“It’s Not Just Dad Who’s Got Problems”: Feminist Phenomenology and Young Men’s Violence Against Women

Abstract

Research on men who have been violent against women has often shown how these men justify or excuse their violence, minimize their responsibility, as well as construct dominant forms of masculinity. However, as attitudes in support of intimate partner violence are declining around the world, we might expect perpetrators to become less self-righteous and more self-critical about their violence. This article reports data from a qualitative interview study with 14 young partner-violent men in Sweden. While our participants sometimes downplayed their responsibility, more often they condemned violence in intimate relationships, and reflected upon the place of violence in their lives. This included experiences of domestic violence as children, as well as their processes of moving away from violence. Drawing on feminist readings of phenomenology, particularly Heidegger, we suggest that phenomenological conceptualizations of embodiment, consciousness and practice are helpful in understanding the experiences of partner-violent men.

Introduction

There is by now a vast range of studies in different contexts showing how men who have been violent against intimate women partners account for their violence. They may, for example, minimize the extent and severity of the violence, downplay their responsibility, blame the victim, or differentiate between a past, violent self and a true, non-violent self (e.g. Edin and Nilsson 2014; Hearn 1998; Kelly and Westmarland 2016; Lau and Stevens 2012; Mullaney 2007; Seymour, Natalier, and Wendt 2021). Scholars have also shown that perpetrators’ talk about their violence takes place in a cultural context that provides legitimate discursive registers. As Scully (1994, 102) pointed out in a study of convicted rapists in the USA, “Sexually violent men need not search far for cultural language that supports the premise that women are responsible for, or at least provoke, rape.” However, this “cultural language” is under transformation in many contexts. There is evidence that around the world, intimate partner violence is undergoing a process of de-legitimization (Pierotti 2013). While many societies, like Sweden, are characterized by public condemnation of violence and widespread acceptance of gender equality, violence against women is still extensive (Humbert et al. 2021; Wemrell et al. 2019). To understand this paradox, it is imperative to explore how perpetrators perceive their abuse in this partly changing cultural climate.

This article reports data from a study of 14 young men who have been violent against their women partners in Sweden. While the participants in our study sometimes minimized their violence or responsibility, excuses and justifications were not their primary concerns. More often, they in fact explicitly denounced intimate partner violence. Their narratives were instead focused on understanding how they acquired violent tendencies in the first place, and on their process of perceiving their own actions in terms of violence and abuse. This resembles what discourse analysts have called discourses of “personal insight and change” and “remorse and regret” (Lau and Stevens 2012, 437).

In this article, we are interested in exploring such narratives further from a somewhat different perspective. Research on violent young men in the USA (Messerschmidt 2012) and in the UK (Gadd et al. 2015) has shown that focusing on the experiences of these men is valuable for understanding the role that violence has played in their lives. We draw on this broad interest, but instead turn to the conceptual register of phenomenology. In this respect, we follow feminist scholars who have used phenomenology in accounting for gendered embodiment (e.g. Young 2005) and women’s experiences of men’s violations (Alcoff 2018; Vera-Gray 2017). Specifically, we suggest that Heidegger’s phenomenological ideas about embodiment, consciousness and practice are helpful in exploring partner-violent young men’s experiences of living with domestice violence in childhood as well as moving away from violence.

Experience in Research on Partner-Violent Men

Feminist scholarship on violence against women, domestic abuse, and intimate partner violence has long demonstrated that violence is both “patriarchy-facilitated” and “patriarchy-enhancing” (Applin, Simpson and Curtis 2022). A central concern has been to foreground women’s experiences of men’s intrusions (e.g. Vera-Gray 2017). Against discourses of violent men as “deviant,” feminist scholars have highlighted the extent to which violence has been normalized more broadly. Thus, exploring the experiences of individual violent men has not been a priority. Focusing on particular men’s experiences could narrow down a broader, structural problem to individual biography; a more critical approach to men’s talk about their violence is required. Consequently, there is now a variety of studies in different contexts that show how violent men minimize, excuse or justify their use of violence (e.g. Boonzaier and de la Rey 2004; Edin and Nilsson 2014; Hearn 1998; Kelly and Westmarland 2016). However, this “accounts research” has additionally shown that violent men may also present discourses of remorse, regret, personal insight and change (Lau and Stevens 2012). The more intimate partner violence is broadly de-legitimized, we might expect perpetrators to become less self-righteous and more self-critical about their abuse.

While some critical masculinity researchers have been inspired by accounts research (e.g. Hearn 1998; Mullaney 2007; Seymour, Natalier, and Wendt 2021), others have been more interested in exploring the experiences of violent men. Crucial to such scholarship is the recognition that gender relations vary across historical and social contexts (Connell 1995) and that “there isn’t a mechanical one-to-one correspondence between the prevailing system of male power and all boys and men” (Salisbury and Jackson 1996, 8). This research has primarily taken two forms. In the US, Messerchmidt (e.g. 2012) has studied violent as well as non-violent youth, using his Structured Action Theory. Influenced by a range of theoretical sources, including ethnomethodological approaches to “doing gender,” Messerschmidt argues that:

it is through reflexive internal deliberations about the constraints and enabling aspects of social structures that people ultimately develop characteristic strategies for handling situations in which gender and sexual relations are present. (Messerschmidt 2012, 34)

In his work on violent youth, Messerschmidt thus takes the emphasis of actors as reflective to great lengths and presents men as deliberately using violence to “accomplish” masculinity. However, in their recent work on genderqueer youth, Messerschmidt and Bridges (2022) argue that gender scholars have focused too much on either routine or reflexivity, and suggest that more attention needs to go into addressing their interplay when accomplishing gender. While this is a welcome development, it is yet to be applied to questions of violence.

In the UK, Gadd and colleagues (Jefferson 1998; Gadd 2000; Gadd et al. 2015) have developed a psychosocial criminology that is interested in men’s paths to becoming violent. Here, subjects are understood less as rational actors and more as persons unconsciously, ambiguously and sometimes traumatically invested in violence. While psychosocial criminology attempts to bridge the gap between the social and the psychological, the emphasis tends to be on interpreting the intrapsychic processes that preceded or caused the use of violence (Messerschmidt 2013). Less emphasis has been placed on how men reflect upon their violence as part of moving away from it (but see Bornäs 2022).

These three traditions have distinct approaches to men’s experiences of childhood abuse as well as to moving away from violence. Accounts research tends to approach stories of childhood abuse as ways for perpetrators to minimize their own violence and emphasize the need of taking full responsibility to stop using violence (Hearn 1998). In contrast, psychosocial masculinity scholars argue that experiences of abuse may cause psychological trauma producing conflicting emotions and relations, which in turn may lead to aggression and violence. Moving away from violence is a matter of dealing with contradictory feelings towards women partners (Gadd 2000; Gadd et al. 2015). Messerschmidt (e.g. 2012), in turn, sees childhood as a place of gender socialization, where young men may seek advice from their fathers or learn from peers that violence is a desirable part of masculinity. Desisting from violence is thus a matter of deliberating over one’s actions and learning new, less harmful ways to accomplish masculinity.

In this article, we draw upon the interest in young men’s experiences of violence developed by researchers such as Messerschmidt and Gadd. However, we make use of a different theoretical approach. Inspired by feminist readings of phenomenology, we suggest that some ideas and concepts from Heidegger (2008) are useful in understanding young, assaultive men’s experiences. In particular, we focus on how the young men in our study reflect upon their exposure to domestic violence as children, and how they attempt to move away from their own abusive behavior.

Towards a Feminist Phenomenology of Men’s Violence

Generally speaking, the philosophical tradition of phenomenology focuses on exploring and describing fundamental features of lived experience. Central to this tradition are the insights that our perception involves a relation between the perceiver and that which is perceived (Husserl 2002); that our perception is embodied (Merleau-Ponty 2002); and that our perception of objects depends upon our use of them (Heidegger 2008).

Feminist scholars have drawn on the phenomenological tradition since Beauvoir (2010) and have developed important arguments about gendered embodiment, such as questioning the limitations of the sex/gender distinction (e.g. Alcoff 2000, Heinämaa 2003, Young 2005). More recently, phenomenological ideas have been important to queer theory (Ahmed 2006) and to Latina feminist thought (Ortega 2016). In addition, a more distinct body of feminist phenomenology is emerging (e.g. Fielding and Olkowski 2017). However, there has been little engagement with phenomenology, including feminist readings of phenomenology, in masculinity studies (but see e.g. Berggren 2014; Reeser and Ung 2021). A few studies of violent men make use of phenomenology as a methodological approach, including in Finland (Flinck and Paavilainen 2008).

In relation to men’s violations, Alcoff (2018) has argued that feminist theory needs to consider both individuals’ lived experiences and the public circulation of discourses through which those experiences can be interpreted. Similarly, Berggren (2014) has argued that research on masculinity should attend to the discourses that precede and exceed particular persons, as well as to the lived experience of subjects discursively positioned as men. Gendered norms may “stick” to bodies, and change is for men not always a question of deliberately embracing new (feminist) ideas and ideals, but can also be about struggling with embodied ways of being-in-the-world (Berggren 2020).

In this article, we further develop the discussion about masculinity, violence, embodiment and perception. For this purpose, and following feminist phenomenological scholars (e.g. Holland and Huntington 2001, Ahmed 2006, Ortega 2016), we attempt to make use of some ideas from Heidegger’s Being and Time (2008). Heidegger (2008) offers a rich exploration of the fundamental ontology of human being (Dasein). Central to his project is the idea of Being-in-the-world, which means that we find ourselves thrown into, and concerned with, a world not of our choosing. As Holland and Huntington (2001) point out, Heidegger’s emphasis on themes such as temporality, attunement and care can be seen as resonating with feminist concerns. Here, we focus on Heidegger’s analysis of the relationship between consciousness and practice, and particularly his concepts of “the They” (das Man), “ready-to-hand” and “present-at-hand.”

Heidegger (2008) distinguishes between two different modalities of the self. In contrast to the “authentic self” that involves individual judgment and responsibility, the “they-self” relieves a human being (Dasein) of the burden of authenticity by adapting to established social and cultural norms. As Heidegger (2008, 164) famously put it:

We take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as they take pleasure; we read, see, and judge about literature and art as they see and judge; likewise we shrink back from the ‘great mass’ as they shrink back; we find ‘shocking’ what they find shocking. The ‘they’, which is nothing definite, and which all are, though not as the sum, prescribes the kind of Being of everydayness.

Thus, the “they” is connected to everyday action, and operates at the level of interpreting the world for us. Since it affects our very interpretations, judgments and decisions, the “they” also has consequences for our sense of responsibility. Heidegger (2008, 165) posits that the “they” “deprives the particular Dasein of its answerability” and diffuses responsibility and blame, as “It ‘was’ always the ‘they’ who did it, and yet it can be said that it has been ‘no one.’” Reading Heidegger from a contemporary feminist horizon, we need to be cautious about the notion of authenticity, as well as recognize that there is no monolithic or unchanging “they” (cf. Ortega 2016). However, we suggest that the latter concept is still useful for highlighting how subjects may adopt normative ways of interpreting and acting in everyday life, without critically reflecting on them or taking individual responsibility for their actions.

Heidegger (2008) also develops a related distinction about our perception of objects. While Husserl (2002) argued that philosophers can adopt a “phenomenological attitude” (focusing on how things appear to us) in contrast to the “natural attitude” (where we presume the independent existence of things), Heidegger locates such different modes of perception as occurring not in the philosopher’s mind but in human beings’ everyday concerns with its surroundings. Heidegger argued that human beings are ordinarily concerned with dealing with their world. This means that we usually see things in terms of their capacities as tools for us; material objects are “ready-to-hand.” In some cases, the practical use of things breaks down, and it is only then that we perceive them as material objects and note their characteristics; they are now “present-at-hand” and deprived of their immediate utility. Heidegger’s discussion concerns primarily material objects. At the same time, he differentiates between what is essentially a practical and a contemplative form of perception. We suggest here that this distinction is useful for grasping also bodily acts of violence.

In sum, with the concept of “the They,” Heidegger (2008) differentiates between actions that are carefully considered and based on individual judgment, and actions that are done unreflectively because they are what “they”—meaning anybody—would do. Second, with the concepts of “ready-to-hand” and “present-at-hand,” Heidegger identifies two ways of relating to tools. The former is more practical and unreflective, whereas the latter involves reflection and occurs when the practical ways of relating have broken down. In this article, we will use these ideas in making sense of young men’s experiences of committing intimate partner violence, and more specifically, of how they connect it to their experiences of domestic violence in childhood, as well as how they eventually come to perceive their actions differently. But first a word about our study.

Method and Data

This article is based on a qualitative interview study in Sweden, between 2016 and 2020, of young men’s experiences of their violence against women and of the responses from their social networks. The study was approved by the Ethical Review Board in Stockholm. The participants were 14 heterosexual men (17–45 years of age) who had used physical or sexual violence in intimate relations; a majority were under 25 years old at the time of the interview, while 4 were older and described their experiences of using violence in youth. Since the focus of the study was on youth intimate partner violence, we refer to the participants as “young men,” although some of them were older than 25 at the point of the interview. The men were predominantly white and came from working-class and middle-class backgrounds, and their parents worked as, for example, bus drivers, plumbers or cleaners, as well as nurses, teachers, or military personnel. Most participants were recruited through treatment centers, and a minority responded to advertisements on university campuses and on social media. No financial or other rewards were offered for participation, beyond to contribute to research on violence against women, which was the explicit wish of some participants. Initially, we sought interviewees that had used “violence in intimate relationships”, but subsequently broadened our calls for participants using phrases such as having had “aggression issues in intimate relationships”.

Qualitative, “teller-focused” interviews (Hydén 2014) were conducted (1–3 hours long), where the aim was to enable and support the interviewee’s storytelling. We took measures to safeguard the well-being of both participants and researchers: the interviews took place at treatment or other facilities where there were other people around, and we provided contact with counselling services where appropriate. The interviews covered various topics, including how and why the young men were abusive as well as how family, friends and others had responded to their abuse (Berggren & Gottzén 2022). In this sense, the interviews offered the men a place to reflect about their abusive behavior. The interviews have then been transcribed verbatim and, for the sake of anonymity, we have changed all names and removed or replaced some details. The interview transcripts have been coded thematically, with a focus on content, which has helped us to identify major narrative themes across the interviews (Riessman 2008). The present article focuses on two major narratives about the place of violence in their lives that the young men told, often unpromptedly. First, several of the young men talked about having experienced domestic abuse as children. This was often committed by fathers, and the interviewees tended to connect the abuse they had experienced as children with the violence they subsequently committed. Second, the young men reflected on how their process of moving away from violence involved beginning to perceive their actions differently. The extracts and cases presented are representative of the sample and exemplify these two narrative themes identified in our data.

Abusive Childhoods and Young Men’s Unreflected Violence

In this section, we focus on the young men’s experiences of having been subjected to domestic abuse as children. To be clear, we have no interest in diminishing the participants’ violence and abuse. Neither do we want to divert attention from young women victims’ experiences of men’s violence (Överlien, Hellevik, and Korkmaz 2020). However, experiences of domestic abuse victimization constituted a major theme in the interview data, and as we will see, the participants themselves often made connections between their prior victimization and their subsequent violent behavior in intimate relationships.

In our study, the participants talked recurringly about having been subjected to domestic abuse during their upbringing. The majority of this violence was committed by men, especially by fathers. Bojan, 23 years old, recalled a particularly violent event: “That evening ended with a hell of a lot of violence. It did. It wasn’t the usual, like a cuff or something, it was being whipped with a belt.” While Bojan presents this as a story of exceptional violence, he simultaneously suggests that physical violence was “the usual,” and he presents violence in the form of “cuffs” as something that he experienced on a routine, everyday basis. Similarly, 22-year-old Andreas described how incidents of physical violence were connected to a broader pattern of control:

My relation to my dad was kind of like being a slave. You had to do everything he said, and regardless of whether you did what he said there was always something wrong, even if you had done exactly what he had said. So, you were scolded and were called a lot of things, such as “fucking idiot,” “fucking brat,” and then it ended up with him hitting me on the forehead while I was backed up against a door.

In Andreas’s narrative, his father eventually attacked him physically. At the same time, the physical violence occurred in the context of repeated verbal abuse and controlling behavior. Andreas described his relationship with his father in terms of being a “slave” who had to obey his master’s commands.

Moreover, some of the men we interviewed described how their fathers strived to make them properly masculine (cf. Messerschmidt 2012). David, who was 45 at the time of the interview, narrated how he spent much of his youth participating in masculine team sports. Looking back, David says that he himself had no interest in sports at all, but that it was important to his father that he participated wholeheartedly. He also recalled in detail an event where his father made him fear for his life. The father had brought David to the floor and grabbed his throat:

Because when he had that gaze, it was just like he had become, if you can imagine, a zombie, or someone you can’t have connect with. So when, when, when I tried to sort of call for help, I saw that I couldn’t reach him. He was completely silent. He didn’t say a word. And there was this vibrating adrenaline in the room, and I felt that now, now, now he’s going to kill me.

In other cases, there is a clear link between gendered expectations and domestic abuse. 25-year-old Hampus describes having been afraid of his father’s anger, which was directed at “unmanly” behavior such as if he dressed “wrong,” or expressed vulnerability: “If I start crying, I’ll get shit.” Similarly, Bojan described how his father forbade him to cry, and that he was threatened when he nevertheless did:

I was really sad, I was crying, and then he just said: “Stop crying.” And then, shortly thereafter he said, because I didn’t stop crying, a few seconds later: “Stop crying or I will take out your fucking Adam’s apple. I created life in you, I put life into you, I will also take your life away.” That’s what he said.

While there are some differences between the participants and their families of origin in terms of race, migration and class (Bornäs 2022), these stories primarily foreground normative expectations of gender: as boys they were required to engage in team sports or avoid displaying signs of vulnerability and sadness (cf. Giesbrecht 2018). Masculinity scholars have shown how team sports may be an arena where normative discourses about gender are reinforced (cf. Matthews and Channon 2019), and that (young) men are often expected to convert feelings of sadness into anger (Seidler 2006). While gendered expectations are not necessarily enforced through violence, sometimes they are, and both David and Bojan experienced their fathers as threats to their lives. As Butler (1990) has argued, there can be punishments for failing to do gender the “right” way. Given these experiences, it is perhaps no surprise that some of the young men in our study had taken up ways of being-in-the-world that were prescribed as normatively masculine in their lifeworlds at the time.

In line with Messerschmidt’s (2012) structured action theory, one could argue that the young men had learned local definitions of masculinity and attempted to conform to them. Alternatively, following psychosocial criminology, one could claim that the young men made an ambiguous and traumatic investment in a violent masculinity. The process of adopting or taking up abusive behavior is clearly complex and encompasses emotional, intersubjective, structural and contextual aspects. However, our point is not to dispute that the young men may have learned violent behavior or that this process may have been traumatic. Instead, we want to highlight what appears as an element of unreflectedness in the young men’s narratives. While the extracts above present particularly violent episodes, they also describe violence that had become somewhat routine and part of their everyday experience. As 26-year-old Emir, who had similar experiences in his childhood, described the place of violence in his life: “violence has been a normality.” Heidegger’s (2008) notion of the “they” usefully captures precisely how ways of acting in the everyday may be adopted and taken for granted without critical reflection or a sense of individual responsibility. As a modality of the self, the “they” is connected to the perception of how others would act in similar situations.

In our data, it was not uncommon for participants to connect their own violence to that of their childhoods. David talks about his “working-class and ‘hood’ manners,” by which he refers to the normalization of verbal abuse in the community. Most participants, however, highlight the specific influence of fathers and other men relatives. When 25-year-old Björn talked to his mother about the prevalence of violence in their family, he recognized a continuity between his own violence and that of the men in his family:

Because when I was small I was beaten by my oldest brother as a disciplinary measure, and then when I talked to my mom I found out that my dad hit both me and my oldest brother. And then I found out that my granddad beat my grandmom. So it was like: “Yeah, maybe there’s a reason why you’re completely wrong in the head.”

In this way, Björn connected his own use of violence to the practices of other men in his family: the violence appears as a way of acting in the everyday, which he has adopted more or less unreflectively. Another example is 39-year-old Jonathan, who explicitly condemned blaming others, such as an abusive father, for one’s own use of violence. Simultaneously, he described how his father had a profoundly negative influence on him in his attitudes to women: “He planted this in me, somehow, that you can’t trust other people […] You can’t trust bitches” (Jonathan). The framing of this description, where attitudes were depicted as being “planted in me, somehow” suggests a transmission of sexist beliefs from father to son that occured without much independent reflection or decision. Similarly, Hampus describes how he inherited from his parents, without much critical reflection, a view of what a woman is expected to endure from a man in a heterosexual relationship: “mom accepted his bad behaviour, so my future partner should also accept it when I’m angry”. Gustav, 24 years of age, talked about both his father and his grandfather having “aggression issues.” Careful to not minimize his own violence, Gustav nevertheless hoped to understand his behavior. He wanted to “try to sort out what has happened to the family, and what is happening to the family, and sort of take my share of it and say that: ‘It’s not just dad who’s got problems, I have them too.’”

In our data, it is not clear that the connections made between the young men’s own violence and that of their fathers and other relatives primarily served to justify violence and minimize responsibility, as previous research has documented (Hearn 1998). Björn referred to his use of violence as being “wrong in the head,” and Gustav stated that he wanted to understand the origins of his violence to take responsibility. Jonathan criticized putting the blame on others while acknowledging how his father’s views had been “planted” in him, and Andreas became suicidal when he retrospectively realized that he had been violent in intimate relationships, just like his father: “The last thing that I want is to be like my dad.”

It is important to recognize that children’s lifeworlds are shaped by varying social contexts and intersecting forms of social inequality. Most our participants came from working-class families, which corresponds with previous research indicating that lower childhood socioeconomic status is associated with childhood adversity (Suglia et al. 2022). However, some of the young men came from middle-class families, and regardless of their class background, they primarily highlighted aspects related to gender relations. Several of the participants made connections between the abuse they experienced as children, the gendered messages conveyed by their families, and their own subsequent abuse and violence in intimate relationships. This pattern resonates with domestic violence research, where the phenomenon is described as “intergenerational transmission” of violence (Stith et al. 2000). In the context of masculinity research, structured action theory and psychosocial criminology both emphasize that “transmission” is no automatic or inevitable outcome but rather a process that depends on local interpretations and subjective, embodied experiences and reflections.

Although the specific processes affecting the different participants may differ, our data suggest that a connection between previous experiences of abuse and the participants’ own use of violence may manifest as unreflected absorption of routine ways of interpreting and acting in everyday life. Heidegger’s (2008) notion of “the They” captures precisely this quality. The “they” is a modality of the self where we do not critically reflect upon and make an independent judgment about an action. The reason for this is that it has become taken-for-granted in the everyday; it is experienced as what anyone would do, think or feel in a particular situation. In this way, judgment is suspended and responsibility diffused onto an anonymous collective. As we previously outlined, while there is no monolithic “they”, the concept still usefully highlights the adoption of ways of acting without critical reflection or full responsibility for them.

When our interviewees describe their experiences of victimization and suggest connections between victimization and their own use of violence in intimate relationships, it presupposes a shift of perception. The men describe how they had previously used violence without necessarily reflecting upon and making independent decisions about embracing abuse. However, these descriptions are offered retrospectively during the interview, as they reconsider the place of violence in their lives. It is to this process of perceiving things in a new light that we will now turn.

Perceiving Violence Differently

In this section, we discuss how the young men talked about their attempts to move away from violence, specifically in recognizing their abuse and violence as such. Recurrently, there was a crucial difference between how the men said they understood violence in the moment of its enactment and how they described it upon reflection and looking back on their experiences (Berggren, Gottzén & Bornäs 2020; cf. Hirsch and Khan 2020). To make sense of these different perceptions, we draw on Heidegger’s phenomenological ideas about the relation between practice and consciousness.

In our data, the young men emphasized that they used violence in practical, everyday situations with their girlfriends. These situations included disputes over economic matters or housework, as well as perceived disrespect such as degrading remarks or unfaithfulness. 24-years old Martin, for example, recounted how he resorted to physical violence in response to a conflict over domestic labor: “So she laughed at me: ‘I’m not doing that [housework], you’ll do it.’ So I thought: ‘She shouldn’t have said that.’” Oskar (17 years old) was violent against his girlfriend as a response to what he saw as her being unfaithful, and he confronted and hit her at school: “I just wanted to show that enough is enough, but the others see it as an assault.” Filip (33 years old) described having difficulties regulating his anger and frustration when he perceived that his partner did not listen to his perspective in everyday conflicts. David recalled using verbal abuse in response to what he saw as degrading comments from his partner:

She could say some mean things to me that were hurtful. And when I reacted against that, I sort of came back to this: “Now I have to dominate some more. In order to lay down the law because a boundary has been crossed here.” And then I could get angry, and maybe throw out something like: “You cunt,” and stuff like that.

These stories highlight important differences between the situations where violence occurs. First, the violence is described as related to various “triggers.” Second, the violence is sometimes described as either “expressive” of frustration and anger, or clearly connected to the desire for power and control over their partner. Third, there are differences in whether the violence is described as based on routine or reflexive behavior. David’s story explicitly connects his use of violence to an intention of controlling his partner, saying “Now I have to dominate”. However, in retrospective interviews, such claims should not necessarily be taken at face value. At times, the participants described their past experiences using discursive frames, such as feminist or therapeutic vocabularies, that they had most likely learned after the violence (Berggren, Gottzén & Bornäs 2020). Hence, even in descriptions such as the one offered by David, it is possible that he is retrospectively portraying himself as an “in charge” of his abuse; just as violent men in retrospect may also downplay their agency.

Regardless of these issues, from a phenomenological point of view, it can be said that the young men turned to violence or abuse as tools for dealing with practical, everyday situations. As Heidegger (2008) points out, human beings are ordinarily concerned with dealing with their world, and make use of the “tools” that are perceived as ready to be used. There are, of course, multiple ways of handling the situations above, but the common denominator is that the young men turned to violence, a tool that was already within reach for them.

Attitudes in support of violence in intimate relationships are decreasing around the world (Pierotti 2013). The Nordic countries, including Sweden, are often described as the most gender-equal countries in the world. Yet, the prevalence of violence in intimate relationships remains at high levels, especially among youth. This discrepancy between ideology and practice has been described as a Nordic paradox (Humbert el al. 2021; Wemrell et al. 2019). However, the increasing public support for gender equality ideals and the de-legitimization of intimate partner violence means that violence is becoming less accepted than before. The young men in our study sometimes met objections from their partners, received “transformative responses” from their social networks (Berggren & Gottzén 2022) or came into contact with anti-violence messages and campaigns in public. These encounters prompted the young men to reconsider their actions, seek help and/or agree to be interviewed for our research study.

During our interviews, the young men often described a changed perception of their actions. This new perspective often led to feelings of shame or remorse (cf. Gottzén 2016). Bojan, for example, reflected upon having verbally abused his ex-girlfriend: “I feel: ‘Damn, did I say that?’ […] I’m sure she must have felt really terrible.” Emir described using violence in multiple contexts during his youth, which he then saw as uncontroversial: “I saw it as natural, using violence to deal with things.” When a sports coach finally confronted him about his verbal abuse, he was perplexed: “I was taken aback, sort of. […] I said, ‘That’s normal, isn’t it?’ But it wasn’t.” 23-year-old Emil provided a clear example of coming to see one’s behavior in a new light:

In our relationship […] I have made many unreasonable demands. Pathetically unreasonable, that is. And when you sit down and tell somebody else, then you hear for yourself how idiotic it sounds. And then there’s also [the counselor] who says: “Well, that’s not so good because of-” And then, maybe he’s drawing on the blackboard or something, and then it becomes even clearer. […] It’s really obvious stuff often, that in a relationship you have to be on the same level, there can’t be one ruling over the other and stuff like that. These are very obvious things for me, but in practice it hasn’t been that obvious.

Emil’s story is interesting because it is not about learning that violence is wrong, but rather about perceiving his actions differently, in terms of violence and control. As he explained, it is “obvious” to be against intimate partner violence in theory, whereas in practice “it hasn’t been that obvious.” For Heidegger (2008), a tool is “ready-to-hand” when it is available and ready to be used in our everyday lives. We tend not to ponder about the characteristics of the tool, as long as we can use it effectively for our purposes. However, when the practical use of the tool is interrupted, we begin to perceive things differently. We look at the tool critically as a tool, and ask why it does not work the way it used to; it becomes “present-at-hand”. The descriptions above suggest that the young men only began to see the violence as “present-at-hand” after its practical use was interrupted and called into question. They started to reflect upon their actions and the impact on their partners, and began to comprehend their actions as violence or abuse (cf. Sörmark 2020).

While masculinity researchers have focused on men’s trajectories to becoming violent and their justifications for violence after the fact, less attention has been given to the way perceptions of violence can change. However, our analysis resonates with criminological research on desistance from intimate partner violence (Giordano et al. 2015; Walker et al. 2018). For instance, Walker et al. (2018, 857) highlight that desisters emphasize a process of recognizing “that their behaviors were abusive and violent.” Similarly, in their study of violent men’s change, Dobash et al. (2000) found that an important element in the processes was for violent men to start explicitly reflecting on routinized thoughts and actions. While desistance processes may not have single, definitive turning points or epiphanies, these are nevertheless essential for moving away from violence (Gottzén 2019).

In reflecting on their previous use of violence, the men in our study also began to explore alternative ways of dealing with the practical, everyday situations in which they had responded with abuse. If violence appeared as a tool that was “ready-to-hand” for them, this was in stark contrast to other ways of responding, such as “talking about problems.” Björn, for instance, found talking quite demanding.

I find it extremely difficult to talk in situations, and if I could have talked out a situation rather than acted out a situation, things would have gone so much better. […] Instead of beating her or grabbing her throat, what if you could open your mouth and say: “Yeah, but I really don’t want you to do that [see another guy], can’t we just sit down and talk about it instead, because I don’t feel good about it.”

Similarly, Markus (25 years of age) described having been antagonistic toward emotional talk, something he devalued as “girls’ talk”:

I hated having these girls’ talks […] And we were having these emotional talks and that shit. I really wasn’t that kind of person. I couldn’t stand listening to her, I just sat there stressed. […] In the end, I became mean. […] And that caused a lot of problems. But now I have learned to express my feminine side and talk to her.

Björn’s and Markus’s stories both illustrate a distance to communicating about emotions and problems in everyday life. Björn argued that talking about feelings is “extremely difficult” for him, and Markus saw “emotional talks” as “girls’ talk,” which he saw as incompatible with his (masculine) identity: “I really wasn’t that kind of person.” Masculinity scholars have long argued that there are gender norms concerning emotional expression in many contexts. As Seidler (2006) points out, young men may find it easier to express anger—which is often valued as a “masculine” emotion—than to express sadness or vulnerability, or to seek help and support. There is also an intersectional dimension regarding emotional communication, which can be associated with middle-class respectability, whereas working-class men such as Björn and Markus are often depicted as “wild and rowdy,” and more prone to violence (Phipps 2009, 699). Learning to express emotions can to some degree be viewed as acquiring a middle-class way of being-in-the-world, as the prevalent ideal of emotional communication in Western societies originated from bourgeois therapeutic culture and management theory (Illouz 2007).

Drawing on phenomenology, we argue that discussing emotions was a tool that was not readily available to the young men. In Heidegger’s (2008) terms, it was not “ready-to-hand.” This practical unavailability is clearly connected to gender norms, which is apparent in Markus’s designation of emotional conversations as a feminine activity. Similarly, Hampus argued that it would have been easier for him to express his feelings if his father and other adult men in his life had displayed a broader repertoire of emotional expression than just being angry. This suggests a connection between the “they,” described above, which prescribes appropriate unreflected action, and the set of tools that are “ready-to-hand.”

In the extract above, Markus also describes having acquired, through therapy—a practice traditionally tied to the middle class—the “new” tool of talking about emotions. Similar descriptions appeared in other interviews as well, such as Emir who described how he previously often became defensive or attempted to solve his girlfriend’s problems, rather than listening to and comforting her. But now he had other tools ready-to-hand: “So now I accept that they feel like they do. ‘OK, you are sorry that I did this’, ‘I understand that you’re sorry.’ I’ve been unable to use these kinds of expressions before.”

In this section, we have focused on how the young men in our study discussed their path towards non-violence. This involved reflecting on their actions and seeing them in a new light. Their stories suggest that in many cases, it is only when the practical use of violence has broken down and the tool has become “present-at-hand” that the young men come to understand their behavior in new ways. This is why it can be “obvious” to be against violence in theory, while it can be quite different in practice. The men also reflected upon tools that were not “ready-to-hand” for them and highlighted the tool “talking about problems,” associated with femininity, as a solution to their abusive behaviour.

Conclusions

Although intimate partner violence is a major problem in most societies, attitudes that support violence are declining worldwide (Pierotti 2013). As a result, the cultural repertoires available for violent men are shifting. While many studies have shown that perpetrators tend to justify or excuse their violence, violent men may increasingly employ discourses of remorse, regret, personal insight or change (Lau and Stevens 2012). The young Swedish men interviewed for this study had all committed acts of abuse against their girlfriends. While they sometimes downplayed what they had done, they more often explicitly condemned intimate partner violence, and instead of blaming victims they reflected on the role of violence in their lives. This often included discussing domestic abuse they had experienced as children, including identifying connections between the violence they had endured and the abuse they had committed later in life. While perpetrators’ talk of their own vulnerability has often been interpreted as attempts to divert attention from their own violence (e.g. Hearn 1998), the participants in our study did not see this as opposed to assuming responsibility. Rather, reflecting upon how violence had become a taken-for-granted way of acting in their lives seemed to be part of the process of distancing themselves from it. Following feminist interpretations (e.g. Ortega 2016) of Heidegger (2008), we have used his concept of the “they” to understand how the young men in our study previously saw violence as an unreflected part of their behavior, rather than something they had consciously chosen. By reflecting on their unexamined acceptance of violence, the young men appeared to be moving towards an individual judgment about the role they wanted violence to play in their lives. Using Heidegger’s terms, their process of change meant that violence went from being perceived primarily as a tool “ready-to-hand,” to a topic of reflection; it became “present-at-hand”. Learning to perceive their own actions as violence and abuse also entailed reflecting on some of the gendered “tools” that they saw as less available, including how to talk responsively and constructively about relationship problems and emotions.

We have drawn on the broad interest in violent men’s experiences as developed by Messerschmidt, Gadd and others, but have also introduced a different set of concepts from Heidegger’s phenomenology. This has allowed us to attend more precisely to questions about the relation between consciousness and practice, or as Messerschmidt and Bridges (2022) put it, between “reflexivity and routine.” A phenomenological approach teaches us that gender is not only accomplished discursively and reflexively, but that it is crucial to recognize the ways in which masculinity may be embodied, habitual, and part of taken-for-granted ways of acting. There is a need for more research that can unpack how these processes unfold in different contexts and in relation to intersecting forms of social inequality. In this study, we suggest that identifying how violence may be an unreflected practice and tool “ready-to-hand” can help us understand the paradox of how violence against women can continue to be prevalent in presumably gender-equal societies, such as Sweden, where intimate partner violence is generally condemned, often by violent men themselves.