We talk a lot about the danger of dark alleys, but the truth is that in every country around the world the home is the most dangerous place for a woman. Of the 87,000 women killed globally in 2017, more than a third (30,000) were killed by an intimate partner, and another 20,000 by a family member.[1] In Australia, a country of almost 25 million, one woman a week is killed by a man she’s been intimate with.[2] These statistics tell us something that’s almost impossible to grapple with: it’s not the monster lurking in the dark women should fear, but the men they fall in love with.

— Jess Hill

[1]: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Global Study on Homicide: Gender-related killing of women and girls, Vienna: UNODC, 2018.
[2]: Willow Bryant & Samantha Bricknall, Homicide in Australia 2012–2014: National Homicide Monitoring Program report, Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2017.

Among domestic violence researchers, there has been, for decades, heated debate about whether or not abuse is a gendered phenomenon. Statistically, there are far more women in need of support in fleeing situations of domestic violence than there are men. However, studies that measure the use of interpersonal violence (emotional and physical) find that people of all genders tend to use violence against their partners at almost identical rates.

— Lee Shevek

Intimate authoriarianism in practice

There are many more people who see forms of structural authoritarianism (ex: fascism, neoliberalism, capitalism) as justified than there are people who manage to use that ideology to bolster their own power, and the same is true for intimate authoritarianism. Not everyone who believes intimate authoritarianism is justifiable ends up becoming an abuser in the same way that not everyone who believes using harm to gain and maintain power and control over an employee, tenant, or prisoner is justifiable ends up becoming a boss, landlord, or cop. Rather, ==the ideology of authoritarianism proliferates throughout all social groups in such a way that some gain authority through it, others remain complicit with that authority in ways that bolster their own power and status to varying degrees, and still others are made the primary victims of that power and have their agency constrained, reduced, and co-opted by those who wield the power of...

An understanding of domestic abuse can sharpen one’s political analysis of violence and authoritarianism in other forms.

Domestic abuse may be as old as intimacy, but we only really started to understand it after the first women’s refuges opened in the 1970s. When women in their thousands fled to these makeshift shelters, they weren’t just complaining about black eyes and raging tempers. They told stories of unfathomable cruelty and violence, and what sounded like orchestrated campaigns of control. It became clear that, although each woman’s story was individual, the overarching narratives were uncannily alike. As one shelter worker said at the time, "It got so I could finish a woman’s story halfway through it. There was this absolutely eerie feeling that these guys were sitting together and deciding what to say and do."

Now, after almost ten years and much intense counselling, Rob and Deb are happily married, and both counsel domestic abuse victims and perpetrators: Deb in private practice, and Rob more informally, with abusive men who seek him out for advice. ==Deb says one thing stands out about...

People who recognise some but not all of these techniques may either be with an abuser who isn't seeking total domination, or are living through the early stages of coercive control, regardless of how long the relationship already is.

The drama triangle is a model of destructive power dynamics in conflicted relationships proposed by Stephen Karpman in 1968. The psychiatrist developed it to understand power dynamics in conflicted relationships. It is a tool in psychotherapy, specifically transactional analysis. The triangle of actors in this drama are persecutors, victims and rescuers. These roles interplay dynamically in the drama triangle, with individuals often transitioning between them unconsciously, leading to repetitive patterns of conflict and disempowerment.

• The PERSECUTOR role in the drama triangle involves blaming, criticising, or controlling others, often to gain a sense of power or superiority.
• The RESCUER role in the drama triangle will put others' needs over their own often to feel good about themselves, to feel a sense of self-worth or validation through helping or saving others.
• The VICTIM role in the drama triangle typically feels oppressed, powerless, or helpless, and often seeks...