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When considering the recent case of Bill Walker one cannot help but be frustrated at the parliamentary loophole which allowed someone convicted of domestic abuse, on no fewer than 24 charges, to retain their status as an MSP and continue to draw a wage from the public purse. The message from the sheriff in addressing Mr Walker that part of the evidence did not constitute a criminal offence also disappointed those of us for whom domestic abuse is a campaigning focus and rightly an issue of the utmost societal importance.
As Margo MacDonald pointed out on the BBC Scotland news, however, we must let the law run its due course and refrain from knee-jerk reaction.
Ms Donaldson highlighted the prevalence of domestic abuse rates of almost 60,000 annually reported incidents to support her argument – shocking figures indeed. It is important for the Scottish Review’s readership to be aware, however, that in 2011-2012, of 59,847 reported incidents, 10,245 were male victims (of which around 9,500 were female-perpetrated) and 2,477 had no gender recorded.
Men experiencing domestic abuse can be caught in a double bind – the fabled stoicism of the Scottish male preventing many from seeking help to escape the trap of coercive control and miserable existence. The fear that, if they leave, their children will remain in the care of an abusive parent is very real for many fathers as the public story powerfully marginalises them from apparently universal services.
Let us ponder the nature of our universal services and consider whether there is something intrinsic in the Scottish male psyche that prevents male victims from seeking help. The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (2010-11) indicates that as many as 257,000 men in Scotland over the age of 16 had experienced domestic abuse as well as 403,000 women. These figures should give us all pause for thought. The public story appears to be a particularly misleading story or at the very least certainly not the whole story.
While some may bemoan the Scottish man and his unwillingness to seek help it behoves others to consider the services they provide and to question how open they are to men and how much consideration they give to accessibility to all. What is equality after all, if not a recognition and respect of difference?
As Ms Donaldson points out, domestic abuse is a public matter and we should all consider our prejudices and gendered thinking on this subject. Institutionally it is hardly surprising that male victims remain largely invisible when the dominant analysis insists that this form of abuse is the manifestation of inherent male privilege and the subordinate role of women in society. While this may be true in many horrifying and shameful circumstances, it is an inadequate explanation for many others. Is it right that we dismissively blame men’s reticence to seek help on their innate characteristics when domestic abuse services are framed as violence against women services across the vast majority of the country?
With such unambiguous terminology it is hardly surprising that a man will not pick up the phone and ask for help. Are we progressive enough as a nation to recognise that a problem as ingrained as domestic abuse is multi-factoral and requires us all to be able to hold otherwise contradictory views? To abhor men’s violence against women while recognising that many women are also capable of violence and abuse? To recognise that an elderly man in Orkney may be vulnerable, as well as strong, and may have vulnerabilities unique to his setting compared to a young man in a housing estate in Glasgow?
Domestic abuse is evidently not a uni-causal phenomenon and to frame it as such is disingenuous. Progressive policy in a modern country must embrace evidence and welcome debate and discordant views, no matter how counter-intuitive they may be. What we know, as has been incontrovertibly proven in the recent academic review written by Brian Dempsey of Dundee University (www.amis.org.uk), is that significant numbers of men in Scotland are victims of abuse. We also know that services as they are currently provided are not meeting the needs of men. The impact on society of this dearth of provision is profound and hints at the possibility that gender inequality is something that impacts on men as well as women. This is a reality that our young democracy must tackle in order to evolve into a modern grown-up country.
Nick Smithers is the national development officer for AMIS (Abused Men in Scotland)
