Power, control and domestic abuse with Jess Hill

0:02 A listener production. This is obviously a highly sensitive topic and we're aware that it might be distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, we recommend calling one eight hundred respect that's one eight hundred seven three seven seven three two, or the Domestic Violence Helpline in your state. Hi, you're listening to Crapita Happy. I'm your host, Cas Dunn. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist, a mindfulness meditation teacher, and author of the Crappy A Happy Books. In this series, we talk about all the things that might be making you feel crappy and share tools and tips to help you overcome them. In each episode, I chat with interesting, inspiring and intelligent people who are experts in their field. And my hope is that you take something away from these conversations that helps you feel a little bit less crappy and more happy. Today I'm speaking with Jess Hill. Jess is an investigative journalist and author of the book See What You Made Me Do, Power Control and Domestic Abuse, which won the Stellar Prize in twenty twenty. Here in Australia, one woman every week is killed by a current or former intimate partner, and it seems that while some of these cases make national news headlines and there's collective outrage and despair, the vast majority of them appear to go largely unnoticed. Jess began reporting on domestic abuse in twenty fourteen, and she's dug

1:36 deeply into the complex social, psychological, and biological factors that contribute to male violence and particularly domestic abuse. Her reporting work in this area has earned her two Walkley Awards, an Amnesty International Award, and three Hour Watch Awards. In today's conversation, Jess explains what coercive control is and how it forms the foundation of what she calls the perpetrator's handbook. She offers thoughtful insights into why women stay in abusive relationships, how you might better support someone who's experiencing callers of control, and the first steps you might take to get out if you find yourself in this situation. This is not a fun topic, but it is an incredibly important one, and I believe any change must start with education and awareness, and Jess has done a brilliant job of helping us to understand. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Jess.

2:36 Welcome Jess, you have recently written a book called See What You Made Me Do, Power Control and Domestic Abuse, And first of all, congratulations on the book looks like a mammoth effort, and welcome to Crapita Happy Banks. Jess. I want to start with a simple question and preface that by saying, I know that there are no simple answers on this topic. When we talk about domestic abuse, what forms does that take? We know about physical violence, but what else does it look like? Yeah, so it can look like all different things, you know. I think we've become familiar with the explanation of domestic abuse or domestic violence as not just physical, that it can take, that it can appear as psychological, as obviously sexual, as financial, spiritual abuse. I think what is interesting for me is that certainly you can have some relationships where one of those elements may actually be isolated. So, for example, you might be in a relationship where everything seems fine until you find out that your partner has been committing financial fraud or extorting you, or do you know what I mean. So there can be situations in which financial abuse may be completely isolated away from any other types of abuse, but they're definitely in the minority. So when we're talking about domestic abuse, I think it's useful to think about it not so much necessarily as different forms, but when we talk about the most dangerous form of

4:07 domestic abuse, and the kind of domestic abuse that we think of when we think about refugees or women seeking help or going to police, that coercive control is not just different types of abuse that don't just include physicality. It is a plotline that is virtually repeated, sort of like a puzzle where the pieces sort of take the same shape, but the image on the pieces is different. So you'll have stories that will have obviously their own unique characteristics, but they often follow a plot line that is so similar that when you start hearing, especially particularly a woman, explain it, you can pretty much finish her story for her, or say, at least, so, did this then happen? Did you then did he start becoming degrading?

4:52 Did he start at least establishing an environment of threat? You know, you can pretty much tick it off. And what I think we haven't been so so good at. Even though the domestic violence sector has for years known about course of control because they've heard it described to them by victim survivors since the seventies. I don't think we've been so good at really telling people that this is a plot, like a movie plot that plays out time and time again and follows these very predictable steps like a classic rom com. You know, it's like just you're basically you've got your structure. You just fit in different storylines, and bang, you've got a different movie. And that structure usually looks like first establishing quite an intense relationship, where things might move quite quickly into moving in, saying I love you, even getting married, then to isolation where your partner may not be isolating you by telling you not to see friends, but we'll just make it difficult sea friends, or may even convince you that seeing your friends and other supportive connections is bad for you. In whatever way that happens, they isolate you, and then there's a series of things happened after that that get you into this position where a lot of victim survivors say they'd look in the mirror and they just wouldn't even recognize themselves anymore, and they would be being coerced into doing things or saying things, or thinking things, or behaving in ways that previously, if it had just all happened at once, they'd find abhorrent and offensive, but it just seemed like this was a new reality that had been created,

6:26 and so some of them talk about it as though it's like brainwashing, when of course, obviously no one's brain is entirely washed, and there is never a time in which the victim survivor does not have their own agency and is not resisting in certain ways. But it's like your view on the world become so infused by the view of the perpetrator and their gaze on you and what they think of you, all those degrading comments, belittling comments, humiliating jokes, that it's very hard to remember what you thought independent of them before that all started. I was really interested to hear you say that, and you outline that in the book, Jess, about the what you call the perpetrator's handbook and the familiar pattern that this kind of unfolds. I actually came across your book because a friend of mine who just came out of a not a very good relationship, was given like a photocopied section of the book to read by another woman who had come out of an abusive relationship several years ago, and it's almost like this is being passed around and everybody who reads it is saying, you need to read this, you need to see this, and there it is all played out. And I think that's great, so common for after the event for women to look back and say, oh, now I see how this happened, and even like a year later or years later, are going, oh, still seeing it in a different light when they hear other people's stories and can see themselves in the consistency of the story.

7:59 I think, you know, that's why. I just think that the introduction of coercive control as a really mainstream idea, which started sort of really in the early two thousands, particularly with Evan Stark's book on Coercive Control. He wasn't the first to explain it or describe it. It's been, you know, described by feminist psychologists in the seventies, and certainly it had been described in various ways before then, but I think he was the first to really kind of name it and describe it in such a way that was incontrovertible, and to really put the focus on the fact that by us through our criminal justice system but also through the media focusing on incidents of domestic violence as like the pointy end that that was actually trivializing these victims survivors' experiences, because while an incident like a rape or a really serious physical assault might be incredibly traumatizing and very momentous for someone experiencing domestic abuse, uses it to these isolated incidents as though there is not a system that is alive between those incidents, and I think more to the point when you only focus on that women who have not experienced that really severe physical violence where you know, that's shocking kind of description of physical violence, where you reel back and just can't believe that that could be done in an intimate relationship when they haven't experienced that, will they put themselves in this at the bottom of this sort of pyramid and say, well, that's real domestic violence and what I'm experiencing is not

9:33 that bad, when in fact, actually what's happening to them is such a degradation of self and such a change in their behavior to the point where their freedoms are being limited, their minds are being changed, and sometimes they're being pathologized to the point where there will actually be records of them going to psychiatrists saying that they think they're crazy, and then that's still following them into family court later on the relationship dissolves. You know, So you have such such serious life changing consequences from non physical forms of course of control that when you start to really sort of in our way, in the way that we've really just positioned physical and sexual advance at the top of the pyramid. While it's obviously incredibly severe, it's not like the rest of it. There is no pyramid.

10:23 It's actually, as you know, as has been looked at now in Scotland, where they've criminalized course of control, they've put it all on the same plane, you know, because actually that's where it is. I mean, all these physical sexual acts they're often done in the service of degradation, or they're done to further humiliate, or done to further enforced dominance, or you know, it's not like they operate separately to the system of abuse. They operate in service to all the other parts of the abuse. And I think what you said there about how women don't see themselves in that picture. I think on the flip side, I have heard men say, well that it beat he up, or I would never do that, But the coercive control is absolutely there and present in the relationship totally.

11:10 And I've heard, you know, I've literally heard perpetrators say to me that in their men's behavior change program, one that particular said that ninety five percent of the men there did not actually understand what family violence was. And part of that is because we only criminalize physical and sexual acts. We also criminalize stalking, but it's very rarely prosecuted inside a relationship. So actually, the vast majority of what happens inside domestic abuse relationship is not illegal, and so it's not written about, you know, a lot by journalists because journalists will buy and large in terms of news, cover crime, they'll cover court reporting. Those things aren't often brought up in court cases, so you don't get a sense of when you're thinking about what is criminal behavior and what is domestic violence, you don't think about all the other things. You don't think about isolation, you don't think about surveillance through spywear and other communication tools. You don't think about threats to harm or kill. You know that stuff can become invisible to the perpetrator and just seem like, you know, that's what they had to do because they had to keep tabs on her, or they'll always have some story as to why they needed to act in that certain way, and usually it revolves around them actually being the real victims.

12:20 Jess, what are the statistics, what are some of the statistics around how prevalent is this in our community? Like gigantic? This is what really shocked me, I guess when I started drilling down on the statistics. And if you think about, like so we think about one in four women since the age of fifteen have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner. You hear that statistic and you think, wow, that's high. And some people might think, well, maybe not in my area. That probably happens in that area over there where there's you know, there was more socioeconomic sort of disadvantage or whatever. But actually what I see when I do events, you know, when I speak at writers festivals, is that that statistic is born out just by the people who come and speak to me, you know, in every environment. And when you think about what does one and four actually mean?

13:14 That is around two point three million women in Australia another six or seven hundred thousand men, So they've experienced that, and of course that the context of that is difficult to is difficult to say whether the women were perpetrating it in resistance or whether they were actually perpetrators themselves. But also there's very little statistics on how many children are growing up with domestic abuse, but some of the sort of smaller studies have shown that it could be as high as one in four. It's absolutely at the core of our society. And when I started writing about domestic abuse, I thought, ah, well, you know, yes, obviously it's prevalent and it's a serious issue, but I don't seem to know anyone who's been through it, and certainly no one in my family has experienced it. And it's taken about five or six years for all the people who I know and a related to to come out of the woodwork and tell me their stories of domestic abuse.

14:13 In fact, it was only probably a few months ago that I had very close relatives explained to me their experiences. And I've found that there's at least one in four of my own family members who've been through it, you know. And so I think that a lot of people don't realize how this has been like the ghost in the machine of our society for so long, and that most people aren't just going to bring it up, and they're going to tell very few people, especially if it's historical, you know, and especially if it's like a grandmother or an auntie or something like that. A lot of this stuff just became accepted that you don't talk about it. And even through the whole Me Too movement, you know, we have all these people telling stories about sexual harassment, sexual assault, et cetera. But you know, the reason why we haven't had this huge outpouring in that same way from DV survivors is that, you know, a lot of these people are talking about situations that involve people who are still alive who may still be a danger to them, or who may be a parent to them who they're trying to reconcile with, or you know, it involves potentially shaming people who are either dangerous or who you may still love, or that you may want an inheritance from.

15:31 You know, Like, there's a number of reasons why it's it's much harder to talk talk about. So I always caution people when people say, yeah, I know it's a serious problem, but I just don't seem to know anyone who's been through it. I'm like, that's not because you don't know, it's because they haven't told you. Are the numbers therefore potentially conservative? Is it potentially underreported? Like is that one in four? Do we know that that's a realistic estimate? I mean, this is a personal safety survey, So the sorts of questions I'll ask you, know, have you experience into a physical or sexually violent act in the last twelve months, or have you experienced that since you were a fifteen? Now you could say there would be some people who just may have actually dissociated from that act, or who may have suppressed it so much they won't report it even to a surveyor. But you know, if you're talking about histories of coersive control in which the worst thing that you experienced on a physical level might have been a slap or a pinch, you know, it may be that you don't think that's serious enough to report.

16:31 So is it likely that maybe that figure is closer to one in three. I think that's a fairly good estimate, But we just don't know, And it's very difficult because the majority of women who experience coursive control or the majority of anyone, even if you're in a same sex relationship man or woman. I mean, it's gendered in heterosexual relationships, but it can occur in same sex relationships just as virulently. The thing that happens is that a lot of these people don't know they're experiencing it, so if they're in the middle of it, they may not report that. So, yes, there would be fluctuation in that data. So given that the numbers are fairly staggering, you'd like to think that something's been done about it. Are the numbers improving, Is the situation improving.

17:16 It's very hard to gauge that, aside from just doing another personal safety survey and seeing what that self reporting reveals, like do we still get one in four when people are asked those questions. You can't gauge it off police reporting because actually, when police reporting goes up, when you hear that there's more police being called out to domestic violence incidents, that doesn't necessarily mean that the incident of domestic violence is going up. It just means that more people are reporting it. Could be neighbors, could be victims, could be perpetrators, you know, I mean, there's all sorts of things that go on there, so there's very little sort of like reliable data to say like is it going up or is it going down? I think that what we do know is that I think one of our best data sources is actually the family violence helplines that operate, especially on the state by state level, because they keep data around what they're hearing from people who are reporting the violence. So they'll have data like what percentage of women calling Safe Steps, for example, in Victoria needed emergency assistance compared to two years ago. Now that has increased, so the people requiring emergency assistance, the description of more severe and common incidence of say, for example, sexual violence, that is something we've also had data on from various services. So it's hard to say. Are more people being affected by domestic abuse? That's very hard to say.

18:45 But is the nature of the abuse intensifying. There is some data that suggests that it is. And I think if you look at you know, inputs like porn and the fact that mainstream porn over the last twenty years has gone from racing and kinky and whatever to actually sort of really eroticizing the degradation of women for a large percentage of it. It seems inevitable that there's going to be a parallel increase in sexual violence and coercion because that's actually what people are im vibing men particularly, but not just men, on a daily weekly basis, you know, extremely high volumes. You know, top I think it's three of the top ten websites visited worldwide are porn sites.

19:32 Really yeah, so you know, we've come really far in particular areas around expectations of gender equality, around attitudes to women, and then you know, in the background, you've got exponential use of porn, which is like, you know, really veering into this degrading content in a much more accelerated way than ever. You've got a kind of backlash effect to all this increased gender equality, so you have online sub cultures of men who will talk about their right to sex with women. You know, so all of this stuff that, you know, if you're just milling around in nice circles and not paying attention to this sort of thing, you might think that things have really improved, and they have.

20:14 You know, in the seventies, you know, women if they were experiencing domestic abuse or let's say the late sixties, there was like nowhere for them to go, you know, if they didn't have friends or family who were going to help them, like the police didn't care. Until nineteen seventy five, there were no shelters, you know, so we're talking about people who are absolutely trapped in that respect. There has been enormous improvement, but it's very much this two step forward, one step back, and over here you have the culture improving, and over here you have the culture sort of getting worse. And it's about this two step, you know, trying to manage that. And on that subject of pawn, I mean, boys are viewing that younger and younger. So on the one hand, we're trying to educate our boys about gender equality and being respectful towards women, and on the other hand, they've got so much ready access to that kind of media.

21:02 Precisely, and you know, my partner's a therapist and he made a really good point about this the other day and we're talking about it, and so the difference. The difference now is that boys as young as eight, but you know, on average about eleven, twelve, thirteen are starting to view pornographic material, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose, and sometimes just out of curiosity, and so instead of like it was, you know back in the day where you'd start feeling sexual, you start feeling sexual attraction. You might start like having sex age sixteen seventeen, and then you might start looking at maybe you're trying to sneak your dad's porn magazines, or maybe you'd go to an adult store when you're in your twenties. Like, you know, it's like now their sexuality is developing after they've watched porn, and so the pornographic imagination that's being defined by these you know, multi billion dollar companies who are really making a lot of money out of a roticizing degradation that is sort of entwining with the very natural sexual imagination of boys so much so that you know, he'll have clients say to him that when they're having sexual thoughts, they think they're thinking about porn, and he's like, but you can have sexual thoughts that are separate to porn, you know. So we're talking about like a really significant cultural change in young boys and men's sexual tastes and the way that you know, if you're watching content where literally you know, women are being slapped, choked, you know,

22:33 multiple penetrated, you know, all this sort of thing and then looking like they enjoy that. And if you're sort of masturbating to that and you're getting this huge sort of dopamine rush. You know, Murray Krab, who's an expert in this area, was saying to me the other day, even if you don't like that content, even if you find it apporrent, if you're getting that brain surge as a response to that, even if you keep watching it, you will come to like it. And it's not just about aiming people because they want to have kinky sex. You know, we're talking about we're forming young men's sexual identities on content that by and large depicts women as being grateful for their degradation. And I was saying to them, you know, both my partner and Marie the other day.

23:17 You know, it's not like men are abusive or not. You know, men become abusive by degrees. And you talk to women who have known their partners for fifteen, twenty years, it takes ten years sometimes for that abusive side of them to emerge. And when they met that person was really gorgeous person, fully supportive of their independence, et cetera. This happens gradually, and there are all sorts of different inputs. And I'm not saying that watching porn is going to make you an abusive person, but having that influence coming in and often in a shameful way, in a way that you don't want to talk about, that's taboo. It's very powerful and very persuasive, and it's starts to set up an expectation for some young men that women will go along with this if you're the dominant male and you propose it forcefully, and they'll end up liking it.

24:11 You know, maybe they don't know what's good for them type of thing, you know. I mean, it's just so problematic. I want to get to some of the psychology of men and what leads them to act in violent ways. But for the psychology of women. First of all, I think when we hear about women being in abusive relationships, the prevailing attitude still seems to be, well, why doesn't she just leave? Like what's stopping her from getting up and walking out? Why doesn't she You've really dug into this the psychology of why women stay, and I'm curious to hear what some of those reasons are. So I've come sort of to a different understanding of that question. You know, at first it was sort of and this is not just me, this is the sectorm more broadly and people who work in this space. It's like, you know, we say, you shouldn't be asking why doesn't she leave? Like it should be you know, why does he do it? And that was really the way that the book was frank right, But I've really come around to thinking about this a bit differently, and that is that actually, the question why doesn't she leave? Is a really useful one. The problem is that we actually don't ask it genuinely. So when we ask that exactly like the tone that you just you know, mimicked, we're asking it rhetorically and just we're basically saying, why didn't she just leave? She's an idiot? That's we've already answered it in.

25:26 Our Acuta tree. Yes, we're not saying, so tell me why didn't she leave? You know, tell me about the multiple systemic factors and psychological factors that may have kept her in that relationship. We're ready to hear that she's an idiot and that she's she was codependent or she was you know, basically, we're ready to blame the victim now asking why didn't she leave? Actually in you know, genuinely renders a very interesting response and one that actually takes a lot of the mystery out of it, or at least did for me, And that is, you know that there are multiple reasons for it, some of them psychological. So there's a study in the States that I cite in the book that looks at the ways in which women will rationalize their abuse.

26:13 Remembering that, you know, anyone who's been in a relationship that's become even a bit problematic, maybe someone's cheated on you that you've been with for years, or maybe there's been you know, something that really doesn't match your values and you start to question why am I with this person? It takes a very long time for you to be able to see clearly enough most of the time, if you've been in that relationship for a while to really go you know what, I'm not accepting this and I'm leaving like and if you've got kids, that time is even more drawn out. You know a lot of the time. And what happens in a cause of control relationship is that often the initial stages are one of like a love bombing is what a lot of survivors describe it as where the initial stage is like a fantasy, like a fairy tale, or it's just really loving, where you feel more special than you ever have before. You know, this is especially people who are with abusive people who measure high on sort of narcissistic scales. You know, they make you feel so special and the other stuff. Even if it happens quite fast, like within a few months, it still seems gradual. But if it happens over years and years, it's very hard to pick what's actually happening to you. If you're seeing things that don't make sense to you, or if your partner starts to gaslight you, you know, often you're looking at the most logical explanation, is there's something wrong with me? Not that this person who I love would do something to screw me over like that, or to degrade me or to try to

27:44 confuse me. That's not an obvious answer for that question, so you start to think there must be something wrong with me, And then as that starts to happen, you start to feel a type of shame about yourself, and you start to rely more and more on your partner to define your reality. You know, and start to think, God, I'm so lucky I've got this person, because I am truly going crazy, Like if I wasn't with this person, maybe I wouldn't be able to meet someone else. And maybe they reinforce that with subtle things that they say. This sort of very slow burned situation for a lot of women. It's like and women and men, you know, in these relationships, you get to a stage where if you've been dropped in this part, in this type of environment immediately upon meeting this person, you would never have stayed in a relationship with them. But it's just happened very gradually. So a lot of the ways the rationalizations that happen inside of that environment are things like I can fix him, And a lot of women will say like that, I am the strong one in this relationship, Like this guy's broken, you know, he's like sobbing on the floor, begging me to help him be a better man, you know, all this sort of thing, or he's you know, it's pathetic, like the things that he does, and he's got this problem, gambling addiction, and I'm just going to try to help him, you know, fix himself. Then there's also I'm married to him now, and that's the contract I signed, and I'm never going to leave. You know, maybe I had a broken family when I was growing up, or maybe I am pretty religious or have traditional customs around this where there's absolutely no option to leave. I'm

29:17 married now. Other ones that are much more logistical are like I can't afford to leave, Like I can't be financially independent. And this is particularly obviously the case if there are kids involved, or I have nowhere to go, and if I leave, he's going to launch co op seedings against me. And he has earned all the money over the years and I've been at home looking after the kids, or I've been working and he's been taking my wages and benefits, and I don't know how I'm gonna or I've got, you know, a disabled kid, or I've got any number of things that stopped me from being able to leave and thinking I can be a single mother, or I can put up with whatever he throws at me legally. I mean, there are just a the number of reasons why why it can be very hard to leave. But also on top of all this, and this is not true for every woman. You know, many women will fall out of love and still be in these relationships. But a lot of women are in love with their partners. They love that person, they have seen that person at their most vulnerable, and sometimes violence can show up as a vulnerability because it's like this person is losing it and the next moment they are begging you for forgiveness, like you are seeing them at their most naked. Stripped back is the feeling, you know with nassis, we know it's very hard to actually see them stripped back because there's always a front, but there's you know, so that is like there's a feeling of bonding that occurs through that, which is like We're going to get through this together and I'm going to just cop the worst of what you can throw at me.

30:47 And I've heard women say I felt like I might end up dying, but that I'd sort of made that okay in my head because absolutely everything had to go towards making this person better. And we're socialized particular as women, but you know, in relationship there are men who will fall into this as well, where it's like we must put ourselves aside to make that other person better and to show them that the power of our love can can save them. So that alone is incredibly difficult barrier to get through, and when you start looking at all those logistical especially things around court, etc. I had a barrister to tell me in Victoria that the moment she saw her partner abuse physically abuse her son, she wanted to leave, but she stayed in the relationship for ten years longer because she knew that if he took her to family court, she wasn't going to have any proof of his abusiveness and that she would probably have to hand over her trial for unsupervised access. She just in good conscience could never do that, so she decided staying in the marriage. As a supervisor, you know, that's someone who is working in legal area. That's not just someone who has heard some bad stories. And that's certainly I would never say to a woman, don't leave because you may end up in family court. But it's absolutely a real thing to consider what will happen and will I have whatever semblance of control I have now over the

32:17 situation in the house, which may feel like more than it actually is, or it may actually be a semblance of control. Will I at least be able to keep an eye on him with the kids and one woman said after, you know, her kid had been assaulted and charged by her husband, and she left, and she thought she considered going back to him, because she said he would have to get through me to get to her. We can't talk about domestic abuse without talking about the patriarchy. And I really appreciated the sentence you put in the book, which is the essence. I don't know if this is your quote or you've quoted somebody else, but the essence of patriarchal masculinity is not that individual men feel powerful.

33:05 It's that they feel entitled to power. And you talk about that entitlement to power leading to what you call humiliated fury. I would really appreciate you explaining what that is humiliated fury. That's a great linking you've just made cast too. I wish I sort of framed a bit more like that when I explained this, because sometimes I find it, like so Memeth to sort of like just boil down. But that's essentially what we're looking at. So I mean, before I sort of just go into how that links to humiliated fury, I think it's really important to look at entitlement and the way that word operates as opposed to privilege. So when we talk about male privilege, I mean it's like undeniable of course that you know, men men get and expect certain privileges. But when we start getting into the weeds of privilege, you know, you'll have people say, well, okay, so how is a woman in upscale you know, moss men less privileged than a man living in poverty in ten you know, so we get into these sort of arguments about class and about all these intersecting sort of realities that we're all experiencing. That was a quote from Michael Kimmel, actually, who's a masculinity's expert in the States, and when he said that to me, it was like this gigantic penny dropping. I was just like, of course, what we're seeing is that a lot of these men feel utterly frustrated that they are not able to live the powerful lives that they have been brought up to expect, or not able to be the heroes of their own stories, or not able to have the status that they really

34:36 desperately want. And when we're talking about biological differences between men and women, there's been obviously a lot of literature written on this, and many people will say that they are slim. You know, there is very slim differences. But I think one that is particularly interesting and pertinent this conversation is the truth around testosterone. And Robert Sapolski, who's neuros neuroscientists, psychologist, in his book I Think Behave, talks about what testosterone actually is. That this is not an aggression hormone. This is a status seeking hormone. So when we see little boys being competitive to be the leader, or we're seeing you know, men competing for financial status and all this stuff around status anxiety and etc. That this is actually the function of testosterone. And the reason why it goes towards being in control, being in charge, is because we've assigned status to that, and patriarchy assigned status to men being in control, to men being autonomous, independent, unemotional, rational, etc.

35:41 What that actually means for too many men is lonely insecure. Because actually, and Terrence Real talks about this, he's a family therapist from the States. We preload boys and men with a type of shame because the culture, and when I say the culture, I'm talking about what they see on television, but also what they get from their peers is telling them that they must be invulnerable. That not just so much that they shouldn't cry, because I think we're sort of getting past that in terms of how we parent a lot of the time, but that they need to be strong, they need to be in charge, they need to be dominant, they need to be leaders. And so in order to do that, they're being taught to kill off their emotional cels or the softer parts of themselves and to be tough. Now, it's absolutely not possible for a human to operate in one half of themselves and to kill off the other half, Not to be a mummy's boy, not to be this you know, detached from your mother, etc. It's actually unnatural. And so you start these boys very young, from the age of like three or four, and when they're talking with this idea of how they're supposed to be, that is absolutely unachievable.

36:53 So in pretty much in every boy, there is a kernel of shame around that some may resolve it and act and that, you know, for whatever reason, not just good parenting but a good social milieure and a whole bunch of other things, they may be able to ameliorate that and really identify differently. But that's happening in resistance to the status quo. So when you're born into that type of basically in it and in a kernel of shame, that then may expand as you grow old, especially if you're an aamiliar where you are expected to be really tough, and it's all very stereotypical, very stereotypically male. The quick pro quo with patriarchy is that kill off your emotional self and then you will get all of the things you're entitled to. You'll get the girl, you'll get, the sex, you get, the money, you get the power that's supposed to be what you get as a payoff, almost and so there's this sense that men will have that they are entitled to those things. And I think in Carol Gilligan, the feminist psychologist, talks about this too, that this is a very emotional sense of entitlement. It's like, do you know what I had to give up in order to be entitled to your respect? You know, obviously this is not conscious I'm talking about really subconscious, but there's a sense that like, I am entitled to this because this is what I've been born into, and if I don't get it, I will be emasculated. And then I'll be vulnerable to other men, to either being shamed by other men the violence of other men, you know. And so when people sort of talk about a former Prime minister

38:24 at Malcolm Turnbull, when he says like, not all disrespect leads to violence, but all violence starts with disrespect and disrespecting women in particular. And my point to him, and I actually had a chat to him about this, was that actually that's one step above the original step. Actually, violence starts with men disrespecting other men's right to be emotionally embodied and so their need to be respected put on a pedestal by women, et cetera. And the humiliated fury part comes into the whole domestic abuse equation. When men are feeling like they're entitled to certain tension, certain privileges from women, certain loyalty, certain behavior, and they feel that they're not getting it, they can feel a certain shame, like they have been revealed to not be worth, that they're unworthy, et cetera. And because that feeling of shame is so illicit, it's so not allowed. You're not allowed to feel weak. It's like the number one rule of manhood.

39:23 Always be strong, never be weak. When you feel that shame come up, there's this enormous resentment that follows it, and so there and then in men who are abusive rather than men who take all of this kind of shame on and just become quiet or become depressed or become isolated. When you are an abusive person, instead of feeling that shame, you feel entitled to displace that awful feeling by reinstating power and projecting that in a state of shame and degradation onto whoever has made you feel like that, And primarily that's your partner. Because even though people will say, well, you know, he doesn't act like that at work, he doesn't beat up his boss, it's like that his boss doesn't occupy the same place that his partner does in his psyche. He doesn't have huge expectations about closeness and intimacy that are wound up in all of these really confusing feelings about shame and vulnerability.

40:21 That does not happen in the workplace, you know. And it's not just because there are consequences if he acts like that in the workplace and fewer consequences if he acts like that at home. It's because his boss doesn't trigger that reaction, and if his boss does trigger that response, often he'll take it home where it's safe to let it out. Because the woman is supposed to contain that. It's supposed to contain all that rage, all that fear. They're supposed to be the receptacle for it. They're supposed to heal that and make you feel like you can go out into the world again. So that comparison sort of really annoys me because I'm just like, that does not really mean anything. You know, where talk intimacy is such a u unique space, and I have been much worse to my partner than I would ever be to a boss. And I'm not an abusive person, you know, it's just obvious. We've all been the best of worst parts of ourselves in our relationships in ways that we would never be even probably to another family member.

41:16 And when you talk about shame, Jess, like in the book, I found it really interesting there are four ways that we manage shame, process shame, and I thought that that was really it was really interesting. Are you able to just quickly talk us through how particularly how shame kind of tends to play out. You talked about it a little bit just the for men versus women, for example, or just the different ways that it sort of expresses itself. Yeah, for sure. The author and is Donald Nathanson. He's an American psychiatrist. He wrote a book Shame and Pride, which is really classic in this area, and basically he talked about the fact that none of us want to experience shame, be us men or women. You know, like shame is by it's very nature unbearable. It's the sort of feeling that makes us want to be just swallowed up by the earth and makes us want to be invisible.

42:08 So what he talked about is the shame compass that there is, like this library of methods that people use when shame strikes them. And so someone who is feeling shame may just withdraw It might be as mild as looking at the ground, or they might go and live in a remote cabin on a hillside, you know, like it can be mild or extreme versions of that withdrawal. But a lot of us will just avoid eye contact when we feel a sense of shame. We don't want anyone to see us. And that's actually, you know, that's the most courageous way to deal with shame that people who tend towards withdrawal are actually the ones who are most likely to do emotional work or the psychotherapeutic work to deal with it. Another reaction is to attack yourself, and that can be as mild as a self degradating, deprecating comment, or it could be like self harm and at the extreme end, suicide. Vuidance is perhaps the most invisible response to shame, and we're talking about avoidance in the extreme cases. We're talking about narcissists who have literally constructed like their entire identity and lifestyle in order to avoid ever feeling shame. So they've built up this firewall personality.

43:18 And look at Donald Trump for example. You know, here is a malignant narcissist who is so shame prone. He was for four years basically the most powerful person on the planet, and he would be like, you know, picking fights with people on Twitter who he felt had belittled him. You know, like, this is someone who apparently has endless self confidence but is absolutely prone to shame. And what the narcissist tries to do is just continually seek approval and flattery from others in order to just avoid ever feeling shame, and when they do feel shame, they will respond to the merest hint of it with maximum aggression in order to shut it down and teach that person never to do that again. And the fourth and final shame response is to attack others. So I mean, obviously when we talk about avoidance and the narcissist, they're sort of doing both. But this is really the most destructive responsible because all of us are going to feel shame and we can't if we have a response, a habituated response to shame that when we feel it we attack somebody, then we're becoming a dangerous individual either where we're damaging people and we're traumatizing people, either in our friends circles by backbiting and bitching about them or you know, doing that sort of more passive aggressive type attacking, or in the situation of domestic abuse, we are when we feel that sense of shame, we are getting rid of it by overwhelming it with a sense of power, and that might be through a physical attack, it might be through putting a GPS track in your partner's car so that

44:51 you can make sure you know where they're going at all times, and that that feels like you're avoiding future shame so that she's not able to go off and cheat on you without you know, you know, it could be any types of things, but this is where we see shame becoming humiliated fury. So, Jess, we talked a little bit right at the beginning of this conversation about the almost the escalation of violence. I think it's fair to say when there is conflict in a relationship, there will be women and probably men as well, who asks, well, isn't this just like normal people couples fight? Is it abusive? I don't know. Are there some really key telltale signs that people need to look forward to recognize? Oh, hang on a second, No, these are red flags.

45:39 Yeah, And it's very difficult because I have had people come to me at writers' festivals and various places, are presented and described things to me that are ticking all of the red flags, and yet I'm still unable to say, like that is I would absolutely classify as abuse. But it certainly are all the early warning signs. Now, in some cases, those early warning signs might peter out. It might be that someone starts a relationship they've been cheated on by various people in the past and they are just a bit paranoid and protective. But then as the love starts to solidify, they let go of that. You know, so some of those classic red flags like you know, your partner checking your phone or always asking where you are or you know, those sorts of things. Maybe there will be cases where that's at the beginning of the relationship and then they loosen up. Right. So, and this is what's very difficult for people who are experiencing this to go. Is this the kind that escalates or is it the kind that de escalates. I'd say that, you know, really, what you're looking for is does the person I'm with encourage my potential and my access to independence or do they diminish it? You know? Do they encourage me to develop friendships? Do they like my friends and family? You know, if you have nice friends and family who you also like, theme do they you know, do they encourage me in my career? Do they do things that look like they

47:10 are trying to open the way for me to be the best part of myself? Now, if you see other signs that they make snide little comments about your work, or it always seems like they're too busy to catch up with your friends, or they kind of make your friends feel really uncomfortable when they come over, or you know, they do seem to want to know where you are all the time, or they start making jokes about you being fat, or they start just this sort of slow level of degradation. Some of the other really typical signs that are harder for people inside the relationship to see is when they seem like it's never never to blame for anything that's gone wrong, it's always your fault, or even if they take a bit of blame, it's still a bit to do with you, And that's not we're not talking about normal fights where a lot of the time it is both people who have played a role.

48:02 You know, certainly can talk from my own experience, but we're talking about times where they clearly have, like unilaterally, of their own volition, gone and done something really shit, and then they're trying to put it on you, even if they're taking a bit of responsibility. It's that chipping away kind of thing that you've got to really be aware of. I think for people who are friends or loved ones of people going through this, A really classic sign of this is when you start to see a bit of an us and them mentality start to form, where it feels like that that relationship is almost against like everybody else, like that the one person in that relationship, that the partner of your friend, is starting to turn them against you or their family. When you start to see them with draw, if you start to see them making like strange comments about eating like so and so wouldn't want me eating that, or so and so wouldn't want me wearing that, when they start to turn down invitations a lot, where you start to feel like that person's becoming really isolated. And sometimes I mean, people will tell their friends and family pretty much what is happening, but then they'll stay with that person and when they their friends and family bring it up later. But didn't he do that? I mean, or didn't she do that to you? Aren't you still upset about that? And I say, no, what are you talking about? That never happened, And you may feel yourself started to feel gaslighted, right because ultimately, what is happening, especially in coercive control, we see this in cults. The very same behavior is used against cult

49:33 members by cult leaders is that the relationship becomes like a cult and people who challenge the partner, the abusive partner are seen as a threat. And the ultimate thing that that abusive person is getting you to do is to be more loyal, more compliant, you know, And that's what you're having to show in order for you to be a good enough person in the relationship. So when you see, you know, your friend's family saying I'm really worried about this guy or girl. You know, she just seems like she's really bad for you. It looks like she's doing this abusive behavior. I've heard of coercive control. This is what it looks like. Some people will actually just not call you, they'll just cut you out of their life because you're a threat. So what people are often advised to do in those situations, it's just start a bit softly, softly, be like, I've noticed changes in you.

50:25 You know, you used to act more like this, and now you act like this, or I haven't seen you in ages, and I just like, I'm just wondering how you are, you know, just trying to basically point out the impact of the behavior, even if you see the behavior as clear as day and you just want to go and shake them and just go can't you see what he's doing to you trying to just maintain that relationship, even if it just it is frustrating as hell. The less you isolate them on behalf of the perpetrator, the better. And sometimes like I mean, I've known people that I have moved away from because I felt like I just can't talk to them anymore, like they are just going over the same ground over and over, and in the end, I've moved away, and I feel terrible about that because I know that's just reinforcing the abusive system. I mean, I don't think people should beat themselves up for one of better term, for feeling like I couldn't be the best support for that person, because it literally it is like trying to get someone out of a cult, and that is an incredibly difficult task, and you can even find yourself developing a dislike for that person you know and judging them. But what you've got to remember is that mental persuasion and the coercion that they're living under is very strong, and it's very very difficult for them to see clearly what you might be able to see clearly.

51:50 So is the suggestion then to try to, as you say, not drive them back closer to their partner, just to kind of stay on the periphery and be a at least if they know that you're available when they eventually come to see. Yeah, and maybe sort of suggesting like, oh, I saw this great documentary or you know, I saw maybe there's something about coersive control that you might have seen, or maybe like say, ah, you know, I read this thing about coursive control is really interesting, instead of saying you should read it because you're experiencing it, like maybe just like I'd love for you to read it, or I'd or just tell them about it, like did you know that? Blah blah blah blah blah, and just trying to open up. I think a lot of the time when I've certainly had the experience that when when women have heard coursive control explained, women who have been in abusive relationships, who have not clocked on to what's going on, have suddenly gone, holy shit, that is me, that is what is happening to me. I finally have a word for it. And so I don't want to be saying like oh, softly, softly, don't confront them ever, you know, treat them like you know, with kid gloves. But what you're trying to do is, as you say, don't you know, you don't want to force them back closer to their partner and away from you. Obviously, when there are children involved, and if you feel like your friend is not assessing the level of threat accurately and there are kids there, it makes it very very difficult, you know, because this softly softly approach can feel really dangerous, you know, and clearly you know there are going to

53:21 be some instances in which you're going to feel like you have to call police or you have to call a service or something to intervene because there's you know, an imminent risk of serious harm. That's a huge decision to make, but it is a decision that friends, family and neighbors make every day all over Australia. But you know, you risk losing the trust of that person or there's all sorts of things that are wound up in that. It's not an easy decision. So yeah, it's very hard. I think sometimes if you're unsure, calling either one eight hundred respect or calling the statewide DV helplines and just asking for some advice is really a good idea because often it can feel too big for you to deal with or to cope with, because it just feels like nothing you're going to do is ever going to work. Yeah.

54:11 I wanted to just quickly go back and pick up on something that you said earlier about when we talked about the science that you might look out for, and you said, does he encourage you to you know, is he interested in you being fulfilling your dreams or your potential? Dos he support your goals? And I actually noticed with this friend of mine who was in a relationship. They were in business together, and then she was sort of had this thing that she was doing on her own to the side, and I made a comment to her after they'd come out, after she had left the relationship. I said, I never saw him. I constantly saw you promoting him and promoting his business and promoting what he does. I never ever saw him publicly promoting you and your events.

54:51 And she said, oh, well, he was very supportive of me. It was very supportive behind closed doors and helping me I am up my business, and at his events he would always talk about me. And it's like, yeah, well that's in those situations you were an extension of him. He was talking you up at his events because you were evidence of his greatness, yes. And so selfless promotion where there was not much selfless promotion going on. Yeah. Right, So I think that can be really like I don't think that she necessarily saw what I saw from the outside, but behind she would see him talking about her and how supportive and amazing she was on these things that she was doing. But it was all about ultimately reflecting back on That is.

55:36 A classic narcissist as well. You know, we're not talking about narcisstic personality disorder necessarily, but that narcissistic frame where you know, I am the sun and you are the moon type of thing, you know, like you reflect my beauty. And that's right. I mean, it's a really good point that you make because a lot of the time it is that subtle and it is a matter of perspective. I actually there was a really interesting interview this woman who was married to Don McClain, the American singer of American Pie, and he apparently coersively controlled her throughout their marriage and was actually convicted on assault charges recently. And she said that, you know, she was a calligrapher and so she'd be working on this, you know, really complex work, and he'd come over to her like just as she was finishing, and she'd be right at the end and he'd just rub her shoulders and then she'd smudged the work.

56:31 And he would do that kind of routinely, and so it was like it doesn't come across that he's pushing her hand out, and you can again it's that feeling of gaslighting because it's like, did you do that on purpose? Like you seem to be affectionate, but actually what you've just done is destroy this thing I've been working on for a week, you know. And that gap between those two actions is very, very difficult for a lot of victims to sort of like put together, where you think, well, what kind of person are you who would think that he would come up and intentionally do that. He's just coming up to give you a neck massage, and you're making out like he's ruining your work? How selfish are you?

57:12 Like he's coming up and showing you care. That's what that's the internal script that's going on for so many victim survivors, just like you're such a nasty person that you're framing them like that, because actually what they're doing is caring for you. And that's the problem is that so many abuses will will hide and conceal their abuse in that caregiving kind of behavior. And it's really important. I'm so glad you raised it because it's actually it is really important for both friends and family to know that, but also for victim survivors to know that, and to know that, Like, if you're having qualms about that, if you're having second thoughts, then there is probably something to it, because most people do not have to second guess a caring gesture from their partner.

57:53 Jess, if somebody is listening to this now, I think we've given some suggestions for people who might know somebody who they're concerned about. But if somebody is listening to this and going, oh goodness, I has just the pennies just dropped that perhaps I'm in an abusive relationship or they know that they are. We'll put some phone numbers and things in the show notes. But do you have any practical advice to share? Yeah? So, I always think the first port of call really is to if you can make a call to one of those helplines and not to say that they're going to give you all the information you need or that that's just you know, something that's going to sort everything out. But the first thing I think that people who are experiencing domestic abuse need when they realize it, is a safety plan, and that is to basically say that not one that is about you leaving necessarily unless you've decided that that's what you want to do, But it's about how can I be safe inside this relationship if that's my choice, how can I also prepare if things escalate to leave quickly? You know. So safety plans are incredibly important just so that you don't find yourself being caught unawares, like too many women are having to leave very suddenly. They leave with like a couple of dollars in their back pocket. They may not have important documents like birth certificates, passports, you know, and then they find it difficult to impossible to actually claim those things back again. So sometimes a safety plan might be make

59:25 sure that you have copies of your most important documents. It might be you know what, you need to create a secret, separate bank account and you need to start siphoning off part of your income or creating some situation in which you can put some money in that account, and so many times I hear safety planners tell women, you know that financial independence or some semblance of it, is kind of vital because most women are afraid to leave because they're afraid of being destitute, which is a pretty like pressing fear for any of us. It makes a lot of sense. So that's what I would do, is find someone, whether it be a statewide helpline, whether it be a foundation like the Lisa Harnan Foundation, which has a casework is situated in shopping centers in southwest Sydney, anyone who can sort of really work that through, who can assess your level of risk and then give you pointers on what to do next. That's the first step I think.

1:00:24 Yeah, great, Jess, I'm very conscious of your time. Thank you so much. This has been so enlightening, such an important topic, not a fun one, but a really really important one, and I appreciate you sharing everything that you have learned with us. Thank you. Kas's great, great questions. Really, thank you thanks for listening. To today's episode. If this is a. Topic of personal interest or importance to you, or something you'd like to understand better, I would highly recommend you grab a copy of Jess's book See What You Made Me Do. If this episode has been distressing for you, or if you or anybody that you know is experiencing domestic abuse, please do contact one eight hundred respect that's one eight hundred seven three seven seven three to two, or the domestic violence helpline in your state. If you love the Crappy to Happy podcast, please do leave us a rating and review. I also love reading all of your messages and feedback on Instagram. I'm at cast Done underscore XO, or on email Hello at castone dot com.

1:01:28 To be part of my online community. Jump into my free Facebook group. It's called Crappy to Happy Community. I'll put the link to that in the show notes. And if you're ready to take your happiness to the next level, you're welcome to join my paid membership community, Beyond Happy. Find out all the details at castdone dot com, Forward slash Beyond. I look forward to chatting to you in the next episode of Crappy to Happy. Crappy to Happy is presented by cast Done, produced by Davis Lenski, Audio production by Darcy Thompson. Listener