11 Quotes by Jess Hill

I don't bash you with my fists, I bash you with my emotions, to keep you under control.

Generations of men are frustrated, angry and ashamed that, despite following the rules - and despite sacrificing the tender, emotionally connected boys inside of them - they're not getting what was promised to them.

Whether perpetrators abuse strategically or on impulse, however, they usually have one thing in common: a supercharged sense of entitlement.

What's even more confusing is that perpetrators commonly believe with all their heart that they are the victim, and will plead their case to police even as their partner stands bloody and bruised behind them. Their victimhood is what makes them feel their abuse is justified.

His unpredictable responses lead her to 'walk on eggshells', endlessly hypervigilant, alert to the need to adapt her behaviour to prevent further abuse. Needless to say, the victim is left exhausted by constantly having to monitor her abuser's emotional state.

I explain patriarchy as a dual system of power: men's power over women, and some men's power over other men. - Michael Kimmel

As a group, men are dominant and privileged in relation to women. But as individuals, men pay a price for this privilege: to be considered 'real men', they have to live up to patriarchy's standards and abide by its rules. These standards and rules are regulated - through fear, control and violence - by other men.

Abusers are notorious for rushing the first stage of intimacy, something that's often described by survivors as a kind of 'love-bombing'. This phase is electric and full of promise. Survivors commonly recall being swept off their feet by a man more passionately interested in them than anyone had ever been before.

Since most women derive pride and self-esteem from their capacity to sustain relationships, the batterer is often able to entrap his victim by appealing to her most cherished values. It is not surprising, therefore, that battered women are often persuaded to return after trying to flee from their abusers.