RHEA ALMEIDA, PHD

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Cultural Faces of Men Who Batter Exploring
Gender, Class, Culture Sexual Orientation
Across the Lifespan

• RHEA ALMEIDA, PHD
• INSTITUTE FOR FAMILY SERVICES
• ANDRAÉ L. BROWN, PHD
• AFFINITY COUNSELING GROUP
• LEWIS CLARK COLLEGE
• BRIDGING PERSPECTIVES INTERVENING WITH MEN WHO
  BATTER CONFERENCE 2009

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The Intersection of Batterers Intervention and
White Privilege

• What do we know about batterers intervention
  programs?
• What sense do you make of these findings
• Men who find their way into the justice system
  and ultimately enroll in BIPs appear to be
  non-representative of the larger social problem
  of domestic violence
• Men who were more educated, older, had shorter
  criminal histories, and did not display clear
  signs of drug or alcohol dependence had a lower
  likelihood of re-arrest
• 2008 Judicial Council of California

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Conventional Wisdom

• Anger Management does not work
• Why not?
• Duluth model is limited
• In what ways?

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Unconventional Wisdom

• Accountability is a necessity within both
  criminal justice and healing systems.
• Restorative Justice
• Reparative Justice
• Reparations

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White Privilege The Other Side of
Multiculturalism

• Understanding whiteness in its relational sphere
• Unveiling whiteness/power/privilege from the
  policy of service provision
• Developing allies with cultural others
• Situate multicultural practice within a context
  of critical consciousness, empowerment and
  accountability

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Cultural Context Model

• DIVERSE CLINICAL TEAM
• DIVERSITY OF CLIENT POPULATIONS
• SOCIAL EDUCATION
• SPONSORS
• CULTURAL CONSULTANTS
• CULTURE CIRCLES - FAMILIES AS SUBSYSTEMS

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Foundational Concepts for CCM

• Critical Consciousness
• Accountability
• Empowerment

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TRADITONAL MALE FEMALE NORMS

• Use of traditional male norms
• Use of tradition in maintaining subordinate roles
  for women
• Multiple roles of heavy responsibility carried by
  women

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From Patriarchy to Adulthood

• Patriarchy
• Never act like girls
• Keep their feelings to themselves
• Value work as priority 1
• Strive for independence
• Practice aggression
• Dominate
• Believe women are for sex
• Devalue LGBT people

• Adults
• Value people of all genders
• Express their full range of feelings
• Value life as priority1
• Strive for connection
• Practice peace
• Collaborate
• Believe we are all human beings, not objects
• Work to end bias

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SOCIAL EDUCATION

• Linking of film and literary discourse to inform
  client inquiry and dialogue
• Linking sponsorship to social education towards
  building critical consciousness

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Cultural Consultants Sponsors

• Cultural consultants/sponsors are men and women
  with a critical consciousness who break with
  tradition and serve on a one or two time basis to
  assist victims in choices free from cultural
  constraints
• Cultural consultants/sponsors also offer bridges
  to perpetrators who claim cultural misogyny

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Critical Consciousness

• Critical consciousness, refers to the political
  and economic foundation of relationship patterns
• A Latina woman with CC defines the difference
  between Income vs. Wealth
• Income feeds your stomach, but assets change
  your head. That is you really do act differently
  when you have a cushion of assets so that you can
  strategize around important opportunities in
  life

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Hierarchy of Power, Privilege Oppression

• Patriarchy, capitalism, colonization and religion
  intersect in ways that create vastly different
  nodal experiences for individuals, families and
  communities

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• Hierarchies of power, privilege oppression
  create intersectionalities of life experience

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Critical Consciousness

• Washing one's hands of the conflict between the
  powerful and the powerless means to side with the
  powerful, not to be neutral.
• -Paulo Freire

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.CANNOT DISMANTLE THE MASTERS HOUSE WITH THE
MASTERS TOOLS Audre Lourde

• Multicultural scholarship relies on male
  Eurocentric models of intervention
• Focus is entirely on experiences of oppression
• No focus on oppressors

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EMPOWERMENT

• Creating a context for listening and witnessing
  the misuse of power and /or the anguish of abuse
• Connecting women and men of all races, gays and
  lesbians and under privileged classes to
  strategies of resistance- truth telling and
  social action
• Creating a narrative of LIBERATION

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Accountability

• Accountability begins with the acceptance of
  responsibility for ones actions and the impact
  of those actions upon others
• Accountability moves beyond blame and guilt. It
  results in reparative action that demonstrates
  empathic concern for others by making changes
  that enhance the quality of life for all involved
  parties

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ACCOUNTABILITY

• Apology and responsibility must take place in
  community context of witnessing
• Complete ownership of nature of Misuse Abuse of
  Power and Control
• Responsibility Reparations

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• If you don't like the way the world is, you
  change it. You have an obligation to change it.
  You just do it one step at a time.
• -Marian Wright Edelman

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Thank You

• Rhea Almeida, PhD

• Andraé L. Brown, PhD

• Institute for Family Services
• 3 Clyde Road
• Somerset, New Jersey 08873
• 732-873-1663
• WeCare4UIFS_at_aol.com
• www.instituteforfamilyservices.com

• Lewis Clark College
• Graduate School of Education Counseling
• Mail Code 86
• 0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Rd
• Portland, Oregon 97219
• 503-768-6092
• albrown_at_lclark.edu
• www.lclark.edu/faculty/albrown
• www.affinitycounseling.com