Ireland Takes it to the Next Level By Mrs Vera West

     You have to hand it to Ireland, it is firing on all politically correct cylinders, with the first waves of abortions soon, and now and extension of domestic violence laws to criminalise emotional abuse:
  https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/02/health/ireland-coercive-control-domestic-abuse-intl/index.html

“Psychological and emotional abuse in intimate relationships is now a crime in Ireland. The Domestic Violence Act 2018 went into effect on Tuesday and provides new protections for victims of "coercive control," a type of emotional and psychological abuse aimed at stripping a person of their self-worth and agency. Although psychological and emotional abuse -- including controlling behavior, isolation, and threats of violence -- can be more difficult to recognize than physical violence, it can be just as damaging, experts say. Ireland's Minister of Justice and Equality Charlie Flanagan said in a statement Wednesday that the new law "recognizes that the effect of non-violent control in an intimate relationship can be as harmful to victims as physical abuse because it is an abuse of the unique trust associated with an intimate relationship."

"This new provision sends a message that society will no longer tolerate the appalling breach of trust committed by one partner against the other in an intimate context," he added. In a 2014 European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) pan-European survey on violence against women, almost a third of Irish women (31%) said they had experienced psychological abuse by a partner. A further 23% of respondents said they had experienced controlling behavior, 24% said they had experienced abusive behavior, and 12% said they had experienced stalking (including online stalking).”

     So how does this law stack up against the empirical evidence? A major study by G. Karakurt and K. E. Silver, “Emotional Abuse in Intimate Relationships: The Role of Age and Gender,” Violence and Victims, vol. 28 (5), 2013, pp. 804-821, actually found that men were the major victims of emotional abuse:

“The findings of the present study suggest that men’s overall risk of emotional abuse may be increasing while women’s risk may be decreasing. Due to factors such as increased provision of resources for female victims and the role of law enforcement, along with women’s empowerment through feminism, rates of both fatal and non-fatal IPV against women have declined in the past two decades (Rivara et al., 2002). Archer (2000) now reports similar rates of IPV between the genders, and although there is a paucity of research examining emotional abuse of men, there is some evidence that men are now experiencing increased rates of emotional abuse (Harned, 2001). Overall, the current study speaks to men’s escalating experience of emotional abuse, and the results can be interpreted through multiple theoretical paradigms.

According to micro-resource conflict theory (Sprey, 1999), the results of the current study can be partially understood in terms of conflict resulting from changing gender roles. Younger men are reporting experiencing higher rates of emotional abuse as gender roles—and the distribution of resources—are changing. Women are renegotiating roles and expectations because although they traditionally have been victims of patriarchal discrimination and inequality, in developed nations they increasingly have access to similar resources as men (Walker, 1999). For example, in the US, a historic male monopoly on higher education has dissipated, with more women than men currently holding baccalaureate degrees (US Census Bureau, 2011). Women’s emotional abuse of men could be a way to “even the playing field” in a competitive struggle to gain control over scarce resources. Further, women may be utilizing emotional forms of abuse because, traditionally, relational aggression is more indirect and socially acceptable for women than physical violence (Archer, 2004; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995).

Men’s higher incidence of experiencing emotional abuse in the present study can also be explained through the Social Exchange and Choice Framework. In accordance with this theory, people rationally pursue their self-interests by calculating the ratio of costs to rewards in order to maximize profit, and people’s actions can be understood and predicted by understanding their interests or values (White & Klein, 2002). Emotional abuse is not traditionally considered a form of IPV, and abuse is generally stigmatized and/or unrecognized in men. For younger men experiencing emotional abuse in their relationships, they may not consider themselves to be victims, so the rewards of the relationship (e.g. companionship, access to sex) would outweigh the costs (conflict that is not considered abuse). Additionally, as young men do not commonly discuss their relationship problems with other men in the context of suffering abuse, a young man may see his relationship as normal and a better choice than his comparison level (what his peers experience) and his comparison level of alternatives (being alone). As males age, they may be better at identifying abusive relationships and more adept at identifying favorable alternatives, so they would be less likely to sustain relationships with emotionally abusive females.”

     Here is some more supporting material:
  http://www.humanservices.alberta.ca/documents/PFVB1100-men-abused-by-women-booklet.pdf 
  https://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/emotional-psychological-abuse/emotional-abuse-of-men-men-victims-of-emotional-abuse-too 
  https://www.domesticshelters.org/domestic-violence-articles-information/women-as-the-abusers

     And, I could go on and on. The real point here is that there are substantial numbers of men emotionally abused by women in intimate relationships. This means that Ireland, in its naïve political correctness has opened a real can of worms. What if men said to hell with taking this all the time, I am going to make a complaint too? Surely the legal system will go into meltdown. Is that the elites’ hidden plan?