How Sexism, Ageism, Childism and More are Used by Coercive Control Perpetrators Against Victims-Survivors
Discrimination is the secret weapon in coercive controllers' arsenals
Dr Emma Katz is widely regarded as one the world’s foremost academic experts in her area of research — how coercive control impacts on children and young people.
Emma specializes in the harms caused by father-perpetrated coercive control, as well as children’s and mothers’ resistance and recovery. Read more in her book Coercive Control in Mothers’ and Children’s Lives, published by Oxford University Press.
Welcome
This post is about a topic that is not nearly talked about enough in discussions of coercive control — how domestic abusers and coercive controllers weaponize the multiple forms of discrimination that exist in everyday society to hurt victims-survivors.
Every time a male abuser tells people not to believe his female ex-partner’s account of abuse because she’s bitter, crazy, unstable, lying or manipulative, he’s weaponizing sexism against her.
Every time a professional doesn’t believe a child’s account of abuse because they say the child is too young to know what really happened, is easily led by their mother into believing anything, or that they have to keep on seeing their abusive parent regardless because it’s their parent – then they’re being discriminated against on the basis of being a child (this is “childism”, which will will discuss more below).
Whether it is sexism, ageism or something else, coercive controllers have a disturbing talent for zeroing in on it and using it to benefit their campaign of abuse.
This post goes one-by-one through several forms of discrimination:
Sex
Age, including discrimination against children
Class
Race, ethnicity and nationality
Chronic illness and disability, including mental health
Spiritual and religious belief
Sexuality and gender identity
Some of these forms of discrimination will almost certainly be things you have experienced personally. I hope this article’s coverage of these harms will be illuminating and validating.
Introductory overview
As mentioned above, coercive controllers exploit sexism, ageism, childism and more.
In other words, perpetrators take the stereotypes that already exist about someone like us, and make use of them when they tell their false stories about us to our friends, to our communities or to professionals involved with our cases.
Their use of these stereotypes makes their lies and distortions sound more plausible. These are stereotypes we are all used to hearing, and many people unconsciously or consciously believe them.
While more will be said of it below, sexism provides an obvious example.
Abusive men often make their lies about female victims-survivors more plausible by basing them on sexist stereotypes about women: “My ex is crazy”, “she’s a liar”, “she’s bitter”, “she’s manipulative”, “she’s psycho”. This enables such men to cause more harm, by minimizing the chances that people will believe and support the victims-survivors.
The double-whammy of societal and interpersonal discrimination — and how perpetrators weaponize it
Weaponizing discrimination in this way also causes a more personal, deeper kind of harm to victims-survivors. People who are subjected to discrimination already have a sense that the world doesn’t fully accept them for who they are, and maybe even hates them and looks down on them.
If the person they love also shows signs of hating them and looking down on them in these exact same ways, it’s a double whammy of hurt. Your partner hates you in the same ways the world hates you. Now it feels more than ever like you’ll never be accepted, never be good enough.
Discrimination is especially devastating in the hands of coercive controllers.
Whereas a healthy relationship can be a haven of safety, acceptance and confidence for a person who experiences discrimination, a relationship with a coercive controller can super-charge the impacts of discrimination on a person’s sense of themselves.
As Moulding and colleagues have put it in a research article, the dominant culture of sexism means many women know they are seen on a basic (often unspoken) level as sex objects rather than full persons — and this makes it devastating when a perpetrator’s attitudes and actions towards a victim-survivor seemingly “confirm” this subordinate and subhuman status to her:
“The exercise of sexual ownership and control by a male partner can diminish a woman’s sense of herself in the most dramatic ways because her status as a ‘sex object’ and ‘nonperson’ is [seemingly] confirmed” (Moulding and colleagues, 2021, p. 1080).
Perpetrators often deliberately target people who are already experiencing discrimination
Many perpetrators deliberately target people who are already subject to discrimination and inequality.
When perpetrators target somebody who is part of a group that experiences discrimination, they know in advance that there will be a reduced opportunity for that person to escape, and fewer people will care about that person’s survival.
Why, after all, would a perpetrator go after someone who would feel quite confident in going to police, versus someone who would feel terrified; or someone who could escape to any refuge in the country, versus someone who could only escape to a tiny number of specialist refuges that are adapted to their physical needs.
That’s not to say that perpetrators never go after somebody who is in a strong position. They do of course. But some groups have a much higher rate of victimization overall, such as disabled people, and this is partly why.
Discrimination serves the perpetrator’s mission to hollow out the victim-survivor
Although people can use discriminatory attitudes against another person in all kinds of different contexts, the way that domestically abusive coercive controllers do this is especially damaging.
Coercive controllers are already on a mission to hollow out another person, slowly taking away their liberty, freedom and choices. Their goal is to turn another human being into an entirely obedient person who exists to serve them and to be their emotional or physical punching bag.
Taking advantage of discrimination helps perpetrators to keep their targets trapped within this nightmare situation. It helps them to chip away at their partner’s self-worth by making them feel inferior. It is deliberate and it is destructive.
The Forms of Discrimination One-By-One
The rest of this post will consider the forms of discrimination in turn. I’m going to give lists of examples, but please note that the lists are not comprehensive. If you’ve experienced something that isn’t covered by my lists, please feel free to raise it in the comments section.
I would like to apologize at this point if any of the language in this article here isn’t the most appropriate language in your country. I am endeavoring to use the most appropriate language that I am familiar with as someone who lives in the U.K., but language varies across countries.
Discrimination based on sex
It is common for male perpetrators of domestic abuse to take advantage of ongoing sexism and misogyny against women and girls in societies. They might do this by:
Undermining a female partner using the huge pressure on women to be thin and attractive, by insulting her about her weight, her body and her appearance, including during and after she has been pregnant with their child;
Sexually-coercing a female partner using the still-prevalent idea that women “owe” their husbands or partners sex, by blaming and shaming her for not having sex more frequently and pressuring her into having sex;
Treating a female partner as if she is not an equal, for example by acting as though she is a “second class citizen” or as though he owns her and she is his property who he can order around;
Speaking to or about a female partner in a way that exploits the idea that women are less rational, for example suggesting that she is silly, emotional or incapable of understanding things, or implying that she is crazy and mentally unstable;
Speaking to or about a female partner in a way that exploits the idea that women need to be kind, caring and self-sacrificing, to make her feel bad by accusing her of being cold, selfish or uncaring;
Calling a female partner gendered slurs like b____, c___ or w____ to make her feel degraded;
Exploiting a female partner using the still-prevalent social idea that women should do the majority of unpaid work such as housework, childcare and family organization, and using this exploitation to overburden and exhaust her;
Guilt-tripping a female partner using the idea that women need to be perfect mothers, making her feel shame by claiming that she is failing as a mother;
Coercing children into behaving in gender-stereotypical ways, such as encouraging aggression and toughness in sons and obedience, caregiving and housework in daughters, and mocking and punishing children for not conforming;
Discrediting a former female partner who has disclosed abuse using the sexist “woman scorned” stereotype, by telling others that she is a liar and is out to get him because she’s manipulative, bitter and vindictive.
Discrimination based on ageism and childism
It is common for perpetrators of domestic abuse to take advantage of ageism or childism in societies, if this is relevant. Perpetrators of coercive control may typically use ageism against their partner or former partner and childism against any children they have.
You may not have heard of the term “childism” before. Childism involves discriminating against a child or young person for being young. If a child discloses abuse and is not believed or protected, this is likely very influenced by discriminatory myths about children that make people doubt their truthfulness or reliability.
Perpetrators may use ageism or childism to their advantage in the following ways:
Discrediting a child’s disclosure of abuse by using the stereotype that children are unreliable narrators, suggesting that the child was easily suggestable, easily manipulated and “coached”, and did not know the difference between imagination and reality;
Getting away with abusing a child by referring to the belief/law that adults have a right to assault children in the name of discipline (which is a widespread belief/law in many countries but one which is discriminatory, as a parent can legally hit a child yet the same action against another adult would be a crime);
Getting away with abusing a child on the basis of attitudes that pressure children to forgive and respect harmful adults, claiming that a child must always forgive and maintain respect for an abusive parent;
Blaming a young person for their own abuse on the basis that young people require control, exploiting the stereotype that young people are rebellious, hormonal and out of control in order to displace blame from the perpetrator;
Controlling a child using parent-centred beliefs that invalidate children’s choices, for example treating children as parents’ property and overriding children’s wishes in favor of parents’ wishes;
Undermining a younger intimate partner who is in their teens or 20s by referring to their age in a negative way, for example by asserting that they’re an inexperienced “kid” who needs guidance (i.e. control), or (for younger female partners) discrediting her disclosure of abuse by calling her a “gold digger” who wants a richer older man’s money;
Undermining a female partner who is in her 30s or 40s on the basis of stereotypes to do with her “biological clock”, for example deriding her as being in a relationship with him purely in order to have children and entrap him (especially financially) as the father;
Undermining a middle-aged partner by referring to their age in a negative way, for example implying they’re sexually unattractive, or (for female partners) incompetent due to symptoms of menopause, or easily replaceable by a younger partner;
Discrediting and taking advantage of a partner who is retired/elderly in age-based ways, for example by using retirement as a means of tightening personal and financial control over them, asserting that claims of abuse stem from mental confusion, claiming that abuse-related injuries were actually from accidents such as falls, or isolating them with the false justification that their freedom is limited due to ill health.
Discrimination based on class
It is common for perpetrators of domestic abuse to take advantage of classist discrimination, if this is relevant. They might do this by:
Using classist slurs about a partner’s aesthetics and appearance, such as by deriding them as having “cheap”, “trashy” and “tacky” taste in home decor or personal appearance;
Shaming the educational background of a partner whose education may have been affected by poverty or lack of opportunity;
Deriding a partner’s class-based local/regional culture such as accent, phrases/sayings, terminology, clothing items and food preferences;
Using classist slurs about the place their partner grew up, such as by insulting them as being from a “dump”;
Using classist stereotypes to mock a partner’s actual or imagined hobbies or interests;
Making their partner feel like an outsider among the perpetrator’s wealthier family;
Being rude or condescending to their partner’s less wealthy family or friends;
Using their richer lifestyle to dazzle and love-bomb a partner at the start of a relationship, in order to entrap them;
Speaking negatively about a partner’s low-paid or blue-collar employment, in order to make them feel inferior or to encourage them to give up that job to become more financially dependent on the perpetrator;
Exploiting a partner’s lack of experience with managing wealth in order to take control of the couple’s/family’s finances, enabling economic abuse.
Discrimination based on race, ethnicity and nationality
It is common for perpetrators of domestic abuse to take advantage of discrimination based on race, ethnicity and nationality, if any of these are relevant. They may do this by:
Taking advantage of wealth differences between countries to entrap a person from a less wealthy country in an abusive relationship, for example by telling them they should be grateful, threatening to have them deported, refusing to help regularize their immigration status, or withholding their passport;
Isolating a partner who has moved countries to be with them, for example by telling them they won’t be welcomed by locals, or preventing them from learning the local language;
Pressuring a female partner or a daughter to perform “traditional” femininity that the abuser associates with women from her country, culture, heritage or ethnic background;
Using racist stereotypes to discourage or stigmatize a partner from standing up for themselves, for example by using the sexist and racist stereotype directed at Black women that they are angry and loud;
Using racist stereotypes to discourage a partner from leaving the relationship, for example by exploiting the sexist and racist social stigma unfairly placed on Black single mothers;
Undermining a female partner with darker skin in a racist and sexist way by using sexist and racist preferences for lighter skin to imply that she is less attractive and is lucky to be in the relationship;
Amplifying any feelings that a multiracial partner or a child might have about not fitting in anywhere;
Refusing to learn about a multiracial child’s specific needs, such as how to look after their hair and skin appropriately, to make the child feel degraded or to distress their partner or former partner;
Mocking their partner’s or their child’s cultural traditions, hobbies, interests, food preferences or ways of seeing the world, treating them as invalid, inferior or unworthy of preservation;
Taking advantage of a minority community’s fear of involving racist and violent law enforcement systems in their lives to discourage reporting and help-seeking;
Telling other people in the community that a victim-survivor has “betrayed the community” if they have made a disclosure of abuse to law enforcement.
Discrimination based on chronic illness and disability, including mental health
It is common for perpetrators of domestic abuse to take advantage of ableist discrimination against disabled and chronically ill people, if this is relevant. This can include discrimination against people who are struggling with their mental health. Perpetrators might do this by:
Taking advantage of sexist, ableist public attitudes that present men who care for sick or disabled female partners as “saints” by using this to remove suspicion that he is abusing her “he’s so nice, he looks after her when most men would walk away”, or to justify his abuse “he was a good guy who snapped under stress”;
Taking advantage of stigma around mental ill health to discredit a partner or child who discloses abuse by telling authorities and the community that their account of abuse cannot be believed due to their mental health struggles;
Taking advantage of sexism and ableism to threaten a disabled or chronically ill female partner that he will make people see her as an “unfit mother”, for example by saying that if she leaves him he will persuade public agencies to judge her to be an “unfit mother” so that they take her children away from her;
Levelling insults at a disabled or chronically ill partner or child in ways that take advantage of how ablest societies deride disabled and chronically ill people, by example by calling a partner r____d or telling them that they are useless, worthless or a burden;
Ignoring their partner’s or child’s disability (including neurodivergence) or chronic health condition in the way roles and responsibilities in the relationship or family are organized, expecting them to perform functions as though they are neurotypical, healthy or able-bodied;
Telling their partner or child that they are not really sick and are faking their disability or chronic illness for attention; denying their lived reality and insulting their character;
Cutting off practical support from a partner or child in ways that take advantage of how ableist societies minimize the everyday problems caused by disability or chronic illness, for example by discouraging or preventing the partner or child from using “unnecessary” mobility aids or other aids or forms of assistance;
Weaponizing their partner’s or child’s disability or chronic illness, for example by using threats that disobedience will be punished by the removal of mobility aids or other forms of assistance, or by taking actions that deliberately worsen the partner’s or child’s condition;
Keeping their partner entrapped in ways that take advantage of the difficulties that disabled or chronically ill victims-survivors have in seeking help, such as the lack of specialist support services for disabled victims-survivors or discriminatory attitudes that may prevent help from being offered;
Taking advantage of the fact that the family of a disabled or chronically ill partner may not want that partner to leave the relationship — perhaps because the family want to continue with a situation where care responsibilities are being carried out by the abusive partner, and not by family members.
Discrimination based on spiritual and religious belief
It is common for perpetrators of domestic abuse to take advantage of any discrimination in society relating to religion or beliefs (or lack of religion or beliefs), if this is relevant.
In modern societies, people with abusive and discriminatory intentions often use age-old spiritual and religious ideas to impose other forms of discrimination (such as sexism and childism).
Societies also often discriminate against people for their spiritual and religious beliefs, particularly where there is a powerful/majority group and one that is less powerful/a minority.
These are some of the contexts in which perpetrators take advantage of spiritual and religion-based discrimination. Perpetrators might do this by:
Controlling a partner or child on the basis that they have an inferior level of spiritual or religious status, for example telling a partner or child that they must accept a subservient status in the family on the basis of religious ideas;
Interpreting a spiritual or religious belief-system in ways that degrade a partner’s or child’s sexuality, for example shaming a female partner for having had sexual experiences before she began a relationship with the perpetrator, or shaming a teenage daughter for having sexual experiences;
Coercing a female partner or daughter to practice “modest” dress when this is not what she wants to do, for example wearing head coverings or loose or un-revealing clothing;
Claiming that a religious belief-system requires a prospective female partner or a child to undergo female genital mutilation;
Coercing a daughter into getting married on the basis that marriage is required by a spiritual or religious belief-system, for example getting her married before she becomes “sexually impure” or pressuring her to marry a man who has raped or impregnated her;
Getting away with punishing or threatening to punish a female partner or child in the home, on the basis that the male partner is the religious leader within the household and is responsible for enforcing morality;
Discouraging a female partner or child from resisting the perpetrator’s actions / leaving the relationship / going no-contact on the basis that female submission / respecting a parent is aligned with a spiritual or religious belief-system, for example asking a female partner or child to have the “grace” to pardon the violence, abuse and suffering that they are experiencing;
Mocking a partner’s or child’s spiritual or religious belief-system and/or pressuring them to stop practicing or to stop believing, to remove one of their key sources of strength or comfort;
Threatening to reveal that a partner or child follows a minority religion or has no religion, in communities where this would lead to stigma or punishment;
Threatening to punish or shun a partner or child on the basis of a spiritual or religious belief around medicine or wellness, for example in relation to a partner’s decision to engage or not engage in vaccinations or “cleanses”;
Isolating a partner or child from “unbelieving” or “non-practicing” family or friends, by minimizing or preventing contact with them on the basis that they are enemies of, or insufficiently devoted to, a spiritual or religious belief-system.
Discrimination based on sexuality and gender identity
It is common for perpetrators of domestic abuse to take advantage of discrimination in society towards their partner’s or child’s sexuality or gender identity, if this is relevant. They might do this by:
Using slurs and forms of insult commonly applied against someone with their partner’s or child’s sexuality or gender identity to upset and demean them;
Taking advantage of the isolation and lack of support an LGBTQ+ partner may be experiencing from family, hometown or society to entrap them in an abusive relationship or to claim that, if they leave, no one else will love them;
Preventing a partner or child from expressing their sexual orientation or gender identity in the ways that they wish to while (specifically in the case of partners) also preventing them from safely leaving the relationship, something perpetrators can get away with due to discriminatory social attitudes;
Using discrimination grounded in biphobia to insult a bisexual partner, coerce them into sexual activities or discredit them to others, for example by claiming they are hypersexual, promiscuous and more likely to cheat;
Using discrimination grounded in biphobia to “justify” violent and abusive behavior against a partner, something that is a particular risk for bisexual women, based on the statistic that almost two thirds experience abuse, rape or stalking from an intimate partner during their lifetimes;
Threatening to “out” an LGBTQ+ partner against their wishes;
Deliberately damaging an LGBTQ+ partner’s reputation within the LGBTQ+ community, taking advantage of collective unity that has formed in the face of social discrimination and turning it against the partner so that they may face condemnation instead of support;
Mocking or discrediting an LGBTQ+ partner or child on the basis of mental health problems they have experienced due to anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, for example by describing them as “weird”/“crazy” or asserting the unreliability of reports they have made about abuse within the relationship or family;
Overburdening and exhausting a more feminine-presenting partner by pressuring them to do majority of household duties in line with sexist norms, such as washing and cleaning, food preparation, care work and household management/organization, while taking their labor for granted;
Taking advantage of an LGBTQ+ person’s fear of involving discriminatory and violent law enforcement systems in their lives and the lack of specialist services for LGBTQ+ domestic abuse victims-survivors to discourage reporting and help-seeking.
Concluding Analysis
In this post we have explored the various forms of discrimination that impact on coercive control across sex, age, class, race, ethnicity and nationality, chronic illness and disability, spiritual and religious belief, and sexuality and gender identity.
As we have seen, whichever form of discrimination is being used by the perpetrator, their overall aim is the same: To keep their target entrapped.
It’s now time to remind ourselves of what pulls all of these forms of discrimination together in relation to the actions of coercive control perpetrators.
Attacking victims’-survivors’ self-esteem
Pulling together the numerous threads from the post, then, there are a couple of distinct dynamics. The first one is the way that perpetrators use discrimination to attack victims’-survivors’ self-esteem and sense of themselves as a human being.
Underpinning much of what is covered above is the fact that many people experience feelings of worthlessness due to discrimination. Society’s endless unfair discrimination means that many people are ignored, mocked and under-valued. And, when perpetrators encounter a person who is the victim of discrimination, this is a shortcut to being able to achieve their central aim of bashing the victim’s-survivor’s “self-efficacy” — their sense of their personal worth and belief in their ability to be successful.
In good relationships, people who experience everyday discrimination are comforted within the home, so even while the outside world may be tough, the home is a place where they can hopefully feel valued and loved.
What perpetrators do is the opposite — they exploit what society does by confirming it to the victim-survivor, making it not just something that strangers are coming up with, but something applied to them by their intimate partner or parent.
This is incredibly damaging to self-image — as perpetrators know and relish.
If society says something is true, or treats me in this way, and then even my partner or parent backs that up, then there is no escape from the message that the discrimination is sending out.
The way is then cleared for the perpetrator to complete their mission — to slowly take away the demoralized victim’s-survivor’s liberty, freedom and choices.
Exploiting victims’-survivors’ structural vulnerability
There is also a second aspect to how discrimination is exploited by perpetrators. This is something highlighted in various ways in this post: How perpetrators take advantage of the structural vulnerability suffered by victims of discrimination.
The issue of structural vulnerability can relate particularly to the ability of a victim-survivor to leave their abuser.
It can be much harder for victims of societal discrimination to safely escape — and we have seen a number of examples of this phenomenon in this post. Here are three:
Disabled or chronically ill victims-survivors may have much greater difficulty in seeking help. Issues they face include a lack of specialist support services, a lack of refuge spaces that are adapted to their needs, loss of their adapted home, or discriminatory attitudes that may affect the ways professionals treat them as a victim-survivor.
Retired and elderly victims-survivors may find perpetrators using their stage of life to cover up abuse - “that bruise was caused by a fall”. They may be affected by a lack of specialist services and a lack of suitable refuge spaces. Elderly victims-survivors may also find that professionals are unwilling to apply the terms “domestic abuse” or “coercive control” to someone of their age, so their situations (and the dangerousness of the perpetrator) are misunderstood.
Child victims-survivors often endure perpetrators getting away with abusing them because of beliefs/laws that adults have a right to assault children in the name of discipline (which is a widespread belief/law in many countries but one which is discriminatory, as a parent can legally hit a child yet the same action against another adult would be a crime). Child victims-survivors may find themselves unrecognised as victims of domestic abuse, disbelieved, their views ignored, and treated as the perpetrator’s property.
These, and many more, are ways in which victims-survivors can find it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to get out of the perpetrator’s grasp, due to how discrimination places certain groups in structurally weaker positions.
For perpetrators, it is of course very convenient that societies choose to make some people more vulnerable in this way. This offers more weapons in their armory that they can use to maintain and intensify their regimes of coercive control.
Final thoughts
Societal discrimination creates unjustified, bogus hierarchies of better and worse, higher and lower — and perpetrators seize on this themselves to create their own hierarchies in relationships and families. They place themselves at the top and treat victims-survivors as lower, as unworthy of respect, and as though they have no rights. Existing societal discrimination makes it all the more possible for perpetrators to do this.
If a coercive controller ever did this to you, please know that you did not in any way deserve it. No one deserves to be treated in that way. You are worthy and precious, and you always were.
Goodbye for now
Thank you for your continued support for Decoding Coercive Control with Dr Emma Katz. I look forward to writing my next post on this site very soon.
In my coercively controlled relationship, I was the 'clever one' (I have two degrees - he has none) and he resented that - so ridiculed me at any opportunity and told me not to express my opinion unless I had checked it with him first
This says so much about what we already live with and perhaps wouldn’t have realised is being exploited. It comes back to what you say about our critical vulnerabilities doesn’t it? And the way you state their aims to hollow us out and take away our autonomy is shocking but true - it is so powerful to see everything laid out like this. You really do get underneath it all, exposing how endemic, insidious and deep control runs. Thank you.