Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

Season 6 Episode 20: Shame, Love & the Truth About Male Violence

• Ruth Reymundo Mandel & David Mandel • Season 6 • Episode 20

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The conversation opens with end-of-the-year reflections and personal milestones—international book releases, masterclasses, collaborations, and community work—and quickly moves to a timely, thorny question: Can we talk honestly about male violence without “shaming” men? We take a stand for courage, honesty, and clarity using global data, real cases, and practical frameworks to show how accountability, truth about behaviors and their impact, and compassion can live side by side. Our goal isn’t to score points; it’s to keep families safer, support children’s well-being, and help men find a way back into healthy connection.

We share insights from research in Australia, including applications of the Safe & Together Model in child and family services and in Aboriginal-led settings. That work underscores a core theme: organize around shared values, not shared trauma. We explain why labels and decontextual tags fail families and why pattern-based, contextual practice—mapping behaviors, impacts, and risk—succeeds. Along the way, we address restorative justice and carceral responses with nuance: Both can help or harm depending on how they’re used, and some people do require firm containment. The standard remains constant—what increases survivor safety, improves children’s stability, and creates the strongest opportunities for behavior change.

We also unpack the “shame” debate with care. Shame is a human emotion; the task is to guide it into inclusive responsibility, not silence the conversation. The facts are clear: Men are disproportionately perpetrators of serious violence, and boys growing up amid coercive control learn dangerous scripts about loss and power. Naming this is not man-bashing—it’s a necessary move toward balance, health, and prevention. We close with a story of loving confrontation that strengthened a father-child bond, offering a model for how accountability can deepen connection rather than destroy it.

If this resonates, subscribe and share the episode with someone who cares about safer families, effective practice, and honest conversations. Leave a review to help others find the show, and tell us: what does accountable love look like in your community?

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Ruth Reymundo:

And we're back.

David Mandel :

And we're back. Hello. Hi, good morning. Good morning. We are sitting and having our first conversation podcast episode in a long time.

Ruth Reymundo:

We are. And actually, we're doing it in a somewhat new location. Not really. Not really. In my office in the house.

David Mandel :

You've been a tooper for the year. On a futon. You've been a trooper for years where you've been actually in the common space for a long time, and now you've got your own office.

Ruth Reymundo:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good.

David Mandel :

And um very good. All my art is in here. We're surrounded by my artist. So you are joining us for our one of our maybe one of our end-of-year episodes for Partner with Survivor for 2025. I'm David Mandel, CEO and founder of the Safe and Tether Institute. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Ruth Reymundo:

And I'm Ruth Reymundo Mandel, and I am the Chief Business Development Officer and Co-owner.

David Mandel :

And we are joining you from very cold, very cold Masako Tunksis Land. And Ruth is uh is in rebellion this morning.

Ruth Reymundo:

My body is in rebellion.

David Mandel :

Rebellion. But we are on uh it's cold, there's snow on the ground. Um and I know some of you who never see snow want to see snow. And it is beautiful.

Ruth Reymundo:

But it's not just snow, it's chunks of ice. Sometimes the river gets so icy that there's like ice castles in the river and amazing formations. And they're beautiful.

David Mandel :

But it is cold.

Ruth Reymundo:

Yes, extremely cold.

David Mandel :

And for bodies that don't like cold, it's hard. And so we're on the Tunxus Mosako land, and just want to acknowledge the uh indigenous owners and any elders, past, present, emerging who are listening in on this episode. And so we're gonna do this in two parts. Um we're gonna discuss sort of some of the highlights of 2025.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm.

David Mandel :

And then dive into a topic that's been on my mind a lot lately. And I'm not even gonna tell you what it is.

Ruth Reymundo:

Well, I'll be curious to know what your highlights are and what my highlights are, because I think that we might have different highlights, but you go first. I want to hear your highlights.

David Mandel :

Oh my God. All right. You know, I um I guess the obvious ones are that uh my book was published, Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers, How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence was released this year in both Dutch and Japanese.

Ruth Reymundo:

Yeah.

David Mandel :

And um so the Dutch version, I just was over there in the Netherlands for the first time. It was wonderful. The people were amazing, um, the being in Amsterdam was amazing. And I did three days of master classes around the book for different audiences, family law, child protection, and domestic abuse sector. Then I did this event um which had 850 people, normally like 400, and everybody got a copy of the book. Um, and so the book sold out of its first run of a thousand in the Netherlands, and they're printing another thousand.

Ruth Reymundo:

That's great.

David Mandel :

So, anyway, these are just uh I for me it's a little bit boggling and amazing, and I'm honored, and I got to give a copy of my book to uh um the mayor of a small town in in in the Netherlands who's standing up for women, making herself accessible, and uh says email me. You know, she's fighting femicide. Uh gave her a copy of the book, was on the dais with survivors, uh with other professionals who are leaders in the Netherlands, and that's amazing. And then you and I are going to Japan in March.

Ruth Reymundo:

That's that's in 2026. That's cheating. That's cheating. You actually have to just do 2026. You can't be forward-looking. So sorry.

David Mandel :

All right, all right. So it's your turn.

Ruth Reymundo:

So I would have to say that, you know, it's it's been a really amazing year underpinned by a tremendous amount of changes in political and funding environments and questions about how frontline services are going to be delivered, and in engaging with a lot of people around that question, around collaboration for how they're going to continue to deliver really domestic abuse-informed care has been actually an interesting highlight of my year. Talking to people about how they're pivoting, talking to them about their concerns, uh, talking to them about the challenges that they have, particularly if they're engaged with Latino and migrant populations in the United States. Um my highlight has actually been spending more time in my hometown in California and Santa Rosa, um, especially in connection with the land and with the intertribal council there. And um really healing and reconnecting in those type of uh land-based and and my hometown-based relationships, that has been a real healing thing for me. And that that is part of the work. That may not be safe and together work, but it is actually part of the work. Tending to our relationships, healing our trauma, reconnecting with others and hearing their ideas and solutions and struggles. To me, is the most beautiful thing about doing this work. And the other piece of that, which kind of fits with that, um, was I was felt really honored and really grateful to contribute to Alabama AM's uh you know, seminar conference on AI and social work technology. And I know that there's just a few of these starting to pop up around the world, around the globe, and I see them happening where people are very concerned about how technology is gonna deepen the harms and impacts of biases of systems that are already very biased, that are already doing deep harm in very specific communities. And I loved being a part of that collaboration and uh, you know, thank you for the invitation to Alabama AM and their School of Social Work, and to uh uh Dr. Lasharia Turner and to um also to Helen Feischel. You know, really grateful to them for their invitation and for all of the work that that they're doing to try to make people more safe in the context of this evolving world. And I love I love that. I love I love being in those spaces where there's a tremendous amount of deep listening and creativity happening because we are all very challenged by the edges of innovation, by the edges of change that we're not we're not in control of. So really just those those are my highlights. Very different than yours. Uh and I just I love that that collaboration around the the globe is is growing because that's what we need.

David Mandel :

You know, it's it's um I love listening to talk about community and connection and healing and relationships. And for me, um that showed up this year in research projects we did in in Australia, where we actually looked at the application of the model in child and family settings in New South Wales, and also um about to get the results of uh the application of the model in Aboriginal settings. We partnered with the University of Melbourne, uh Ministry of Health in New South Wales and two um well, Mendon Katungle, two amazing Aboriginal controlled organizations, health organizations, to see about how the the model applies in those Aboriginal-led spaces. And so for me, that that exchange, that that kind of discussion, that learning together is is is my version of what you're talking about, so being in community, being connection, being in dialogue. Um and one of the best compliments I think I've gotten from a researcher is uh this is out of a researcher in Scotland actually, so this is in a different setting, saying in researching the model, they they s they said, Well, you're one of the best examples of being flexible and adaptive to uh context, to location and culture while keeping track of the core of what the model is. And I think to me, that's such a beautiful compliment because it's it's mirrors this idea that there is something uh important to express and protect in the model. And at the same time, we need to be in dialogue. And I I've been this is my entire career. When I would train people directly to be consultants using the model, I'd say there's an art and a science. I said the science is when when you when you can do it right or wrong. If you don't talk about perpetrators' patterns, you're not doing it right. But how you do that, how you do that is going to be different than how I do that. And so for me, there's a through line from that individual coaching I did to this larger work we're doing now, which is how do you hold on to both the art and the science? How do you hold on to the specificity of the model, the innovations, and then at the same time be in dialogue. Be in dialogue with Australia, with Aboriginal context, with uh with same-sex communities, with I mean, you know, sort of how do you really speak to women's use of violence against male or female partners in a way that honors the model itself.

Ruth Reymundo:

Right. So it's it's it's it's so important. I think of the the I went I was in New Orleans this year and I was presenting at a conference. Um, and it was the um family therapy conference. So there's a lot of foster care providers there. And I went, of course, I went to a couple art studios because I had to, and one of them was the 11th Ward Mural uh project that's preserved, but it was there was there was written on the wall, and there's no author, so I don't know who to attribute this to. Written on the wall in this huge warehouse was this sentence, and it hit me like very deeply in my body. Like when I when I experience things that feel like truth, it's like that old saying, you know, you feel it in your bones. I feel it in my bones, like I feel it inside my body. And it said, organize around your values, your common values, not your common trauma. And I think that in this industry, it is very easy for us to center trauma because we have to, because it is it is what is being caused, it is what we're trying to to articulate and of and to uh avoid or to support, right? But that belief of organizing around one's common values is so powerful, and I really do feel like when you created the model, that's what you did. You didn't center the trauma or the conflict piece of it. You centered the the things that would nourish and create a better outcome and a better reality. And that's about values, that's about our core values. So I really wanna, I really want people to start noticing as you walk through the world of advocacy and you walk through the world where people are claiming to defend other people's rights, are they organizing around common values or are they organizing around trauma? And not to say that we don't need both of those things, because we do. I'm not saying that we don't need both of those things, but at least for me and for my advocacy and for my way of being in the world, I am much more attracted to people who organize around common values that we can all agree upon and then achieve those common values in a variety of ways because we are all individuals. There's no black and white answers here. There's no one size fits all, there's no one definition that rules them all. And in fact, that attitude itself, and I'm gonna pause there, that belief system itself is dangerous and lends itself to coercion and to abuse of other perspectives. And I can say that I think feeling it in my bones, because I'm a person who has that history in me, right? It comes it comes with my family. I don't know. It's just in me. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

David Mandel :

You know, I I I love so much of what you're saying, and it actually gives a natural pivot, I think, to the second half of the topic that we talked about talking about. But I I do think that w it reflects this idea that the model has grown globally, the safety of the model has grown globally through attraction, not through promotion. It's it's been people have wanted it and chosen to engage in it. Right.

Ruth Reymundo:

It's more like here's how we support better things to happen.

David Mandel :

And so I I I'm gonna introduce the second half topic with a story and and then I'll kind of say what this has been about for me lately. Um When I did work, so many of you know that I started my work um working with domestic violence perpetrators, running groups for them, most almost all exclusively male. And I would sit with these men and talk to them. They'd been arrested, most of them, but not all of them, and I would talk to them about their behavior. And for me, the measure of success was could I engage them in a way that made their partner safer? Um, that improved their partner's self-determination, more freedom and quality of life. That was the the benchmark foundational marker of that work. And it was a response to the reality that this person sitting in front of me had chosen to be violent, whatever their background, and many of them come from backgrounds where they've been abused themselves and grown up in abuse, and so I see that as well. And they were hurting other people and continued to, as adults, to choose that, engage in that. And it felt important to be able to talk to them about that because one, they were harming other people, including their partners and children. And I had a deep and still do, deep abiding belief that their violence harmed them as well. And I know sometimes we only see the harm done to others, which makes sense, or the benefits that men accrue from violence or control. Totally understand that. And for me, sitting with them, I would hold both things, and I would see that and believe that if you're afraid of being lost, of losing somebody, I mean if you're afraid of your partner leaving you because maybe what you experienced as a kid, wherever it came from, and then you use violence and control to manage your fear. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Ruth Reymundo:

It's a poor strategy.

David Mandel :

It's a awfully poor strategy because what it does is actually create the conditions of greater insecurity. Of loss.

Ruth Reymundo:

Well, yeah. You break somebody's trust.

David Mandel :

That's right.

Ruth Reymundo:

You demean them, you give them trauma, you you you take away their liberty. That's right. And then you're gonna you're not that person is not gonna want to be called.

David Mandel :

If you're living inside your story, then you see that distance between you and them as proof that you were right, and it accelerates your can accelerate your abuse and control. And you feel more justified. You go deeper into that dysfunctional story, that justification. So I would sit with men.

Ruth Reymundo:

And there's a lot of self-abuse happening there.

David Mandel :

And a lot of self-abuse happening. And I would sit with those men, and I, even if he didn't see it, I would try to speak to his highest self-interest and see that there was a benefit to him if he could stop his abuse and control. Right. Okay. Yeah. And and that's really that's really where my my roots are in this way, right? This is where and why is this relevant to it? Because I haven't done that work in I don't know what I've done.

Ruth Reymundo:

Well, some of but so some people some people would would say, you know, okay, great, his highest and best good. What does that mean? Because a lot of people's frameworks is simply punishment and and and within the systems that we've created, within the carceral systems, prison. Right. Legal punishment. That's their only reference and framework. So so how how do you deal with that empathy when you have that perspective that's very truncated by that?

David Mandel :

I don't, you know, I don't know the answer to that, actually. I'll tell you what what's been bugging me lately.

Ruth Reymundo:

Yeah.

David Mandel :

And maybe it you know, maybe we can connect the dots between what you just said and and and and what's been bugging me lately. Because this is was one of those episodes you came to me and said, What do you want to talk about? And I go, I want to talk about the fact that I feel like every time somebody wants to talk about men's violence, that they are getting accused right now of shaming men.

Ruth Reymundo:

Right.

David Mandel :

And that that that discussions about men and boys often get prefaced with, well, I don't want to shame men. I don't want men and boys to feel shamed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Ruth Reymundo:

And and and and and what I want to say is You know, I'm just gonna can we stop for a second? Can we stop for a second on the premise that men and boys feeling shame is a bad thing? Shame is something that people feel. Shame is something people feel for all sorts of reasons, and we should all be curious how we can support people when they're feeling shame. Rather than them shutting down, lashing out, being violent. We may know that men are more violent and resistance when they feel. Shame and we should be curious about that. Right.

David Mandel :

But I think it's it's this. Right, this is exactly this sort of my my fear or worry or my response to sort of this reflexive, don't shame men and boys. You're gonna shame men and boys. We shouldn't do that. And we know the conversation is much more one-on-one level nuanced. If you listen to people in in restorative justice fields, right, which is not the carceral approach you're talking about. They're talking about how do you engage in healing and restoration and creating wholeness versus punishment for the sake of punishment. Right. They would talk about inclusive or exclusive shame. And the goal of restorative justice would be inclusive shaming. The idea is you're still part of our family, you're still part of our community. What you're describing with that carcel approach is you're outside the bounds. You're you're no longer one of us.

Ruth Reymundo:

Well, hey, so so so let's let's just hold on a second, because there's a lot of belief that that each of these camps is like the restorative justice people are like, uh, you know, this type of group accountability is perfect and wonderful. I don't believe that. And then and then there's the, you know, all all carceral punishment is wrong. I don't believe that either. I get that. I'm just gonna say I'm gonna say that I'm always gonna be consistent in not landing in either camps.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Ruth Reymundo:

Because what for me, I'm always asking the question of what doesn't dehumanize the person but brings about containment for violent people because there truly are violent people who need to be contained.

David Mandel :

Right.

Ruth Reymundo:

There there are truly psychopaths.

David Mandel :

Right.

Ruth Reymundo:

And I've met them, and they cannot be contained unless you contain them. I agree. Unless you create a boundary round. And then and then there are there are communal ways that that restorative justice process gets weaponized against victims in communal settings, and that is real.

David Mandel :

Yes.

Ruth Reymundo:

That is real.

David Mandel :

Oh, we've seen that. I've I've talked to people who are not going to be able to do that.

Ruth Reymundo:

When you are in a rural setting, that's right, and you're you are people know each other, they're related, they're related, the family has power, and you're in that communal justice setting and they get to determine what the justice is, you are. Yep. I'm not going to use a curse word, but you understand what I'm saying.

David Mandel :

Trevor Burrus, Jr. So I agree with you. I mean, I used to say my way of saying it was domestic violence perpetrators are a heterogeneous group in terms of their behavior patterns and also their ability for being rehabilitated. Now I think that section that they can't be engaged in rehabilitated is actually quite small relative to the larger group. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Ruth Reymundo:

We don't know yet because we don't assume that we're not going to be able to do that.

David Mandel :

But but but that that that but we have to hold that place for exactly what you said that some folks need containment and and and need that external uh whether it's incarceration or something else, or it's a or it's a it's electronic bracelet or something. But but I'll tell you something that just so within this, so what what disturbs me is when people are not courageous and fearless in this conversation about accusing people who want to talk about male violence against men and women, that that that we're somehow by talking about it, we're simply shaming them. And and I and I I feel the um I have to say the defensiveness in that position of those people, the misdirection, the gaslighting. I recently read something that said that was really in the context of of of how men are getting the short end of the stick about conversation around violence. And they said, well, the majority of of homicide victims are male. Which is absolutely true. Globally, it's eighty one percent, in Australia it's sixty nine percent. You know, these are numbers I've been looking at. I think this is, you know, isn't isn't talked about in the domestic violence community, and I'll explain why in a minute, why I think that is. But when we look at homicides globally, men are the the biggest portion of victims. Victims, okay. So so I want people to hear that, and that's a real concern when we come to the same thing.

Ruth Reymundo:

Men are deeply impacted by violence.

David Mandel :

By violence, by men's health, and and this has that's homicide. We can make that not homicide.

Ruth Reymundo:

We can extend that out to suicide as well.

David Mandel :

Right, exactly. These are real things. But this same article would not, did not say that the vast majority of the perpetrators are men. Are men.

Ruth Reymundo:

That's an inconvenient context.

David Mandel :

Globally, it's 95 percent. This is the the the the the U.N. criminal justice stats. Yeah. 95 percent of perpetrators of homicide are male. In Australia, it's 87 percent. Yeah. And and and so I'm gonna talk about domestic abuse in in a second, but but I just to me, these are simple facts that we all can agree on. And somebody once said, I don't know if it was Mark Twain or somebody else, there's somebody famous quote that I'm probably getting wrong, which is you you're entitled to your own opinions but not to your own facts.

Ruth Reymundo:

Like and so and in the age of the internet where a simple Google search could tell you who the vast majority of violent crime victims and perpetrators are, we always come back to the same place.

David Mandel :

Right. Men. Right. And so and so when we get down to women as victims of of homicide, the the the the women are are predominantly much more likely to be victims of domestic abuse. Of partners, or interim partners or ex-partners, and men are more likely to be victims of of strangers or acquaintances. Right. And and that women pr four out of five, I think the numbers are again in Australia, their homicide perpetrators are male. So whether we're talking about the murder of women or the murder of men, the the the unquestionable gender, uh predominant gender is male.

Ruth Reymundo:

If we're talking about the largest cost, both social, cultural, governmental, for intervening in violence, for maintaining violence, and for dealing with the health implications of violence, we always come back to men.

David Mandel :

And this is just to be super clear, this is widely disproportionate to men's uh ratio of men and to women in the population, right? Which is about 50-50.

Ruth Reymundo:

Right.

David Mandel :

You know, close to that. And so we have this much greater percentage of men perpetrating violence. Which which again, so if you're uncomfortable, this is where I want to lean in. And I feel this so strongly. If this is making you feel uncomfortable, if this is making you feel like you're unbashing men, then what I'd ask you to do is take a breath, take a beat. And why sit with your discomfort.

Ruth Reymundo:

And why is it making you uncomfortable?

David Mandel :

And if you feel like somehow talking about this is shaming of men, again, ask yourself why are these simple facts now, these are hard facts, these are disturbing facts, these are facts that need to be seen and looked at.

Ruth Reymundo:

And talked about.

David Mandel :

And as a and and again, I feel like, you know, this is where I come in. I'm saying this as a man, and I'm saying this as a man who's uh had a great relationship with his dad, has a has a wonderful relationship with his brother, has long-term 40-year-old, you know, 40 years of friendship with with men. Yeah. I talk to my male friends on the on the uh on the phone every day, sometimes, and I I uh you know You guys have a men's group. I have a men's group that I've been part of. Right. You know, that I think that that I've been accused of being a traitor to somehow men, or not loving men, or not caring about men. And why I started with a story that even when I work with men who are violent, I cared about them. And so this is about care.

Ruth Reymundo:

Men who want to continue to be violent will feel not cared for when you point out that male violence is a problem. It's that simple.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Ruth Reymundo:

It's really not hard. And in the day and age of information that is easily and readily accessible, global crime statistics, it is so basic and gaslighting for men to tell us that men are not impacting male health and male safety and male mental well-being and male stability, and to tell us we can't talk about how men are impacting men.

David Mandel :

Or we're shaming them.

Ruth Reymundo:

Or we're shaming them. That is, and I'm gonna say this as a woman and as cranky survivor, that is absolutely an emotional reaction, not grounded in reality, and shows a tremendous amount of desire to gaslight and control the space.

David Mandel :

And so for me, uh what I'm looking for, when I because I I believe there are and I know, like I I support and promote work like Matt Brown's work and Sarah Brown's work, you know, the inner boy work, you know, She Is Not Your Rehab, where Matt and Sarah they talk with deep feeling and caring about men's trauma.

Ruth Reymundo:

Right. Or Jack and Lisa Bowlman and also men's responsibility for their behavior.

David Mandel :

We talked um, you know, we talked on the podcast the other day, you know, with interview um where we were talking about fathers and and responsible fatherhood and and the importance of that. It's in the conversations I was talking to somebody online on LinkedIn about who was talking about men and shame and the need to sort of not shame men and I and uh and and I really engage, you know, when people are open to engage them, I really engage and said, what's the language that you use to to h you know address men's violence and not shame them? And he gave me language that was sort of that starts with, you're responsible for your behavior.

Ruth Reymundo:

Right.

David Mandel :

And the next line is, and there's help for you.

Ruth Reymundo:

Yeah.

David Mandel :

You can do better. And and it's not for me, it's not until we get to that like if if if you cannot talk about violence, if you all you talk about is not shaming men, but you don't have the courage or the knowledge or the confidence. I mean, I don't know what it is.

Ruth Reymundo:

Maybe people don't have the willingness. Or the willingness because quite frankly, uh a lot of people believe that masculinity requires force. It requires dominance and it requires violence. And they don't want to be quote unquote shamed for something that they consider is innate, that they don't have control over, and they've been told by people they don't have control over it, even by people who claim to be feminists.

unknown:

Right.

Ruth Reymundo:

They say that it's a biological, natural imperative that men are violent and then they endlessly keep us in this cycle of violence because they say men can't change and they don't want to invest in it either. And that, hello, feminists, I'm looking at you, that is a problem. Right.

David Mandel :

And if you're you're if you are can only talk about men as victims and you don't you can't sort of say that men are predominantly the victims of other men, yeah, then you you are an apologist for male violence in my mind.

Speaker 1:

Right.

David Mandel :

You're not really talking about protecting men from unnecessary shaming. And and I want to be really clear, you know, because this is this is these are the conversations, you know, that we talk about, I talk about, I've talked about for years that both men and women can be violent. We have on the podcast authors that talk about women's use of violence in intimate relationships.

Ruth Reymundo:

And we ha we talk about male victims as well.

David Mandel :

And we talk about domestic violence in queer relationships. You know, there's there's there's to me, I I look for that consistency in myself as well, that I'm not afraid to talk about that. You talk about violence in your life from women. Yes. You know, and so we we it's not like we we so so we can we can do both.

R:

I think it's very hard when structures have been set up and people's minds have been trained by these very decontextual, label-based um ways of defining violence. There's a whole industry that's popped up all over the world. Funding streams that maintain these tags and terms, so to speak, and and and literally train people into these very narrow ways of viewing violence. That is the power of tagging and labeling an ontology. Yeah, and bringing ontology.

David Mandel :

Bring on your ontology words.

R:

And and and who has controlled the ontology. And we know who's controlled the ontology. And this is where context becomes really important and where abusers do not like context. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

David Mandel :

Right. And that's the whole other conversation when when when people will throw out sort of the the gender symmetry argument and say that men and women are just as violent, that when you dig the next level down, then start talking about course control, and you start talking about impact on functioning, and you talk about sexual assault, and you talk about homicide, and all these things shape the environment. There's no there's very little gender symmetry. There's asymmetry, like I was talking about. And and we again I I I want to be um fearless. I think we can be fearless. I I I believe we can be courageous. These facts shouldn't scare us, and we should be flexible and responsive. And what I mean by that is if you come to me and say, I've got a woman who's violent, this is was my practice for years. I've got a woman who's violent. I'm gonna say to you, tell me about her parent of course control and actions take and arm the kids.

R:

Same thing you'll say.

David Mandel :

Same thing if it was a man. And so to me, I feel like this is the integrity I'm looking for other people. Yeah. Which is sort of that you you can see that um women are doing double or triple still of the caregiving at homes. They're just reading about this or home chores. Like we have to be able to say that.

R:

Yeah.

David Mandel :

And the women's lives, you know, they report to us over and over again that they're still being shaped of fears of male violence. That we have to listen.

R:

And we and we have to we have to really be honest about power and control. Right. And really learn power dynamics and what those mean. It's very hard for people, I think, to be pattern-based and contextual. For some people it's easier, you know. Um, and and one of the things that I would really want to challenge our listeners to do is to feel in themselves the places where they have a little bit of attachment or reactivity around these type of labels and around naming these realities, and really observe what that fear of naming it is. Um and and I think a lot of times, um, not only be not just the structural issues, the ways that we've been taught to talk about these issues in education and academic programs, through research studies, through government funding, you know, labeling, which is the way that we often limit ourselves in our conversation. But I think at the very bottom of it, that if we're truly honest about behavioral patterns, we'll we'll tell ourselves that we're uncomfortable because following behavioral patterns means that we have to be more personal, more relational, that we have to really dive down into what power and control means for us in our own relationships and in our professional relationships.

David Mandel :

That's right.

R:

That's where people become uncomfortable.

David Mandel :

And I think it's uncomfortable. I think it's easier, and I do think this is real. I think it's easier to um sort of see a behavior like violence and make somebody one-dimensional. I think that's the other side of what you're saying.

R:

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, dehumanization.

David Mandel :

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Dehumanize them. And I think I think that um we can do both.

R:

And I think for me the Wait, we can dehumanize and humanize. Wait, what do you mean?

David Mandel :

We can sort of look in your face. We can name the violence, we can name it as a problem, we can speak the truth of the hurt it does and not dehumanize people.

R:

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, some people want to dehumanize people. Like let's there's a there's a very long tradition of dehumanization in some cultures. I understand that. And I understand that.

David Mandel :

But I think I I guess the kind of move to wrapping this up, to think about this is this idea that for me, that I I want this conversation about male violence, male violence against men and boys. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

R:

And women and girls. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Girls.

David Mandel :

That's right. You know.

R:

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And animals and the earth.

David Mandel :

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Right, exactly. That that if if 40 percent of Australians are growing up in homes of domestic violence, that's a lot of boys growing up in homes of domestic violence that I'm concerned about as well as girls.

R:

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And we're concerned not just about their immediate physical well-being and safety and health. We're worried about the coping mechanisms, the behavioral patterns, the lessons they're learning about relationships and how they're gonna apply that to their future life and harm themselves and others.

David Mandel :

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: If you don't see the connection between those numbers and the high rate of male suicide, you're missing something really obvious and really you're painfully. And you're claiming to be an advocate for men's health, and you're missing this. And so for me, uh what I want to communicate, and I feel really strongly about it, I feel very emotional about this, which is that when you hear me talk about men's violence, this is about loving loving men. Helping men. Um obviously, and also helping the people that are hurting, which was, you know, the the the driving force behind this this work, this career, this passion of mine. But but I also want you to hear that that it's sort of like that there's this deep desire to help men be in balance.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

David Mandel :

To be in balance. If you're being violent, you're out of bal like like the kindest thing I can say is the most neutral say way to say this in some ways, you're out of balance. Being in violence is out of balance with yourself, with other people, with your community.

R:

So that I'm gonna qualify that.

David Mandel :

Yeah.

R:

I'm gonna be more specific. Being violent to your family members and to your friends and in contexts where nobody is attacking your liberties and your person is out of balance.

David Mandel :

That's right.

R:

Because I do protect violence as an energy in nature, and we're part of nature, and we do get to protect ourselves.

David Mandel :

That's right. Violence in the genuine self-defense.

R:

Self-defense is a is a is a right of us as animals and humanity. But you are out of balance if your violence and your coercion undermine your relationships and your connections and harm yourself and others.

David Mandel :

And so I want people to hear that. I want people to I want us to together follow. This idea that talking about men's violence is not automatically shaming men and boys.

R:

It's actually loving.

David Mandel :

It's actually loving. And calling them to account and saying that's not okay is is one of the highest gestures of love and of friendship. And I'll and I'll just end on another personal note. This men's group that I mentioned earlier I've been part of, we have a commitment to each other to confront each other. And that's not aggressive, that's sort of saying when you see something that the other person is doing that's harmful to themselves or other people, that it's a loving thing to name that. And I still remember one of one of the things that I I'm most proud of of in some ways is a close friend of mine working out his estrangement issues with his son. And his son had a daughter. There's no was no violence in this situation. And the son wasn't seeing his daughter because he was angry at the child's mother, the daughter's the daughter's mother. And my friend was not pushing in on his son and his fatherly responsibilities. I said, as the grandfather, I know you're trying to work out your relationship with your son and you're trying to protect it. But if you don't push in on your son and his responsibility to his daughter, every day goes by, she doesn't have a dad in her life.

R:

Yeah.

David Mandel :

And I played small some small part by pushing him, he pushed his son, and now his son has a good, strong, constructive, everyday relationship with his daughter. And and to me that's loving him. I wasn't trying to shame him. I wasn't trying to shame his son. I was trying to say, remember this girl, remember this daughter.

R:

Yeah, but also he suffers and she suffers in the severing of that connection.

David Mandel :

That's right. And he's much more enriched from what I hear by his relationship with his daughter. So I I I I I think we just need to get better at this.

R:

All right.

David Mandel :

And not be afraid of it.

R:

Let's get better at it. We can teach you how not to be afraid of talking to men.

David Mandel :

I guess so. We can do it. That's what we're doing.

R:

We can do it. We can do it.

David Mandel :

We're doing it.

R:

We can do it. You can take the cranky survivor tactic, or you can take the David Mandel tactic. I don't know. There's one of your two choices. And then we'll bring guests on that'll help you to learn other tactics. That's right. But you've been listening to Partnered with Survivor, and I am still Ruth Raimundo, and you're still David Mandel.

David Mandel :

Let's just make a change. And please subscribe, follow, share this podcast. Check out Save at the Other Institute.com. Uh buy my book in Dutch.

R:

Yeah.

David Mandel :

Or Japanese.

R:

Japanese or English? Or English? Maybe soon it'll be in Spanish. Who knows? It's coming. What's coming next?

David Mandel :

Who knows? But anyway.

R:

And we are out.

David Mandel :

Out.