife abused a husband? This breaks down immediately when the author asserts that gay women can abuse (I don’t even think this is homophobic, it’s framed as a pro-lesbian-victims statement and that was good). So like, women can abuse, but only some of them? Citation needed.
While I was annoyed by both this, and the lack of citations on statistics (in nonfiction you need to cite any statistics that you trot out as fact.) I do think this is a wonderful guide for abused women to recognize their situations. That is its ultimate value.
On a more personal level, the descriptions of the family dynamic in custody battles is........ so disturbingly and disruptively close to home. There’s one description of psychological testing that genuinely made me rethink a good deal of my life. So that was cool.
Blog | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | Youtube | About |
“It is not his feelings the abuser is too distant from: it is his partner’s feelings and his children’s feelings. Those are the emotions that he knows so little about and that he needs to get in touch with.”
He reframes abuse as something not done because of bad feelings, but because of a lack of empathy for the feelings of others. He reframes the problem of abuse as not one of anger, but of the actual conscious choice to abuse partners.
“The sad reality is that plenty of gentle, sensitive men are viciously abusive to their female partners.”
Abusive partners, in the experience of this author as an abuse counselor, do not usually “lose control”; they make justifications for their actions. He explains it thus: “Their value system is unhealthy, not their psychology.” Any connection between emotional abuse and mental illness has gone unproven.
He reframes often-repeated ideas about low self-esteem and childhood abuse as the causes for further abuse, and points out that for every abuser who was abused as a child, there is another victim of abuse who does not themselves abuse.
Okay so, to be real, I dislike some of the assertions about men and women in this book — the author’s experience in abuse counseling has been that many men who are abusers themselves accuse their ex-girlfriends of being crazy, and this is really important to point out, but also, the straight-faced assertion that straight women (straight women, because this author does believe lesbians can abuse. I don’t think he’s aware of bi people yet no one tell him about them) are literally never abusive to their partners is... it’s interesting, and it also is going to require a lot more citation. I do like the lens that abuse is caused, in the vast majority of cases, by patriarchy — but like, never? never? literally never has a wife abused a husband? This breaks down immediately when the author asserts that gay women can abuse (I don’t even think this is homophobic, it’s framed as a pro-lesbian-victims statement and that was good). So like, women can abuse, but only some of them? Citation needed.
While I was annoyed by both this, and the lack of citations on statistics (in nonfiction you need to cite any statistics that you trot out as fact.) I do think this is a wonderful guide for abused women to recognize their situations. That is its ultimate value.
On a more personal level, the descriptions of the family dynamic in custody battles is........ so disturbingly and disruptively close to home. There’s one description of psychological testing that genuinely made me rethink a good deal of my life. So that was cool.
Blog | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | Youtube | About |
May 25, 2015
I am really sad that I had occasion to read this book, but I am really glad that I did. The author cuts to the quick about the origin of abuse and gives a sobering prognosis for change in an abuser's patterns of behavior.
What I learned:
* Abuse comes from a sense of entitlement and low opinion of the abused (not always, but most commonly the abused are women)
* Drugs, alcohol, past trauma, or past relationships do not cause abusive behavior.
* The abuser benefits greatly by their behavior, and thus has little incentive to change. They generally have freedom to do what they want when they want, they generally contribute little to the household.
* The abuser is a master at manipulation and diversion, confusing the abused as to what is happening with them.
* Fixing substance abuse problems do nothing to fix abusive behaviors
* Abusers learn how to use couples therapy, psychotherapy, or 12 step programs to their advantage in gaining leverage over their abused partners
* Changing an abuser's behavior requires that they change core value system that is deeply ingrained, and as such, happens very rarely.
Learning all this can be frightening to someone who is in an abusive relationship, but ultimately knowledge is empowering.
What I learned:
* Abuse comes from a sense of entitlement and low opinion of the abused (not always, but most commonly the abused are women)
* Drugs, alcohol, past trauma, or past relationships do not cause abusive behavior.
* The abuser benefits greatly by their behavior, and thus has little incentive to change. They generally have freedom to do what they want when they want, they generally contribute little to the household.
* The abuser is a master at manipulation and diversion, confusing the abused as to what is happening with them.
* Fixing substance abuse problems do nothing to fix abusive behaviors
* Abusers learn how to use couples therapy, psychotherapy, or 12 step programs to their advantage in gaining leverage over their abused partners
* Changing an abuser's behavior requires that they change core value system that is deeply ingrained, and as such, happens very rarely.
Learning all this can be frightening to someone who is in an abusive relationship, but ultimately knowledge is empowering.
February 16, 2009
When I left my husband, I had a tremendous amount of guilt over it. There is a lot of literature on verbally abusive men and their psychology. But Lundy doesn't let them off the hook. He doesn't give them any excuses.
I am so grateful for this book, it really helped me feel better about my decision to leave, and to recognize that the failure of my marriage was not all my fault, and not to feel sorry for my ex (which was something that was holding me back from healing and moving on).
I am so grateful for this book, it really helped me feel better about my decision to leave, and to recognize that the failure of my marriage was not all my fault, and not to feel sorry for my ex (which was something that was holding me back from healing and moving on).
January 5, 2009
In the United States, two to four million women are physically and emotionally assaulted by their partners. At least one out of three American women will be a victim of abuse by a husband or boyfriend in her lifetime.
Author Lundy Bancroft was former co-director of Emerge, the first program specifically created for abusive men in the United States. He has worked extensively with abusive men for nearly two decades.
Bancroft outlines warning signs of an abusive man; ten abusive personality types; the role of addiction in abuse; what can and cannot be changed in abusive men; and how to get out of an abusive relationship safely.
First among 17 myths Bancroft dispels in his book is that the victim of the abuser plays any part whatsoever in the abusive behavior of her partner.
Bancroft writes: “Part of how the abuser escapes confronting himself is by convincing you that you are the cause of his behavior, or that you at least share the blame. But abuse is not the product of bad relationship dynamics, and you cannot make things better by changing your own behavior or by attempting to manage your partner better. Abuse is a problem that lies entirely within the abuser.” (pg. 19)
Bancroft explains why therapy escalates abuse rather than alleviates it. “You can’t manage an abuser except for brief periods. Praising him and boosting his self-opinion may buy you some time, but sooner or later he’ll jump back into chewing pieces out of you. When you try to improve an abuser’s feelings about himself, his problem actually tends to get worse. An abusive man expects catering, and the more positive attention he receives, the more he demands.” (pg. 43)
With all this confusion in abusive relationships about what is and isn’t genuine love, Bancroft offers: “Genuine love means respecting the humanity of the other person, wanting what is best for him or her, and supporting the other person’s self-esteem and independence. This kind of love is incompatible with abuse and coercion.” (pg.65)
Most abusers cheat on their partners; it is a large part of their sense of entitlement. Charming and flirtatious when he chooses to be, he plays his women, friends and lovers, against each other. He uses women with no regard for the effect of his behavior on them.
Bancroft lists red flags for women entering into or already in abusive relationships; we can all be abusive on occasion, but watch for ongoing patterns that will not change even when confronted about the behavior.
Bancroft advises skepticism in the victim not yet ready to leave, and describes what to watch for: “giving you some extended room to be angry about what he did, rather than telling you that you’ve been angry too long or tying to stuff your angry feelings back down your throat,” nor will he make excuses or try to offer rationalizations for his behavior. (pg. 133)
Bancroft discusses why it is actually more difficult to leave an abusive relationship than a normal relationship that has run its course. “The longer you have been living with his cycles of intermittent abuse and kind, loving treatment, the more attached you are likely to feel to him, through a process known as traumatic bonding.” (pg.134)
Recommendations are included for finding help-legal advice, support groups, therapy for the abused partner, hotlines and organizations to assist women in abusive relationships.
The book concludes with a call to action for society—to not look the other way when we see abusive behavior, to offer support to abused partners, to take a second look at the kind of behavior we encourage with the current trend to objectify women. Awareness and sensitivity to this epidemic of domestic violence (and make no mistake, emotional abuse, too, should be considered violence) can go a long way to eliminating it.
~abridged from Spring '08, The Smoking Poet
Author Lundy Bancroft was former co-director of Emerge, the first program specifically created for abusive men in the United States. He has worked extensively with abusive men for nearly two decades.
Bancroft outlines warning signs of an abusive man; ten abusive personality types; the role of addiction in abuse; what can and cannot be changed in abusive men; and how to get out of an abusive relationship safely.
First among 17 myths Bancroft dispels in his book is that the victim of the abuser plays any part whatsoever in the abusive behavior of her partner.
Bancroft writes: “Part of how the abuser escapes confronting himself is by convincing you that you are the cause of his behavior, or that you at least share the blame. But abuse is not the product of bad relationship dynamics, and you cannot make things better by changing your own behavior or by attempting to manage your partner better. Abuse is a problem that lies entirely within the abuser.” (pg. 19)
Bancroft explains why therapy escalates abuse rather than alleviates it. “You can’t manage an abuser except for brief periods. Praising him and boosting his self-opinion may buy you some time, but sooner or later he’ll jump back into chewing pieces out of you. When you try to improve an abuser’s feelings about himself, his problem actually tends to get worse. An abusive man expects catering, and the more positive attention he receives, the more he demands.” (pg. 43)
With all this confusion in abusive relationships about what is and isn’t genuine love, Bancroft offers: “Genuine love means respecting the humanity of the other person, wanting what is best for him or her, and supporting the other person’s self-esteem and independence. This kind of love is incompatible with abuse and coercion.” (pg.65)
Most abusers cheat on their partners; it is a large part of their sense of entitlement. Charming and flirtatious when he chooses to be, he plays his women, friends and lovers, against each other. He uses women with no regard for the effect of his behavior on them.
Bancroft lists red flags for women entering into or already in abusive relationships; we can all be abusive on occasion, but watch for ongoing patterns that will not change even when confronted about the behavior.
Bancroft advises skepticism in the victim not yet ready to leave, and describes what to watch for: “giving you some extended room to be angry about what he did, rather than telling you that you’ve been angry too long or tying to stuff your angry feelings back down your throat,” nor will he make excuses or try to offer rationalizations for his behavior. (pg. 133)
Bancroft discusses why it is actually more difficult to leave an abusive relationship than a normal relationship that has run its course. “The longer you have been living with his cycles of intermittent abuse and kind, loving treatment, the more attached you are likely to feel to him, through a process known as traumatic bonding.” (pg.134)
Recommendations are included for finding help-legal advice, support groups, therapy for the abused partner, hotlines and organizations to assist women in abusive relationships.
The book concludes with a call to action for society—to not look the other way when we see abusive behavior, to offer support to abused partners, to take a second look at the kind of behavior we encourage with the current trend to objectify women. Awareness and sensitivity to this epidemic of domestic violence (and make no mistake, emotional abuse, too, should be considered violence) can go a long way to eliminating it.
~abridged from Spring '08, The Smoking Poet
Read
February 19, 2024This book was really difficult for me to get through, simply because it mirrored so much of my experience in an abusive relationship. I found the book to be pretty up to date despite being written a while ago. Bancroft is empowering yet firm, and really seems committed to ending abuse. He's also not judgemental. That makes for this book being an affirming read. I recommend it for all survivors and wish I read it earlier.
I wasn't expecting the book to be abolitionist, but it leaves me with a lot to think about. Bancroft points out the issues with the system, and also talks about how community support seems to be most important with ending abuse. Even his suggestions of calling agencies etc were well-intended, but he acknowledged the issues with those too, along with therapy. There really are so little options for survivors and that makes me so sad. I'll be thinking about this book a lot, and will probably re-read. I'm sad lol.
I took off a star because there wasnt an explicit naming of the patriarchy, and how that facilitates violence. Pretty decent analysis of race, class, and also sexuality though, and how stereotypes and power dynamics can impact abusive relationships.
I wasn't expecting the book to be abolitionist, but it leaves me with a lot to think about. Bancroft points out the issues with the system, and also talks about how community support seems to be most important with ending abuse. Even his suggestions of calling agencies etc were well-intended, but he acknowledged the issues with those too, along with therapy. There really are so little options for survivors and that makes me so sad. I'll be thinking about this book a lot, and will probably re-read. I'm sad lol.
I took off a star because there wasnt an explicit naming of the patriarchy, and how that facilitates violence. Pretty decent analysis of race, class, and also sexuality though, and how stereotypes and power dynamics can impact abusive relationships.
February 28, 2021
heres my hot take: the fear of cancel culture or being canceled is a direct result of abusers pushing back against being held accountable for unacceptable behavior.
let me explain.
lundy bancroft makes it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that abuse is not a result of psychological problems or trauma but a result of a persons entitlement to another persons time, energy, attention, and body. abusers are entitled. they are not broken, hurt little children who need our support. they need concrete and serious consequences to their behaviors. abusers have a logical mental throughline that determines their behavior. they are almost always entirely rational people who have weighed out the pros and cons of their actions. it is far more beneficial for an abuser to scream and throw tantrums and attack their victims because that is how they can get their way.
if youre unconvinced, bancroft uses several real scenarios to explain how abusers rule through fear. a family dinner where a daughter reminds her father to do the dishes that erupts in violence. the next week, everything goes completely normally, but no one reminds the father to wash the dishes. he simply gets up and walks away while everyone cleans up after him. a man who tearfully recounts blacking out in a rage and his partner confirming that he appears to be out of control and afterwards is full of remorse, but when pushed they both admit that he only breaks HER items, and that he never offers to help clean up. the abuser rules through fear and intimidation and the entire world supports this behavior.
if you do not cut an abuser off, if you do not tell him he is abusive, if you do not unconditionally support the abused, youre an abuse apologist.
after reading this im convinced all of these cases that people have insisted to me over my life were 'mutual abuse', like bobby brown and whitney houston, were just straight up abuse. oh but gabe, you say. bobby brown was mentally ill. he was a black man who faced many struggles with racism. but i would also respond that plenty of black men struggle with substance abuse and severe mental and neurological illnesses and also face the constant existential threat of antiblack violence, yet they dont have a near lifetime record of domestic violence. brown chose to abuse because thats how he got what he wanted from women. im using him as an example but i could easily use any other famous man who hides behind their mental struggles. in fact, bancroft says most abusers dont have any or very minimal mental issues, and that often their abuse can CAUSE their victims (including their children) to develop mental illnesses, which makes their victims to be less likely to be believed.
bancroft also adds that the supposed cultural differences between a gangbanger and a fundamentalist muslim and a rich white executive really dont matter all that much when it comes down to it because what causes someone to go from run of the mill casual misogynist is ENTITLEMENT. in speaking about how an abuser is formed he focuses a lot on pornography and white musical artists. bancroft touches on nonwhite and non north american abusers but i think he did that because as he said, cultural differences dont in themselves make someone abusive, adding that the only cultures that dont have abuse are tribal societies without class stratified gender roles i.e. societies where men and women are equal. he also probably wanted to speak directly to those who think abusers were the crude 'other' and not the boy next door in suburbia. on that note i think he does a good job because even today the cultural image of a domestic abuser is a nonwhite man or a working class white man beating his woman rather than the terrifying imposing figure of a rich white executive who terrorizes his family.
going back to his stance on pornography, i cant disagree with him. its not the act of sex itself that bancroft takes issue with. he doesnt even really seem to have an issue with consensual nonconsensual play or BDSM. what he takes issue with is the sexual violence and the easy access young boys have to it. like with eminem and guns and roses glorifying killing women, bancroft identifies pornography as part of a culture that supports abuse.
i know upon reading this a lot of people are going to tune out because porn is so hotly contested but i believe that erotic media/art is an intrinsic part of human society. its not that porn MAKES people violent, because otherwise everyone who watches porn would be deranged. its that porn, like any other media, takes its values from a society that already values abuse, and also, like any other media, influences society. its a feedback loop we see with things like blockbuster movies and netflix shows and anime. i am by no means a moral purist but because abusers use certain kind of media to justify their actions, it should be taken note of. and its not just porn--bancroft cites an abuser who played a guns and roses song repeatedly until his partner really thought he was going to kill her and bury her in the yard too. does that mean im against rock music? (im extremely against guns and roses because its a shit fucking band.) obviously not. does that mean im oblivious to how rock music has been demonized in the past and even today? obviously not! but i can be conscious of its impact, because We Live In A Society and You Are Not Immune To Propaganda.
thats essentially the entire book. why does he do that? because he feels like it. because he can. because law enforcement and therapists will back him up on it. because media tells him hes right. because his dad did it. abusers literally make the narrative. they say its because theyre mentally ill, because theyre traumatized, because theyre hurt, because she just makes him so fucking ANGRY, because he loses control, but its never because he wanted to. its never because he just fucking could, because he wanted to hurt her and control her and make her feel bad for scaring her. abusers want to mystify abuse as much as possible and for literal millennia, theyve done it. theyve sent their victims to be lobotomized, sent them to prisons, sent them to the grave. people like to say that it was legal to rape your wife in the US until the 70s but if you say your husband raped you today in 2021 theyll demand you prove it.
the way abusive men behave is calculating. they arent out of control. they know how to manipulate people and people are willing to be manipulated because fundamentally, we as a society fucking love abusers. we love protecting them. we hate victims. we hate seeing women 'exposing' a 'great' man because we think, well, he did so much! hes nice to me! shes just some fucking cocksucking lying whore trying to get all of his money! but you might even concede hes a little in the wrong and think, theyre abusing each other therefore shes still responsible but ultimately youre still putting the blame entirely on the woman.
there is a very famous case of a man being abusive to a woman that is playing out and people are spinning it as the woman being abusive to him. im not going to name either of these two people because his fans are INSANE and will spend months attacking me but what i will say is that the man always comes across as calm, collected, logical, but the woman always seems hysterical and crazy. this is why even after all the new 'evidence' of her doing 'crazy' things, i still believe her. i believe she did crazy things because he probably gaslit the fucking shit out of her for years. and the fact that i cant even say his name because his psychotic fans will harass me is proof that even putting a face and a name to an abuser, even demanding accountability and consequences to a man who has provenly been violent on video (smashing shit to intimidate someone IS ABUSE) proves that abusers TODAY IN 2021 have the upperhand. they are winning. they use terms like 'cancel culture' to prove that theyre victims when in reality they want to dodge all accountability and consequences. because if a victim is MADE CRAZY and ISNT PERFECT then shes ALSO abusive, and that is NOT how abuse works.
the reality is that society WANTS to support abusers. society LOVES abuse. society believes abuse is good and normal and if you are abused you are in the wrong and your abuser contributes more than you do by virtue of him being abusive. often this has a misogynist component but even in lgbt relationships, even when the dynamic of misogyny isnt there, i have personally seen communities rally around abusers and isolate victims because the victim dared speak out. you are the bad guy for wanting an abuser to face consequences. often, the consequence is that they not be invited to meetings or delete their social media. but because abusers are SO ENTITLED, they cant even do that! they cant even stay away from fucking twitter! theyre ENTITLED to use the internet even after raping and financially abusing their spouses and then attack YOU for saying they abused someone. you are a full on RAPIST fam, LOG OFF.
this was intended to be a review. but while reading this ive identified so many of my personal relatives as doing exactly these behaviors. im extremely angry that this book hasnt been translated into portuguese (at least not that i know of) because i think some of my relatives need to read this. and im angry. im angry that abuse is this thing everyone supports and turns a blind eye to not because its difficult but because theyre actually collaborating with the abuser. i dont think its that its hard to not support an abuser. i think its because abuse supporters are also entitled. theyre entitled to feeling comfortable. they dont like being challenged. their sons or fathers or friends are abusive? i dont want to know about it. im entitled to be safe from that. rip to your victims but im different. mostly because being associated with victimhood leaves you with a fucking stink that you can never wash off, that being victimized makes you weak and wrong and evil and bad, that you will never be a good enough victim for anyone to sympathize with. there were women in this book who were almost murdered by their boyfriends and had therapists and law enforcement essentially blame them and diagnose them as hysterical because the thought of looking into a crime (their literal jobs) was too difficult. it must be the cunt's fault for being hit.
im angry. this book was not easy to read. i dont think writing this will change anything. i do hope that if youre reading this review that you understand where im coming from with my original statement about cancel culture. sure there are instances of people taking things too far but if you abuse someone, the only thing that can stop you from doing it again is taking everything away from you. not sending you to prison. but making you feel like you fucked up. making you feel like youve got real consequences to your actions. remember, abusers abuse because theyre entitled to hurt others. not because theyre hurt or traumatized or mentally ill. its because they are entitled. stop making excuses for abusers and start making them afraid.
let me explain.
lundy bancroft makes it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that abuse is not a result of psychological problems or trauma but a result of a persons entitlement to another persons time, energy, attention, and body. abusers are entitled. they are not broken, hurt little children who need our support. they need concrete and serious consequences to their behaviors. abusers have a logical mental throughline that determines their behavior. they are almost always entirely rational people who have weighed out the pros and cons of their actions. it is far more beneficial for an abuser to scream and throw tantrums and attack their victims because that is how they can get their way.
if youre unconvinced, bancroft uses several real scenarios to explain how abusers rule through fear. a family dinner where a daughter reminds her father to do the dishes that erupts in violence. the next week, everything goes completely normally, but no one reminds the father to wash the dishes. he simply gets up and walks away while everyone cleans up after him. a man who tearfully recounts blacking out in a rage and his partner confirming that he appears to be out of control and afterwards is full of remorse, but when pushed they both admit that he only breaks HER items, and that he never offers to help clean up. the abuser rules through fear and intimidation and the entire world supports this behavior.
if you do not cut an abuser off, if you do not tell him he is abusive, if you do not unconditionally support the abused, youre an abuse apologist.
after reading this im convinced all of these cases that people have insisted to me over my life were 'mutual abuse', like bobby brown and whitney houston, were just straight up abuse. oh but gabe, you say. bobby brown was mentally ill. he was a black man who faced many struggles with racism. but i would also respond that plenty of black men struggle with substance abuse and severe mental and neurological illnesses and also face the constant existential threat of antiblack violence, yet they dont have a near lifetime record of domestic violence. brown chose to abuse because thats how he got what he wanted from women. im using him as an example but i could easily use any other famous man who hides behind their mental struggles. in fact, bancroft says most abusers dont have any or very minimal mental issues, and that often their abuse can CAUSE their victims (including their children) to develop mental illnesses, which makes their victims to be less likely to be believed.
bancroft also adds that the supposed cultural differences between a gangbanger and a fundamentalist muslim and a rich white executive really dont matter all that much when it comes down to it because what causes someone to go from run of the mill casual misogynist is ENTITLEMENT. in speaking about how an abuser is formed he focuses a lot on pornography and white musical artists. bancroft touches on nonwhite and non north american abusers but i think he did that because as he said, cultural differences dont in themselves make someone abusive, adding that the only cultures that dont have abuse are tribal societies without class stratified gender roles i.e. societies where men and women are equal. he also probably wanted to speak directly to those who think abusers were the crude 'other' and not the boy next door in suburbia. on that note i think he does a good job because even today the cultural image of a domestic abuser is a nonwhite man or a working class white man beating his woman rather than the terrifying imposing figure of a rich white executive who terrorizes his family.
going back to his stance on pornography, i cant disagree with him. its not the act of sex itself that bancroft takes issue with. he doesnt even really seem to have an issue with consensual nonconsensual play or BDSM. what he takes issue with is the sexual violence and the easy access young boys have to it. like with eminem and guns and roses glorifying killing women, bancroft identifies pornography as part of a culture that supports abuse.
i know upon reading this a lot of people are going to tune out because porn is so hotly contested but i believe that erotic media/art is an intrinsic part of human society. its not that porn MAKES people violent, because otherwise everyone who watches porn would be deranged. its that porn, like any other media, takes its values from a society that already values abuse, and also, like any other media, influences society. its a feedback loop we see with things like blockbuster movies and netflix shows and anime. i am by no means a moral purist but because abusers use certain kind of media to justify their actions, it should be taken note of. and its not just porn--bancroft cites an abuser who played a guns and roses song repeatedly until his partner really thought he was going to kill her and bury her in the yard too. does that mean im against rock music? (im extremely against guns and roses because its a shit fucking band.) obviously not. does that mean im oblivious to how rock music has been demonized in the past and even today? obviously not! but i can be conscious of its impact, because We Live In A Society and You Are Not Immune To Propaganda.
thats essentially the entire book. why does he do that? because he feels like it. because he can. because law enforcement and therapists will back him up on it. because media tells him hes right. because his dad did it. abusers literally make the narrative. they say its because theyre mentally ill, because theyre traumatized, because theyre hurt, because she just makes him so fucking ANGRY, because he loses control, but its never because he wanted to. its never because he just fucking could, because he wanted to hurt her and control her and make her feel bad for scaring her. abusers want to mystify abuse as much as possible and for literal millennia, theyve done it. theyve sent their victims to be lobotomized, sent them to prisons, sent them to the grave. people like to say that it was legal to rape your wife in the US until the 70s but if you say your husband raped you today in 2021 theyll demand you prove it.
the way abusive men behave is calculating. they arent out of control. they know how to manipulate people and people are willing to be manipulated because fundamentally, we as a society fucking love abusers. we love protecting them. we hate victims. we hate seeing women 'exposing' a 'great' man because we think, well, he did so much! hes nice to me! shes just some fucking cocksucking lying whore trying to get all of his money! but you might even concede hes a little in the wrong and think, theyre abusing each other therefore shes still responsible but ultimately youre still putting the blame entirely on the woman.
there is a very famous case of a man being abusive to a woman that is playing out and people are spinning it as the woman being abusive to him. im not going to name either of these two people because his fans are INSANE and will spend months attacking me but what i will say is that the man always comes across as calm, collected, logical, but the woman always seems hysterical and crazy. this is why even after all the new 'evidence' of her doing 'crazy' things, i still believe her. i believe she did crazy things because he probably gaslit the fucking shit out of her for years. and the fact that i cant even say his name because his psychotic fans will harass me is proof that even putting a face and a name to an abuser, even demanding accountability and consequences to a man who has provenly been violent on video (smashing shit to intimidate someone IS ABUSE) proves that abusers TODAY IN 2021 have the upperhand. they are winning. they use terms like 'cancel culture' to prove that theyre victims when in reality they want to dodge all accountability and consequences. because if a victim is MADE CRAZY and ISNT PERFECT then shes ALSO abusive, and that is NOT how abuse works.
the reality is that society WANTS to support abusers. society LOVES abuse. society believes abuse is good and normal and if you are abused you are in the wrong and your abuser contributes more than you do by virtue of him being abusive. often this has a misogynist component but even in lgbt relationships, even when the dynamic of misogyny isnt there, i have personally seen communities rally around abusers and isolate victims because the victim dared speak out. you are the bad guy for wanting an abuser to face consequences. often, the consequence is that they not be invited to meetings or delete their social media. but because abusers are SO ENTITLED, they cant even do that! they cant even stay away from fucking twitter! theyre ENTITLED to use the internet even after raping and financially abusing their spouses and then attack YOU for saying they abused someone. you are a full on RAPIST fam, LOG OFF.
this was intended to be a review. but while reading this ive identified so many of my personal relatives as doing exactly these behaviors. im extremely angry that this book hasnt been translated into portuguese (at least not that i know of) because i think some of my relatives need to read this. and im angry. im angry that abuse is this thing everyone supports and turns a blind eye to not because its difficult but because theyre actually collaborating with the abuser. i dont think its that its hard to not support an abuser. i think its because abuse supporters are also entitled. theyre entitled to feeling comfortable. they dont like being challenged. their sons or fathers or friends are abusive? i dont want to know about it. im entitled to be safe from that. rip to your victims but im different. mostly because being associated with victimhood leaves you with a fucking stink that you can never wash off, that being victimized makes you weak and wrong and evil and bad, that you will never be a good enough victim for anyone to sympathize with. there were women in this book who were almost murdered by their boyfriends and had therapists and law enforcement essentially blame them and diagnose them as hysterical because the thought of looking into a crime (their literal jobs) was too difficult. it must be the cunt's fault for being hit.
im angry. this book was not easy to read. i dont think writing this will change anything. i do hope that if youre reading this review that you understand where im coming from with my original statement about cancel culture. sure there are instances of people taking things too far but if you abuse someone, the only thing that can stop you from doing it again is taking everything away from you. not sending you to prison. but making you feel like you fucked up. making you feel like youve got real consequences to your actions. remember, abusers abuse because theyre entitled to hurt others. not because theyre hurt or traumatized or mentally ill. its because they are entitled. stop making excuses for abusers and start making them afraid.
September 5, 2018
For many, this book is regarded as a drawing back of the curtain, a revelatory book exposing the truth behind male behaviors that are abusive. I've read this book in depth before, and on a second read I can't stress enough how many errors there are about male psychology, fed to the reader in comforting, easy-to-swallow coatings of commiseration over abusive male behavior, with very few alternatives for what "nonabusive" behavior looks like by contrast.
Despite claiming to be very progressive in his views of gender roles, in the chapter "Myths about Abusers" Bancroft uses quotes of men who stopped violent outbursts as proof that such outbursts are actually planned, deliberate form of manipulation, because the clients he questioned could explain their reasons for stopping themselves. It sounds validating at first until you realize Bancroft's base for this conclusion logically, is that (1) men don't have irrational emotions, because our outbursts are all staged, but (2) women never stage their outbursts, and thus women have uncontrolled irrational emotions. Bancroft seems to hold the view that women are hapless, flighty lambs and men are opportunistic schemers whose emotions are staged to trick you. Not a very good perspective for healing trust in the opposite sex.
As another example, he actually states that "an unabusive man" would never lash out but maintain perfect control and prioritizing even in a crisis situation. His example is a situation of husband and wife whose child is missing: "A nonabusive man would not expect his wife to be taking emotional care of him during a crisis of this gravity." Why not? He makes it perfectly clear later in the book that a woman under mental and emotional stress is likely to lash out in frustration or anger, but THEN says that calling her abusive for such an outburst is gaslighting and water-torture abuse. According to Bancroft, any expression of emotion beyond a aloof, controlled, unironic statement "I feel ____" is intimidating, posturing, and abusive.
Bancroft's essays on masculine flaws shows a deeply gendered bias in the book. He makes the statement later on while listing off signs of an abusive person, that a man who wants a traditional stay-at-home mom type of woman is abusive for wanting to "force her to live in his box." But Bancroft at the same time defers to an antiquated stereotype of masculine strength that a man is a cool-headed leader in crisis and the woman the one who needs to be bolstered and cared for.... never the other way around. And any man who crumbles under that pressure is abusive, according to him. For someone championing the pains of abused women, Bancroft firmly sets forth a medieval ideal of men as the unflappable, generous protectors of womenfolk who need coddling lest they crumble in the pressures of everyday life (none of which, Bancroft repeats, are excuses for any ill behavior or mood a man might dare show).
"Why Does He Do That?" offers a truckload of validation to the aching, hurting heart that wants to hear what a monster her abuser is... But while Bancroft's observations may be superficially accurate, the conclusions he reaches are deeply dehumanizing falsehoods about male psychology. Seriously, beware this book if you want to actually know why men do what they do.
Despite claiming to be very progressive in his views of gender roles, in the chapter "Myths about Abusers" Bancroft uses quotes of men who stopped violent outbursts as proof that such outbursts are actually planned, deliberate form of manipulation, because the clients he questioned could explain their reasons for stopping themselves. It sounds validating at first until you realize Bancroft's base for this conclusion logically, is that (1) men don't have irrational emotions, because our outbursts are all staged, but (2) women never stage their outbursts, and thus women have uncontrolled irrational emotions. Bancroft seems to hold the view that women are hapless, flighty lambs and men are opportunistic schemers whose emotions are staged to trick you. Not a very good perspective for healing trust in the opposite sex.
As another example, he actually states that "an unabusive man" would never lash out but maintain perfect control and prioritizing even in a crisis situation. His example is a situation of husband and wife whose child is missing: "A nonabusive man would not expect his wife to be taking emotional care of him during a crisis of this gravity." Why not? He makes it perfectly clear later in the book that a woman under mental and emotional stress is likely to lash out in frustration or anger, but THEN says that calling her abusive for such an outburst is gaslighting and water-torture abuse. According to Bancroft, any expression of emotion beyond a aloof, controlled, unironic statement "I feel ____" is intimidating, posturing, and abusive.
Bancroft's essays on masculine flaws shows a deeply gendered bias in the book. He makes the statement later on while listing off signs of an abusive person, that a man who wants a traditional stay-at-home mom type of woman is abusive for wanting to "force her to live in his box." But Bancroft at the same time defers to an antiquated stereotype of masculine strength that a man is a cool-headed leader in crisis and the woman the one who needs to be bolstered and cared for.... never the other way around. And any man who crumbles under that pressure is abusive, according to him. For someone championing the pains of abused women, Bancroft firmly sets forth a medieval ideal of men as the unflappable, generous protectors of womenfolk who need coddling lest they crumble in the pressures of everyday life (none of which, Bancroft repeats, are excuses for any ill behavior or mood a man might dare show).
"Why Does He Do That?" offers a truckload of validation to the aching, hurting heart that wants to hear what a monster her abuser is... But while Bancroft's observations may be superficially accurate, the conclusions he reaches are deeply dehumanizing falsehoods about male psychology. Seriously, beware this book if you want to actually know why men do what they do.
April 29, 2024
Lundy heard the question, “But WHY does he do it?” and said hold my beer…
This is the holy grail for anyone who has suffered at the hands of an angry partner.
He is an expert in the field and led an intervention program for abusive men who were typically court-ordered to participate.
Even though it’s been years since my own experience
I just wanted to scream into a pillow or laugh manically in a corner while listening to this audiobook. I swear abusers must all pass around the same playbook. I’ve never felt so validated and idiotic at the same time.
I am a woman who has lived the lives of so many other women, we are in a horrible, twisted little group.
I was my own psychologist every day, trying to diagnose and theorize on the why, why, why
But, of course, at the time, I looked further inward- losing myself in the patterns of my own behavior and the only literature I dared to glimpse at was “Is this abusive? /Reddit eventually a judge answered that question for me.
This book is an absolute lifeline for DV survivors and could save someone’s life…
It's so common to get back with an ex-partner because they leave you doubting your perception of reality and a put you in a state of a perpetual sense of confusion.
Lundy is great at toeing the line stating the harsh reality that it's rare that an abusive partner will ever change but never came across with a pushy “dump him now” approach. The book is written for women that could be in the midst of that relationship and looking for answers.
I’ll be using “He/him” during my review but as Lundy made clear, abuse can obviously be directed at either gender and not limited to hetero relationships.
Each chapter the author clearly and integrally breaks down every myth and EXCUSE that is perpetuated by the public, victim and of course the abuser on why do they do this?
Lundy gives a full view on the archetypes of abusers with their various patterns and type of manipulative/physical/verbal attacks. Discussing in almost QA style on how men can easily slip that “good guy” mask on for society while viciously or quietly breaking down their partner.
This book made me realize that “narcissists” might be a dangerously overused term to sus out if you’re in a potentially unhealthy relationship.
Of course, there are narcissists out there, but I've seen multiple TikTok videos depicting the “narcissist boyfriend.”
And it furthers the confusion because women will compare their abusive partners and say, well yeah “he has anger issues, “ or “ ya know, when it's great, it's great, but when it's bad, it's really bad.”
But he's a good guy!
The author highlights that, yes, an abuser has a conscience; he can and does care about the people around him. He’s not a narcissist in the strict definition of the word- Maybe he even has a long and healthy track record with friends, and “everyone loves him” — except exes,YOU and any of your friends/ family that caught a glimpse of him when the mask was slipping and are willing to speak up.
This directed behavior/ attacks at the person they “love” would make any sane person feel like their reality is slipping. Is it me? How can he turn it off and on?
I think some women need to understand …
Some men hate women. They might like what you can do for them, but they do not like you.
There's one quote that's stuck with me in this book ...
He wants, says Lundy, to keep everyone focused on how he FEELS, not how he THINKS, because “if you grasp the true nature of his problem, you will begin to escape his domination. (p. 75)
The abuser wants his partner to gush and toe around his “feelings” because he just can’t control his emotions. But oh no no no … their “out of control” because their getting something out of it when they “lose their temper,” they want you to focus on how they “feel” to distract you from the values they hold and willingness to hurt you for what they gain out of it.
That is not a mental illness, and it doesn't matter how they've been treated in the past; it is not a justifiable reason to hurt and abuse anyone, especially someone they love. 💟💟💟🫶
I think the question “would you rather be stuck alone in the woods with a bear or man” is a conversation that needs to continue. Men do better.
This is the holy grail for anyone who has suffered at the hands of an angry partner.
He is an expert in the field and led an intervention program for abusive men who were typically court-ordered to participate.
Even though it’s been years since my own experience
I just wanted to scream into a pillow or laugh manically in a corner while listening to this audiobook. I swear abusers must all pass around the same playbook. I’ve never felt so validated and idiotic at the same time.
I am a woman who has lived the lives of so many other women, we are in a horrible, twisted little group.
I was my own psychologist every day, trying to diagnose and theorize on the why, why, why
But, of course, at the time, I looked further inward- losing myself in the patterns of my own behavior and the only literature I dared to glimpse at was “Is this abusive? /Reddit eventually a judge answered that question for me.
This book is an absolute lifeline for DV survivors and could save someone’s life…
It's so common to get back with an ex-partner because they leave you doubting your perception of reality and a put you in a state of a perpetual sense of confusion.
Lundy is great at toeing the line stating the harsh reality that it's rare that an abusive partner will ever change but never came across with a pushy “dump him now” approach. The book is written for women that could be in the midst of that relationship and looking for answers.
I’ll be using “He/him” during my review but as Lundy made clear, abuse can obviously be directed at either gender and not limited to hetero relationships.
Each chapter the author clearly and integrally breaks down every myth and EXCUSE that is perpetuated by the public, victim and of course the abuser on why do they do this?
Lundy gives a full view on the archetypes of abusers with their various patterns and type of manipulative/physical/verbal attacks. Discussing in almost QA style on how men can easily slip that “good guy” mask on for society while viciously or quietly breaking down their partner.
This book made me realize that “narcissists” might be a dangerously overused term to sus out if you’re in a potentially unhealthy relationship.
Of course, there are narcissists out there, but I've seen multiple TikTok videos depicting the “narcissist boyfriend.”
And it furthers the confusion because women will compare their abusive partners and say, well yeah “he has anger issues, “ or “ ya know, when it's great, it's great, but when it's bad, it's really bad.”
But he's a good guy!
The author highlights that, yes, an abuser has a conscience; he can and does care about the people around him. He’s not a narcissist in the strict definition of the word- Maybe he even has a long and healthy track record with friends, and “everyone loves him” — except exes,YOU and any of your friends/ family that caught a glimpse of him when the mask was slipping and are willing to speak up.
This directed behavior/ attacks at the person they “love” would make any sane person feel like their reality is slipping. Is it me? How can he turn it off and on?
I think some women need to understand …
Some men hate women. They might like what you can do for them, but they do not like you.
There's one quote that's stuck with me in this book ...
He wants, says Lundy, to keep everyone focused on how he FEELS, not how he THINKS, because “if you grasp the true nature of his problem, you will begin to escape his domination. (p. 75)
The abuser wants his partner to gush and toe around his “feelings” because he just can’t control his emotions. But oh no no no … their “out of control” because their getting something out of it when they “lose their temper,” they want you to focus on how they “feel” to distract you from the values they hold and willingness to hurt you for what they gain out of it.
That is not a mental illness, and it doesn't matter how they've been treated in the past; it is not a justifiable reason to hurt and abuse anyone, especially someone they love. 💟💟💟🫶
I think the question “would you rather be stuck alone in the woods with a bear or man” is a conversation that needs to continue. Men do better.
October 4, 2014
As a victim of physical and verbal abuse during most of the years of my marriage, my therapist recommended this book to me and let me tell you that this book is a tremendous eye opener for anyone wishing for insight into the mind of an abuser. As many other readers have mentioned this book is dead on about the tactics an abuser uses. While he may appear an all around great guy or a leader in the community this accurately describes the types of abuser and many women like myself will see their partner's behavior within the pages of this book. I urge any women experiencing physical and verbal abuse to pick this book up and empower themselves with knowledge about the secret hell they may be living in their relationship.
March 13, 2010
Validation. This book made me cry, scream, sigh, and laugh. It has been a major stepping stone in getting me to where I am currently in my life. I would recommend this to anyone who has ever been in any kind of abusive relationship.
December 4, 2008
This was possibly the biggest deterrent for me from re-entering a couple recent negative scenarios. I highly recommend it, and I wish I'd found it sooner.
November 20, 2011
As a survivor, this was one of the first books I read. It was as if Mr. Bancroft knew my abuser first-hand...it was like reading my own story. Lundry Bancroft his the nail on the head with this masterpiece. I don't believe his goal is to target men (being a man himself) but, rather, show the profile of an abuser, which is so common! The cycle of violence plays over and over while the victim doubts herself, questions her own thoughts, second-guesses her self-worth and begins to believe the lies her abuser has spoken over her. Mr. Bancroft is a genius to provide victims of domestic violence an opportunity to see that she isn't the only one and the abuse isn't her fault because she deserves better. What a powerful tool that I highly recommend to all victims and survivors!
February 8, 2026
If you are currently in an abusive relationship and don't have children, I beg of you to please don't have children with your abuser. We have to keep children safe. And if you do have children, please pick up this book to read through the resources available to you.
☆☆☆☆☆ (5 stars)
Save this number in your phone as something discreet if your abuser has access to your phone.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE: 1-800-799-7233
It's confidential and you can call anytime to just vent about what's going on and/or ask for guidance. It's completely anonymous.
As someone who works as a sexual assault and IPV advocate in the emergency room, I am also available if you need help; no matter where you are.
☆☆☆☆☆ (5 stars)
"Abuse is not a product of bad relationship dynamics. It is a deliberate choice made by the abuser."
Every woman should read Lundy Bancroft’s illuminating and empowering work, an essential guide for understanding the complex dynamics of abusive relationships. Bancroft, with over two decades of experience working directly with abusive men, offers an insightful and thorough examination of what drives men to control and mistreat their partners. This book is not just an eye-opener but a life-changer, equipping women with the knowledge to recognize, understand, and ultimately break free from abusive situations.
One of the most compelling aspects of Bancroft's book is his detailed exploration of the warning signs of abusive behavior. He meticulously breaks down the various tactics abusers use, such as emotional manipulation, jealousy, and isolation. Through real-life examples and case studies, Bancroft illustrates how these behaviors manifest in everyday life. For instance, he describes a scenario where a man constantly criticizes his partner's appearance and decisions, subtly eroding her self-esteem and independence. These examples resonate deeply, providing readers with a concrete understanding of the insidious nature of abuse.
Moreover, Bancroft doesn’t shy away from addressing the cultural aspects that perpetuate abusive behaviors. He discusses how societal norms and values often excuse or even condone men’s controlling behaviors, reinforcing a cycle of abuse. This cultural critique is crucial, as it situates individual abusive actions within a broader social context, highlighting the need for collective change.
One of the most actionable sections of the book is Bancroft's advice on how to end the culture of abuse. He emphasizes the importance of starting at the grassroots level—within families and communities. Bancroft advocates for friends and family members of abusive men to hold them accountable, making it clear that their behavior is unacceptable. This social accountability is vital for creating an environment where abusers cannot hide behind excuses or societal tolerance.
Additionally, Bancroft challenges the common misconception that therapy alone can reform an abuser. He argues persuasively that traditional therapy often fails because it doesn’t address the underlying need for power and control that drives abusive behavior. Instead, he recommends abuser programs specifically designed to confront and dismantle these harmful patterns. These programs focus on holding abusers accountable for their actions and promoting genuine change, rather than allowing them to manipulate therapeutic environments to their advantage.
Bancroft’s expertise and compassionate voice make him an exceptional narrator. His empathetic yet firm approach ensures that the reader feels both supported and challenged. He speaks directly to women, urging them to trust their instincts and prioritize their safety and well-being. His writing is clear, accessible, and profoundly moving, making complex psychological concepts easy to grasp.
This book is not just a guide; it’s a lifeline. Bancroft’s powerful insights and practical advice can help women recognize the signs of abuse early, understand the deep-seated motivations of abusers, and find the strength to seek help. I recommend this book to every woman and beg them to read it. It’s a crucial resource that can save lives and foster healthier, more respectful relationships.
"Your safety and well-being are more important than any relationship." This motivating reminder from Bancroft encapsulates the book’s empowering message. It’s a call to action for women to value themselves and take the necessary steps to protect their dignity and freedom.
☆☆☆☆☆ (5 stars)
Save this number in your phone as something discreet if your abuser has access to your phone.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE: 1-800-799-7233
It's confidential and you can call anytime to just vent about what's going on and/or ask for guidance. It's completely anonymous.
As someone who works as a sexual assault and IPV advocate in the emergency room, I am also available if you need help; no matter where you are.
☆☆☆☆☆ (5 stars)
"Abuse is not a product of bad relationship dynamics. It is a deliberate choice made by the abuser."
Every woman should read Lundy Bancroft’s illuminating and empowering work, an essential guide for understanding the complex dynamics of abusive relationships. Bancroft, with over two decades of experience working directly with abusive men, offers an insightful and thorough examination of what drives men to control and mistreat their partners. This book is not just an eye-opener but a life-changer, equipping women with the knowledge to recognize, understand, and ultimately break free from abusive situations.
One of the most compelling aspects of Bancroft's book is his detailed exploration of the warning signs of abusive behavior. He meticulously breaks down the various tactics abusers use, such as emotional manipulation, jealousy, and isolation. Through real-life examples and case studies, Bancroft illustrates how these behaviors manifest in everyday life. For instance, he describes a scenario where a man constantly criticizes his partner's appearance and decisions, subtly eroding her self-esteem and independence. These examples resonate deeply, providing readers with a concrete understanding of the insidious nature of abuse.
Moreover, Bancroft doesn’t shy away from addressing the cultural aspects that perpetuate abusive behaviors. He discusses how societal norms and values often excuse or even condone men’s controlling behaviors, reinforcing a cycle of abuse. This cultural critique is crucial, as it situates individual abusive actions within a broader social context, highlighting the need for collective change.
One of the most actionable sections of the book is Bancroft's advice on how to end the culture of abuse. He emphasizes the importance of starting at the grassroots level—within families and communities. Bancroft advocates for friends and family members of abusive men to hold them accountable, making it clear that their behavior is unacceptable. This social accountability is vital for creating an environment where abusers cannot hide behind excuses or societal tolerance.
Additionally, Bancroft challenges the common misconception that therapy alone can reform an abuser. He argues persuasively that traditional therapy often fails because it doesn’t address the underlying need for power and control that drives abusive behavior. Instead, he recommends abuser programs specifically designed to confront and dismantle these harmful patterns. These programs focus on holding abusers accountable for their actions and promoting genuine change, rather than allowing them to manipulate therapeutic environments to their advantage.
Bancroft’s expertise and compassionate voice make him an exceptional narrator. His empathetic yet firm approach ensures that the reader feels both supported and challenged. He speaks directly to women, urging them to trust their instincts and prioritize their safety and well-being. His writing is clear, accessible, and profoundly moving, making complex psychological concepts easy to grasp.
This book is not just a guide; it’s a lifeline. Bancroft’s powerful insights and practical advice can help women recognize the signs of abuse early, understand the deep-seated motivations of abusers, and find the strength to seek help. I recommend this book to every woman and beg them to read it. It’s a crucial resource that can save lives and foster healthier, more respectful relationships.
"Your safety and well-being are more important than any relationship." This motivating reminder from Bancroft encapsulates the book’s empowering message. It’s a call to action for women to value themselves and take the necessary steps to protect their dignity and freedom.
April 3, 2011
Thankfully I don't have much experience working with domestic violence cases, so my five star rating may not be the same as one from an expert would be. Having said that, I took a brief course in domestic violence a few months ago and the instructor referred to this book as her bible. Now that I've read it, I can see why.
This detailed book contains a wealth of practical information on domestic violence. Offering both depth and breadth, this book has the potential to assist victims of domestic violence as well as the individuals positioned to help them, whether they are professionals, family members, or supportive acquaintances.
"Why Does He Do That?" includes sections on the nature of abusive thinking (including a chapter on the many variations of abusive partners from "Mr. Sensitive" to "the Water Torturer" to "Rambo"), how abusive partners function in relationships, how abusive men are viewed by others (hint: it's rare for an abusive individual to seem like "the type," and even therapists are frequently fooled by abusers' presentation), and the process of change for an abuser, the prognosis for which is quite poor, sadly. Bancroft addresses useful questions such as how abuse begins, how to distinguish between normative relationship tension and abuse, and how to determine whether the abuser's apologies and efforts to change are sincere or merely part of the cycle. Finally, he includes a wonderful resource guide for individuals involved with an abusive situation in a variety of capacities.
Reading this book was depressing for me, although I could certainly see it being an empowering experience for someone in an abusive relationship who needs validation. It also made me wonder whether every conflicted couple I've seen was actually experiencing abuse, and whether I was all wrong in my approach to couples therapy (typical couples therapy is actually contraindicated for couples with an abusive partner, as is individual therapy for the abuser). I understand now why some of my colleagues who work in domestic violence have a tendency to see DV everywhere; simply reading this book sensitized me to the frequently camouflaged nature of abuse as well as to the grave danger of not seeing it where it exists.
All in all, an excellent, informative, and helpful book. If you think you may be in an abusive relationship, or if you think someone you know is and want to learn how to help them (and how not to), read this.
This detailed book contains a wealth of practical information on domestic violence. Offering both depth and breadth, this book has the potential to assist victims of domestic violence as well as the individuals positioned to help them, whether they are professionals, family members, or supportive acquaintances.
"Why Does He Do That?" includes sections on the nature of abusive thinking (including a chapter on the many variations of abusive partners from "Mr. Sensitive" to "the Water Torturer" to "Rambo"), how abusive partners function in relationships, how abusive men are viewed by others (hint: it's rare for an abusive individual to seem like "the type," and even therapists are frequently fooled by abusers' presentation), and the process of change for an abuser, the prognosis for which is quite poor, sadly. Bancroft addresses useful questions such as how abuse begins, how to distinguish between normative relationship tension and abuse, and how to determine whether the abuser's apologies and efforts to change are sincere or merely part of the cycle. Finally, he includes a wonderful resource guide for individuals involved with an abusive situation in a variety of capacities.
Reading this book was depressing for me, although I could certainly see it being an empowering experience for someone in an abusive relationship who needs validation. It also made me wonder whether every conflicted couple I've seen was actually experiencing abuse, and whether I was all wrong in my approach to couples therapy (typical couples therapy is actually contraindicated for couples with an abusive partner, as is individual therapy for the abuser). I understand now why some of my colleagues who work in domestic violence have a tendency to see DV everywhere; simply reading this book sensitized me to the frequently camouflaged nature of abuse as well as to the grave danger of not seeing it where it exists.
All in all, an excellent, informative, and helpful book. If you think you may be in an abusive relationship, or if you think someone you know is and want to learn how to help them (and how not to), read this.
May 24, 2014
An interesting read that resonates strongly with some of my own experiences.
The author of this book has experience in running assorted workshops and prison-mandated programs for men who abuse their wives or girlfriends, so a lot of it is anecdotal and casual, and should of course be taken with a grain of salt. The writing style is a little simplistic in places, which makes it feel condescending - despite assertions that the abuse of women by male partners (as an overwhelming majority of domestic abuse is) is a result of cultural attitudes, Bancroft is himself ironically kind of tongue-clucking and paternalistic occasionally.
However, despite its broadly unscientific writing, I think the book actually has some insights really worth thinking about: the focus on the abuser rather than the abused is a really excellent change from many of these sorts of texts - a lot of the time you end up reading about the victims involved and you don't receive any mental pressure to think about the perpetrator. By focusing on the abusers in these relationships, Bancroft places greater value on accountability. (This is something that western culture could probably learn a lot from as a whole. Just sayin'.)
I think it is interesting for having been written by a male-identifying person rather than a woman, which is usually the perspective I have read from when reading about domestic abuse. It was also interesting for me because a lot of the behaviours Bancroft is describing are extremely recognisable.
There is, sadly, only a very small section on same-sex partner abuse. I would like to read more about this sometime just because I feel like in homosexual relationships there should be less emphasis on gendered roles. I would have appreciated reading more about people's experiences with how certain attitudes bred abuse outside of heteronormative society.
The author of this book has experience in running assorted workshops and prison-mandated programs for men who abuse their wives or girlfriends, so a lot of it is anecdotal and casual, and should of course be taken with a grain of salt. The writing style is a little simplistic in places, which makes it feel condescending - despite assertions that the abuse of women by male partners (as an overwhelming majority of domestic abuse is) is a result of cultural attitudes, Bancroft is himself ironically kind of tongue-clucking and paternalistic occasionally.
However, despite its broadly unscientific writing, I think the book actually has some insights really worth thinking about: the focus on the abuser rather than the abused is a really excellent change from many of these sorts of texts - a lot of the time you end up reading about the victims involved and you don't receive any mental pressure to think about the perpetrator. By focusing on the abusers in these relationships, Bancroft places greater value on accountability. (This is something that western culture could probably learn a lot from as a whole. Just sayin'.)
I think it is interesting for having been written by a male-identifying person rather than a woman, which is usually the perspective I have read from when reading about domestic abuse. It was also interesting for me because a lot of the behaviours Bancroft is describing are extremely recognisable.
There is, sadly, only a very small section on same-sex partner abuse. I would like to read more about this sometime just because I feel like in homosexual relationships there should be less emphasis on gendered roles. I would have appreciated reading more about people's experiences with how certain attitudes bred abuse outside of heteronormative society.
April 10, 2026
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “The best of you is the one who is best to his wife, and I am the best of you to my wives.” (Sunan Ibn Majah 1977)
This was a very informative and scary read. I went into this book thinking that abusive men were angry men, but I came out of it knowing that that is not quite the case. Abuse is a mental illness, it is privilege, it is lack of respect, it is pride, it is the inability to sympathize, it is entitlement, it is manipulation, it is coercion.
SubhanAllah. Reading this truly made me love the man my Nabi (peace be upon him) was even more than I do—I love him for his humility, for his kindness, for his empathy. May Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) allow us to be resurrected with the beloved, our Nabi, RasululAllah, Ameen.
I have learnt that abuse stems from “a person’s decision to claim a higher status than another.” I just couldn’t help but think about Islam, about how it emphasizes humility and equality and respect between the brothers and sisters of our Ummah. When you respect someone, you could never hurt them. In fact, Bancroft writes this in the last chapter, and I think my world has been forever changed:
The voice of abuse takes so many different forms. You can hear it each time a child’s dreams are shot down by an adult who thinks he or she knows it all. It rings in the ears of anyone who has ever been ridiculed for crying. It echoes through the mind of each person who has dared to put a name to his or her own mistreatment... How many of us have unknowingly fallen into the hands of haughtiness?
Bancroft was repetitive—especially in the first section—and this does have some self-help aspects tailored for abused women, but the more gripping part for me was understanding the psychological process of men who hurt their wives and children. I never understood it—how can you hurt someone you claim to love?
3.5 rounded up
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “The best of you is the one who is best to his wife, and I am the best of you to my wives.” (Sunan Ibn Majah 1977)
This was a very informative and scary read. I went into this book thinking that abusive men were angry men, but I came out of it knowing that that is not quite the case. Abuse is a mental illness, it is privilege, it is lack of respect, it is pride, it is the inability to sympathize, it is entitlement, it is manipulation, it is coercion.
SubhanAllah. Reading this truly made me love the man my Nabi (peace be upon him) was even more than I do—I love him for his humility, for his kindness, for his empathy. May Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) allow us to be resurrected with the beloved, our Nabi, RasululAllah, Ameen.
I have learnt that abuse stems from “a person’s decision to claim a higher status than another.” I just couldn’t help but think about Islam, about how it emphasizes humility and equality and respect between the brothers and sisters of our Ummah. When you respect someone, you could never hurt them. In fact, Bancroft writes this in the last chapter, and I think my world has been forever changed:
The voice of abuse takes so many different forms. You can hear it each time a child’s dreams are shot down by an adult who thinks he or she knows it all. It rings in the ears of anyone who has ever been ridiculed for crying. It echoes through the mind of each person who has dared to put a name to his or her own mistreatment... How many of us have unknowingly fallen into the hands of haughtiness?
Bancroft was repetitive—especially in the first section—and this does have some self-help aspects tailored for abused women, but the more gripping part for me was understanding the psychological process of men who hurt their wives and children. I never understood it—how can you hurt someone you claim to love?
3.5 rounded up
February 7, 2015
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say something I think is a universal truth, though maybe not a very popular idea: I believe that men, in their general position of greater physical and economic power, are at great risk of abusing that power thereby abusing women, children, elders and all people ‘weaker’ than them. Those of us in potential positions of being abused could do well to recognise some of the abusive behaviours which are common in many in positions of power. In turn, this could aid us all to not let abuse trickle down the chains of hierarchy and spread. It is for this reason that I was curious to read Why Does He Do That? Inside The Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. At the time of writing the book, Lundy Bancroft had spent fifteen years working with angry and controlling men as a counsellor, evaluator and investigator. Bancroft identified many patterns among the men, making abusive behaviour less evasive to pinpoint, as simply recognising that something is actually abuse is difficult for most involved in it.
One of the many useful things I found in Why Does He Do That? was Bancroft’s demystification of several commonly held false beliefs about why men abuse. These ‘myths’ are used by the men, and others, as excuses for their behaviours. Bancroft points out that it is abusers themselves who have so oft repeated these excuses, creating their own mythology within cultures - he also points out that abusers are master manipulators and, in this sense, have manipulated a great many of us. A few of these myths popped out at me as being frequently used as excuses among Muslims; when I shared Bancroft’s list of seventeen myths on Facebook, Muslim friends and acquaintances had had experiences with all of them. So, while I encourage people to read this book to get its full benefit, I will share some of Bancroft’s myth-debunking insights, keeping them correlated to the chronological order he uses in the book:
1. He was abused as a child.
Bancroft uses studies to demonstrate how abusers manipulate or outright lie about childhood abuse in order to garner sympathy for their abusive behaviour. But for me the most compelling argument against this excuse is that when Bancroft corners abusers about this one suggesting, “If you are so in touch with your feelings from your abusive childhood…. You should be less likely to abuse a woman, not more so, from having been through it.” As Bancroft explains, “….he only wants to draw attention to [his childhood abuse] if it’s an excuse to stay the same, not if it’s a reason to change.” Like most other abusers, the majority who use this excuse refuse to use therapeutic measures to heal and discontinue their own abusiveness.
2. He loses control.
In this section, Bancroft demonstrates the many ways that abusers themselves removed the façade of “out of control abuser who doesn’t realize what he’s doing”. For instance, when questioned why the abusers didn’t do certain things, such as leave visible marks or break their own valuable items, or about how they were able to immediately calm down when police arrive, abusers responded that they didn’t want to take things that far as they had something to lose if they did. That is not indicative of being out of control, rather Bancroft and his associates long term work with abusers revealed that abusers are actually extremely calculated in how they emotionally and physically abuse their partners. Control is the primary thing abusers seek by being abusive and they know how to get it.
3. There are as many abusive women as abusive men.
It is unfortunate that I even feel compelled to address this myth, but since it nearly always comes up during conversations about abusive men, I am glad Bancroft addresses it. Part of this overall myth is that men are ashamed to come forward when they are abused by women so their numbers are harder to identify. Bancroft makes several points to correct this flawed reasoning, including “….that women crave dignity just as much as men” and it is often outside interference that brings abuse to light. If there were truly such high numbers of female on male abuse, they would have been brought to light by those same concerned family members, neighbours, police, schools and so on who interfere in male to female abuse.
Another commonly upheld aspect of this myth is that men are responding to verbal abuse with physical abuse, but as author Margaret Atwood has famously been quoted, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Bancroft reminds readers that “....abuse is not a battle that you win by being better at expressing yourself” and that male abusers employ verbal abuse such as sarcasm, insults and threats as part of their overall abuse tactics. Female to male abuse exists, but it is much rarer and has no place in conversations about correcting the prevailing problem of men abusing women as it only derails from the solutions specific to the problem.
4. He is a victim of racism.
As Muslims are often in circumstances to be on the receiving end of racism, Orientalism and Islamophobia, I thought this item needed addressing here. Racism causes a great deal of real stress, but non-abusive men deal with that stress in ways other than abusing. Just like with being on the receiving end of child abuse in issue #1 “…if a man has experienced oppression himself, it could just as easily make him more sympathetic to a woman’s distress…”. Bancroft points out that men of colour were among the first and strongest opponents of abuse of women in the United States. Consider, for example, the former slave Frederick Douglass who was a champion for the suffrage movement.
Ultimately, Bancroft explains the motivations of the abusers: “The reasons that an abusive man gives for his behavior are simply excuses.... beliefs, values, and habits are the driving forces [behind his abuse].”
A man is abusive because he has a warped belief. The abuser believes that the person he is abusing is inferior to him and deserving of a treatment he himself is not. Of course, that is a common belief held by some Muslims, that the ‘degree a man has over a woman’ is one of absolute human superiority. This is plainly known as ‘entitlement’. My belief is that this greater physical and economic power men often have can be a great fitnah for many of us and we should each do our best to fight the abuse of this power, either as exerting or receiving abuse.
In the book, Bancroft says, “If any part of what I describe about abusers doesn’t match your experience, cast it aside and focus on the parts that do fit.” I would suggest that as Muslims with an interest in improving character and behaviour, as well as encouraging improvements and resisting injustices, we all truly could benefit from understanding the roots of abuse and oppression and can find something to relate to or overcome in this book. I by no means want to shame or blame victims of domestic violence; rather, I would like to remind them that Allah (SWT) tells us not to accept abuse to our persons. Accepting abuse is a form of wronging ourselves, as well as enabling or encouraging a culture of abuse:
“And those who, having done an act of indecency, or wronged their own souls, should remember Allah and ask for forgiveness for their sins and who can forgive sins except Allah? And are never stubborn in continuing (and excusing) the wrong they have done. For them, the reward is forgiveness from the Lord and gardens with rivers flowing underneath as an eternal dwelling; how excellent a reward this is for those who work and strive for good.” (Al ‘Imran:135-136)
Why Does He Do That? is an excellent resource for understanding and helping to dismantle abuse, insha Allah. You can also find more articles about domestic violence on the SISTERS website at http://www.sisters-magazine.com/index....
* Brooke Benoit reviewed this book for the August 2014 issue #59 of SISTERS Magazine. Brooke is an artist, SISTERS magazine editor, writer and unschooling mama living in Morocco.
One of the many useful things I found in Why Does He Do That? was Bancroft’s demystification of several commonly held false beliefs about why men abuse. These ‘myths’ are used by the men, and others, as excuses for their behaviours. Bancroft points out that it is abusers themselves who have so oft repeated these excuses, creating their own mythology within cultures - he also points out that abusers are master manipulators and, in this sense, have manipulated a great many of us. A few of these myths popped out at me as being frequently used as excuses among Muslims; when I shared Bancroft’s list of seventeen myths on Facebook, Muslim friends and acquaintances had had experiences with all of them. So, while I encourage people to read this book to get its full benefit, I will share some of Bancroft’s myth-debunking insights, keeping them correlated to the chronological order he uses in the book:
1. He was abused as a child.
Bancroft uses studies to demonstrate how abusers manipulate or outright lie about childhood abuse in order to garner sympathy for their abusive behaviour. But for me the most compelling argument against this excuse is that when Bancroft corners abusers about this one suggesting, “If you are so in touch with your feelings from your abusive childhood…. You should be less likely to abuse a woman, not more so, from having been through it.” As Bancroft explains, “….he only wants to draw attention to [his childhood abuse] if it’s an excuse to stay the same, not if it’s a reason to change.” Like most other abusers, the majority who use this excuse refuse to use therapeutic measures to heal and discontinue their own abusiveness.
2. He loses control.
In this section, Bancroft demonstrates the many ways that abusers themselves removed the façade of “out of control abuser who doesn’t realize what he’s doing”. For instance, when questioned why the abusers didn’t do certain things, such as leave visible marks or break their own valuable items, or about how they were able to immediately calm down when police arrive, abusers responded that they didn’t want to take things that far as they had something to lose if they did. That is not indicative of being out of control, rather Bancroft and his associates long term work with abusers revealed that abusers are actually extremely calculated in how they emotionally and physically abuse their partners. Control is the primary thing abusers seek by being abusive and they know how to get it.
3. There are as many abusive women as abusive men.
It is unfortunate that I even feel compelled to address this myth, but since it nearly always comes up during conversations about abusive men, I am glad Bancroft addresses it. Part of this overall myth is that men are ashamed to come forward when they are abused by women so their numbers are harder to identify. Bancroft makes several points to correct this flawed reasoning, including “….that women crave dignity just as much as men” and it is often outside interference that brings abuse to light. If there were truly such high numbers of female on male abuse, they would have been brought to light by those same concerned family members, neighbours, police, schools and so on who interfere in male to female abuse.
Another commonly upheld aspect of this myth is that men are responding to verbal abuse with physical abuse, but as author Margaret Atwood has famously been quoted, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Bancroft reminds readers that “....abuse is not a battle that you win by being better at expressing yourself” and that male abusers employ verbal abuse such as sarcasm, insults and threats as part of their overall abuse tactics. Female to male abuse exists, but it is much rarer and has no place in conversations about correcting the prevailing problem of men abusing women as it only derails from the solutions specific to the problem.
4. He is a victim of racism.
As Muslims are often in circumstances to be on the receiving end of racism, Orientalism and Islamophobia, I thought this item needed addressing here. Racism causes a great deal of real stress, but non-abusive men deal with that stress in ways other than abusing. Just like with being on the receiving end of child abuse in issue #1 “…if a man has experienced oppression himself, it could just as easily make him more sympathetic to a woman’s distress…”. Bancroft points out that men of colour were among the first and strongest opponents of abuse of women in the United States. Consider, for example, the former slave Frederick Douglass who was a champion for the suffrage movement.
Ultimately, Bancroft explains the motivations of the abusers: “The reasons that an abusive man gives for his behavior are simply excuses.... beliefs, values, and habits are the driving forces [behind his abuse].”
A man is abusive because he has a warped belief. The abuser believes that the person he is abusing is inferior to him and deserving of a treatment he himself is not. Of course, that is a common belief held by some Muslims, that the ‘degree a man has over a woman’ is one of absolute human superiority. This is plainly known as ‘entitlement’. My belief is that this greater physical and economic power men often have can be a great fitnah for many of us and we should each do our best to fight the abuse of this power, either as exerting or receiving abuse.
In the book, Bancroft says, “If any part of what I describe about abusers doesn’t match your experience, cast it aside and focus on the parts that do fit.” I would suggest that as Muslims with an interest in improving character and behaviour, as well as encouraging improvements and resisting injustices, we all truly could benefit from understanding the roots of abuse and oppression and can find something to relate to or overcome in this book. I by no means want to shame or blame victims of domestic violence; rather, I would like to remind them that Allah (SWT) tells us not to accept abuse to our persons. Accepting abuse is a form of wronging ourselves, as well as enabling or encouraging a culture of abuse:
“And those who, having done an act of indecency, or wronged their own souls, should remember Allah and ask for forgiveness for their sins and who can forgive sins except Allah? And are never stubborn in continuing (and excusing) the wrong they have done. For them, the reward is forgiveness from the Lord and gardens with rivers flowing underneath as an eternal dwelling; how excellent a reward this is for those who work and strive for good.” (Al ‘Imran:135-136)
Why Does He Do That? is an excellent resource for understanding and helping to dismantle abuse, insha Allah. You can also find more articles about domestic violence on the SISTERS website at http://www.sisters-magazine.com/index....
* Brooke Benoit reviewed this book for the August 2014 issue #59 of SISTERS Magazine. Brooke is an artist, SISTERS magazine editor, writer and unschooling mama living in Morocco.
February 9, 2021
First off: Domestic Violence Has no Gender so 'He' here can be Substituted with 'She'
I invite all domestic violence victims to read my review. I have lots of say and you can find one of the most reliable messages around this topic right here :)
I have read lots of fiction on domestic abuse. Rarely do people recognise (FOR REAL) that amongst the ones seeking fiction on domestic abuse are interspersed men and women who are really craving for a stepladder method that would lift them out of the abuse that they have been dropped into. So, they are seeking answers, people, not just fiction!
If I have to speak for Indians which only became nationally independent less than a century ago, there are soooo many who would really endure extended periods of thirst and hunger simply to obtain a solution out of this maze. This is how these Indians (includes both men and women alike) are groping about for liberation, their tearless, expressionless, unuttered cries run like this:
"Help me please. Give me ONE ASNWER, just one answer out of this mess!" They fear crying. Why, you ask? Because their cries will be misunderstood or if expressed with the exact reason, stupid hearers will trivialise it by stating, "Don't worry, talk to him, he will understand," or "Go, talk to the police." THIS ABSOLUTELY DOESN'T HELP!
So, if you happen to be someone like that (a man or a woman), you have miles to go and there are many things you need to study to finally discover the truth out of this mess. But jusssst hang in there, and try searching for answers---begin this liberation journey (it's very beautiful believe me! You will connect the dots mucccch later!) Through years of study of people in such scenarios and hardcore personal development, I can honestly say, this book offers a starting point out of this mess. And a very good one at that! You first need to understand why this "abuser" does this. This understanding your family members, friends and relatives, most of whom have never studied this topic in such depth, will lack, and there may have been many times when you struggled for answers in the middle of a sea of questions, trying explicitly hard to keep your nose above the depths, but found not a single one. It's a long long journey dear, but it is so blissful once you climb out of it you will be baffled. Trauma is a bliss but that you can forget for now. Right now, this book is a powerful handbook to show how really how much you misunderstood the misgivings laid against you. There is a another's mess that you are colliding against. Take it easy on yourself as you read along this novel and apply, which is enormously well-written and well-researched. You have to understand why this person does what he/she does, then carefully seek to apply the solutions provided alongside at the end of each chapter. Every chapter is short, concise and written in simple English, with a workable solution provided at the end. To check the credibility of the author, I must tell you this author is extremely reputed in the field of domestic violence----
You can even attain a personal appointment with him---check out his website.
I am certain this book will guide you!
Next---trust me when I say, trauma is bliss! :) I am not joking! You are being shown a doorway towards truth because you material world is no longer making sense! That's besides the point in this review but a relevant message that tags along with this topic!
I invite all domestic violence victims to read my review. I have lots of say and you can find one of the most reliable messages around this topic right here :)
I have read lots of fiction on domestic abuse. Rarely do people recognise (FOR REAL) that amongst the ones seeking fiction on domestic abuse are interspersed men and women who are really craving for a stepladder method that would lift them out of the abuse that they have been dropped into. So, they are seeking answers, people, not just fiction!
If I have to speak for Indians which only became nationally independent less than a century ago, there are soooo many who would really endure extended periods of thirst and hunger simply to obtain a solution out of this maze. This is how these Indians (includes both men and women alike) are groping about for liberation, their tearless, expressionless, unuttered cries run like this:
"Help me please. Give me ONE ASNWER, just one answer out of this mess!" They fear crying. Why, you ask? Because their cries will be misunderstood or if expressed with the exact reason, stupid hearers will trivialise it by stating, "Don't worry, talk to him, he will understand," or "Go, talk to the police." THIS ABSOLUTELY DOESN'T HELP!
So, if you happen to be someone like that (a man or a woman), you have miles to go and there are many things you need to study to finally discover the truth out of this mess. But jusssst hang in there, and try searching for answers---begin this liberation journey (it's very beautiful believe me! You will connect the dots mucccch later!) Through years of study of people in such scenarios and hardcore personal development, I can honestly say, this book offers a starting point out of this mess. And a very good one at that! You first need to understand why this "abuser" does this. This understanding your family members, friends and relatives, most of whom have never studied this topic in such depth, will lack, and there may have been many times when you struggled for answers in the middle of a sea of questions, trying explicitly hard to keep your nose above the depths, but found not a single one. It's a long long journey dear, but it is so blissful once you climb out of it you will be baffled. Trauma is a bliss but that you can forget for now. Right now, this book is a powerful handbook to show how really how much you misunderstood the misgivings laid against you. There is a another's mess that you are colliding against. Take it easy on yourself as you read along this novel and apply, which is enormously well-written and well-researched. You have to understand why this person does what he/she does, then carefully seek to apply the solutions provided alongside at the end of each chapter. Every chapter is short, concise and written in simple English, with a workable solution provided at the end. To check the credibility of the author, I must tell you this author is extremely reputed in the field of domestic violence----
You can even attain a personal appointment with him---check out his website.
I am certain this book will guide you!
Next---trust me when I say, trauma is bliss! :) I am not joking! You are being shown a doorway towards truth because you material world is no longer making sense! That's besides the point in this review but a relevant message that tags along with this topic!
September 3, 2021
3.75/5 vì mình khó tính :))
Tuy phạm vi đề cập của sách là trong hôn nhân, nhưng mình thấy những bài học của sách có thể áp dụng được với các mối quan hệ (miễn là nó toxic), như quan hệ giữa cha mẹ-con cái, hay bạn bè, v.v...
Đây là một cuốn non-fiction nên đọc để tìm hiểu về bạo hành, bao gồm cả bạo hành tâm lý lẫn bạo hành thể chất. Bạo hành tâm lý trước giờ vẫn bị coi nhẹ, nhưng hậu quả của nó thậm chí còn tệ hơn cả việc dùng vũ lực. Vì khi bị đánh đập, các vết thương chính là bằng chứng rõ ràng nhất cho thấy nạn nhân bị hại. Còn với thao túng tâm lý, các vết thương không nhìn được, sờ được. Chỉ có nạn nhân mới lờ mờ cảm nhận được. Nói chung cuốn này phù hợp cho những ai đã và đang ở trong một mối quan hệ abusive.
Cái hay của sách:
1. Định nghĩa về bạo hành, đi kèm danh sách những hành vi nhận dạng kẻ-bạo-hành.
2. Bóc trần những lời biện hộ phổ biến của kẻ bạo hành. Một lời biện hộ kinh điển là "bởi vì anh ghen ghen mà, vì anh yêu thôi thôi mà. Bởi vì anh quá yêu em, quá yêu emmm", nhưng thực chất là kiểm soát đối phương thông qua việc cấm họ giao du với bất kỳ ai, kể cả bạn bè (cùng giới và khác giới).
3. Tác giả cũng lên án việc lãng mạn hoá sự bạo hành trong phim truyện, bởi nó tiếp tay cho những nhận định sai lầm. Một kịch bản điển hình (nhưng vẫn luôn được đón nhận) đấy là một chàng trai có tâm tính hiền lành chỉ bị che giấu dưới vẻ ngoài hung hăng và anh ta có thể được CẢM HOÁ BẰNG TÌNH YÊU. Chỉ trong phim truyện thôi, chứ ngoài đời thì mơ đi em ei.
4. Nội dung comprehensive khi nhắc đến cả nạn bạo hành trong những mối quan hệ đồng tính, các dos and don'ts cho người ngoài cuộc để iúp đỡ nạn nhân bạo hành, v.v...
Lý do mình chỉ chấm 3.75:
1. Cách viết kiểu sách giáo khoa: Rất bổ ích nhưng hơi khô khan, lại có nhiều thuật ngữ. Khổ nhất là nhiều thuật ngữ mình hiểu trong tiếng Anh, nhưng lúc được dịch ra tiếng Việt nó...lạ thật sự. Nhưng đây là đặc thù của thể loại sách này rồi, khó tránh được.
2. Đôi ba chỗ sai về mặt thông tin, nhưng ko phải kiến thức chuyên môn nên vẫn tạm bỏ qua được. Ví dụ, khi dẫn chứng về vai trò của tôn giáo trong việc trao quyền cho kẻ bạo hành nam, tác giả nói: "kinh Phật dạy phụ nữ phải phục tùng đàn ông vô điều kiện". Oh no no no, what happened to chúng sanh bình đẳng :)))
Xem thêm review video tại: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m8zH...
Tuy phạm vi đề cập của sách là trong hôn nhân, nhưng mình thấy những bài học của sách có thể áp dụng được với các mối quan hệ (miễn là nó toxic), như quan hệ giữa cha mẹ-con cái, hay bạn bè, v.v...
Đây là một cuốn non-fiction nên đọc để tìm hiểu về bạo hành, bao gồm cả bạo hành tâm lý lẫn bạo hành thể chất. Bạo hành tâm lý trước giờ vẫn bị coi nhẹ, nhưng hậu quả của nó thậm chí còn tệ hơn cả việc dùng vũ lực. Vì khi bị đánh đập, các vết thương chính là bằng chứng rõ ràng nhất cho thấy nạn nhân bị hại. Còn với thao túng tâm lý, các vết thương không nhìn được, sờ được. Chỉ có nạn nhân mới lờ mờ cảm nhận được. Nói chung cuốn này phù hợp cho những ai đã và đang ở trong một mối quan hệ abusive.
Cái hay của sách:
1. Định nghĩa về bạo hành, đi kèm danh sách những hành vi nhận dạng kẻ-bạo-hành.
2. Bóc trần những lời biện hộ phổ biến của kẻ bạo hành. Một lời biện hộ kinh điển là "bởi vì anh ghen ghen mà, vì anh yêu thôi thôi mà. Bởi vì anh quá yêu em, quá yêu emmm", nhưng thực chất là kiểm soát đối phương thông qua việc cấm họ giao du với bất kỳ ai, kể cả bạn bè (cùng giới và khác giới).
3. Tác giả cũng lên án việc lãng mạn hoá sự bạo hành trong phim truyện, bởi nó tiếp tay cho những nhận định sai lầm. Một kịch bản điển hình (nhưng vẫn luôn được đón nhận) đấy là một chàng trai có tâm tính hiền lành chỉ bị che giấu dưới vẻ ngoài hung hăng và anh ta có thể được CẢM HOÁ BẰNG TÌNH YÊU. Chỉ trong phim truyện thôi, chứ ngoài đời thì mơ đi em ei.
4. Nội dung comprehensive khi nhắc đến cả nạn bạo hành trong những mối quan hệ đồng tính, các dos and don'ts cho người ngoài cuộc để iúp đỡ nạn nhân bạo hành, v.v...
Lý do mình chỉ chấm 3.75:
1. Cách viết kiểu sách giáo khoa: Rất bổ ích nhưng hơi khô khan, lại có nhiều thuật ngữ. Khổ nhất là nhiều thuật ngữ mình hiểu trong tiếng Anh, nhưng lúc được dịch ra tiếng Việt nó...lạ thật sự. Nhưng đây là đặc thù của thể loại sách này rồi, khó tránh được.
2. Đôi ba chỗ sai về mặt thông tin, nhưng ko phải kiến thức chuyên môn nên vẫn tạm bỏ qua được. Ví dụ, khi dẫn chứng về vai trò của tôn giáo trong việc trao quyền cho kẻ bạo hành nam, tác giả nói: "kinh Phật dạy phụ nữ phải phục tùng đàn ông vô điều kiện". Oh no no no, what happened to chúng sanh bình đẳng :)))
Xem thêm review video tại: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m8zH...
March 16, 2012
This book is about abusive men.The author worked for many years as a counselor/therapist with abusive men, and he put everything down that he's learned about them and I'm pretty convinced he has unravelled the mystery of these sort of guys - which really isn't that much of a mystery, as it turns out they all behave in pretty predictable patterns.
I never would have read this book (or even made it past the first chapter) if there wasn't someone close to me who is getting out of an abusive relationship. She's been married almost 20 years, they've both been very active members of the LDS church (married in the temple) and he was even the well liked scout master in the ward when he was first arrested last fall. She doesn't live anywhere near me and I'm limited in what I can do to help her. I can, however, sort through every book on abuse my library has and send her the best ones to read herself. This book was by far my favorite.
There's only a handful of books that I feel shifted my perspective and opened my eyes to something I'd previously ignored. I put this book in that category. For example, I used to think I really understood abusive relationships, and that I never could have been in one because I'm way too smart to ever put up with anything like that. Then I started reading the author's descriptions of the main categories of abusers, and found that he was describing in eerie perfection two guys (best friends) from my freshman ward at BYU who I was pretty close to. One played the victim card, and made your heart break for him because of his rough childhood. The other was "Mr. Right", always lavishing you with attention and gifts and his all knowing spiritually, but wanted total submission and focus on him once he began a dating relationship.
I always thought these two guys were a little off, but everyone in our ward kind of loved them for their quirkiness, I guess. After hearing the author describe the two of them down to even phrases I remember them using, I thought about what I knew of their lives since we parted ways a decade ago. One was arrested a year or two ago for flying to Utah to meet a 14 year old girl for sex. (He was married and finishing up law school at the time.) The other brought a girl to the states from Korea, where he had baptized her while serving a mission. After about five years of marriage and multiple visits to their home from police on domestic violence calls, they finally divorced. The last I heard he was dating a 19 year old boy, which fits in with his desire to be older and in control of his partner, whether male or female. So yep, the author pegged them for what they were, and I didn't even recognize the signs until more than ten years later. Could I have been dumb enough to marry an abusive man? Probably. Why are teenagers allowed to even date, let alone decide to get married? They are so dumb, like I was.
I also feel I've gained a much broader view of abuse in our society. I'm noticing things that never would have crossed my mind before. I've been watching that new show by Steven Spielburg, SMASH, on Monday nights. Honestly, it drew me in initially because it was all about a broadway musical and had interesting plot lines and blah blah, but now it's occurred to me that it's just a trashy soap opera done by more famous people than the daytime soaps. If you've been watching it you've seen Deborah Messing's character (the writer of the play with a bad case of writer's block) come back into contact with a man she'd had an affair with (which she regrets) five years earlier. He keeps pressuring her to see him alone, and she's told him at least a dozen times over the last few episodes to leave her alone. He showed up at her home one night while her husband was out of town and while she tried to make him leave, he forced his way in and ended up having dinner with her and her teenage son. She refuses to talk to him at the studio and he threatens to cause a scene if she doesn't. He calls her at home and talks to her husband as if they are friends, and she takes the phone and again demands that he never call or text her at home with her family. He asks her to meet him at the studio that night, and she says no again. Finally, she decides to go after all, intent on telling him once and for all that it is over, and to leave her and her family alone.
Well, guess what happens when she gets to the studio? She tries again to tell him to leave her alone, but she is so overcome with her desire for him that they end up sleeping together on one of the set couches. The next day at rehearsal they are smiling and flirting with each other, and poof! Her writer's block is finally gone and she finishes the play.
So, WHAT?! According to this story line, when a woman tells a man she isn't interested in him, it just means he needs to try harder. Go to her house. If she won't let you in, shove the door open and let yourself in. Call her at home. Follow her everywhere. In the end, she will fall passionately into your arms and sleep with you. You know better than her what she wants anyway - she's just saying no because that's what women do. She really wants you. See? If you just persist long enough she'll give in and you'll both be happy, and everything in her life will be better for doing what you wanted her to do. That is what some men imagine is happening in their mind, but in reality when a woman tells you to take a hike, she actually means it.
I never would have thought much about the message this sends to young boys before, but now I do. What sort of society do we live in that this kind of entertainment is on prime time TV and no one objects? What's the next step - does the woman say no a hundred times until her rapes her, and then she's happy and successful? It's really not that far of a leap.
Dang it. I always like to think that everyone else is happy and content and loving in their own homes. I now can't pretend that anymore - not even about the family that looks perfect. I also have to stop subconciously judging women in bad relationships, assuming that they did something dumb that put themselves in them in the first place.
I don't know if this would be the most interesting read if you didn't have a specific abusive man in your life that you wanted to learn more about, but it turned out to be one of the most fascinating and eye opening books I've read in a long time.
I never would have read this book (or even made it past the first chapter) if there wasn't someone close to me who is getting out of an abusive relationship. She's been married almost 20 years, they've both been very active members of the LDS church (married in the temple) and he was even the well liked scout master in the ward when he was first arrested last fall. She doesn't live anywhere near me and I'm limited in what I can do to help her. I can, however, sort through every book on abuse my library has and send her the best ones to read herself. This book was by far my favorite.
There's only a handful of books that I feel shifted my perspective and opened my eyes to something I'd previously ignored. I put this book in that category. For example, I used to think I really understood abusive relationships, and that I never could have been in one because I'm way too smart to ever put up with anything like that. Then I started reading the author's descriptions of the main categories of abusers, and found that he was describing in eerie perfection two guys (best friends) from my freshman ward at BYU who I was pretty close to. One played the victim card, and made your heart break for him because of his rough childhood. The other was "Mr. Right", always lavishing you with attention and gifts and his all knowing spiritually, but wanted total submission and focus on him once he began a dating relationship.
I always thought these two guys were a little off, but everyone in our ward kind of loved them for their quirkiness, I guess. After hearing the author describe the two of them down to even phrases I remember them using, I thought about what I knew of their lives since we parted ways a decade ago. One was arrested a year or two ago for flying to Utah to meet a 14 year old girl for sex. (He was married and finishing up law school at the time.) The other brought a girl to the states from Korea, where he had baptized her while serving a mission. After about five years of marriage and multiple visits to their home from police on domestic violence calls, they finally divorced. The last I heard he was dating a 19 year old boy, which fits in with his desire to be older and in control of his partner, whether male or female. So yep, the author pegged them for what they were, and I didn't even recognize the signs until more than ten years later. Could I have been dumb enough to marry an abusive man? Probably. Why are teenagers allowed to even date, let alone decide to get married? They are so dumb, like I was.
I also feel I've gained a much broader view of abuse in our society. I'm noticing things that never would have crossed my mind before. I've been watching that new show by Steven Spielburg, SMASH, on Monday nights. Honestly, it drew me in initially because it was all about a broadway musical and had interesting plot lines and blah blah, but now it's occurred to me that it's just a trashy soap opera done by more famous people than the daytime soaps. If you've been watching it you've seen Deborah Messing's character (the writer of the play with a bad case of writer's block) come back into contact with a man she'd had an affair with (which she regrets) five years earlier. He keeps pressuring her to see him alone, and she's told him at least a dozen times over the last few episodes to leave her alone. He showed up at her home one night while her husband was out of town and while she tried to make him leave, he forced his way in and ended up having dinner with her and her teenage son. She refuses to talk to him at the studio and he threatens to cause a scene if she doesn't. He calls her at home and talks to her husband as if they are friends, and she takes the phone and again demands that he never call or text her at home with her family. He asks her to meet him at the studio that night, and she says no again. Finally, she decides to go after all, intent on telling him once and for all that it is over, and to leave her and her family alone.
Well, guess what happens when she gets to the studio? She tries again to tell him to leave her alone, but she is so overcome with her desire for him that they end up sleeping together on one of the set couches. The next day at rehearsal they are smiling and flirting with each other, and poof! Her writer's block is finally gone and she finishes the play.
So, WHAT?! According to this story line, when a woman tells a man she isn't interested in him, it just means he needs to try harder. Go to her house. If she won't let you in, shove the door open and let yourself in. Call her at home. Follow her everywhere. In the end, she will fall passionately into your arms and sleep with you. You know better than her what she wants anyway - she's just saying no because that's what women do. She really wants you. See? If you just persist long enough she'll give in and you'll both be happy, and everything in her life will be better for doing what you wanted her to do. That is what some men imagine is happening in their mind, but in reality when a woman tells you to take a hike, she actually means it.
I never would have thought much about the message this sends to young boys before, but now I do. What sort of society do we live in that this kind of entertainment is on prime time TV and no one objects? What's the next step - does the woman say no a hundred times until her rapes her, and then she's happy and successful? It's really not that far of a leap.
Dang it. I always like to think that everyone else is happy and content and loving in their own homes. I now can't pretend that anymore - not even about the family that looks perfect. I also have to stop subconciously judging women in bad relationships, assuming that they did something dumb that put themselves in them in the first place.
I don't know if this would be the most interesting read if you didn't have a specific abusive man in your life that you wanted to learn more about, but it turned out to be one of the most fascinating and eye opening books I've read in a long time.
March 10, 2021
Sievietes, izlasiet! Lūdzu, lūdzu.
Pat, ja jūs pašas esat mīlošās un cieņpilnās attiecībās, tas nenozīmē, ka jūsu draudzene/māsa/mamma/kolēģe vai paziņa arī tādās ir.
Mēs varam iemācīties atpazīt vardarbību, un mums kā sabiedrībai ir jādara viss, lai mainītos izpratne par vardarbību ģimenē. Autors vairākkārt uzsver, ka palikt neitrālam faktiski nozīmē nostāties varmākas pusē. Taču palīdzēt arī ir jāmāk pareizi.
Īsāk sakot, lūdzu, izlasiet.
Pat, ja jūs pašas esat mīlošās un cieņpilnās attiecībās, tas nenozīmē, ka jūsu draudzene/māsa/mamma/kolēģe vai paziņa arī tādās ir.
Mēs varam iemācīties atpazīt vardarbību, un mums kā sabiedrībai ir jādara viss, lai mainītos izpratne par vardarbību ģimenē. Autors vairākkārt uzsver, ka palikt neitrālam faktiski nozīmē nostāties varmākas pusē. Taču palīdzēt arī ir jāmāk pareizi.
Īsāk sakot, lūdzu, izlasiet.
January 8, 2024
This book is really informative. I can only imagine how many people would avoid/leave abusive relationships sooner had they come across this information earlier. With that being said, it rubs me the wrong way how Bancroft perpetuates the misconception that men cannot be abused by women. Here's what he says on the matter in Chapter 2:
Male victims of female perpetrated abuse are rare because men are less likely to report their abuse. There are not many resources for male abuse victims, including men’s shelters. Law enforcement don’t take male victims of female perpetrated abuse seriously. In fact, the woman can easily claim self defense and because society views men as inherently aggressive and stronger than women, the man risks being punished if he asks for help.
Bancroft goes on to say in the same chapter:
Ultimately, I think this book is very helpful for people to recognize, avoid, and advocate against abuse in all its forms. I caution readers to be critical of Bancroft's sexist take on female perpetrated domestic violence. Instead of validating that men can and do get abused emotionally, verbally, physically, and sexually by women, he asserts that it doesn't occur because he's never seen it. That's really shitty in a book that's supposed to be a resource for ALL victims of abuse.
“But do we see men whose self-esteem is gradually destroyed through this process? Do we see men whose progress in school or in their careers grinds to a halt because of the constant criticism and undermining? Where are the men whose partners are forcing them to have unwanted sex? Where are the men who are fleeing to shelters in fear for their lives? How about the ones who try to get to a phone to call for help, but the women block their way or cut the line? The reason we don’t generally see these men is simple: They’re rare.The series of questions posed in this paragraph completely invalidate the very real occurrence of female perpetrated domestic violence. It's flabbergasting how the author makes it seem like because he hasn't personally witnessed certain things in his 15 years of experience, they must not be happening. Most men being abused by a woman don’t even identify it as abuse because of societal stereotypes that women can’t be abusive; they feel emasculated to admit it, and that effects how men process and speak about abuse.
I don’t question how embarrassing it would be for a man to come forward and admit that a woman is abusing him. But don’t underestimate how humiliated a woman feels when she reveals abuse; women crave dignity just as much as men do. If shame stopped people from coming forward, no one would tell. Even if abused men didn’t want to come forward, they would have been discovered by now.”
Male victims of female perpetrated abuse are rare because men are less likely to report their abuse. There are not many resources for male abuse victims, including men’s shelters. Law enforcement don’t take male victims of female perpetrated abuse seriously. In fact, the woman can easily claim self defense and because society views men as inherently aggressive and stronger than women, the man risks being punished if he asks for help.
Bancroft goes on to say in the same chapter:
“I am often asked whether physical aggression by women toward men, such as a slap in the face, is abuse. The answer is: “It depends.” Men typically experience women’s shoves or slaps as annoying and infuriating rather than intimidating, so the long-term emotional effects are less damaging. It is rare to find a man who has gradually lost his freedom or self-esteem because of a woman’s aggressiveness. I object to any form of physical aggression in relationships except for what is truly essential for self-defense, but I reserve the word abuse for situations of control or intimidation.So essentially he's saying he doesn't consider a woman hitting a man to be abuse because, according to him, men don't find a woman's physical aggression to be intimidating or to have long-term damaging effects. Either this man has never met a single male victim of female perpetrated violence or he's a flagrant liar. All it takes is a simple google search for articles (which I'm sure Bancroft has access to because he's an academic) or YouTube search for videos of male DV victims detailing how their female partners inflicted physical violence upon them, leaving them frightened, hurt/maimed, emasculated, and traumatized.
Ultimately, I think this book is very helpful for people to recognize, avoid, and advocate against abuse in all its forms. I caution readers to be critical of Bancroft's sexist take on female perpetrated domestic violence. Instead of validating that men can and do get abused emotionally, verbally, physically, and sexually by women, he asserts that it doesn't occur because he's never seen it. That's really shitty in a book that's supposed to be a resource for ALL victims of abuse.
July 6, 2014
I think this book should be required reading for everyone. Even if you are not an abuse survivor or know an abuse survivor (you probably do), Bancroft does an amazing job of breaking down the abusive mindset and explaining why it's unlikely they will change.
I was enraged by a lot of things in this book (the chapters on the effects of spousal abuse on children and abused women dealing with the legal system were particularly difficult for me to read) but it made me realize that if I'm that angry about how things are, I need to do something to change things. The final chapter is full of tips on how to help do that.
One thing that really struck me from this book is that abuse is a microcosm of oppression--what the abuser does is the same thing oppressors do, only on a smaller scale. That means his book has real implications for anyone involved in any kind of social justice movement.
So, go read it.
I was enraged by a lot of things in this book (the chapters on the effects of spousal abuse on children and abused women dealing with the legal system were particularly difficult for me to read) but it made me realize that if I'm that angry about how things are, I need to do something to change things. The final chapter is full of tips on how to help do that.
One thing that really struck me from this book is that abuse is a microcosm of oppression--what the abuser does is the same thing oppressors do, only on a smaller scale. That means his book has real implications for anyone involved in any kind of social justice movement.
So, go read it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,368 reviews