Rejecting and retaining aspects of selfhood

Constructing desistance from abuse as a ‘masculine’ endeavour

Bibliographic Data

ID12900318
AuthorsDavid Morran (0000-0001-5025-1084, University of Stirling, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume23
Issue5
Pages739-753
Publication date2022-01-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCriminology & Criminal Justice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-8958 • E-ISSN: 1748-8966
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/17488958211070365
OpenAlexW4205331277
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited21

Evaluative studies of men who have attended domestic violence perpetrator programmes have, thus far, paid attention to the question of what they are expected to desist from. This is entirely appropriate. However, the question of what they are expected to achieve, or ‘become’, is less clearly articulated, indeed often overlooked. Based on a series of interviews with men who had completed perpetrator programmes, the narratives explored in this articles suggest that their abusive behaviour was underpinned by fears about how to ‘perform masculinity’ satisfactorily in the past. Consequentially, the programme experience was perceived as threatening or as ‘feminising’. However, the accounts of these men suggest that in desisting from abusive behaviour, issues of identity and processes of behaviour change remain profoundly gendered. Indeed, committing to desistance is perceived as something of an ‘heroic struggle’ in which qualities associated with being a ‘proper man’ are harnessed and utilised in the process

Abusive relationship · Aesthetics · Criminology · Domestic violence · Identity (music · Masculinity · Narrative · Poison control · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Suicide prevention · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Intimate Partner and Family Violence · Medicine · Psychology · Sex work and related issues · Social Psychology

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