We’ve all heard the expression, “Blind as a bat,” right? Most of us believe it. It turns out, however, that bats can see almost as well as humans, but they also rely on their advanced sonar capabilities in the dark. This is just one of many examples of “common knowledge” that turns out not to be true.
Here’s another one: the causes of domestic violence are a man’s sense of entitlement, his belief that he should have power and control over her, and a belief that he can get away with it. These reasons have been recited without challenge so often by anti-domestic violence advocates that most people accept them as truth. Except they’re not.
Where did this “common knowledge” belief come from? It turns out, this is an ideology, not the conclusion of academic study or scientific research.
Emergence of the Duluth Model
Over 40 years ago, advocates trying to stop domestic violence in Duluth, Minnesota, put together a comprehensive program that created a coordinated community response to domestic violence that involved law enforcement, family law, and social work agencies working together. The objective was to reduce violence against women and rehabilitate perpetrators of domestic violence.
Part of this effort was to create a men’s behavior change program, now known as the Duluth Model. Perhaps because there were few perpetrator change program alternatives, or maybe because this approach appealed to like-minded feminist clamoring for something to address the issue, the curriculum became the most common batterer intervention program used in the United States and the rest of the world.
Here’s the problem: most domestic violence offenders don’t think that way. In fact, the team that built the original Duluth Model interviewed men in their groups once their program was up and running. Most men in the program said they didn’t believe they were entitled to having power over their partner.
Ellen Pence, a founder of the Duluth Model, wrote:
By determining that the need or desire for power was the motivating force behind battering, we created a conceptual framework that, in fact, did not fit the lived experience of many of the men and women we were working with. The DAIP staff … remained undaunted by the difference in our theory and the actual experiences of those we were working with … It was the cases themselves that created the chink in each of our theoretical suits of armor. Speaking for myself, I found that many of the men I interviewed did not seem to articulate a desire for power over their partner. Although I relentlessly took every opportunity to point out to men in the groups that they were so motivated and merely in denial, the fact that few men ever articulated such a desire went unnoticed by me and many of my coworkers. Eventually, we realized that we were finding what we had already predetermined to find.
Did you catch that? When the program staff saw evidence their program’s ideological basis was wrong, they quickly wrote off the feedback as the men’s denial. From there, the model’s use continued to spread.
Criticism of the Duluth Model
Criticisms of the Duluth Model are considerable. First, it is a sexist philosophy, assuming that men are the perpetrators and only women are victims. This is in sharp contrast to domestic violence data, which shows very similar rates of abuse and victimization between the genders. The male batterer and female victim supposition also does not explain the high incidence of abuse in the LGBTQ community.
The Duluth Model says men abuse because they are socialized in a patriarchal society that condones male violence, rather than considering underlying emotional and psychological issues. It dismisses well-grounded counseling models such as attachment disorders and the effects of childhood abuse or neglect, which better explain abusive behavior.
Those trained in the Duluth Model are told to take a confrontational approach, aggressively challenging the men participants’ actions and attitudes. However, we know the best route for helping people change is the rapport of trust and care built between the client and the mentor. Good therapists work to forge a bond rather than be adversarial.
When a treatment is based on assumptions that are not true, is it any surprise that it doesn’t work?
When a treatment is based on assumptions that are not true, is it any surprise that it doesn’t work? Study after study shows that Duluth Model BIP programs across the country have little or no effect on reducing recidivism. This is a triple loss: 1) we are wasting millions of dollars on a program that’s not solving the problem it’s supposed to address, 2) individuals in abusive relationships are no safer than before, and 3) those who want to change are not getting the help they deserve.
We can do better. We need to do better. Doing better begins by starting with a correct understanding of the causes of violent and abusive behavior—not an unproven ideology.
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