Talking to the enemy: men who batter

I didn't know that I was a violent person, but I was. Thanks to getting arrested, I've learned that there are many other ways of looking at the violence we perpetrate without realizing it. We had a fight out on the street. There were witnesses. My wife would never have reported it, but there were witnesses who went to the police - naturally. It had to do with jealousy, and the argument got more and more heated. I insulted her, and in an outburst of anger I banged my head against hers. She started crying and bleeding, and sat down on the sidewalk. The police showed up with a person to assist battered women. And suddenly a light went on, as if a veil had been lifted, about what kind of life I was leading. I think it helped my wife too, because I think she was in the process of seeing all that violence as something normal, acceptable in a marriage."

"I insulted her, and in an outburst of anger I banged my head against hers"

"Violent people like us must accept that there are no excuses for violence"

Pablo, a 43-year-old Madrid man and the father of two children with the woman he attacked, ended up in court. He's one of those men who, following the judge's ruling, have attended the therapy sessions organized by the Aspacia Association. Its mission is to eradicate violence, protect its victims and promote equality in relationships (www.asociacion-aspacia.org).

"Violent people like us must accept that there are no excuses for violence. You spend months trying to justify yourself, but there is no justification. It's got nothing to do with my wife's behavior or a history [of violence] in the family. I was a person who, when I started fighting with my wife, would even punch the wall. I didn't see it as violence, but now I see what it was; it was the step before physical violence. You don't take that step because the other person humbles herself, and doesn't stand up to you." Pablo continues: "I think you get there out of fear... It's as if a virus infects the way that you are; little by little you get used to behaving in that violent or fearful way. You fall into a vicious circle, you forgive yourself again and you delude yourself, and the circle connecting an outbreak of violence and forgiveness gets smaller and smaller."

This case challenges all the stereotypes that still exist about domestic violence: that it always involves alcohol, ignorance, immigrants, lower classes or broken homes. No. It starts out with a breeding ground of excessive tolerance characterized by two codes of conduct: violence in general (which is seen as attractive in a man, as something brave and masculine) and gender inequality. At the tip of this iceberg are the cases that have the biggest impact on us, in the form of murders. Last year, 73 women died as a result of domestic violence. In 2009 there were 55 such deaths, 76 in 2008; 71 in 2007; 69 in 2006. In other words, 344 women have been murdered in the last five years by their boyfriends, partners, husbands, ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends. In the first two months of 2011, 12 women have already lost their lives. Pablo's testimony, recorded by José Antonio Rodríguez Amado as part of a project for Aspacia, is revealing:

"My wife is a very independent person, a journalist, and I tried to impose my decisions on her. There came a time, in the first year of marriage, when I was afraid of losing her; that the business wouldn't go well; that I wouldn't have any money; that I wouldn't be man enough... and all those stereotypes that get into our heads. We started arguing more and more, as if we were fighting for power. It would even bother me if she asked me a question. I'd reply violently; I couldn't think of any other way other than confrontation. She tried to talk to me many times. But I'd withdraw into myself: I'd refuse my wife the right to speak! I was such a coward that I saw everything as an attack on me." Pablo admits that he had all kinds of hang-ups: "That I was going to go bald; that I wouldn't have as much money as other people; and that I wouldn't be good enough in bed. She was really successful at her job. And yes, now I realize that that bothered me. There were criticisms from her, but logical ones. She was only trying to motivate me, but I saw them as attacks. I was so egotistical that I'd just say to myself: 'Why did I have to end up with this woman?'

"The fight happened on the street. I got arrested and they took me into the police station. I spent a night in jail and the trial was the next day. That night I realized that I had to change. The judge issued a restraining order, sentenced me to six months in prison and the minimum in damages (100 euros), because I'd given her a bloody nose. He also ruled that I had to do this psychological rehabilitation. When I got out of jail and went home, people treated me as if I were the victim. They said to me: this law is terrible; it's an outrage. My friends even said to me: women ask for it."

He realized that to be bad, stupid and scared is very easy, but that being a good person is hard; it takes a lot of work, day in day out. "I used to say to myself: 'What a pain my wife is; she's making life impossible for me.' You delude yourself so much that you see everything backwards. Even her mother said to her: 'You're a real pain with your husband.' It's incredible!"

For Pablo, the hardest part is learning how to take criticism without lashing out: "Even now, one year after therapy, 50 percent of the people who are in therapy with me still make excuses for what they did. Fifty percent! Just imagine... Changing takes a lot of hard work, time and effort. There's no magic formula that makes you say: 'Okay, I'm not going to be violent any more'." Now he exercises every day, does a lot of reading at night and keeps a journal to help him relax. "But all that is just superficial. The most profound change is never letting myself make a single excuse. That takes a lot of hard work; you can't let your guard down for a minute. That's the shitty thing about what you might call low-intensity domestic violence: women have less support; society accepts that men are violent."

Every three months, around 32,000 cases of domestic violence are reported in Spain. In 2010, 26 percent of these ended up in suspended sentences. This means the men have been found guilty, but instead of being sent to prison, they've been forced to do rehabilitation therapy. Andrés Quinteros, who runs the family and social violence division at Aspacia, has worked with batterers in Argentina, Chile, Brazil and now Spain. He helps us understand the problem: "The first step is to get them to recognize the violence that they perpetrate. Hitting someone can never be justified. If you think that your wife is a pain, there are other ways to react, but never with violence; never by humiliating her. Relationships can be difficult, of course, but the way to deal with those conflicts can never be based on inequality or violence. Conflict is worlds apart from domination and abuse. Domestic violence is a pervasive problem and has to do with the way masculinity and femininity are constructed. Then there are other aggravating factors such as the financial crisis, alcohol, unemployment... But those factors in themselves don't explain the violence; they just precipitate it. The problem is that in order to feel like men, they don't want to have a woman by their side; they want her below them."

Psychologist Ana Escobar, in charge of Aspacia's gender violence and equality division (she works with the victims, while Andrés handles the batterers), helps complete the picture: "They all try to play down what has happened and put the blame on the women. They're textbook excuses: they've been pushed to the limit, they've been provoked, it was just a push... It's the only crime where the victim becomes a suspect; they're held accountable in every case. Even if they don't report it, it's thrown back in their face, as we can sometimes see in the news. They've also internalized their role to such an extent that, even if they have suffered serious damage, they justify their abuser; and to be consistent with that exoneration they confess their love for them... There is no single profile of a battered woman, but there are types of behavior that repeat themselves: low self-esteem and the acceptance of certain submissive roles. They're drawn to that relationship of dependence. Therapy is fundamental in order to reconstruct these women's own skills and abilities. Reinforcing their self-esteem is essential."

And she continues by criticizing the obsessive tally of murders in the media, which hides other problems: "But there are so many women who are dead in life...! It's not fair to focus just on that figure. There is way too much tolerance of men who are aggressive, and in that breeding ground, women are vulnerable. It's not about protecting women, but about putting an end to these chauvinist patterns, to these roles of inequality. We mustn't see this as a battle between two sides, but as something that all men and women should be involved in; because it's not just about the women who get killed. There is a lot of micro-chauvinism, a lot of violence that is still accepted."

On another one of the Aspacia recordings we hear the testimony of Christopher, a 29-year-old Polish man who has lived in Spain for the last decade. He is married to a Polish woman, with whom he has two children, and works in construction: "It wasn't 'battering-battering'. I was drunk. It was nighttime. We were at my brother-in-law's house. I got into an argument with her brother. We left. Outside, my wife and I had a fight. I pushed her. But I didn't hit her or anything. Some lady saw it and called the police. They came and asked my wife what had happened. She didn't want to press charges or anything. We're still together. Now I look at things differently, I've changed a lot. They arrested me and took me to the station. I was drunk. I wasn't really aware of what was happening. I had a drinking problem. She didn't want me to drink, but I couldn't quit. And lots of problems started out with that. We argued all the time. We'd scream at each other. Not anymore."

Christopher quit drinking two years ago. Since, then, he says, his life has changed 100 percent. "I don't have any more money problems; everything gets worked out much more easily. My life was a disaster. There wasn't any physical abuse, but there has been psychological abuse, because I drank, and she really had a hard time. Now I tell her I'm sorry, that I want to make up for lost time. I tell her that I'm living my second life. My childhood in the orphanage, the years when I drank, and now this. I've been in treatment for a year now. I think it's really positive. You learn to talk, to listen; how to deal with people. Some might see these as small things, but I see that they're really important in life. Now I've got patience; I listen. I don't lash out. I've finally left all of that behind."

A question for Andrés Quinteros: critics of the 2004 gender violence law point to last year's 73 mortal victims, 30 percent more than in 2009, to knock down everything the Socialist government has done in the past five years. Are they right? "In the last 15 years, there has been an evolution in Spain, especially in terms of awareness of the problem, and informing and protecting the victims. We're starting to see cultural and social changes, like a rejection of batterers." But, as Quinteros points out, you can't change overnight something that's been there for centuries, something as deep-rooted as cultural patterns. "In the United States, anti-child abuse policy has started to produce results 35 years after it was introduced. Education and prevention are the cornerstones."

And does this rehabilitation therapy really work? "A report is drawn up at the end. So far, the result is that approximately 50 to 60 percent have met the objectives; 30 percent quit treatment, and in 20 percent of the cases, no progress was made." Therapy used to be done in groups or one-on-one, but now - due to the lack of resources - the new protocol stipulates six months of group therapy, in one session a week. "To be honest," Quinteros confesses, "in six months it's very hard to change anything. That's usually only enough to get them to admit what has happened." He also thinks that there is a lot of emphasis on the psycho-educational side, on social skills and empathy: "We should start on new alternative forms of working with masculinity."

For those who have been sentenced to prison, the situation is different. According to Alfredo Ruiz, from the department of Penitentiary Institutions that coordinates treatment for inmates, last autumn there was a total of 6,517 men doing time for domestic violence. For those who are sent to prison, treatment is voluntary (for those who are not it is mandatory, because their jail sentence is commuted in exchange for this type of therapy). Around 750 men participate each year in one-year programs, with one three-hour session a week. According to Ruiz, "50 percent of those surveyed think that the result has been very positive. But it's very hard to assess how much progress we've made. What we're interested in is preventing them from reoffending, and 10 percent end up back in jail for crimes related to domestic violence. But we haven't done this long enough to really measure."

The Canadians and the British were the pioneers in this type of therapy, but now Spain is one of the most advanced countries Ruiz explains. "Anyone, any age, nationality, with any educational or professional level, can be a batterer. In the first few sessions, we always deal with denial, excuses and self-justification: it was alcohol; I lost it; all I did was push her; my wife was always trying to provoke me... They play down the importance of it. They blame it on the law, saying that it's an unfair law that discriminates against men, that they're here because they had a female judge instead of a male one, etc." Ruiz says these men are often incapable of identifying emotions. When asked to describe their emotional state with their partners, they can only describe two or three, the most basic ones: "anger, happiness when they fell in love, and that's about it."

"They are men with a cultural reference based on imposition, on 'because I say so'," says Miguel Lorente Acosta, the government delegate for gender violence. "The typical batterer, in the vast majority of cases, only beats his wife. They aren't violent people who cause problems at work or in society, although they do have certain behavioral traits in common: for instance, they're frauds at the beginning of their relationships, with a hypermasculine conduct, and once the crime is committed they tend to play it down. They play down the intensity of the attack or blame the woman. They don't see it as violence; they see it as a family thing, a domestic affair... They have an unequal relationship with their partner; if someone disagrees with them, they see it as an attack against their status." He continues: "This isn't an exercise in how to control rage; it's based on gender inequality. The batterer never starts out on the same level as his partner. Not that relationships must be a bed of roses; it's a question of resolving conflicts without attacking. Often the batterer is the one who provokes the conflict, so he can unload."

Lorente goes on to explain that these violent men have a long-term strategy: "The woman becomes objectified; she is something that belongs to the abuser. He develops that sense of possession over many years, and both parties end up with a distorted picture of reality. The women develop peculiar survival mechanisms, similar to the ones seen in concentration camps: they cling to routine, their days go by without feeling any emotions, they live on autopilot so they don't have to stop and think."