Rejecting and retaining aspects of selfhood: Constructing desistance from abuse as a ‘masculine’ endeavour
| Published date | 01 November 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/17488958211070365 |
| Author | David Morran |
| Date | 01 November 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2023, Vol. 23(5) 739 –753
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/17488958211070365
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Rejecting and retaining aspects
of selfhood: Constructing
desistance from abuse as a
‘masculine’ endeavour
David Morran
University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Abstract
Evaluative studies of men who have attended domestic violence perpetrator programmes have,
thus far, paid attention to the question of what they are expected to desist from. This is entirely
appropriate. However, the question of what they are expected to achieve, or ‘become’, is less
clearly articulated, indeed often overlooked. Based on a series of interviews with men who had
completed perpetrator programmes, the narratives explored in this articles suggest that their
abusive behaviour was underpinned by fears about how to ‘perform masculinity’ satisfactorily in the
past. Consequentially, the programme experience was perceived as threatening or as ‘feminising’.
However, the accounts of these men suggest that in desisting from abusive behaviour, issues of
identity and processes of behaviour change remain profoundly gendered. Indeed, committing to
desistance is perceived as something of an ‘heroic struggle’ in which qualities associated with
being a ‘proper man’ are harnessed and utilised in the process.
Keywords
Desistance, gender identities, masculinities, perpetrator programmes
Introduction
The programs are not about making troubled or anti-social and violent men into ‘nice guys’.
(Gondolf, 2002: 36)
Corresponding author:
David Morran, Faculty of Social Science, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, United Kingdom.
Email: d.c.morran@stir.ac.uk
1070365CRJ0010.1177/17488958211070365Criminology & Criminal JusticeMorran
research-article2022
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