Masculinities and violence against female partners

This article presents the case of a self-confessed perpetrator of domestic violence, called 'Mark'. Using Mark's account of his own life, I take issue with the assumption, routinely made in academic explanations of domestic abuse, that most men consider violence against women an acceptable means of 'accomplishing masculinity'. I argue that a psychoanalytic interpretive reading of men's lives deals more adequately with the complex relationship that exists between masculinities and violence, notably in its conceptualization of the pattern of idealization and denigration that characterizes many heterosexual men's relationships with women. This perspective helps explain the persistence of violent behavioural patterns among some men who claim that they want to change. However, the psychoanalytic interpretive perspective offered should be used as a compliment to, rather than a substitute for, those structuralist and feminist perspectives which continue to produce useful insights in this field. The article concludes by exploring the legal and policy implications of a sociologically literate psychoanalytic approach to men's violence.