A study conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies has found that 35% of Australian men aged 18-65 admit to having used intimate partner violence in their lifetime, a figure significantly greater than the 24% of men who admitted to the same crime in 2013-2014.
In a recently published study, the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFA) asked a sample of 26,000 men two questions in order to determine whether the participants had been violent towards their partners in their lifetime. They defined intimate partner violence as “Any behaviour within an intimate relationship (including current or past marriages, domestic partnerships or dates) that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm”, and asked the following questions to determine whether the participants’ behaviour would fit within their chosen definition:
- Have you ever behaved in a manner that has made a partner feel frightened or anxious? (emotional abuse)
- Have you ever hit, slapped, kicked or otherwise physically hurt a partner when you were angry? (physical violence)
Of the 26,000 men responding to the questionnaire, 32% reported having made a partner feel frightened or anxious at some point in their lifetime, meaning that emotional abuse was the most commonly perpetrated form of intimate partner violence. Contrastingly, 9% of participants admitted to ever harming an intimate partner physically.
These figures combine to form the worrying statistic that 35% of Australian men admit to abusing an intimate partner in their lifetime.
These figures, however, only portray the number of men who were both willing to participate in the study, and willing to answer honestly about how they have treated their partners. The actual number of abuse perpetrators will likely be different, as abusing a partner is not something that most people would be willing to admit to.
Although the findings are alarming and illuminate a serious societal concern, they do not confirm that men are unconditionally doomed to abuse their partners forever. The study found that, under certain conditions, men were significantly less likely to be violent towards their intimate partners.
Men who reported having an affectionate relationship with their fathers were less likely to admit to abusing their partners. In fact, the more strongly men agreed that they had received affection from a father or father figure, the less likely they were to report using intimate partner violence. Participants who strongly agreed that they received affection from a father or father figure during childhood were 48% less likely to ever use intimate partner violence when compared to men who strongly disagreed with this statement.
Additionally, men who felt that they were well supported socially were less likely to report exhibiting abusive behaviour. Compared to men with less social support, men with the highest levels of social support were 26% less likely to admit to being violent towards an intimate partner.
While the figures in this study are deeply unsettling, there is hope.
The findings of this study can be used to provide guidelines on how we can combat societal concerns, such as intimate partner abuse. If fathers nurture deeper emotional bonds with their sons, and if men begin to support each other in ways that foster connection rather than isolation, the cycle of intimate partner abuse can be interrupted.
The path ahead is an obvious one. Men must take it upon themselves to foster healthier relationships with one another, relationships where they are able to connect emotionally and support one another. At the same time, we must teach the next generations of boys what healthy masculinity looks like, equipping them with the tools to break the harmful cycle before it begins. Only then can we create a future where intimate partner violence is an anomaly instead of an inevitability.
