stats have shown that 40 to 50% of, you know, victims of domestic violence are males. And people get very upset. men have been shunted aside as a as a reaction to centuries of disempowerment of women. But again, reversing a bad pattern does not take us to a just and fair place. We've got to get rid of that. people have a hard time dealing with nuance and holding two thoughts in mind. But we know that the majority of cases of intimate partner violence are bi directional. Hello and welcome to awake at the wheel. So in today's episode, we're going to explore the topic of domestic violence against spend or intimate partner violence. So this is a topic that, melds into a lot of the discussions we've had surrounding men's mental health and specifically surrounding the shame and stigma that comes along with speaking up about many topics that affect men. And this topic has come up surprisingly often, with the men that I work with. So to explore this topic deeper, we're joined again by Doctor Dina McMillan. Doctor Dina is an author, speaker, and social psychologist who graduated from Stanford University and has a deep knowledge of how beliefs and bias influenced society. She has lived and worked around the world and has recently moved back to the United States. So welcome back, Deena. Oh, thank you very much. Yes. Thanks so much for being with us. Tell us a bit about first, I guess, before we get into the topic, what you've been up to. It sounds like you've moved right across the world. From Australia, back home to America. Yes. And it has been a trial and tribulation. Much harder than I thought it would be. And a lot of it has to do with technology because of the increased connectedness of the world. So much preparation that I would normally have made before even stepping on a plane I wasn't able to do until I arrived. So a lot of the things that I'm having to deal with in addition to culture shock, because although I travel back and forth for conferences and do visit family, it's a whole different thing when you're in a place to live. I mean, when you're with family, you don't tend to go to the grocery store. You're not trying to open a bank account. You know, all of those little things have been so hard and it's made adjustment very challenging. And yes, I do look both ways twice because, one thing I people may not know, Australians drive like the British. So the, the steering wheel is on the right side of the car and we drive on the left. So I have to get used to even the way we drive over here. So it's been interesting. Okay. Well, we're glad to have you back on the podcast today. And I know that this topic, feeds into a lot of the work that you do. So I'm really excited to see where we go with it. But first, I want to set the stage a little bit, regarding this topic. And in preparation for it, I was looking at what the stats are in Canada surrounding, men who are involved in intimate partner violence. There's a lot of numbers surrounding women and then breakdowns of different demographics of women. And when I was searching on the Canadian government's website for the stats surrounding men, I came up with basically nothing. So obviously that's very problematic for many reasons. But I think that it lends to what I started out with in terms if there's a lot of shame in terms of reporting, I think that's probably part of what skewing the numbers. But there's probably also a lot of misconceptions surrounding domestic violence against men. So I wonder if we can start out, you know, with like, what are some of the misconceptions that people have surrounding this topic? Well, first of all, I want to mention that while your audience may think, oh, she's American, what is she doing? Okay. I have for the last 15 years I've worked. I was living in Australia, but I've been working in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the UK. I haven't yet popped up to Canada. However, every time I look at the English speaking countries, the statistics are there. And you're right about them just not taking it seriously. But I want to tell you, I am a former coordinator for the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team, and one third of the domestic violence homicides I personally dealt with were men who'd been murdered by their abusive partners, who were women. And we could even talk about this. And I don't mean to cast aspersions, but often men in abusive relationships are not only too embarrassed to seek official help, they're often too embarrassed to seek help, even from friends, because it's very emasculating for a man to be frightened of his partner. And in the cases that I've seen, the men that were the most vulnerable to underestimating their risk were men who were quite tall and in a relationship with a petite woman who was seriously dangerous. But they felt physically the sense they were so much bigger than she was that they were basically going to be okay. But, you know, an SUV and a gun are great equalizers when it comes to that. And I worry about men. So I apologize to your Canadian audience because they are keeping track of this in the United States. So I apologize if I have to draw back to American statistics. But as I said, keep in mind, I lived 20 years in Australia. I lived in five countries. I am not just coming at this from an American perspective or so. Something you mentioned there like really stood out to me in, I guess, tracks with a lot of the things that my clients have disclosed to me about the the large man and the petite woman. Like that dynamic is really interesting to me. And as soon as you said that, I kind of went through a checklist of a number of people like, yeah, that that tracks, and I have some thoughts surrounding like, you know, what creates that inability to fight back or the stigma and so on. But what does the data say? Why is that? I haven't seen any data anywhere on this height dynamic that I've seen. As you notice, I was careful to mention that it was in my own experience. Right? Yeah. However, you have to keep in mind that I had been working at this for 20 years and worked in five countries. So I'm studying dynamics, and, that's only if you consider the UK a country because it's got, you know, four countries in there. So but I am seeing this pattern over and over again because men feel that because, well, first of all, these women are often very careful to get involved with men who were brought up to be quite aware of the disparity in strength and have a strong have strong principles against physically assaulting a woman. So we're not talking about the thuggery we see online, where a woman pushes against a man and he blows up his fists and punches her in the face. These aren't the type of guys I'm talking about. These are men who were taught you don't hit girls. And they just underestimate their risk because even if she slaps him or pushes him because he doesn't necessarily feel threatened, he doesn't realize what a risky situation it is. And I want everyone to be safe in a relationship. So and I do worry even in the United States and I get in trouble about this because I am a big advocate for women's safety. But I also worry about men. And because I'm not anti male. It shapes how I do my work. And eight times out of ten people approve. But those two times out of ten they what they see men as the enemy and they don't care what happens to men. And we have a history and they need to be responsible for it. I run into those people. But the mental health risks that men take. One of the things that you would find abused men would be very high suicide risk, because not sure both of you have found the same thing. Rather than actually seeking help. A lot of them would self-harm. They would just feel such despair about addressing the situation, you know, because it's not just somebody throwing a plate at your head. It's someone threatening to take your children away in a court system. They tend to favor mothers. So having the children held hostage is so commonplace. And I'm sure you see that again, that it no way denies the risk. The increased risk of women getting involved with an abuser. But why don't we get rid of all of it? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to add in, in terms of the self-harm, I'll share what, you know, I see in terms of that self-harm by way of self-medication, use of drugs and alcohol isolation, and things such as that. So not as obvious signs of self-harm that people may be thinking, but you're you're correct. That is something I unfortunately do see and or and I'm curious about your thoughts as the male in the room here. And just your observations from clients as well. Okay. I've got 100 things to say, so I'll say a couple now and I'll get back to others. I suppose that. Okay. So first of all, I have been literally no joke, disinvited and basically defended, by a number of groups. Because it would, you know, domestic violence would come up and I would say, yeah, I know that's really terrible. And I'd say, but also, just so you know, and I'd say the stats have shown that 40 to 50% of, you know, victims of domestic violence are males. And people get very upset. And I say, look, I can drop the papers. The meta analyzes, okay. Like no different studies will find something, but meta analyzes show 40 to 50%. There may be different levels of violence. And by the way, you start with, you know, that thing when you said one third that that blew my mind because I always saw that was about a nine, you know, 9 to 1 ratio of murders or homicide. But that's that's shocking my experience. Only I'm not saying that. And that's everywhere. I was very careful to say it was my. Right still, but still I mean, that that experience blows my mind. But you know, so when I say these things and people get upset with me and they would say like, no, either 90 or 100% of domestic violence against women, and they'll say, all of my friend, all my female friends have been, you know, abused by men. And I try to explain it and it's not a zero sum game. We can talk about, you know, the domestic violence against men while also saying there's, you know, intimate partner violence against women as well. It doesn't negate or take away from. And a lot of people have a hard time holding both thoughts in mind. So that's been my experience just trying to broach the topic. And I you know, I've talked about this, many, many times for the last 25 years. So at least my students, I see a lot of their reactions. I see a lot of their complaints. But at least in class I can say, let's sit down. Let's drop some references. Okay? And I guess I'll just go with one thing just because Malini brought it up. And I will say this and this is it really upsets me if I make it. I might be wrong on the year by two years, but up until 2014, in stats can if you can go back to 2014, they would show male and female domestic violence. And they were they would all say was 5050 basically. Okay. But here's the thing. They would provide two stats. One was self like self report in studies and then the other was police report. So they would say up until 2014 they would say self-report of self report 5050 police report about 4 to 1. You know more women than men okay. Because of you know we know reporting. We know that so many women will not report it. But as Doctor Deena said earlier, men are even less inclined to report it because of the shame and stigma that still exists today. So they had both stats until 2014. Then in 2016, they had only the stat about police report and they had a footnote. So if you check the footnote tiny down the list, but self report shows equal. And then in 2018 and again it could be off by two years I believe 2018 and onward they only showed the police. So someone that stats can is trying to present a narrative to show that the, you know, rates of intimate partner violence is far higher against women than against men. And that was a shift that they had over. I tracked it over the years. So that's that's something that people should be wary of. And now maybe they've taken it off. I'm not sure. But that was yeah. I could have dug further and maybe found it. But the fact that it wasn't readily available as all the other women related stats were that's, you know, it suits or fits that trend that you're describing. Well, I would also say I would also say that to to clarify, what I've found is that women are more likely to be seriously injured in a domestic violence situation. And also there are cultural, pressures on women to remain within the relationship that are not necessarily on men, but that does not reduce the vulnerability of the men that are in this situation. I would say that if you look at the average length of time, this is something I've done informally when I've dealt with men who are or have been in abusive relationships. I've asked them how long they were with this person, and I found that the amount of time is usually significantly less so. But I one of the things I hate about statistics is everybody knows exceptions. You know, and especially add in the children and all the stats get blown out of the water because again, abusers will use whatever leverage they have. So while the court systems do not, this is really dangerous because while the court systems do not understand the severity and the seriousness of violence against men in abusive relationships, they are not going to protect fathers in abusive relationships. They are going to allow that emotional blackmail to to work. We can't have that. It's not good for society. It's not good for the children. It's completely unfair on the victimized partner. Whether the partner is the mother or the father, because we have our own set of issues with really clever fathers who were able to manipulate the courts. And in part of my unmasking the abuser training for judicial officers, which I've offered throughout Australia. Now I want to do it in the States. But part of what I show them is how abusers of either sex manipulate the court. I basically tell the judges you're being played, and here's how. And it's interesting, they want to. Most judges want to know. Yeah. So tell us more about that. As far as like what characteristics, are typical in a female abuser. Well, it was female abuser. Say, well, you know, when you have so much information again, I'm a social psychologist, not a clinical. And here's why that matters. Because we study how we're influenced and persuaded and indoctrinated and manipulated. I'm looking at the information that we just passed by or don't even register that we've actually encountered, and the fact that in Canada right now, in fact, in most places in the States, you hear time after time after time about women being abused, but almost nothing about men, judges, juries, attorneys are just as vulnerable to bias as anyone else. Social workers. So, so often people don't recognize that the situation. You need to look at the behavior pattern and the dynamics, not the sex. And I know when I was working for the court right before I left the United States for Australia, I wrote a few chapters in LexisNexis, the legal tomes, on domestic abuse and violence in child custody cases, and another one on, choosing an expert witness. And because of that, I had a woman actually want to hire me right before I left to write a report about her relationship with her ex-husband, accusing him of abuse. I did so, but because I don't have, I work really hard to keep my rose colored glasses as thin as possible. So the dynamics didn't add up. It was basically she didn't like his new girlfriend. She was willing to pay me $750 an hour. Now we're talking a while ago, $750 an hour. It was serious money to write this report. I could not do it. It was not true. He was not abusing her. He was not abusing the children. She just wanted to use her. Yeah, as a tax. Paul, to be vindictive. And because she knew that the chances are good because almost nobody hears anything about abusive women, that if she took that report with my name on it to court, it would work, and he would have lost custody of the children. Well, if there's something I mean, you've touched upon this, and I've warned this to some patients. And when I say I don't say it all the time, there's only been a few times I've said it, and every time I said it, of course, the person across me, a male, was shocked. He was almost. He almost looked at me with contempt that I would dare say it. And I said, from what you've told me, talk about patterns. I said, what you've told me about this person. I said, this is there's a high likelihood this is going to happen. Every time I predicted it, it happened. False allegation about harm to the children and of course, the worst type you can do is sexually abusing your children. And I warned it. And and, you know, some of the men take precautions, others don't. And I've had a few of these men end up getting arrested. And, you know, I'm not blindly following this. I, you know, I check everything out, I ask proper questions, I look at the evidence and, you know, and luckily, I think each one has been cleared, but still you go through months of, of, you know, hell, you're separated from your children. You're racking up so much legal cost and you don't know what's going to happen, and it's terrifying. And God forbid, if you go to jail under those charges, we know what happens to people who are, you know, who are, those types of prisoners. And it's terrifying. And this happens, and I never see any bad, you know, any harm come to the false abuse accusers. It's terrible. And I've had, you know, I just have to be careful. I won't go into detail, but I fought against, child Protective Services in one case, where it was obvious there was video evidence that this person had lied and had used that lie to abscond with the children to, to, you know, to leave a town with the children. And when I tried to show this and I fought against child protective Services, you know, the father didn't do himself any favors along the way, unfortunately, like, legally speaking, like he didn't follow the right protocol. I said, it doesn't matter. I said this whole case was predicated on a vicious lie that could have landed this man in jail. And they were not having any of it. Because, as you say, they're humans. They have biases. And they don't want to go to bed thinking that they've made a terrible mistake. So they're looking for any sign that, oh, yeah, this is evidence. But they don't understand all the evidence, all the patterns. And they take an overly simplistic approach, make the wrong decision in many cases. And it's terrifying. And just one last thing. Just because I have many female patients, who are, you know, they are the victim of a male who, you know, either abused them or falsely accused or is alienating the children. So either sex. I just want to be very clear here. I'm not saying it's all against men. I've had many women who also suffered the same, you know, malevolent, tactics. So everyone suffers males, females. It's it's terrible. And again, as you say, doctor, you know, a lot of people, whether it's the police, whether it's lawyers, whether it's the judges, they aren't well versed enough to understand and to recognize these patterns and to make the right calls. Well, this may sound like an aside, but it's actually very relevant to what we're talking about. And when I was introduced, they talked about my anti-bias training. Now I came up with anti-bias training using social psychology in around 2020, 2019, 2020, when you had all of the anti-racism efforts happening, Black Lives Matter. And, I was looking at how they were handling things, and I knew that they were going to actually produce the exact opposite result of what they were aiming for. And so I said, okay, let me I tend not to complain about things. If I see a problem. My next question is how do we fix it? And it also has a secondary impact by doing anti-bias training for law enforcement, judiciary, child protection, detective services. People might think, yeah, okay. It's not diversity training. We're talking about really recognizing your own biases and see how that impacts on you. Not believing a male who's being abused. See how that impacts, a father who's being falsely accused of sexually abusing his children. You are a better judge of what's going on. Your critical thinking sharpens if you if have simple tools to reduce bias. And it's like many things, I started off wanting to go up against diversity training because, as I said, having studied the brain and how we learn and you know, how we're persuaded, I saw the the absolute car crash that that was going to be and studies in the UK, in the U.S over the last few years have borne that out, that places that have diversity training and have, you know, Dei programs actually end up with more divisive workforces and more divisive schools, and students then if they just left them to their own devices, well, might actually helps. So I, I've actually been talking to parliamentarians in the UK, somebody in the UK found out about my anti-bias program and contacted the powers that be in the UK. So I've been talking to the people in the UK for a long time, because most people who are right thinking say, well, we can't just do nothing. You know, we have people with different backgrounds and different beliefs. How do we get people to work together? This. So I imagine that part of it with the Dei training, is it that it's creating a more divisive environment because it's pointing out these differences and highlighting them and drilling them into students? Or like what? What is it about it? It is, it is it's biased in itself. It's not saying okay. In the past we looked at you know people did this. And so we're going to close our eyes, close our ears and choose the best candidate instead. It's just reversing the racism reversing the sexism. As long as you have racism sexism and bias like that, it can always be switched around. If you want to have a more fair and just society, you have to work on removing it. And that's where the anti-bias training comes in, because bias is a natural predisposition that all of us have. We all think us and then we all I, as I said, the influence of constantly hearing about abused women but never hearing about abused men. That in itself establishes a bias in your mind where the average person, even in their law enforcement, even if their judiciary will just presume that that, you know, 99 out of 100 victims of abuse are female. And that's just not true. So understanding bias and and giving people ways of accessing spotting it in themselves, spotting it in other people, reducing it means that men will get a better break when they're when they're going to court, when they're in family court. Right now, family court is predominantly run by some very biased people. So I mean, oh, it's really bad. Can you speak more specifically about like what those biases are? In most cases I've seen you have very masculinity is toxic kind of women running those courtrooms and men who've been cowed into thinking because they're male, they're bad. You still have some holdouts where it's the other way around. I remember one of the judges in the courts. I worked in the court I worked with, where I was working on a the tail end of a five year study on the vulnerabilities and risks of people who are being physically abused and we had a courtroom where. Three out of the five female judges always believed the woman. Four out of the five male judges always believed the man. There's no justice in that situation. You have to again what we were saying. Look at the dynamics, the principles, whatever. And I got into trouble because I went toe to toe with one of the judges who was so biased against an obviously abusive woman because she knew how to play the game. You know, they always do the alligator tears and the and the whole thing. But in in interviewing her and her partner, it was so obvious that he was the one being abused. And I just asked the judge to just stand back and just listen to the dynamics, because she wasn't even good enough to really hide it. It's just that the the judge was so biased in her favor, and she got angry with me for even presuming to, you know, plead the case for a male. But I'm used to that has been going on all along. Believe me, when we start talking about anti-white bias, which could be another show. You think I'm in trouble about defending? Then you should see what happens when I start talking about anti-white racism. Because again, if we have racism, then existence the target can shift very easily. You want a more fair society, you have to take it out of the equation. But people get angry with me for saying it. But yeah, so it the courtroom right now, most courts, most family courts. And the problem is this for any men who have been hurt by this, the problem is some of the men that are going into that court before you and after you are horrendous. They're monsters. Right. And so that the law enforcement and the judiciary are having to watch these guys and they're so angry, and they may be taking some of that anger out on you. Right. And I'm going to jump in a few things in that. That's one thing, because I've recommended many men to go to the few, services in at least in Ontario, that, you know, help men who are, you know, victims of intimate partner violence. And I warn them, I say, look, there will be a number of men who are like you. I said, but within those groups, there are also psychopaths. There are monsters who can't recognize or won't admit that they are the problem. So they feel they. They're surrounded by a group of good men who've been wrongly accused, and they latch on to it and they go, yeah, just like me. Just like me. And so it's really hard. It goes back to the bias, as you said, if, you know, we have these mental shortcuts, these heuristics. And so if you have this image, you know, if it's a certain type of man is abusive, that's one thing. If, as you're saying, all men are abusive or all men can be abusive or all, you know, this is going to bias people. And when we talk about bias, as bad as family courts are and people have to understand family court is not criminal court, okay? It's it's not based as much on law as it is on, you know, on feelings almost, or opinions rather than facts and evidence, although obviously those things play out, play a factor or play a role, but a lot of it is, you know, you in family court, you see far less justice than in other courts. That's been my experience. But when we talk about the bias, there's no greater bias than academia and and psychology and psychotherapy groups that I'm part of a few where what we're talking about, you know, it's it's rampant and these are the people who are going to be doing assessments. These are the people who are going to determine if it's a he said, she said, who's in the right and who's in the wrong before it even gets to court, like when you're talking about writing reports. I've done many of those assessments and I've reviewed many assessments where I'm like, what the hell? How can you miss these obvious signs that someone is lying or, you know, manipulating? So and it's only getting worse. And, you know, Melanie, I've talked about the feminization of psychology or in academia. And it's not to say women are bad, it's just for certain. You don't have to explain to me I'm absolutely there with you. Yes. I'm in the audience. I know you're there. But the audience for going to. Take you to your audience. Well, so I'm a strong woman. I'm an unapologetic about being. And I'm a strong woman. And I look at this and, you know, we have been led astray. We are going astray. And but again, for the people watching, if you can fix it, fix it and you can be I'm a social psychologist. I'm part of the evil science. If you watch my show Heart Mind with Doctor Tina McMillan, I always explain what we do in social psychology, and I usually have a picture of an evil scientist doing something horrible to a brain, to a company. What I say, but here's social psychology for you. If you in Canada, if you have any role in it, hire me to do anti-bias training for your judiciary. I have trained the judiciary in Australia. I have a master's and doctor from Stanford. I'm well-qualified. So it wouldn't be just, you know, hiring me to be nice or whatever. But you want to get rid of the bias in the courts, hire me to change, train the judges. And as far as academia and the mental health fields being so biased politically, I wrote a chapter in a book called Cynical Therapies and they had UK, US and me. I was living in Australia at the time because this is three years ago, writing chapters on various aspects of mental health and just things like I wrote on critical race theory and how it is so infused with bias. It is not best practice that what we've done is take away best practice and client care and turned it into activism. And everything is about white supremacy. And so you're absolutely I mean, absolutely right. The political bias in academia, I think they just recently asked Harvard professors, and I don't know if they had it any Republicans. Everybody was a staunch Democrat. That's not learning. That's indoctrination. So, yes. So for that, if you if you are a male or related to a male who's gone through absolute hell in family court, write to whomever you know and say, you know, I we think it would be a good idea for Dr Dina to come up and do some anti-bias training. Don't tell them you're trying to get them to be more fair to men. And for the real narcissistic, devious, psychopathic monsters that are male, that are getting away with things, fewer of them will get away with it as well. I'm going to jump in with one thing just because before I forget, just because I don't I don't know how it is in the States, but in Canada, this is one thing that used to shock my students. I would ask them, I'd say, look, you know, thank goodness there are many shelters for, female victims of domestic violence in Canada. So many of them for them, in their families. And then I said, how many do you think there are for men? And, you know, people give whatever numbers. And until 2010, the answer was zero, meaning there are shelters for men, but not for, you know, specifically for victims of domestic violence and where they can go with their kids, because that's a very different shelter than homeless shelter. You don't bring children to a homeless shelter. So, in 2010, there was a gentleman called Earl Silberman, himself a victim of domestic violence. He started a shelter. He had about 15 men and a couple of children, and he had to shut it down in 2013 because he couldn't afford it. He didn't have the, the infrastructure. There wasn't the support. There wasn't a widespread media coverage saying, hey, let's get some money to help men. It was it was silent almost. And so 2013 not only did shut it down, but he tragically ended his life because he was just so distraught. He had a mission and he felt he failed. And he, you know, he didn't fail the country, the system, society failed. And the only good news is since then there have been a few more shelters, the Canadian Center for Men and Families. They've opened up a couple of shelters, at least in Ontario. He was out BC okay, but still, there's a there's literally less than a handful of, or a handful of, you know, of shelters for men because, again, it's not in the news. People don't talk about it. And so I just want to put that stat out there for people to understand that. Earl Silverman, I think, deserves to have that recognition, you know, for his efforts and unfortunately, his, you know, his demise. Well, I have I have four words for you because these are people that I've been thinking about for my work. Now that I'm back in the States, as I said, it has taken me a lot longer to adapt. I've been back since the end of November and it's taken me longer to adapt and unexpected. However, I'm just as determined as always, so I have four words for you Elon Musk Johnny Depp okay, so when we're talking about going to people because I like to see to get funding for Elon from Elon to roll out my Unmasking the Abuser program because his mother, May, has come on record and talked about the fact that Elon's father was abusive. So he understands the damage it does, not just theoretically, but from a very personal level, but he also is somebody whose work really hard over the last year to recognize wrong as a principle. And not just these people do wrong. Those people do wrong. He's really working hard to remain objective. And of course, Johnny Depp, when I watched the court case with him and Amber heard, it was so obvious to me that she was the abuser. So he's somebody that might be willing to donate to a shelter for men and their children? Sometimes we get proud and we don't. For me, it's only access. I have no pride whatsoever. I will ask anybody. Okay. Because it's not about me. It's about the people we can assist. And if I hear of anything, you know, I will contact you. Because I realize, having lived overseas and met a lot of Canadians who really are nice to us, only in North America. Oh. Oh. Okay. But I don't, you know, I, I don't, I don't, I don't accept the separation. Okay. Culturally we're all England's children. The pride, the cultural norms, the way our cultures developed. It all comes from England. We're human beings. We want fair and just societies. So seeing each other as other with a capital O doesn't help anyone. So if I come up with something, I'm just as likely to help the Canadians. And of course, I'm still strongly bonded to Australia. I will love Australia forever. I never thought I'd stay there so long, but any time I think of something, I always think, okay, how can we get this in Australia as well? But we need to do something and if I hear of anything, please, no one will contact you. Thank you. I want to go back to something that you said. And I think that, recently there is a documentary on Netflix that came a bit, came out about, Johnny Depp and Amber heard and everyone I think is still quite split on how they see things. But you said something where it's so obvious that she's the abuser. Can you talk more about that and what people may be missing? Number one, patterns. It is very unusual for someone to be abusive only in a in one relationship. So when evidence started to come out about the way she acted in her other relationships, whether the relationships with were with men or with other women, it it basically validated what with Johnny had said about the way she treated him. So it's patterns of behavior and one of the problems is, is you have to I'm sure you've had the same experience because we deal with this and have dealt with this for years. But the average person is not able to discern validity. When you're dealing with an actress on the stand. So she's able to pretend really well that she's the victim. He was a little bit emotionally checked out, but then we know that a lot of male victims behave that way. They kind of pull away to their survival mechanism is to emotionally disengage. So I just looked at at what was going on, and it wasn't until after the court case that more evidence started coming out about her behavior in other relationships. And I said, I'm not surprised. So taking into consideration a lot of what we've been talking about, and again, back to the stigma and the bias for many, what I have come across oftentimes is that men seem to, buy into what is portrayed in the media, in society about men and domestic violence and tend to talk themselves out of it like, oh, well, you know, maybe that's not what happened is happening. Maybe I'm imagining it. And so on. So what are some things that men could or should look out for in terms of patterns, in terms of the way they're being treated? That would be noteworthy and important to maybe investigate further or reflect more on. Well, I think number one is to don't immediately try to mitigate the impact it has on you. You know, it's okay, really pay attention how you feels. You know, self appraisal is really important. But one of the easiest rules is and I find that people with strong biases are not able to do this. One of the easiest rules of thumb to establish or even assess whether or not you think it's possible that you're being emotionally abused, even if it's not yet physical. Ask yourself, you know, think about what's happened over the last three months. Ask yourself as a man, if a woman came to you and told you that her spouse or partner had done that to her, would you perceive her as being in an abusive relationship? Sometimes. So often, people don't want to perceive themselves as victims. We need to come up with another term because, you know, especially men. Men tend to resist placing that label upon themselves. So it's they're subjected to abuse. They are not necessarily victims. Are you being subjected to abuse simply if if a woman came to you, if your sister said it, if your mother said it, would you perceive her as being in an abusive relationship? Would you perceive her even as being borderline and it's something she needs to pay attention to and really think about? If the answer yes, then it's valid for you as well. And we need more of us to speak up on their behalf. And if I can add one other thing, just to go back to Johnny Depp and Amber heard, because one of the things, again, people have a hard time dealing with nuance and holding two thoughts in mind. You know, when they heard that Johnny Depp was not an angel himself, right? People like, there we go. There's the evidence. But we know that the majority of cases of intimate partner violence are bi directional. Yeah. It's not. And and interestingly, people don't don't know this, but, at least the stats that I've seen when it's unidirectional, it's more often a woman toward a man. That's a fascinating thing. That and that's just statistics in North America. And again, this is not shitting on either sex. It's just saying let's recognize and say patterns. Let's and let's get let's get past our bias. Because again people want like I said earlier, want to not make the wrong decision whether they are a judge, a police officer or just somebody observing these things, they don't want to see themselves as a bad person and thinking I made the wrong impression or I had the wrong impression. So they're just looking for that one little piece of evidence, a tiny it's not a pattern, it's a tiny, you know, a flicker of evidence that confirms their bias. They latch on to that, and they tend to ignore all the other pieces of the puzzle. So we have to keep an open mind and recognize that this is complex, it's multifactorial. And it's not just like it's a simple one thing happens. Therefore this is abuse. There's a whole bunch of things at play. And one other thing, just because you've mentioned a number of times, when people talk about like, you know, where men are this men are strong, men are the patriarchy and everything like that. It's like I always tell people, I tell my students, I tell my patients. None of that is relevant to the individual. There's no evidence that a man is any better at handling physical or psychological abuse than an individual woman. Okay, we are human beings. So anybody, especially children, but anybody who's subjected to this who is a target, we don't say victim was a target of this type of mistreatment and abuse can be affected. So let's stop trying to minimize the impact on men. Because I don't care about men. I care about that individual man in front of me and I can see he's suffering. So I just want to throw that out there. And I'm glad you did, because it's also the case that one of the universal factors in abuse for abusers is their ability to discern your vulnerabilities. So it doesn't matter how strong and confident this person is, they will figure out where you're vulnerable and they will pry that open and wound you there and then pour salt on it. Either sex. This is how they do it. Also, I wanted to say when we when I mentioned the fact that that so many people don't want to perceive themselves as victims, which is one of the reasons that abuse is so underreported and also if someone is hit or beaten and fights back, it's not just the individual themselves that has difficulty when law enforcement gets involved, sometimes they will actually arrest the wrong person, right? And they have had in the United States had had to have special training. And my friend, Doctor Carolyn West, she's a professor at University of Washington in Tacoma, has done actually put, a reference together for the judiciary because black women culturally don't like to perceive themselves as weak. And you have white, Hispanic, Asian women also. But it is a much more prevalent norm within the black community. So often when a black woman is being hit or abused, she's going to she's going to try to defend herself and often because once again, of norms we see in the media, when the police respond, it is she has a higher probability of actually being arrested than if she were white or if she were. Again, size has a difference. Makes a difference. You know, if you're really tiny and he's huge, she you know, he's more likely to get AB2 or be arrested, even if she's the abuser. You know, it's a lot of things go in there. We have to get the bias out of the whole process. But we also we have to understand the dynamic and not that we don't blame people for trying to defend themselves when their lives are at risk. Yeah. So we've talked a lot about like the higher level societal aspects of it. And, you know, I of course, I'm thinking more granular in terms of the clinical implications. How would I guide clients, how I would guide a client, and so on. Because often what I hear is that despite this happening, people still want to stay. People still want to make it work. And I think that there are rare circumstances where perhaps one can overcome that and make it work. But generally speaking, there's a lot of damage done emotionally, physically and otherwise, in these situations. But I'm curious, from the social psychology standpoint, what your thoughts are surrounding that kind of relationship survive this? I would always say yes. And it's and it's interesting because sometimes I like, for instance, my my Unmasking the Abuser program was designed from the start to be customized according to circumstances, demographics, cultural norms, age. And one of the groups I customized the program for was the Maori that I was working with, the community Maori community, which is the indigenous community from New Zealand, and I work with them both in Australia and in New Zealand. And there is a presumption in their community that if there is abuse, they have very high rates of abuse that there. But there's a presumption that the couple won't necessarily split. And in fact, you would know that a large number of, of women from cultures like this don't seek out assistance because they don't want to feel like that. They're going to be forced to leave the relationship. And that's not necessarily what they want to do. I actually put things together so that we could actually weed out the proportion, the signature. It's not it's not the majority. But there is a minority of men and a minority. I, I would say, okay, I can't speak for the women. I'm sorry here, I do apologize audience. I not worked with a large enough number abused and to be able to make this presumption. But I've worked with women and I found that there is a minority of men who have resorted to abusive behaviors that if taught new skills, actually want that relationship to work and will actually put the effort in to make it work and actually will seek out the healing for any psychological underpinnings that are there that are causing them to react that way. Unfortunately, I'm scared to say it because unfortunately, every victim who has is holding on to the dream thinks that her partner is going to be that exception. And I would say it's it's less than two out of ten. Yeah. But what an interesting perspective nonetheless. It in some cases it is a skills deficit rather than, something, you know, inherently emotionally or psychologically flawed. Or it's a skill deficit combined with, role, you know, poor role modeling as a child. You know, having parents who, you know, this is this is the dynamic that they grew up with. And we tend to mimic the dynamics at our childhood. So if they learn new ways and it's important enough for them to do it. And I actually in all of my work, I always have, in fact, I even have an episode of Heart and Mind with Doctor Dena McNeill, which you can see on Rumble or YouTube or Daily Clown on. Can somebody change from bad behaviors? Can they can it? How do you how can you tell if they're making a real effort or if this is just another type of manipulation to try to get you back? Now, one of the here's one of the secret ones I've seen a lot of people say again, sorry for the gender bias, okay? I've seen a lot of women say, oh my goodness, you know, he's been going to better intervention. And it's like he's acting like we did when we first got together. You know, it's just good. It's when we first got together. Well, that's why unmasking the abusers necessary. I teach about the way the manipulation starts when the relationship starts. So what can in these cases, they think, oh, it's going to be wonderful. No, he's just gone back to the manipulation tactics that were effective in the first place. A cycle will probably he's in he's we're using them to reestablish the bond. But the probability of that relationship being healthy and lasting is really low. I want these women to come back to me and say, you know, he's different than he's ever been. He's never done this before. And sometimes he gets really frustrated. But now, you know, it's like somebody who has a problem with alcohol where they go to a meeting for anybody who works in administration or in programs, please don't have the intervention programs. And after two years, it has to be like Alcoholics Anonymous, where somebody finds themselves backsliding. They can go to a meeting and get their training reinforced so they don't backslide into becoming who they weren't before. Yeah. Yeah. I could point. Okay. Well I was just going to say because I know I mean, we're coming close to the time. Yeah. I, you know, I'll let you, I'll let you introduce the thing about what can people do. Okay. Because I one point I want to say so, Joanna. Sure. Yeah. So I guess rather than asking what can people do? Because I think, we've kind of interspersed that throughout the, the episode. But is there something, Dr Dina, that we haven't talked about that you think is really important? I think we need to do everything we can in a small way, in large way, but don't make it a competition. So we don't want to diminish the power and the damage of violence against women by always interjecting. But what about men? I know whenever I've done a show about any of my books, you always have a or call in the, you know, the television show. Well, what about for men? Let's keep it separate because there are different cultural norms, physical dynamics. But let's not be silent either. We need to speak up. You know, if you work at an an organization that is fairly large, see, about putting together, a lunchtime training, about the risk of, of your male, the male on staff and employees being in an abusive relationship. What to look out for, what to do with you, how to get help, keep it separate from the from the issues for women. Don't make it a competition, but please look out for your men. Have a men's mental health day. You know, men have been shunted aside as a as a reaction to centuries of disempowerment of women. But again, reversing a bad pattern does not take us to a just and fair place. We've got to get rid of that. We've got to support men's mental health. We have to support men and healthy relationships. One problem we have on both sides right now, and it's why I said in the United States, domestic violence against men by their female partners is 1 in 9 it used to be 1 in 16, ten years ago, because the dynamics and the way men are being treated publicly with so much anti male bias in the media, is causing a lot of females to feel it. It's empowering for them to emotionally or even physically abuse their male partners. So nobody wins that way. And we're not. We need to do more to teach men and women how to have healthy relationships, where those classes. Yeah. Yeah. And I love what you said. The framing of that is it's not a competition. Right. But let's not compete against each other. I want to live in a healthy society where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. And I'm not anti, as you can tell. I'm not anti-male at all. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And again I'm just going to repeat it. I think it bears repeating that unfortunately the professors, teachers, psychologists, psychotherapy researchers, so many of them do not hold that perspective that you just communicated. Right. When you say that they because, again, they've been steeped in this ideology and they are anti male or they're you know, they think they're pro female. You can be pro female but you can't be pro male. They're pro female at the cost of pro male. And so it's so hard. And we need to try so hard to fight against that. And the more I I've got to say as a man, when I see women speaking up, I mean that's the important is because that's a little side note here. Years ago there was a, a men's group, men's rights group, in I think it was at Ryerson and, the, the president and the vice president of that group. I said, hey, when I went up to them, because they came to one of my talks, I said, it's ironic, of course, that the men that the president and vice president happen to be women, okay, for a men's group. Well, they called they called men's rights group. They called a men's mental health group. And and they said, of course, because if we were men, nothing would get done. The, the administration, the departments, they would not allow us to even form. Okay. This is how backwards, you know, these universities are, they needed equipment to be able to advocate for the men because. No, you know, if men are doing it, they're terrorists or something like that. So, you know, so I've got to say, whenever I see women speaking out and speaking up and, you know, speaking truth, it really hardens me because so many men feel that they are lost in the, you know, in the wilderness. They have been shunned to the side. They have been blamed for everything wrong in the world. And so when there are others who are saying, no, we don't take that stance, I think it does give hope to go to 49% point 5% of the population. So I appreciate that. And especially when they are professionals, not just friends and neighbors, but actual professionals, it gives people hope that there are some people within the system who may be able to effect some necessary change. So thank you to both of you. Well, can I just say, though, that my voice needs to be amplified? One of the challenges I had in Australia, and it's one of the reasons I came back here, is that I was pushed aside because I don't have an anti male bias, because I don't have an anti-white bias. That's crazy. I, I was silenced in so many ways and, you know, the number of contracts that I've lost because I'm not I don't have that. That perspective is crazy. But when I work with law enforcement and I do like my unmasking in the abuser training, the fact that the bias isn't there, men notice. I would have men meet me when I came off the podium saying, we were expecting you to be the typical woman. It's like every man is one day away from being just the worst abuser ever, and you're just not like that. And I think I have a few of the the patterns that you're talking about that are problematic. Where can I get help? Where do I send them? Yeah. Well, to me, and this. Is something I tell them that, but you do have to go to Canada. But that's okay. Yeah, but I am so. Happy to, you know, this time and last time, speak with you and and connect with you, you know, because I think that what we have in common, among many things is there's an expectation because we look a certain way, because we're in a certain profession, that we should therefore think a certain way. And I hear the same thing, except in the context of my work, where it's awfully refreshing to a lot of white men that I'm not what they expected. And in fact, I'm not anti man, I'm not anti-white, I'm not anti anything. But I am pro critical thinking and equality and, you know, an actual healthy way. So it is so refreshing to hear you experiencing that as well. But it's unfortunate that there's very few of us. And and we have to get more support. I mean, it's all nice when people say, oh, it's great that you do this, but we need to survive. You know, I well, I'm in in Nashville, right now scrambling to find work, you know. But I came back to the States because it just wasn't happening in Australia. Australia just decided we're just going to ignore every major issue that we have. And I said, okay, I'm coming back to America, and I would love to come up to Canada because I want to go to Toronto because Candace Olson is from Toronto. She's my favorite interior designer. That's my other love, interior design, you know, me too. Actually, we have a. Lot in common. We agree we should talk. Definitely. Let's do this again. Okay. I think just one last thing before I go there because just one final thing because we talked about the anti male bias. Here's the one thing that I want people again, whether they are students, whether they are newly in the field and they want to do the right thing and they want to promote anti-bias and so on. Here's just one thing that to be very careful about, and I, I have come up against this many times, even very recently. There are so many of the people who are anti male, who they won't admit it. They will say, oh no, of course I understand. And the and the thing is, it takes only 1 or 2 questions or standing your ground before the veneer of civility gets peeled away. They, you see, you know, really what's behind that mask. So I just want to warn people, be careful just because someone says they understand and they're all for equality and everything like that doesn't mean that that's what they really are. Be wary please, if you're in the field, okay? Because these are the ones who will smile in front of you. And as soon as you turn your back, they will stab you in the back because they see you as dangerous, because you're trying to go against the orthodoxy. Yes, that they're sorry. No. Yeah. By their by their fruits you shall know them. So if you as I said, the men didn't come up and say, hey, wow, this is great. Before I started talking, they waited until I presented my information and they picked it up from their right. They saw the real you, right? Yeah, yeah. So how can our listeners find your amazing work out there? Yeah. Well, if you if you just type in Doctor Dana McMillan on Google, in spite of Google's bias, you will find a lot about me, including my my show heart and mind with Doctor Dana McMillan. And as I mentioned, it's on YouTube, it's on Rumble. If you follow me on X, my, just do look at Doctor Dana one and you will find I usually upload my episodes, but a lot of what we were talking about I talk about on the show. So and it also gives you ways to get in touch with me because if you have questions, comments, if you are somewhere where you want me to come up and work with you, now that I'm back in North America, can actually go and work with people. Was pretty hard to get people to fly me from Australia. They some people did it, but yeah, it was a little tough. Yeah. Okay. We'll link all of that in the show notes for today as well. Okay. Right. So, I guess with that, Ali, do you want to like, close off? I mean, again, doctor, always a pleasure. It's great talking to you. We were so looking forward to that. We were talking about this for a long time, so. Yes, you should have. You. Come on. Oh, you're very welcome. So. Yeah. So I guess on that happy note, until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.