History Main / AllAbusersAreMale

If you learn about DomesticAbuse, rape, or other forms of interpersonal violence from dramatic works or {{Very Special Episode}}s, you may come away believing All Abusers Are Male. Most works that address the seriousness of abuse frame it as something committed ''only'' by male perpetrators, usually against female victims. This isn't just when an individual work depicts a male abuser or rapist; this is an [[TropesInAggregate aggregate trope]] that exists through many works depicting male abusers and not female ones, creating the impression that abuse never has female perpetrators. Ongoing series may have multiple episodes depicting abusive men and none with an abusive woman. Some works have male victims, but still have male abusers without female-on-male abuse. Belief in this trope is implied when characters are anti-rape and anti-violence as male-only problems.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2019'' takes this UpToEleven in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone2019S1E7NotAllMen Episode 7: Not All Men]]". Men and ''only'' men will turn into violent, unhinged monsters when influenced by the fragments of a red meteorite. Of all male characters in the episode, only a single token gay man is able to fight it off. No women are shown being violent, and the PlotTwist at the end of the episode reveals that [[spoiler:the meteorite never had any supernatural properties at all -- [[TheUnfairSex it simply gave men an excuse to indulge in their abusive urges]]]].

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2019'' takes this UpToEleven in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone2019S1E7NotAllMen Episode 7: Not All Men]]". Men and ''only'' men will turn into violent, unhinged monsters when influenced by the fragments of a red meteorite. Of all male characters in the episode, only a single token gay man is able to fight it off. No women are shown being violent, and the PlotTwist at the end of the episode makes reveals that [[spoiler:the meteorite never had any supernatural properties at all -- [[TheUnfairSex it simply gave men an excuse to indulge in their abusive urges]]]].

-->''"The book's original Swedish title was ''Men Who Hate Women'', a label that just about captures the subtlety of the novel's sexual politics."'' - Reviewer Alex Berenson
* In ''Literature/SexingTheCherry'', Jordan is the only male character who is not a monster or otherwise worthless. The idea that men use women and do not care about them is played to death.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': The episode "The Spark in the Park" starts off with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it aversion. The body shows signs of abuse, and referring to a locket the girl was wearing, Cam tells Brennan "Take a good look at Mom and Dad. One or both could be the abuser." [[spoiler:It turns out the "abuse" was actually from long and grueling gymnastic training. Her mother is dead and her father has no connection to her death.]] However, later in the episode, a friend of the victim comes in with her parents and has her arm in a sling. Booth immediately [[spoiler: and rightly]] assumes her father is responsible.
* Under the helm of Marti Noxon, ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' tended to drift in this direction. Whenever the show does an episode about domestic violence, the abuser is usually a male.

* Two anti-domestic violence bus ad by the Family Place of Dallas takes this to the extreme by showing a picture of a cute little boy saying that "when I grow up I will beat my wife" and one with a cute little girl said "one day my husband will kill me". The message given in the rest of the add is if you raise a boy in a house with the abuse he will become an abuser but if you raise a girl in the same environment she will become a victim. Statistically, ''both'' are much more likely than in a regular home, regardless of gender.

* As good as ''Manga/ConfidentialConfessions'' was about showcasing tough issues, it was unfortunately guilty of this trope. All abuse, be it physical, emotional, or sexual, was committed by a man. The worst a female character could be was a "mere" bully.

* ''[[Fanfic/UltimateSleepwalker Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams]]'' contained a very deliberate subversion of this trope. [[spoiler:In the original comics, the ComicBook/IncredibleHulk and his mother Rebecca were violently abused by Bruce Banner's father Brian. In this AlternateUniverseFic, however, little Bruce is instead molested by his mother Rebecca, who violently attacks Brian with a knife whenever he tries to protect his son. This inversion from the comics was deliberately done to highlight how men can be victims of domestic violence too.]]
* Lyra in ''Fanfic/RubyAndNora'' uses this trope to her advantage, forcing Pyrrha to tell the police that her father, Orion (who she had just murdered for defending Pyrrha), was the one abusing them. It works.
* In ''Fanfic/InThisWorldAndTheNext'', RonTheDeathEater is a rapist [[GratuitousRape for no good reason]]. In the alternate timeline, he gets turned into a girl, which will apparently stop this from happening. The fic stops just short of directly citing this trope.

* It seems every [[LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek Lifetime]] movie is about a woman being abused in some way by a man, except for the 1993 TV movie ''Film/MenDontTell'', which features Judith Light abusing Peter Strauss. Naturally enough, no one believes that Strauss's character is being abused until his ''daughter'' tells police that she "doesn't want Mommy to hurt Daddy anymore." In 2008, 15 years after ''Men Don't Tell'' was broadcast, one New York Times reviewer did a special article about ''Men Don't Tell''. In this article, the reviewer pointed out that while many LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek featuring battered women had, since their initial broadcast, been repeated over and over and over and over and over, ''Men Don't Tell'' had only ever been broadcast once. She (the reviewer) specifically cited this trope almost by name as the reason why. In response to the review, Lifetime rebroadcast the film. But only once. The lack of rebroadcast before was apparently due to protests by women's groups.
* Although not ''every'' man in the UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}} film ''Film/{{Lajja}}'' is abusive, all the abuse in the film is committed by men. The women in the film are all presented as pure and innocent, and many have been abused by the men or policies created by them.
* In ''Film/AWrinkleInTime2018,'' the Happy Medium shows a vision of Calvin being verbally abused by his father. In [[Literature/AWrinkleInTime the book]], the vision was of his ''mother'' physically abusing one of his siblings.

* In ''Raising a Modern-Day Knight'', author Robert Lewis claims that, "Men commit 100 percent of rapes."
* ''Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy'': One of the major running themes of the series is misogyny. It delves into this theme extensively, drawing from the author's journalistic experience. This inevitably hasn't pleased everyone.
-->''"The book's original Swedish title was ''Men Who Hate Women'', a label that just about captures the subtlety of the novel's sexual politics."'' - Reviewer Alex Berenson
* Toyed with in ''Literature/ABrothersPrice''. Gender roles are largely reversed in this world and women are the ones with real power. The fact that some women abuse their husbands is common knowledge; the male viewpoint character actively fears being married to the wrong kind of family and the female viewpoint character, having gotten to know him, is afraid of this prospect. Later in the novel we see the repercussions of an abusive ''husband'' running wild on a family, and find that while this happens often enough that there's precedent for what to do - divorcing him and sending him back to his sisters - it just isn't talked about or feared nearly as much as the other kind.
* The [=YA=] novel ''Black-Eyed Suzie'' is a subversion; the reader knows from the very beginning that the protagonist, twelve-year-old Suzie, is abused by her mother, and the workers at the children's mental hospital ''do'' suspect something when her mother attacks her during a visit. Despite this, when Suzie finally speaks near the end of the book and reveals she was abused at home, the staff first suspect that it's her ''father'' that's the abuser. Luckily, she quickly tells them no, it's her mother, and they believe her, but still...
* The book ''Amy & Isabelle'' features an example of domestic abuse where the mother Isabelle - after discovering her daughter Amy has been having an affair with her teacher - attacks her and [[TraumaticHaircut cuts off all her hair]]. The narrative treats Isabelle sympathetically since the incident harkens back to [[spoiler: when she herself had an affair with an older man and got pregnant with Amy]]. Had it been a father doing this to his daughter, it would have been presented as a MoralEventHorizon. So essentially Isabelle becomes a KarmaHoudini because she's only reacting to a male abuser's actions.

* Subverted in ''{{Literature/Divergent}}''. Four's father Marcus was abusive to him but when we meet his mother Evelyn, it turns out she faked her death and abandoned her son too. It's pointed out that she was no better than Marcus, and she spends the entire book trying to win back her son's love.
* The abusive people Bella meets in ''Literature/ADogsWayHome'' are all men. After meeting one too many trying to hurt her human peers, she quickly learns that sometimes it's "okay" for a dog to be aggressive towards people if they're protecting someone. The closest female characters to being abusive are all of the neglectful sort, not emotionally or physically abusive, and are more sympathetically portrayed.
* In ''Literature/{{Touch 2017}},'' Caspar's father, Ray, began hitting him when he was nine, and recently started hitting his mother, Linda, too. However, this trope is {{Subverted}} when you find out that [[spoiler:they're trying to {{Invoke}} his TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening, and while Ray doesn't like doing it, Linda basically calls him a coward for not hurting them ''worse'']].
* ''Literature/{{Forbidden}}'' [[DiscussedTrope discusses]] this trope and connects it to BrotherSisterIncest. Lochan and Maya are a brother and sister who secretly have a completely consensual romantic relationship, and have decided not to have sex yet because they are afraid of being found out. Lochan states that, if they do have sex and someone finds out, everyone will automatically assume he was raping her, due to him being both the guy and about a year older than her, as well as the uncommonness of consensual incestuous relationships. [[spoiler:They do end up having sex towards the end of the book and, sure enough, all this happens.]]

* In ''Series/SouthOfNowhere'', Spencer's father discovers that [[spoiler:Carmen pushed her while they were dating and seems horrified.]] Spencer assures him that it is not a big deal and in the end of the series [[spoiler: Carmen and Spencer are on relatively good terms, despite their relationship ending over abuse.]]

* Subverted on an episode of ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'', where [[BigBad the Source]] uses this trope to nearly have Paige kill an innocent man whose son was being abused. The last time we see the man, he's warning ''his wife'' that he won't tolerate her hurting their son anymore.

* It happened in ''Series/PrivatePractice''. [[spoiler:A kid was fat because he wanted one of his parents to stop abusing him. When the doctor finds out, he immediately goes berserk, looks up the father, and punches him in the face. It turns out the molester was the mother, not the father.]]
* In a ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' episode, Tosh gains the ability to read minds. Many of the men (at some point it seems like all) she encounters reveal horribly abusive, nasty thoughts while the women reveal having been victimized by men. [[spoiler: She ends up stopping a man from killing his wife and kids.]]
* In an episode of ''Series/WithoutATrace'' a school councilor assumes a student is being beaten by his father and is tight-lipped about it. To be fair, she was basing her assumption around her own experiences with parental abuse where her father [[spoiler: killed her mother when she called him out on it]], and eventually the boy opens up to correct her and state that it's his mother who is the abuser. Thankfully the episode is a subversion because both the councilor and the agents respond in the same negative way you'd expect to the mother for this.
* In an episode of ''Series/StarskyAndHutch'', when the cops discover a case of child abuse, they assume it's the kid's hulking father who's responsible; turns out it's the mother who's to blame.

* In the ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' episode "The Screwfly Solution", this is the plot as a disease causes men's sexual urges to always become violent. Eventually, the human race goes extinct after every woman is murdered. The only man who doesn't succumb to this is gay and medically castrated.
* In the "The Mystery of the Watery Grave" episode of ''Series/TheMysteriesOfLaura'', a woman crashes her car into the river, but the body is not found. By minute 5 of the episode, and with no actual evidence, Laura has decided that the husband is abusive and killed her. [[spoiler: When the woman turns up alive, Laura's theory is now that the woman staged her own death to get away from her abusive husband. She's right, of course, however]] at no time does the episode seriously consider any other theory, and the show goes out of its way to break its own standard of the last-minute-twist and reinforce that if you assume the man is abusive, then he is.
* When ''Series/{{House}}'''s team discovers a bloody t-shirt belonging to their six-year-old patient, there's a momentary debate if they should call social services right away and present abuse, and they actually discuss the possibility of it being someone other than her father. Cuddy, however, demands that her dad be arrested right away, and shoots down all suspicions with "It's ''always'' the dad!" [[spoiler: Turns out the little girl isn't even being abused at all. She's menstruating.]]
* ''Series/{{Bones}}'':
** In the episode "The Spark in the Park", it starts off with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it aversion. The body shows signs of abuse, and referring to a locket the girl was wearing, Cam tells Brennan "Take a good look at Mom and Dad. One or both could be the abuser." [[spoiler: It turns out the "abuse" was actually from long and grueling gymnastic training. Her mother is dead and her father has no connection to her death.]] However, later in the episode, a friend of the victim comes in with her parents and has her arm in a sling. Booth immediately [[spoiler: and rightly]] assumes her father is responsible.

* ''Series/StreetJustice'': The husband of Malloy's friend Lisa in "Self Defense" is a particularly manipulative example, controlling where his wife can go and when, blaming her for angering him enough to hit her, and generally isolating her to the point that she's a ShrinkingViolet who flinches at the slightest hint of physical contact. Then there's the father in "Kid Stuff" who, as his adopted son's teacher points out, has a mannerism that frightens the kids in the class, coupled with the fact that the adopted son in question has had bruises corresponding to physical abuse, and also the fact that the dad pushes both his son and the other kids hard when coaching them in basketball and isn't accepting of anything less than perfection. [[spoiler:The latter case is revealed to be a subversion, as while the dad's initially suspected of abusing the boy, he's in fact innocent -- it's his wife who's hurting the kid]].
* ''Series/ShakespeareAndHathawayPrivateInvestigators'' has a few episodes dealing with DomesticAbuse. Played straight by [[spoiler:"The Promised End", where a wife leads her husband to believe he will be killed because of his abuse.]] Subverted in [[spoiler:"The Fairest Show Means Most Deceit", where the husband is being physically abused by his wife and burned with cigarettes because he's a Crossdresser.]]
* ''Series/TheDeadZone'': In the first season episode "Unreasonable Doubt" Johnny expresses sympathy for a fellow juror who he sees was attacked (probably raped) by a group of men by saying that it's something no man can really understand because they never experienced it (denying both male victims of this, plus female perpetrators).
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2019'' takes this UpToEleven in ''[[Recap/TheTwilightZone2019S1E7NotAllMen Episode 7: Not All Men]]''. Men and ''only'' men will turn into violent, unhinged monsters when influenced by the fragments of a red meteorite. Of all male characters in the episode, only a single token gay man is able to fight it off. No women are shown being violent, and the PlotTwist at the end of the episode makes reveals that [[spoiler:the meteorite never had any supernatural properties at all -- [[TheUnfairSex it simply gave men an excuse to indulge in their abusive urges]]]].

* In the Theatre/TheVaginaMonologues, a thirteen-year-old girl is assaulted by an adult man, and it’s presented as horrific. But when a woman does the same thing, it’s somehow portrayed as some sick comeback. The protagonist even says "if it was rape, it was a good rape." Eve Ensler, the person who wrote it, even admitted that until the horrors of Abu Ghraib she didn’t think that woman could possibly be abusers.

* A major plot point in ''VideoGame/AmongTheSleep'' [[spoiler:is an aversion of this, as the kid's mother is an abusive alcoholic.]] However, to the [[OverdosedTrope displeasure of many players]], the DLC reveals that [[spoiler:it's also played straight because the father is abusive towards her.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': In one episode, Ike is in a sexual relationship with his kindergarten teacher. Also, Ike is 3 years old. So when Kyle heads down to the police station and tells them about this, they get all gung ho to bring this pedophile down... until Kyle mentions that she is a woman, and attractive. Kyle is disgusted when they start wanting to congratulate Ike. The police ''eventually'' arrest the teacher and interrogate her, and react equally inappropriately to the descriptions of her and her twin sister being sexually abused by an uncle. Not so much a double standard as the adults being complete idiots (and, thus, par for the course in this series).
** Also, Stan and his abusive older sister Shelley. People are only sympathetic to his injuries when they incorrectly believe they come from his parents, though at least it was implied they would have been horrified if it had been his mother doing the abusing. It was still wrong not to have sympathy for him, but there seemed to be a cut-off point for the age it was acceptable for females to abuse males.
* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'', with Ms. Barch, who believes all men are evil and is a militant "feminazi" yet is emotionally abusive and manipulative towards Mr. O'Neill.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', Peter is being sexually harassed by his female boss, and Lois refuses to take it seriously, insisting that it's impossible for a woman to sexually harass a man because [[AManIsAlwaysEager no man would ever turn down sexual advances from a woman]]. The DoubleStandard worsens later in the episode when the boss says she was only harassing Peter because she hasn't had sex in a long time.

* DCAU ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'''s Aresia. Men caused her pain in the past, so all men must be evil. Even if the male captain of the destroyed ship she was on as a child saved her life [[HeroicSacrifice at the cost of his own]]. Although, she was not aware of this initially. Once she finds out, she merely switches her stance to "All men are evil [[YouAreACreditToYourRace except for him]]".

* The novel ''A Thousand Acres'' is a SettingUpdate of ''Theatre/KingLear'' set on a farm. It imagines the Lear analogue as an abusive patriarch who has sexually abused his two eldest daughters. Let it be noted that Lear in the play was a senile old man who had been implied to be a respected and benevolent ruler in his youth, and the novel serves to 'justify' the two daughters' wicked deeds by giving them abusive backgrounds.

* In ''Film/AWrinkleInTime,'' the Happy Medium shows a vision of Calvin being verbally abused by his father. In [[Literature/AWrinkleInTime the book]], the vision was of his ''mother'' physically abusing one of his siblings.

* The Flash himself, ComicBook/WallyWest, also plays with this. While his father is physically abusive and generally a HateSink, his mother is nearly as bad, as she manipulates Wally for her own financial gain and went out of her way to crush his dreams as a child.

* Lyra in ''Fanfic/RubyAndNora'' uses this trope to her advantage, forcing Pyrrha to tell the police that her father, Orion (who she had just murdered for defending Pyrrh), was the one abusing them. It works.

->''"All white male patriarchs must be guilty of ''something'' in modern women's fiction, preferably the sexual abuse of their children."''
-->-- '''Creator/RogerEbert''' on ''A Thousand Acres'' (1997)

This trope is different from DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale, DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale, and DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnFemale. Those tropes acknowledge that women commit acts of domestic violence and acts of rape, but treat them as less harmful and easily forgive or dismiss them based on their gender dynamics.

* The DC Reboot very jarringly changed Jonathan Crane's FreudianExcuse from being abused by his fanatically religious great-grandmother to being experimented on by his MadScientist father (the father had been previously shown as an ex-military type who abandoned him, with no indication he was a scientist).

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2019'' takes this UpToEleven in ''[[Recap/TheTwilightZone2019S1E7NotAllMen Episode 7: Not All Men]]''. Men and ''only'' men will turn into violent, unhinged monsters when influenced by the fragments of a red meteorite. Of all male characters in the episode, only a single token gay man is able to fight it off. No women are shown being violent, and the PlotTwist at the end of the episode makes this even worse by revealing that [[spoiler:the meteorite never had any supernatural properties at all -- it simply gave all of the men in the town an excuse to indulge in [[TheUnfairSex their abusive urges]]]].

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2019'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone2019S1E7NotAllMen Not All Men]]", men and only men will turn into violent, unhinged monsters when influenced by the red meteorites (really a placebo effect). A single gay man is able to fight it off. No women are shown being violent, and the voiceover more or less states this to be the case, with them just needing an excuse for it.

* It seems every [[LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek Lifetime]] movie is about a woman being abused in some way by a man, except for the 1993 TV movie ''Men Don't Tell'', which features Judith Light abusing Peter Strauss. Naturally enough, no one believes that Strauss's character is being abused until his ''daughter'' tells police that she "doesn't want Mommy to hurt Daddy anymore." In 2008, 15 years after ''Men Don't Tell'' was broadcast, one New York Times reviewer did a special article about ''Men Don't Tell''. In this article, the reviewer pointed out that while many LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek featuring battered women had, since their initial broadcast, been repeated over and over and over and over and over, ''Men Don't Tell'' had only ever been broadcast once. She (the reviewer) specifically cited this trope almost by name as the reason why. In response to the review, Lifetime rebroadcast the film. But only once. The lack of rebroadcast before was apparently due to protests by women's groups.

* In ''Literature/{{Touch}},'' Caspar's father, Ray, began hitting him when he was nine, and recently started hitting his mother, Linda, too. However, this trope is {{Subverted}} when you find out that [[spoiler:they're trying to {{Invoke}} his TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening, and while Ray doesn't like doing it, Linda basically calls him a coward for not hurting them ''worse'']].

* ''Manga/KannazukiNoMiko'' [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zags this]]. [[spoiler: Chikane rapes Himeko as a part of her gambit, and she also is sexually harassed by Miyako]]. But the female abusers are not treated as such or given irredeemable status. The male Orochi who also tries to rape Himeko, however, is actually also treated sympathetically and given a happy ending like everyone else.

* ''[[FanFic/UltimateSleepwalker Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams]]'' contained a very deliberate subversion of this trope. [[spoiler:In the original comics, the Comicbook/IncredibleHulk and his mother Rebecca were violently abused by Bruce Banner's father Brian. In this AlternateUniverseFic, however, little Bruce is instead molested by his mother Rebecca, who violently attacks Brian with a knife whenever he tries to protect his son. This inversion from the comics was deliberately done to highlight how men can be victims of domestic violence too.]]

** Both played straight and subverted in ''FanFic/OriginStory''. During a psychological evaluation with Doc Samson, Alexandra Harris reveals that while her father occasionally hit her when she was a kid, "if I counted the number of times he did it on both hands, I'd have fingers left over." Her father was an emotional abuser more than a physical one. It was her mother who was much more likely to physically abuse her. Doc Samson notes that emotional abuse is just as damaging as physical abuse.

* Though ''SheStoleMyVoice'', a documentary about lesbian rape, averts this trope overall, the interviews uphold it. Many people state that women cannot rape or that they would much rather see their girlfriends raped by women than by men since men are more of a real threat. [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig Zagged]] though: the lack of acknowledgement of female-male rapes implies only women can be victims of rape. Although the rapist can be a woman as well as a male.

* Although not ''every'' man in the UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}} film ''Bollywood/{{Lajja}}'' is abusive, all the abuse in the film is committed by men. The women in the film are all presented as pure and innocent, and many have been abused by the men or policies created by them.

described as a kind and gentle man.

* Subverted in ''{{Literature/Divergent}}''. Four's father Marcus was abusive to him but when we meet his mother Evelyn - it turns out she faked her death and abandoned her son too. It's pointed out that she was no better than Marcus, and she spends the entire book trying to win back her son's love.

** The only characters who are ever openly considered rapists are men and Joscelin is the only person who really considers Melisande abusive. Considering that Melisande [[spoiler: drugs and rapes Phedre after getting her family killed]], this is fairly questionable.

** However, in the second trilogy where Imriel is the POV character, he is assaulted by a bear-witch woman. It is made very clear that he considers the act a violation and his very consensual-sex-oriented gods would intervene or avenge him.

* Subverted in ''[[ComicBook/TheFlash Impulse]]'', where one of Bart's classmates is terrified of disappointing his father and is showing signs of being abused. Bart naturally suspects the father, but it turns out to be the boy's ''mother'', who is mentally imbalanced and is keeping her actions a secret from her husband. As soon as the father discovers this, ''he'' intervenes to protect his son; Bart is not needed.
** ComicBook/TheFlash himself, Wally West, also plays with this. While his father is physically abusive and generally a HateSink, his mother is nearly as bad, as she manipulates Wally for her own financial gain and went out of her way to crush his dreams as a child.

* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''Manga/FruitsBasket''. Akito, the head of the Sohma family, abuses the Zodiac members in every way imaginable, but [[spoiler:it's later revealed that Akito is actually female]]. In fact, most abuse is parental [[spoiler:and Ren, the GreaterScopeVillain who's responsible for Akito being so unstable, is Akito's mother]]. Rin's mother and father abused her equally, and maternal rejection/disownment plays a large part in both Momiji and Yuki's [[DarkAndTroubledPast issues.]] Overall, the series shows its female characters as a roughly even mix of bad (the above) and good.

* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''Manga/FruitsBasket''. Akito, the head of the Sohma family, abuses the Juunishi in every way imaginable, but [[spoiler:he's actually a she]]. In fact, most abuse is parental [[spoiler:and Ren, the {{Yandere}} BigBad- who's responsible for turning Akito into a villain- is female.]] Rin's mother and father abused her equally, and maternal rejection/disownment plays a large part in both Momiji and Yuki's [[DarkAndTroubledPast issues.]] Overall, the series shows its female characters as a roughly even mix of bad (the above) and good.
* As good as ''Manga/ConfidentialConfessions'' was about showcasing tough issues, it was unfortunately guilty of this trope. All abuse, be it physical, emotional, or sexual, was committed by a man. The worst a female could be was a "mere" bully.

%% * Thankfully averted in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYWMe7cTsRs&feature=related this PSA]].

%% * Averted with [[http://www.oneinthree.com.au/news/2015/6/8/one-in-three-campaign-launches-respectful-relationship-poste.html this series of posters]].

* Averted in ''Anime/KillLaKill'', where it's explicitly portrayed that Ragyo Kiryuin is sexually abusive to her daughters and it's ''not'' portrayed as remotely okay, and while their deceased father is seen in flashbacks, [[DeceasedParentsAreTheBest it is in a purely positive light]].
* Averted in ''Manga/{{ERASED}}'', where Kayo's mother is the one who beats her, though she and her boyfriend are both verbally abusive as well.
* Averted in ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha''. To date, the only abuser in the series was [[EvilMatriarch Precia Testarossa]] from the first season, who was incredibly abusive (both physically and emotionally) to her daughter Fate. She stands in direct contrast to fellow {{Big Bad}}s [[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers Jail Scaglietti]] and [[AudioPlay/StrikersSoundStageX Tredia Graze]], both of whom were shown to be loving fathers to their children.

* Averted in ''Film/{{Maleficent}}'' Alternate Universe fic ''Fanfic/YourServantMistress'' - Maleficent reveals that the aunt who raised her after her parents died was abusive, and Diaval's biological parents both abused him.
* Averted in ''Train Tracks'', Ragyou deals as much abuse as she does if she were male, however, Soichiro is also quick to hit her too, which is mostly in self-defense. Similarly, in an unrelated but in an otherwise similar fic ''FanFic/CellarSecrets'' we have Ragyou playing this role again, however, her abuse is more psychological when it comes to her older two daughters but her secretary and her [[spoiler: youngest daughter]] on the other hand is just brutal, causing the former to commit suicide after she was committed. At the same time, one of the more benevolent figures in the story is male.
* Both played straight and subverted in ''FanFic/OriginStory''. During a psychological evaluation with Doc Samson, Alexandra Harris reveals that while her father occasionally hit her when she was a kid, "if I counted the number of times he did it on both hands, I'd have fingers left over." Her father was an emotional abuser more than a physical one. It was her mother who was much more likely to physically abuse her. Doc Samson notes that emotional abuse is just as damaging as physical abuse.

* In ''Literature/DragonBones'' this is averted; there is a female character who tortures people for ''fun'', and is said to have raped a man (but due to the prevalence of this trope, no one believed him until it was too late. He's likely not her only victim). The man who survived to talk about her made use of this trope by pretending to be a masochist and have enjoyed the torture she inflicted on him, so she doesn't feel the need to kill him. It says something about the power of prejudice that this actually ''works'' - she apparently believes she's relatively safer if people just know about the torture, believing it to be consensual, than if they find a corpse.

* Averted in ''Literature/TheHungerGames''. Peeta suffers an abusive childhood at the hands of his mother, who beats him and berates him. His father, [[UselessBystanderParent while never doing anything to protect his sons]], is described as a kind and gentle man.

* Averted in ''[[http://original.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600108215 The Quiet Before the Storm]]''. Asiliyara refuses to travel overseas to Sesslyn, specifically stating that its ''men'' are rapists and murderers. Her mentor rebukes her on the basis that all genders-and all'' races'', even their own-have the potential to be horrible.

* {{Averted}} in ''Literature/ThisIsNotAWerewolfStory:'' Sparrow's mother left him with bruises before he went to [[RaisedByGrandparents live with his grandmother]], while his father is [[AmbiguouslyAbsentParent not mentioned]].

* In ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'', many "tough topics" are covered. Many rape victims have received their own VerySpecialEpisode by now, yet every instance of rape or abuse has been perpetrated by a man. The only character who is ever abused (emotionally) by a woman is Ellie and her mother is portrayed as more of a victim.
** In an interview about Fiona's abusive relationship, the actor who played Bobby said that he hoped young women out there would watch the episode and realize that they did not deserve to be abused, and young men would get the message that it was not okay to abuse their girlfriends.
** Averted when Jenna abuses her then-boyfriend/baby daddy KC by hitting him with her guitar in rage. Though this is treated seriously and the official sign that she is unprepared for the world of motherhood, it is still highly questionable if Degrassi would have shown it in the same light if KC had done the same to her.
** Better averted earlier when a female sexual predator attempts to rape Connor. She is still viewed as a cruel rapist and her gender isn't even referenced.

* Averted at the end of a lengthy ''Series/PicketFences'' storyline about the murder of a teenaged girl. After prosecuting a man who turned out to be innocent, the police and district attorney accuse the girl's father of killing her and persuade the girl's mother to testify against him. On the witness stand, however, after being granted immunity in exchange for her testimony, the mother confesses that she killed her daughter. Later, though, the judge voids her immunity on fraud grounds, and the district attorney is able to prosecute her for the murder and prosecute the father as well, for his role in covering up his wife's crime. It was only in hindsight that everybody realized that, although they had clear reason to suspect the girl was killed by one of her parents, there was never any real reason to believe it was the father rather than the mother.
* Averted in a ''Series/LawAndOrder'' / ''Series/{{Homicide| Life on the Street}}'' crossover. A girl is murdered, and the police and district attorney's office are able to determine that she was killed by one of her parents. They automatically assume the father is the murderer, but it turns out that the mother committed the crime.
* ''Series/AdamTwelve'' episode ''He – He Was Trying to Kill Me''. After a six-year-old and a baby are removed from a neglectful household, Officers Malloy and Reed hear that the older girl has marks on her back providing evidence she was beaten; the girl says, "Daddy did it." This leaves them with the estranged father of the girls and the mother's current boyfriend as suspects. [[spoiler:Averted. The girl was trying to protect her mother. The mother did it.]]

* Surprisingly averted multiple times in ''Series/OnceUponATime''. Most notably: Cora is shown to be extremely emotionally (and, it's implied, physically) abusive to her daughter Regina, leading directly to Regina's [[StartOfDarkness start of darkness]]. In her few scenes, Baelfire's mother Milah is verbally and emotionally abusive towards her husband, even hinting that she wished he were dead. In both cases, it's the fathers who are shown to be the loving, supportive parents.
* Despite being a Creator/{{Lifetime}} series, ''Series/StrongMedicine'' actually averted this a handful of times. A patient of Lu expresses concern because her brother is about to be paroled after serving time for rape. She insists that he's like this because they were both molested as children. Lu naturally assumes it was their father and is shocked when the woman reveals that it was their ''mother''.

** Also shown in "The Murder of the Meninist". Initially slightly averted, as rotating intern Fuentes makes a remark about the masculinity of a man who allows himself to be abused by a woman, which Saroyan has a go at him about. But then played disturbingly straight as the founder of a men's rights organization is shown to be controlling, manipulative and oppressive to his wife. Brennan, normally a paragon of logic and evidence, immediately jumps to the assumption that he's guilty and spends the majority of the episode trying to prove it. It turns out [[spoiler:that he didn't, which Brennan appears genuinely disappointed at, but not before she punches him in the face. The guilty party was the victim's ex-wife, who immediately claims it was her (clearly, easily-manipulated) boyfriend. Both are arrested.]] The fact that meninism is a [[http://imgur.com/a/CITHD gender-flipped parody of feminism]] is lost on the writers as well, presenting it as a real political organization. ''Actual'' Men's Rights Activists would, if anything, say society ''expects'' men to take abuse from women (see the ''What Would You Do'' example, in this section).

* Actually averted in one episode of ''Series/QuincyME''. Though the parent abusing the son ''does'' turn out to be the father in the end, Quincy's team initially thinks it's the mom.

* Averted in the Music/{{Eminem}} ft Music/{{Rihanna}} song and video ''Love the Way You Lie''. It's a mutually abusive relationship.
* Also averted in ''Self-Esteem'' by Music/TheOffspring, about the (male) singer being emotionally abused by his girlfriend.
* Also averted in Matchbox 20's song "Push", about a man being manipulated and emotionally abused by his girlfriend.
* Played with in Hozier's "Cherry Wine". In the song, it's from the perspective of a man abused by his girlfriend. The video implies that the boyfriend is the abusive one.
%%* Averted in too many Music/MaroonFive songs - especially One More Night. %% Zero Context Example

* Averted in the "Wicked and Weak" ending to ''VideoGame/SilentHillShatteredMemories''. In it, [[spoiler: Cheryl films her mother, Dahlia, abusing Harry both verbally and physically, telling him to "be a ''man'', fight back!"]] Needless to say, this is NOT PlayedForLaughs.

* Averted in VideoGame/{{Prototype}}: Dr. Alex Mercer and his sister Dana had an abusive, alcoholic mother who spent time in jail, which is given as one reason why Alex is [[VillainProtagonist such a very complete bastard]] and why Dana won't give up on him despite that. However, it never comes up in the game itself, only in supplementary materials, and the mother herself never makes an appearance.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Averted in WebComic/{{Digger}}, [[spoiler:Ed]]'s wife is revealed to have abused him [[spoiler:and their child]].
** Considering they're hyenas, wouldn't this be {{Inverted}}?
[[/folder]]

* Discussed and averted in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxSTwlOz4P4 this video]] from a human rights convention.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
** In one episode, Ike is in a sexual relationship with his kindergarten teacher. Also, Ike is 3 years old. So when Kyle heads down to the police station and tells them about this, they get all gung ho to bring this pedophile down... until Kyle mentions that she is a woman, and attractive. Kyle is disgusted when they start wanting to congratulate Ike. The police ''eventually'' arrest the teacher and interrogate her, and react equally inappropriately to the descriptions of her and her twin sister being sexually abused by an uncle. Not so much a double standard as the adults being complete idiots (and, thus, par for the course in this series).

** Also averted by Butters, who's equally abused by his mother, his father, and his grandmother.

* ''Manga/KannazukiNoMiko'' [[ZigZaggedTrope zig-zags this]]. [[spoiler: Chikane rapes Himeko as a part of her gambit, and she also is sexually harassed by Miyako]]. But the female abusers are not treated as such or given irredeemable status. The male Orochi who also tries to rape Himeko, however, is actually also treated sympathetically and given a happy ending like everyone else.

Straight examples must imply or explicitly state that abuse or rape is ''only'' perpetrated by [[TheUnfairSex men]], and women are either [[FemalesAreMoreInnocent never abusive]] or never to the same extent as men. The most common aversion of this trope is the WickedStepmother. Most of the subversions and aversions listed on this page are intended to be a PlotTwist in the story--meaning that even when the trope is not enforced, the writers still expect the audience to believe in it and be surprised when an abuser is female.

* Two anti-domestic violence bus ad by the Family Place of Dallas takes this to the extreme by showing a picture of a cute little boy saying that "when I grow up I will beat my wife" and one with a cute little girl said "one day my husband will kill me", The message given in the rest of the add is if you raise a boy in a house with abuse he will become an abuser but if you raise a girl in the same environment she will become a victim. Statistically, ''both'' are much more likely than in a regular home, regardless of gender.

* ''Manga/KannazukiNoMiko'' [[ZigZaggedTrope zig zags this]]. [[spoiler: Chikane rapes Himeko as a part of her gambit, and she also is sexually harassed by Miyako]]. But the female abusers are not treated as such or given irredeemable status. The male Orochi who also tries to rape Himeko however is actually also treated sympathetically and given a happy ending like everyone else.

* Subverted in ''[[ComicBook/TheFlash Impulse]]'', where one of Bart's classmates is terrified of disappointing his father, and is showing signs of being abused. Bart naturally suspects the father, but it turns out to be the boy's ''mother'', who is mentally imbalanced, and is keeping her actions a secret from her husband. As soon as the father discovers this, ''he'' intervenes to protect his son; Bart is not needed.

* In ''Fanfic/InThisWorldAndTheNext'', RonTheDeathEater is a rapist [[GratuitousRape for no good reason]]. In the alternate timeline he gets turned into a girl, which will apparently stop this from happening. The fic stops just short of directly citing this trope.
* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' fandom plays this trope frustratingly straight. Any deconstruction of the happy Weasley family idea will have either Arthur abusing Molly, or Ron abusing Hermione. No one ever worries about the reverse happening, never mind that Molly is clearly the one in charge in the Arthur/Molly relationship, and that while Ron has insulted Hermione a couple times and gotten jealous of her boyfriends, Hermione has done the same, as well as [[spoiler:conjuring birds to peck him on one occasion and punching him on another.]]

* Averted in ''Train Tracks'', Ragyou deals as much abuse as she does if she were male, however, Soichiro is also quick to hit her, too, the which is mostly in self defense. Similarly, in an unrelated but in an otherwise similar fic ''FanFic/CellarSecrets'' we have Ragyou playing this role again, however, her abuse is more psychological when it comes to her older two daughters but her secretary and her [[spoiler: youngest daughter]] on the other hand is just brutal, causing the former to commit suicide after she was committed. At the same time, one of the more benevolent figures in the story is male.

* Though ''SheStoleMyVoice'', a documentary about lesbian rape, averts this trope overall, the interviews uphold it. Many people state that women cannot rape or that they would much rather see their girlfriends raped by women than by men since men are more of a real threat. [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig Zagged]] though: the lack of acknowledgement of female-male rapes implies only women can be victims of rape. Although the rapist can be a women as well as a male.
* It seems every [[LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek Lifetime]] movie is about a woman being abused in some way by a man, except for the 1993 TV movie ''Men Don't Tell'', which features Judith Light abusing Peter Strauss. Naturally enough, no one believes that Strauss's character is being abused until his ''daughter'' tells police that she "doesn't want Mommy to hurt Daddy anymore." In 2008, 15 years after ''Men Don't Tell'' was broadcast, one New York Times reviewer did a special article about ''Men Don't Tell''. In this article the reviewer pointed out that while many LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek featuring battered women had, since their initial broadcast, been repeated over and over and over and over and over, ''Men Don't Tell'' had only ever been broadcast once. She (the reviewer) specifically cited this trope almost by name as the reason why. In response to the review, Lifetime rebroadcast the film. But only once. The lack of rebroadcast before was apparently due to protests by women's groups.

* The book ''Amy & Isabelle'' features an example of domestic abuse where the mother Isabelle - after discovering her daughter Amy has been having an affair with her teacher - attacks her and [[TraumaticHaircut cuts off all her hair]]. The narrative treats Isabelle sympathetically, since the incident harkens back to [[spoiler: when she herself had an affair with an older man and got pregnant with Amy]]. Had it been a father doing this to his daughter, it would have been presented as a MoralEventHorizon. So essentially Isabelle becomes a KarmaHoudini because she's only reacting to a male abuser's actions.

** Better averted earlier, when a female sexual predator attempts to rape Connor. She is still viewed as a cruel rapist and her gender isn't even referenced.

** Generally the only male abuse victims on the show are children, barely ever adults. Whenever a male victim does show up, they're not exactly treated sympathetically. Female abusers aren't uncommon on the show, but usually they're not as harshly judged by the SVU detectives (save the occasional monster).

* It happened in ''Series/PrivatePractice''. [[spoiler:A kid was fat because he wanted one of his parents to stop abusing him. When the doctor finds out, he immediately goes berserk, looks up the father and punches him in the face. It turn out the molester was the mother, not the father.]]

* In an episode of ''Series/WithoutATrace'' a school councilor assumes a student is being beaten by his father and is tight lipped about it. To be fair, she was basing her assumption around her own experiences with parental abuse where her father [[spoiler: killed her mother when she called him out on it]], and eventually the boy opens up to correct her and state that its his mother who is the abuser. Thankfully the episode is a subversion because both the councilor and the agents respond in the same negative way you'd expect to the mother for this.

* Averted at the end of a lengthy ''Series/PicketFences'' storyline about the murder of a teenaged girl. After prosecuting a man who turned out to be innocent, the police and district attorney accuse the girl's father of killing her, and persuade the girl's mother to testify against him. On the witness stand, however, after being granted immunity in exchange for her testimony, the mother confesses that she killed her daughter. Later, though, the judge voids her immunity on fraud grounds, and the district attorney is able to prosecute her for the murder, and prosecute the father as well, for his role in covering up his wife's crime. It was only in hindsight that everybody realized that, although they had clear reason to suspect the girl was killed by one of her parents, there was never any real reason to believe it was the father rather than the mother.

* ''Series/{{Titus}}'' featured an episode that dealt with Christopher going to the funeral of an ex-girlfriend, being very secretive about his reasons why, deflecting the truth with the claim she was his true love. He eventually reveals he wanted to get some closure on their relationship because SHE was physically and emotionally abusive to him. The DoubleStandard is brought up that Christopher was embarrassed of being beaten up by a girl and his father didn't help much (trying to play off his injuries as a drunken accident to the neighbors). The only reason he stayed with her as long as he did was because she would swing from abuse [[AManIsAlwaysEager to sex in an instant]]. This is based on an actual relationship Chris Titus was in, outlined under Stand-Up Comedy.
* In the ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' episode "The Screwfly Solution", this is the plot as a disease causes men's sexual urges to always become violent. Eventually the human race goes extinct after every women is murdered. The only man who doesn't succumb to this is gay and medically castrated.

** In the episode "The Spark in the Park", it starts off with a blink and you'll miss it aversion. The body shows signs of abuse, and referring to a locket the girl was wearing, Cam tells Brennan "Take a good look at Mom and Dad. One or both could be the abuser." [[spoiler: It turns out the "abuse" was actually from long and grueling gymnastic training. Her mother is dead and her father has no connection to her death.]] However, later in the episode a friend of the victim comes in with her parents and has her arm in a sling. Booth immediately [[spoiler: and rightly]] assumes her father is responsible.

* There was one episode in a Belgian series devoted to averting this trope. It was about parents with a daughter who demanded more and more money from her parents to support her drug habit. When the parents eventually refuse to give her more money, she accuses her father of abusing her, and manages to take it all the way to court. Everyone believes her, as he's such a giant of a man. In court, however, he was brave enough to show the scars from all the times she had attacked him with a knife, proving not only that abusers can be female, but that parental abuse is also a thing that exists.

* ''Series/StreetJustice'': The husband of Malloy's friend Lisa in "Self Defense" is a particularly manipulative example, controlling where his wife can go and when, blaming her for angering him enough to hit her, and generally isolating her to the point that she's a ShrinkingViolet who flinches at the slightest hint of physical contact. Then there's the father in "Kid Stuff" who, as his adopted son's teacher points out, has a mannerism that frightens the kids in the class, coupled with the fact that the adopted son in question has had bruises corresponding to physical abuse, and also the fact that the dad pushes both his son and the other kids hard when coaching them in basketball and isn't accepting of anything less than perfection. [[spoiler:The latter case is revealed to be a subversion, as while the dad's initially suspected of abusing the boy, he's in fact innocent--it's his wife who's hurting the kid]].

* The Canadian bluegrass group The Dead South have a song entitled "In Hell I'll Be in Good Company." It tells the story of a man who was horribly abused by his wife for years until finally she stabs him with a knife, intending to kill him. Instead, he manages to kill her in self defense. Despite the fact that he was continually the victim, and despite the fact that her death was self-defense, the song ends with the man sitting on death row, awaiting execution for her "murder."

** For a specific example, the woman described under ''{{LiveActionTV/Titus}}'' was a [[FunSize 5'0"]] skinny woman, but would snap for no reason (blaming it on a "sugar imbalance"). One fight in particular stood out, as she lays into him a few times before he finally [[WouldHitAGirl hits her back]]... [[TooKinkyToTorture inadvertantly turning her on]]. When the police finally arrive, ''he's'' the one that is arrested for the night.

* In the Theatre/TheVaginaMonologues, a thirteen year old girl is assaulted by an adult man, and it’s presented as horrific. But when a woman does the same thing it’s somehow portrayed as some sick comeback. The protagonist even says "if it was rape, it was a good rape." Eve Ensler, the person who wrote it, even admitted that until the horrors of Abu Ghraib she didn’t think that woman could possibly be abusers.

* A major plot point in ''VideoGame/AmongTheSleep'' [[spoiler:is an aversion of this, as the kid's mother is an abusive alcoholic.]] However, to the [[OverdosedTrope displeasure of many players]], the DLC reveals that [[spoiler:it's also played straight, because the father is abusive towards her.]]

** Also, Stan and his abusive older sister Shelley. People are only sympathetic of his injuries when they incorrectly believe they come from his parents, though at least it was implied they would have been horrified if it had been his mother doing the abusing. It was still wrong not to have sympathy for him, but there seemed to be a cut-off point for the age it was acceptable for females to abuse males.
** Also averted by Butters, who's equally abused by his mother, his father and his grandmother.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', Peter is being sexually harassed by his female boss, and Lois refuses to take it seriously, insisting that it's impossible for a woman to sexually harass a man because [[AManIsAlwaysEager no man would ever turn down sexual advances from a woman]]. The DoubleStandard worsens later in the episode, when the boss says she was only harassing Peter because she hasn't had sex in a long time.
* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'':

%% No real life examples on rape tropes. Seriously. %%