Child abuse does not happen in a vacuum. As much as it remains hidden from plain sight, it is predictable. We can usually tell when an abusive situation exists, and once we know a little about the players, we can usually tell why it happened. It is only because of our desire to keep out of other people’s business and pretend the world is a generally good place that we “miss” the warning signs.

There is not just one cause of abuse. A myriad of things come into play, such as drug abuse, mental illness, religious views, personality issues, prejudice, and political views. It is the latter two that prompted this post.

Hugo Schwyzer recently had a son. He wrote about his son’s birth on Role/Reboot. You would think it would be a joyous occasion, but Schwyzer had a fear:

In the fortnight since my precious David was born, it’s struck me how gendered my fears for my children are. I worry about both children getting sick, or being in pain, or being hungry, or cold. I worry about both of them being victimized by predators. I know enough to worry about both of them growing up around toxic messages of physical perfection (a particular problem where we live in West Los Angeles). But I realize that I’m not anxious about whether Heloise will grow up to be violent or predatory herself. I know girls can bully—but despite the claims of MRAs, the evidence is that girls are much less likely to rape, to hit, to abuse. The truth is, I worry about both my children becoming victims. But it is only my son whom I worry might himself become a victimizer. That’s not based on “misandry” (the irrational hatred of men), nor on any special insight into my baby boy’s character. That fear is based on statistics about which sex commits most physical abuse and it’s based on an all-too-intimate familiarity with a culture that mythologizes and glamorizes masculine violence. I’ve spent years and years unlearning the destructive tropes with which I was raised, just as I’ve spent years and years making amends for the very real harm I did when I was young. It wasn’t until I was well into my 30s that I began to love and accept my own maleness. To put it simply, at the base of all of my worries is the fear that sweet little David will grow up to repeat his father’s cruelest—and most gendered—mistakes.

As I wrote in the comments on that thread, speaking as someone who was abused by a feminist who shares Schwyzer’s views, I honestly hope that Schwyzer’s son teaches him to curb his misandry because I do not want child to grow up in the same kind of abusive situation I did. The sentiment he expressed suggests that he not only would allow abuse against his son, but that if it were done by a woman or a girl, like the boy’s older sister, that Schwyzer would condone or excuse it. I have personally experienced this, and heard this from dozens of male and female survivors of the years. That dynamic of treating one sex as inherently bad or dangerous never goes well. There are people like Adaya who experience it the other way around.