Dr Phil and Domestic Violence: Only Women Can Be Abuse Victims
There’s a new article on www.Shrink4Men.com that explores a recent episode of the Dr Phil Show in which Dr Phil refuses to acknowledge the fact that men can be the victims of abuse, too. The couple featured on the show are in a mutually abusive relationship. The wife freely admits to physically assaulting her husband and destroying his property. Instead of holding her accountable, Dr Phil minimizes her violent behavior by calling it a relationship issue while simultaneously condemning the husband for his abusive behavior.
Here’s the link:
Dr Phil and Domestic Violence: He Just Doesn’t Get It
Kind Regards,
Dr Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD
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His show started out pretty good in his first season but it quickly turned into another show like all the other family shock drama shows. It’s tawdry entertainment masquerading as therapy.
Thanks for pointing out yet another example of the imbalanced perspective our society promotes against men in relationships, even from supposed mental health care professionals.
The reason Dr Phil does this is quite simple. His audience is over 70% Female. It is hard enough to get people in general to admit that abusive females exist. It is even harder to get some women to see this. Add to that he knows that if he did he could well turn off his core audience it comes down to economics. Lower ratings mean lower ad rates which means less revenue. He may well even know that this is a solid fact (that female abusers exist). But him, Oprah & the rest all rely on this audience to keep the shows going, the books selling & the money coming in. We can say well he is a doctor & needs to expose this but he would be a Dr without a T V show. Sad but true.
What BS this is.
If a woman hits me, it’s a relationship issue.
If I hit a woman, I’m an “abuser” and go straight to jail.
That’s exactly why I’ve never called the cops any of the 3 times my wife has hit me.
A couple of years ago on Thanksgiving night my wife smacked me across the face in our driveway while I was holding my infant son.
That was the third time she had hit me and hasn’t since, but one of the other times was when I was holding my daughter. I wouldn’t let go of her when she was trying to take her to leave after an argument we had, so she smacked me and probably would have hurt our daughter trying to pry her from my arms if I hadn’t let go.
The worst part is I’ve told several people about it and it just gets blown off!
Last night she said I was “acting like an asshole” in front of our kids(daughter,5 and son, 2). When I called her on it, she said she didn’t call me an asshole, she said I was “acting like an asshole”.
What’s the fucking difference?! Especially when you say it in front of your kids.