As Australia battles an epidemic of men’s violence against women, it’s important we understand the different ways domestic violence and coercive control can manifest in relationships.
Although female perpetrators are rare, forensic psychologist Dr Jenny McKay says understanding the experiences of male victim-survivors and female perpetrators of domestic violence provides crucial insight into abuse interventions and prevention strategies.
Forensic Psychologist Dr Jenny McKay breaks down myths about domestic violence on this episode of Crime Insiders.
“Our normative narrative is around the strong big male perpetrator and the weak, vulnerable female victim. And that has, quite rightly so, been our narrative for some time now,” McKay says.
“Then we see these flashes of cases where we see women in the media using really quite horrific violence and abuse against their partners, ex-partners, people that they’ve been intimate with.”
McKay referenced the Emmy Award-winning television series Baby Reindeer, in which a male victim is harassed by a female stalker, as a prime example of the specific forms of abusive behaviours enacted by female perpetrators of violence.
“They appear to be these quite extreme cases then, that are so rare that we maybe don’t need to talk about it,” said McKay.
“…but I would argue that we absolutely do. And it’s something that we need to bring into our narrative around domestic violence quite a bit more.”
By Ashleigh Wyss, a Master of Journalism student at the University of Melbourne.
Subscribe to Crime Insiders, taking you beyond true crime. In groundbreaking interviews, explore the world of policing and forensics through stories from the world’s most experienced and decorated experts.