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“In Canada, they’re stuck with a Marxist gender model and that’s never going to change,” he said, explaining that the current system defines “male and female relationships where men are the bourgeois group with the power and women as the proletariat with no power.”

But that’s at odds with what Statistics Canada reports, he argues.

“Every day, domestic violence is pretty much equal by gender,” Mr. Dutton said.

On self-reported surveys, men are about as likely as women to say that they have been the victims of domestic abuse, although the abuse reported by women tends to be more severe.

Yet of the incidents reported to police, the agency found eight out of 10 involve female victims. Women are also much more likely than men to be sexually assaulted or killed by their partners.

However, the statistics do suggest that there are male victims as well, and far fewer places for them to turn.

Twenty years ago, Mr. Silverman said he was the victim of an abusive wife.

“When I went into the community looking for some support services, I couldn’t find any. There were a lot for women, and the only programs for men were for anger management,” he said. “As a victim, I was re-victimized by having these services telling me that I wasn’t a victim, but I was a perpetrator.”

Silverman eventually created a support network for male victims of domestic violence online, and opened MASH.

If a man is abused, “where does he go for support? If he calls the police, studies have shown that there’s an 80% chance that he’ll be arrested. If he calls any support services in his town, it’s primarily just for women, not for me.”