“These Are Not Facts”: The Lies That Keep Abuse Normalized | S3E14

You were never “too sensitive.” You were surrounded by lies repeated so often they started to feel like truth. 

Abuse is rare. 
Women lie. 
Men and women do it equally. 

None of these are facts, and believing them keeps you stuck questioning your own reality.

In this conversation, Lisa sits down with Brent McLearie, creator of the “These Are Not Facts” series, to dismantle the narratives that quietly protect abuse while discrediting survivors. They break down how these myths spread, why they are so convincing, and how they distort the way we interpret harm, credibility, and responsibility. 

When abuse is framed as rare, survivors struggle to name it. When false accusations are exaggerated, survivors stay silent. When everything is flattened into “equal,” the truth disappears.

Brent brings data and context to what survivors already feel in their bodies, that something is off about the way the world talks about abuse. Together, they expose how these narratives shift focus away from perpetrators and onto survivors, forcing them to defend their pain instead of being supported through it.

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

Transcript

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00:00:00:00 - 00:00:08:17
Music


00:00:08:19 - 00:00:15:08
Lisa Sonni
This is Real Talk with Lisa Sunny Relationships Uncensored, the podcast they don't want you listening to.

00:00:15:10 - 00:00:17:10
Brent MacLerie


00:00:17:12 - 00:00:43:10
Lisa Sonni
So there are a lot of myths that are just, you know, traveling the world with such gusto, like abuse is rare that men and women abuse at the same rates. And my personal favorite, that men are falsely accused all the time. These are myths that women are fighting against. And I want to be super clear that they're myths, but they're said and repeated so many times, and there are so many big air quotes, facts that support these myths.

00:00:43:14 - 00:01:01:03
Lisa Sonni
And I have come across a creator a long time ago that talks about this and has a really great series called These Are Not Facts. And so I wanted to invite him back on the show, because you've been on the show before, and it was such a great conversation around male fragility. So I wanted to have you back on to talk about this.

00:01:01:03 - 00:01:05:08
Lisa Sonni
So if I can just kind of kick it over to you, Brant, to introduce yourself, tell us who you are.

00:01:05:11 - 00:01:29:12
Brent MacLerie
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me back on. So, yeah, my name is Brant McLeary. And like you said, I'm social content, social media content educator. I go by the handle of patriarchy, and a lot of my content is centered around anti misogyny and kind of pushing back against disinformation, providing a factual basis for a lot of the gender based discussions. We have, particularly on the topics like you talk about about domestic violence, sexual misconduct and men's mental health.

00:01:29:14 - 00:01:50:03
Lisa Sonni
And I love that, you know, like to still not to sweep across that men's mental health because as a feminist, I care about men's mental health. But of course, it's, you know, I'm a I'm a centrist, so I don't care about men's mental health. But taking down something like the patriarchy, which is no small task. A lot of it involves dismantling some of these myths that that constantly come up,

00:01:50:04 - 00:02:07:11
Lisa Sonni
you know, being able to break them down and really look at them because you hear so many of them repeated constantly. And one that we're not talking about today. So we're not going to go into a big tangent, but always has irked me is that I think it's 70% of single mother homes produce criminals or whatever the hell this act is.

00:02:07:11 - 00:02:28:20
Lisa Sonni
But like, men, just repeat these things over and over and over again and it's wild. And the first real like big one that I think we, we can talk about is this abuse is rare. That one really irks me because I don't think that it's rare at all. And don't think that based on facts and science, you know, it's proven to not be rare.

00:02:28:20 - 00:02:43:19
Lisa Sonni
And it also is. So it's very minimizing and dismissive to people who've actually been through it. I think one of the biggest problems that I see women have is not knowing that it's abuse. So when that's coupled with it's rare, you think, okay, well, maybe that's not what's actually happening to me.

00:02:44:00 - 00:03:03:18
Brent MacLerie
Yeah, no I agree. I think there's a tendency to talk about abuse as though it's this rare and unpredictable event, like you've got struck by lightning, right? It's it's deeply tragic, but it's a complete shock, and no one can ever predicted it. And the reality is, abuse is far more like the air we breathe. We might not see it, but it is with us everywhere we go

00:03:03:18 - 00:03:28:17
Brent MacLerie
and it is all around us. The World Health Organization estimates that like 1 in 3 women globally experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. And here in the US, the CDC did a survey. Right. So this is self volunteer information. This is not police reports. This is people just anonymously being able to tell their stories. And their results were one inch three women. 1 in 6 men experienced sexual or physical violence in their lifetime.

00:03:28:21 - 00:03:46:02
Brent MacLerie
So when we say abuse is rare, what we're really saying is like we personally don't see it, but we can see from the numbers that abuse isn't rare and it's hidden by a culture like you talked about that that encourages silence by not having these conversations in the open, because when we're talking about 1 in 3, 1 in 6, that's widespread, right?

00:03:46:02 - 00:04:06:11
Brent MacLerie
This is there are multiple people in your family. There are multiple people that you work with that are impacted by this. And yet how many of those stories of physical or sexual violence are actually told? How many are you aware of, say, of all of your coworkers? Maybe a couple, if any? And so we create this world where abuse is really prevalent, but it's not talked about,

00:04:06:11 - 00:04:21:10
Brent MacLerie
and that creates that perfect environment exactly like you're talking about, where survivors then begin to doubt their own experience if no one else is talking about it, maybe this isn't that big of a deal. Maybe I imagine they maybe all the people who are saying it's wrong or right and maybe I won't be believed if I speak up about it.

00:04:21:12 - 00:04:38:13
Lisa Sonni
And I mean, the truth is, I find it really interesting. Victims are not believed. Now, I work exclusively with women. And so when I talk, sometimes I say women are not believed. And a lot of men are like what? Women are always believed. Name one woman that wasn't believed. And I'm like, how much time do you have? Are you kidding me?

00:04:38:16 - 00:04:57:19
Lisa Sonni
People are not believed. What I find really ironic, maybe, is that when a man who is abused is not believed and he's, like, outraged. How dare people not believe me? Oh, you don't like being treated like a woman, It's interesting because women are not believed either. I mean, my God, women are absolutely not believed. astounding to me that someone could even make that claim.

00:04:57:22 - 00:05:16:15
Brent MacLerie
and you're right, like that and also impacts male survivors as well, because we created this culture that instantly doubts any survivors. Men's stories only typically get used to weaponize against women. In the moment that you're not out of the moment that, say, a man, has their violence perpetrated by another man, then they're completely ignored and forgotten about because they're stories useless.

00:05:16:15 - 00:05:33:06
Brent MacLerie
So like, they're just cast aside and it's talking to other men who have been through sexual and physical violence, like to see their their story repeated the same way the mind once as well of like yeah you unless you use it to get on this you know women hating train other men just simply do not care about your story.

00:05:33:10 - 00:05:50:16
Lisa Sonni
I actually find that so, like, irritating for men because as an advocate in domestic violence in general, again, I work with women, but it doesn't mean that I don't think men get abused or that men shouldn't have a place to talk about it. But I know that when men talk about it, it can very quickly creep into a I hate women situation.

00:05:50:16 - 00:06:12:21
Lisa Sonni
Like being abused by one woman can make a man hate women forever and hate all women. And they turn that experience with their mother, with a wife, with a girlfriend into all women. And I find women tend to be more cautious of men rather than hate all men. Like the word misandry gets thrown around. But I don't think most people that are using that word actually know what it means when

00:06:12:21 - 00:06:13:06
Lisa Sonni
we agree.

00:06:13:09 - 00:06:15:13
Brent MacLerie
It's very valid. Yes, agree.

00:06:15:18 - 00:06:41:23
Lisa Sonni
you say anything that a man did in real life and it's like Palmyra misandrist. But all that to say, abuse really isn't rare. But I think think one of the biggest issues is actually that it gets framed as abuse is physical and abuse is extreme. we have a vision of what abuse is, but abuse is really just a pattern of behavior where you're trying to control someone, manipulate someone, harm someone, and that can show up in so many different ways.

00:06:42:02 - 00:07:22:04
Lisa Sonni
Anything from emotional, psychological, financial, sexual, like there's so many and there's a million subtypes of abuse like semantic abuse and ambient abuse and litigation abuse all these things. But it's not rare. I know I've worked with many couples counselors who also have acknowledged straight up that there is a lot more prevalence of abuse, and it's why I personally find it so strange that It's not something that's factored into the training of therapists, given that a lot of couples that go to therapy would be experiencing call it high conflict or some form of abuse or aggression, and if you're not trained to identify maybe the difference between high conflict and abuse, how can you sit in

00:07:22:04 - 00:07:25:18
Lisa Sonni
front of people if even therapists think that abuse is rare?

00:07:25:19 - 00:07:44:19
Brent MacLerie
Yeah, agreed. And I think there's a lot of focus when we talk about more impactful elements of abuse, right? Sexual and physical violence, less so on, say, you know, the emotional manipulation of coercion. And it's really sad, especially in like, that therapist dynamic where you're looking to to help resolve those relationship issues. That really needs to be called out and observed.

00:07:44:19 - 00:08:03:05
Brent MacLerie
And I think you're right, like, there's so little training and talking about it. I mean, we've got to the point now where a lot of therapy speak is just kind of thrown out willy nilly, right? Like anytime somebody denies an accusation, it's DARVO, without fully understanding the actual complex mechanics of what DARVO is and the way in which it isolates, survivors when they speak up.

00:08:03:05 - 00:08:19:12
Brent MacLerie
And, it's very difficult to really have a lot of these conversations because so often there is a knee jerk reaction of, she's lying. You know, I hate women. And because they're so emotionally charged, it's very difficult to have meaningful conversations that actually move things forward. When we talk about these topics.

00:08:19:18 - 00:08:35:16
Lisa Sonni
Oh, man, I so agree. You know, the first thing that comes to my mind when you say that is any time I've made a video on being abused or talking about women being abused, leave it to some man to come into the comment sections and go “Abuse? What did he say no to you? Tell me what he actually did.

00:08:35:16 - 00:08:59:11
Lisa Sonni
Let's hear his side.” And it's like, God, like it's it's the automatic dismissal of he just said no. And then she screams abuse. I don't know a single woman that has ever said abuse. And their situation is just she was told no that's ludicrous. Most women can be, assaulted, quite frankly, sexually abused financially, psychologically and have no idea that it's abuse.

00:08:59:12 - 00:09:17:04
Lisa Sonni
I think more women are not so inclined actually to label it abuse. And again, it's just like feeds the loop, right? If we make it sound rare, then women can't name it and then it keeps happening and then men show up in the comment sections. And it's not just men, I suppose, but I see a lot of men say this that like, it's just rare and you're making it up.

00:09:17:04 - 00:09:20:05
Lisa Sonni
It's all in your head. You women just call anything abuse these days.

00:09:20:08 - 00:09:40:04
Brent MacLerie
Yeah, but I mean like, look at like the high profile cases that we see when we, these accusations of abuse come out. Rarely is it ever a single event for a single person. Often there is a decade long history of other accusers who either were dismissed at the time or ignored. And the thing that always strikes me is just how many chances a lot of times these men get.

00:09:40:06 - 00:09:53:11
Brent MacLerie
I saw something that was, I think it was a post to Reddit that really stuck with me. That was, you know, protective orders, right? When you say something abuse and the best you can do is kind of get him to stay away. Is basically the police saying he gets one more attempt to try and kill you. And I was like, oh, my God.

00:09:53:11 - 00:10:11:23
Brent MacLerie
Like, that is so, so true of how we treat it, is that they keep getting second, second, third, fourth, fifth chances. And when it ultimately happens, when you see some tragic news in the press of, a young woman who has been, murdered by an intimate partner or a former partner or a jilted lover, it's usually like they tried to get a protective order.

00:10:12:00 - 00:10:21:01
Brent MacLerie
They couldn't or they did, and they still got one more attempt to to finish the job. And it's it's tragic because I, we don't see anything moving forward of changing that system at all.

00:10:21:04 - 00:10:46:04
Lisa Sonni
Oh that's a what a way to frame that. But that's like that. Well I get it. That is I mean and I've had a restraining order before and trigger warning but like got my head bashed in after the restraining order. So like it is it's like okay, we're going to ask him not to. We're going to give him this piece of paper that says, but if he does, you know, and then ironically, actually, even in my own situation, even with a 141 breaches of that order.

00:10:46:07 - 00:10:47:11
Lisa Sonni
Yeah, no charges.

00:10:47:14 - 00:11:01:18
Brent MacLerie
But again, it doesn't fit with the story that it's rare that, you know, she's making it up again. with these violent men are caught and actually convicted. It is at the end of a long, terrifying campaign, not simply one moment, one bad decision.

00:11:01:21 - 00:11:20:14
Lisa Sonni
Now, I think that this kind of, like men are falsely accused. This is sort of the perfect segue here, because that's part of this, right? She says that she was abused, but she's lying. Women are just making this up. And it really feeds into this. Like what? What are you calling abuse anyway? So it gives you this permission and it's it's just not true.

00:11:20:15 - 00:11:39:13
Lisa Sonni
Like this is one of the most repeated claims. And even when you come back with this statistic, right, the most common statistic, well, between 2 and 10% is is the actual number. I actually hate that statistic. I don't know how much I spend talking about that. I don't like debating statistics online because it irritates me. But here we are talking about the facts.

00:11:39:13 - 00:11:52:14
Lisa Sonni
I do know that it's two and 10%, but I know that there's a lot of information that's missing in that. Like it's not false. It's sort of like it's the charges being dropped or never filed is not proof of innocence. Dude.

00:11:52:18 - 00:12:10:21
Brent MacLerie
your brain. Like this is one of the most repeated claims. It's the one that has almost no evidence to support it. It's one of the least supported by evidence. All right. But like, there are dozens of studies on this, but consistently land in that 2 to 10% range. But the conversation when we have them talk about this is like to be very clear about like you saying, what do we mean by a false accusation?

00:12:10:21 - 00:12:35:01
Brent MacLerie
Because if we're talking about, you know, a claim that a woman has made or men has made knowingly false, right? They're they're they're completely fabricating something. It never kind of gets above that, that range. When we look at some of the studies where men talk about, oh, it's 20, 30 or 40%, they are, like you say, broadening that category to be ones that were not prosecuted didn't have enough evidence. Things like that.

00:12:35:01 - 00:12:54:21
Brent MacLerie
And those are not necessarily false accusations. Right. In a lot of these situations, when you're talking about a violent or physical assault, especially by an intimate partner, violence, intimate partner, you're talking about a situation where you are likely to be isolated, alone in a private setting, in your home, with no witnesses apparent. Right. They're not doing this in a stadium full of people, often.

00:12:55:01 - 00:13:16:01
Brent MacLerie
So it makes those cases very difficult to prosecute because they do ultimately end up to, you know, one person says this, the other person says that without a lot of physical evidence, it's very difficult to get a prosecution. So most of those cases never get prosecuted. I think something like 90% of of sexual assaults never get prosecuted. And that's really the real moment we should be talking about

00:13:16:01 - 00:13:49:19
Brent MacLerie
is like the number of false accusations are minuscule compared to the number of assaults. That's never gets prosecuted. But even then again, like, say, looking at studies of false allegations, it was a 2010 study, by David Lisak. The looked at false allegations at a university over ten years, and they're only 6% recorded as false allegations. Another study looked at FBI data from 2006 to 2010, for looking for ones that were classified as unfounded, which is, again, that broader category of not just false allegations, but also, instances of crimes that didn't meet the legal criteria.

00:13:49:19 - 00:14:07:12
Brent MacLerie
Right? There wasn't an ability to prosecute them. And they found about 5.6% of rapes were considered unfounded. But the number for robberies was 5.8%. And no one says there's a massive epidemic of men being falsely accused of robbery, despite the fact that false allegations are roughly around the same rate.

00:14:07:17 - 00:14:26:00
Lisa Sonni
Oh, see, and that's interesting because I think like, okay, what's the piece that's different here? The woman. Right. The credibility of a woman. If a woman said it happened, we can't just believe her because women lie. And honestly, even if you can get, one of these misogynists to sort of be like, fine, it's 2%, but you don't care about those 2%.

00:14:26:04 - 00:14:38:23
Lisa Sonni
Those 2% of men are having their lives ruined. And I'm like, but do you also care that 90% of rapists and abusers just walk free? You seem real concerned about that 2%. Why, I wonder?

00:14:38:23 - 00:15:06:13
Brent MacLerie
Yeah. But that's again, like how our society has been set up, right, is to manage this whole conversation like the false accusations, the small percent are the dominant risk, despite the fact, like you say, we know that 90% of those assaults will never be convicted, never brought, never prosecuted. So 90% of those rapists are walking free. And the fact that men themselves are more likely, to face sexual assault and sexual violence than be falsely accused of it.

00:15:06:13 - 00:15:32:07
Brent MacLerie
So we've structured the entire conversation around this minuscule percentage of false accusations rather than bigger risk, which are the perpetrators. Right. And instead, what that does is create a culture where survivors have to constantly defend their credibility again and again and again and again. And we never ask any questions of the perpetrators. And I think right from looking at this data, it's because we're scared of having some really difficult conversations.

00:15:32:08 - 00:15:52:18
Brent MacLerie
There's a couple of studies that I've used in my content and I talked about before of college students, one from 2016, where 400 male college students. And again, these are pro surveys, right? They're not reports. These are these are things that the men themselves filled out and admitted to nobody's, you know, making any, judgments against them. This is not somebody else. Kind of like investigating.

00:15:52:18 - 00:16:21:14
Brent MacLerie
This is just men openly saying in an anonymous survey these things. And the 2016 study found that of those 400 male college students, 46% admitted to using some form of sexual coercion in their lifetime. So either physical violence or threats or just manipulation and coercion to get an unwilling intimate partner to engage in sex with. Another 2014 study of male students far more concerning ask them hypothetically, if nobody would ever know and there were no consequences.

00:16:21:14 - 00:16:41:17
Brent MacLerie
Would you rape a woman? 14% said yes, and that number is horrifying by itself. But the researchers then took another group of men and removed that word and instead said, hey, if nobody had ever known the would be any consequences, would you force a woman to have sexual intercourse? Essentially the same thing, but without that loaded word, the number doubles to 32%, which is almost a third.

00:16:41:17 - 00:17:01:14
Brent MacLerie
So when you think about that of like a third of men admit that they have no ethical or moral problem with using coercion, half of them admit to having coerced somebody in their lifetime. The numbers don't support the story that, the false accusations, are prevalent. They're rare. What's not rare is sexual coercion. That seems to be very present.

00:17:01:15 - 00:17:12:02
Brent MacLerie
And yet, because of the way we frame this conversation around the dominant risk is these women who were making false accusations? We never have that conversation. The greater danger is women lying, not men perpetrating.

00:17:12:02 - 00:17:30:09
Lisa Sonni
delusional almost, you know, to to even go down that path. That's why as soon as I see someone talking like that, I'm like, I can't, I can't do it. I don't have the emotional energy. And I'm not here to convince people who are committed to a myth and committed to a lie, like there's no facts and science that could ever make somebody like that see it differently.

00:17:30:09 - 00:17:45:21
Lisa Sonni
That's what it feels like. But I also think that, like as a woman talking, it's like, I'll just go sit down. You're never going to believe me. I'll let you talk. I'll let you talk about these stats because they're at least more likely to listen to you. Although I bet you get called a simp and pandering and all those things every day, but, of.

00:17:45:21 - 00:18:06:06
Brent MacLerie
Course. And that's the other thing. It's not only do I get called called those things right, but even knowing that I, myself and I talked openly before about myself, my story of also being a survivor of domestic violence. I've been in a relationship with a violent alcoholic. The immediate thing is that is they're not like, oh, he's a slim pen, a bender, but at least he's sharing your story. At least he's, you know, men are victims,

00:18:06:06 - 00:18:21:15
Brent MacLerie
all right? They take that story and then go, well, he probably did something. What's her side of the story? So even even when men speak up and men talk about their stories with this, which is, you know, what they fill your comment section with saying like, oh, you never talk about men. What about that? Even when the men do speak up,

00:18:21:16 - 00:18:39:11
Brent MacLerie
if, again, that story is not framed in the right way to be able to attack women and so on, well, then they're lied to and it just discredits everybody, and makes things incredibly hard for, for any survivor to come forward and tell their story, knowing that unless it's carefully crafted and within those boundaries, you're going to be dismissed, you're going to be attacked,

00:18:39:11 - 00:18:40:14
Brent MacLerie
you're going to be insulted.

00:18:40:16 - 00:18:59:08
Lisa Sonni
Which just again, makes people go, okay, forget it. I'm not even going to talk about it. And then we're all being abused in silence. And the perpetrators are the ones that are always winning. They're only admitting it quietly. And I find it that sort of like, word play. I find that really fascinating, that if we just change the word, they will admit to certain behavior.

00:18:59:08 - 00:19:18:15
Lisa Sonni
I feel like I saw a video or an article on predatory behavior towards children and what men would do if they weren't able to be caught, what men would participate in if they were not being caught. I think what's interesting is we're all talking about studies, and a lot of people seem to think that statistics come from reported events.

00:19:18:20 - 00:19:50:18
Lisa Sonni
But as you've identified, sometimes it's surveys and people self-reporting in studies that are not necessarily specific to having been reported. So even the belief that, like men underreport, I mean, studies actually show that men and women underreport at very similar rates. So studies don't even come just from that place. But like we're not looking at things properly. I think one of the biggest issues in the world when it comes to this topic is that people don't know what a stat is, they don't know how to analyze information and context gets removed.

00:19:50:18 - 00:19:51:07
Lisa Sonni
A lot

00:19:51:11 - 00:20:11:02
Brent MacLerie
the question that needs to be asked. It's like, what's the purpose in bringing up these myths? Because I think all of the myths that we talked about a lot of times when they come into the conversation, they are presented as being motivated about a concern, like we talked about for male victims, for men to advocate for them, to kind of bring this other side of the discussion that's not brought into it, which is great. I

00:20:11:02 - 00:20:45:12
Brent MacLerie
love it, you know, as a survivor myself, more of it, but that never translates into action, right? There's a reason why men do not have shelters. And they're difficult to get funded because men don't want to come together. They don't build community. They don't donate their time, their energy or their money to these charitable organizations to help. And so they consistently fail, because the only reason to bring these up is to deflect the conversation, like I said, from turning any attention to what's perpetration, to instead focusing on male victimization, but with no aim of actually improving things or making things better.

00:20:45:18 - 00:21:02:06
Brent MacLerie
And so, like, that's the world we live in now is where stats are just a weapon per act, foundational data for us to use to be able to improve things and actually make an impact or advocate. There's simply, you know, tools. We can jump into the comment section, to be able to then dismiss you. And we don't have to listen to anything else

00:21:02:06 - 00:21:02:21
Brent MacLerie
you have to say.

00:21:03:01 - 00:21:23:18
Lisa Sonni
infuriating task, which, you know, you've signed up for as a longtime misogyny educator and talking about this online, I feel like I didn't sign up for this conversation in so many ways because I was just trying to help women, and that's what I'm trying to do. But it still like the pushback I could never have been prepared for the amount of pushback that I got from men.

00:21:23:18 - 00:21:50:17
Lisa Sonni
And it's interesting because something I've said and I've made content on this before, but I don't want to go on and on ad nauseum about it. But I used to make gender neutral content. I used to hashtag abuse knows no gender. I used to make videos about female perpetrators and the amount of men that come in and attack me and call me names like and then you just get called a misandrist and I'm like, well, I don't actually identify as a misandry. Like, you're really pushing me in that direction, men. Because

00:21:50:19 - 00:21:52:00
Brent MacLerie
you're making a strong case for.

00:21:52:00 - 00:22:18:09
Lisa Sonni
Like, you're really not making a case for me to love men as you come in here and you're like, I don't understand why you hate man, you disgusting, old haggard B-word like, oh, gosh, why don't I just welcome men into my content? But actually, the reason I don't you can relate to. I know, because when I talk about female perpetrators, men are in my comment section saying the most vile, misogynistic, disgusting things about women as a whole.

00:22:18:15 - 00:22:40:11
Lisa Sonni
When I make content about male perpetrators, men are in my comment sections saying the most disgusting, vile things about women as a whole and calling women liars and then demanding that I make content for men. And it's like I do. I have an entire playlist on it, but it's like, not enough. Every single video has to be gender neutral, and if they get so angry and they attack me,

00:22:40:14 - 00:23:01:03
Lisa Sonni
I never. When the women are in the comment sections of videos on female perpetrators, women are like, oh, I'm so sorry that happened. And my mom was abusive. Or like they can find ways to relate. They're not going, yeah, men do this too. They're not ripping me apart in the comment sections. It's like men's own behavior has reduced their own support.

00:23:01:05 - 00:23:15:00
Lisa Sonni
So even when you're talking about why there aren't more shelters and more support for men, it's like, if you could just grab a mirror and just have a have a little peek at how you might be contributing to men not having access to things that you think men should have access to.

00:23:15:02 - 00:23:37:18
Brent MacLerie
let's just look at things in general, right? In a conversation about male perpetrated violence, the immediate reaction or response, is not to ignore. You got to move on to swipe right and not engage with you. It's to jump into the comment section to engage in acts of emotional violence, to insult and degrade and dismiss. And you're like, you know, buddy, you're proving the point here, right?

00:23:37:20 - 00:23:50:12
Brent MacLerie
It's very difficult. Have a conversation about how men will, you know, enact these inordinate amounts of violence against women, simply for having a different opinion. And then you jump in the comment section to prove that out, like, what are you

00:23:50:12 - 00:24:13:01
Lisa Sonni
doing? Right? Like, really, bro, you're not helping yourself. It just it makes me so crazy, like, stop. If you want women to not feel this way, stop. Just stop. It's like, I want to just grab their shoulders and shake them. But it's it's crazy making. But all that to say, women are primarily not making these false allegations, you know, I mean, men are in the comment section of being like, this is a false allegation.

00:24:13:04 - 00:24:26:08
Lisa Sonni
You are defending a man you've never met and accusing a woman you've never met. You have no context for the whole situation and your immediate default is she's lying. If that's not misogyny, I don't know what it is.

00:24:26:12 - 00:24:39:18
Brent MacLerie
And I've talked about this as well. Like I made a video talking to people about this, about this idea that, you know, if you push this nightmare, forget the data on it. If you push this myth that all false accusations, all accusations are false and none of them are real, how do you ever know what a real one is?

00:24:39:23 - 00:24:57:15
Brent MacLerie
And so your friend group becomes surrounded with men who all tell you insist. Absolutely. Oh, it's false accusations. I never did any of these things. Now say that a malicious man does try to enter your social circle, right? Somebody who is a danger and a predator and is going to do harm to the women in your life. How would you ever know?

00:24:57:18 - 00:25:19:20
Brent MacLerie
How do you spot him amongst the 10 or 20 men that you've surrounded? You rip yourself that hole. And since it's false allegations, you can't. So just playing into this myth and just accepting this myth creates an environment in which predators can then run amok, unexplored or unexposed and can just dismiss any rumors or allegations against them as false. And there's no way for you to ever know that's terrifying.

00:25:19:22 - 00:25:24:22
Lisa Sonni
It is. But I would question if they care. You know, I don't know that most men.

00:25:25:02 - 00:25:26:21
Brent MacLerie
Like, you know. I have to. Deal with those,

00:25:26:21 - 00:25:45:06
Lisa Sonni
but. I have faith that plenty of men would care. But I don't think that it's the majority. And I'm not saying it's like 98% wouldn't care. I'm just saying I believe I have no fact to base this to, to back this up, but I believe it's over 50% would sort of be like, because you've ever seen that sort of gradient? It's sort of like red, orange, yellow, green.

00:25:45:06 - 00:26:03:18
Lisa Sonni
The bad men are the red like the ones who openly harm hurt or whatever. I think most men are like yellow. Most, you know, maybe into the orange, but they're the guys that like, may not laugh at the joke, but aren't going to actively do anything about it. they're not going to be the perpetrators, but they're not going to stop the perpetrators either.

00:26:03:21 - 00:26:18:09
Lisa Sonni
And that is like, that's what women mean, right? When they say it's all men, because everybody's benefiting. All the men are benefiting from the silence of women. And this myth that women are just making it up. If women have no credibility, then men never have to take accountability, right?

00:26:18:10 - 00:26:28:14
Brent MacLerie
And they never have to change because you can just move on to the next person and it's like, oh, she's she's making it up. It's it's terrible. But you have eight women all saying the same thing. Oh, they're all like.

00:26:28:14 - 00:26:46:07
Lisa Sonni
Yeah, they're all like, I have to admit that every so often I get a man in the comments that's like, no, no, this is true because I've been falsely accused. And honestly, I admit my first reaction as I criticize men for their gut reaction. Mine is like given how rare false allegations are, oh, he's probably he's probably a perpetrator,

00:26:46:07 - 00:27:06:21
Lisa Sonni
but if I was making a bet, right, if a man was gambling and someone was giving him like poker odds or blackjack odds, he'd learn all that and figure out what's most likely. And if you look at it through that lens, any betting person would take the bet that the man is lying about being a perpetrator and the woman is telling the truth.

00:27:06:22 - 00:27:13:23
Lisa Sonni
Given the statistics. Again, I'm not talking about men who have experienced abuse. I'm talking about who've been accused of being abusive.

00:27:14:00 - 00:27:32:06
Brent MacLerie
Yeah. And in my experience, like doing this as a social contact, I have had a lot of men reach out to me to be like, hey, you know, you're wrong. I have been falsely accused and like, you got me to dig into their stories. And the most vocal almost always have, like a history of restraining orders, protective orders, huge court battle against them.

00:27:32:06 - 00:27:52:04
Brent MacLerie
And I'm like this is not false. Like, that said, though, I mean, this is the tragedy of it is there are false accusations, right? They do occur. Yes. They're in that limited number. But because we've created this whole smokescreen where some of the most vile offenders are basically hiding behind the false allegations that harms every man you talked about. Well, they're like, well, what about those 2%?

00:27:52:04 - 00:28:12:02
Brent MacLerie
Yeah. You've just now made it incredibly difficult for that 2% to get the help and support they need for them to be able to share their story, because we create an environment in which just saying that is really like you said on the Ellen's more Likely to be a predator trying and attempting to hide and not take accountability for their actions, which harms everybody.

00:28:12:02 - 00:28:37:06
Lisa Sonni
It's just the whole thing is like it's such a vicious cycle. And I think, you know, talking about it makes it at least come to the light under the shadows. Now, I've purposely sort of saved my most irritating, myth for last, which is that men and women abuse at the same rate. When I tell you I have the most intense opinions on this topic, and I want to be clear for anybody listening is I don't feel I'm not in the mood to be attacked in my own comment section today.

00:28:37:06 - 00:28:55:12
Lisa Sonni
But let me tell you, I do not think that no men are abused, and I do not think that women can never be abusive, and that's always the vibe, because I talk about when men do it. It's like, well, you just you automatically don't think that men get abused, or you must think the women don't do it. Now, I'm allowed to have a niche and a specific topic.

00:28:55:12 - 00:29:14:17
Lisa Sonni
I support women, I'm a coach for women, so I obviously speak to my audience. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to lose my brain and suddenly make false equivalency about it being at the same rate. There is no planet in which men and women are abusing each other at the same rates. So over to you. What do you think?

00:29:14:19 - 00:29:32:03
Brent MacLerie
And yes, no, I agree. And I think that's I think it's like, there is some sense a guest underneath perhaps, maybe subconsciously that like this myth is created to kind of shore up support that, that men can be abused, that women do perpetrate. And. Absolutely right. I've talked about like I've been very open about that's my experience and that's my story.

00:29:32:03 - 00:30:00:12
Brent MacLerie
So there is no world in which I'm dismissing that or saying that, no, that can never happen. But I think the challenge is to make sure that we don't use male victimization to minimize or than dismiss the patterns that disproportionately impact women. So when someone says men and women abuse each other at the same rate, what they've had to do typically is strip away all context complexity and nuance from the data until everything looks symmetrical, so that we can say that men and women experience abuse. Which is true, but not identically.

00:30:00:14 - 00:30:25:08
Brent MacLerie
And I think this is one you're going to be familiar with, right? Like they often do this by confusing victimization with perpetration. So the worst example of this is the claim that women who identify as lesbian. And I love this one, are more likely to experience IPV than heterosexual women. It's like 44% compared to 35. And that's used to prove that women must be more violent because the intimate partners in lesbian relationships are all women and they experience it more so women are more violent.

00:30:25:10 - 00:30:26:13
Lisa Sonni
I know, and they're like see,

00:30:26:16 - 00:30:27:07
Brent MacLerie
see

00:30:27:11 - 00:30:32:14
Lisa Sonni
you're like do you understand the word context. Like you're removing something here. So what's the truth about that.

00:30:32:16 - 00:30:51:08
Brent MacLerie
So what it misses is that, that the lesbian women do experience more violence. So that doesn't then follow that lesbian women perpetrate that violence. And in fact when you look into the source for this, the CDC data where this this claim comes from, the literal next section reports that a third of those lesbian women report male perpetrators of intimate partner violence.

00:30:51:08 - 00:31:21:19
Brent MacLerie
So even women in same sex relationships cannot escape the violence of men. That same CDC data also shows that about 3 million men and 7 million women say that they experience IPV, or intimate partner violence, each year in the US, and men report that 25% of the sexual violence they face is perpetrated by other men. So the reality here is that women are 2.3 times more likely to experience intimate partner violence in men, and that men commit 75% of all the violence against both men and women.

00:31:21:20 - 00:31:40:21
Lisa Sonni
This is me not shocked by anything you just said, right? That's that makes this consistent. Yeah it is actually it can like one of the things actually that comes up a lot is 1 in 7 men have experienced abuse. And I believe that to be true. Actually I'm not I'm not here to dispute that. But I've seen I guess it depends on like what study and whatever.

00:31:40:21 - 00:31:59:01
Lisa Sonni
But 1 in 3 women have experienced abuse, physical sexual violence. 1 in 4 women have experienced severe intimate partner violence. Okay. And so 1 in 7 men now four and seven are different numbers. So like if when you convert that into percentages, I mean you can kind of see the gap, right. However again we're looking at just numbers right

00:31:59:02 - 00:32:17:00
Lisa Sonni
to compare. See how it's close. And then don't forget men underreport. And again we're going to go back to underreporting happens at the same rates. And these studies don't come from only reported things. So you know check your facts. But where I think it gets messy. And I think that depending on who you're having the conversation with, people can get derailed very quickly.

00:32:17:02 - 00:32:50:06
Lisa Sonni
That what for men and actually what intimate partner violence even is. I think people assume that they know what that means, but it actually includes, you know, an object being thrown at you. It includes being slapped, and it includes being beaten practically to death. So it's quite a range. And men are more likely to have experienced being slapped or being pushed or an object being thrown at them, where women are more likely to have been physically assaulted and, you know, hit in much more extreme ways.

00:32:50:08 - 00:33:13:02
Lisa Sonni
But when you say that, it's like, oh, so you think women can slap men like God, like I, you can have these debates without even them being present, because you just know what they're going to say. They say the same things. It's not that women are allowed to slap men. That's abuse if that's a pattern. But actually the context of a lot of these cases, not all is she slapped because he hit her.

00:33:13:03 - 00:33:30:05
Lisa Sonni
She slapped because he's been emotionally abusive for ten years. So it's and again, it's not saying that somebody can abuse you and then you're allowed to hit them back. Although I do find it interesting because men will often say, right, if she slaps him, he can beat her. Well, interesting. How if he beats her, she can't slap him though.

00:33:30:05 - 00:33:42:23
Lisa Sonni
Like that never goes both ways. I'm not trying to discount it, but the physical violence is just not as extreme, nor is it as often. And I don't like the idea of just removing the context to make it seem like it's almost the same. Right?

00:33:43:02 - 00:34:00:10
Brent MacLerie
No. You're right. I mean, like this is exactly that flattening right of look, if you want to talk about one inch seven men, right. Again, even if that number is less than women, it's still a large number of them. This is something you should talk about outside of the comment section of women talking about their abuse. Right. But they don't.

00:34:00:12 - 00:34:17:14
Brent MacLerie
And again, like, nobody is saying that it's okay for men to be physically punched or hit or slapped and things like that. And, you know, that was part of of my experience. And it wasn't necessarily that, and I can say this for myself, I don't necessarily say this on behalf of anybody else, that that physical violence was particularly bad.

00:34:17:15 - 00:34:47:22
Brent MacLerie
It was more that it is an attempt to push and provoke you into a response. And this is the problem when we kind of look at these stats dispassionately and outside of the conversation, is that unfortunately, with this, the reality of abusive situations is that are often our best are often is violence that ends up going both ways because you're in a situation where you feel threatened, where you feel like your safety is at risk, and if you have somebody who's facing a life threatening situation, you know, an intimate partner who has beaten and threatened them and now pulls out, a weapon, right?

00:34:48:04 - 00:35:10:22
Brent MacLerie
Are you not allowed to use violence to defend yourself or save yourself in that moment? You are like existing purely off adrenaline. All of this, all of this narrative stripped out. And what we instead say is he punched. She punched. They're both as violent as each other. And you cannot do that right with them. As much as I love statistics and I use them all in my videos, the problem of statistics is tell a very small fraction of the story about the whole thing. But,

00:35:10:22 - 00:35:45:09
Brent MacLerie
the other thing I'll say is on, you know, the severe violence, we're exactly right. But women are more likely to face significantly more severe violence and pain, and that's significant because one of the things that is not talked about is there is a hidden epidemic, traumatic brain injuries in domestic violence survivors. 2019 study showed that domestic violence survivors are 12 times more likely to suffer a brain injury than even military personnel or professional football players. Anywhere from a half to three quarters of survivors sustain a partner related brain injury, and the vast majority of those are never diagnosed.

00:35:45:11 - 00:35:55:08
Brent MacLerie
Women themselves, 30% more likely to suffer a head or neck injuries from an intimate partner and women are generally more vulnerable to concussions. And that is a part of this conversation that has never had

00:35:55:09 - 00:36:15:21
Lisa Sonni
wow. Which just further removes right the severity. But I even think this conversation that sort of leads it like it leads women to feel this pressure to prove that their experience was worse than a man's instead of just valid. Like, it's like, this is why people kind of lean into this. Oh, there's a gender war, which I don't really believe, but it's like, who had it worse?

00:36:16:03 - 00:36:31:19
Lisa Sonni
And then men say that women want to play the victim. And I hear a lot of women say that, too. And I have to admit, I sometimes agree at least the men in my comment sections, not not all men. But this sort of like we have it just as bad. We have it worse. You know, men are the victims of more violence than women.

00:36:31:19 - 00:37:07:22
Lisa Sonni
Yeah, but by men, like, it's it always circles back to the most violent people on this earth are men. Not all men are violent, but most violent people seem to be men. So the question becomes why? But all of these myths serve as distractions. So instead of figuring out how can we help these men manage their feelings? How can we dismantle the patriarchy, which is the system that creates, frankly, you know, it's a little oversimplified, but creates these men that do this and men want more mental health and all these things, but then they cling on to the system that allows this to continue.

00:37:07:22 - 00:37:09:17
Lisa Sonni
this is why I keep saying it's crazy

00:37:09:17 - 00:37:30:00
Brent MacLerie
making. It is because, I mean, like ultimately, right when you said the point of all of these men, since distraction is to shift the focus away from the harm being done, and they survive, because then it allows us to avoid the deeply uncomfortable reality, right? This is fun conversations to have. I often talk with friends or coworkers and they're like, oh, what do you what do you do outside?

00:37:30:00 - 00:37:47:03
Brent MacLerie
And I'm like, oh, these are the conversations I have. And I'm like a great like, no, nobody's, really happy to be having these conversations, but they are important. And what we said say we're not going to confront that reality as difficult as it is. And instead we're we're going to sow doubt and distrust. That changes how people respond to the topic of abuse.

00:37:47:03 - 00:38:08:07
Brent MacLerie
Because if abuse is rare, it's not something you really need to care about. You don't need to think about it. It's not it's not something that happens. It's not a big deal. If those false accusations are everywhere, then you don't have to listen. You don't have to process the stories you're hearing because they're not real. And if men and women abuse equally, then we don't have to have those real difficult conversations about how we use power and violence, especially in our intimate relationships.

00:38:08:09 - 00:38:14:22
Brent MacLerie
But it doesn't solve it by ignoring the problem. It just protects the conditions, like you said, that that that allowed those abuses to continue.

00:38:14:22 - 00:38:31:14
Lisa Sonni
And then everybody's hurt, you know, in the end. So it's just. and I mean, I think that there's a lot to be said, even on the concept of intent and impact. You know, it's this idea that like, okay, he didn't mean to do it and she's calling it abuse, but it's not like he meant to hurt her. He probably meant to scare her

00:38:31:17 - 00:38:51:18
Lisa Sonni
in some cases. He did mean to hurt her. But again, like the impact is what matters. But we get distracted. It's just another distraction topic. All of these things are blaming lesbians. You know, creating all these false equivalencies using logical fallacies. It is just never going to benefit anyone. It's going to make things worse for both men and women.

00:38:51:20 - 00:39:13:20
Lisa Sonni
And as an advocate for any people who have been in domestic violence, but especially women, because that's the global epidemic of violence that is recognized worldwide. That's why it's global. You know, it's a it's a real thing that is recognized across the globe. And I love watching certain countries make changes and make laws that actually, like, we're getting there.

00:39:13:20 - 00:39:28:11
Lisa Sonni
I in my lifetime, I would love to see more countries, particularly the US, Canada, make better laws, more laws that benefit women. But I say that with such misguided hope. Perhaps. But I can hope anyway. Mate.

00:39:28:15 - 00:39:51:01
Brent MacLerie
I think, you know we're stuck out. Really? What is needed is some sort of systemic change to allow victims and survivors to be able to tell their stories free from retaliation and repercussions. I think that is the biggest thing that right now we are so scared of having this conversation that anybody even talking about it is instantly piled on, dismissed and attacked.

00:39:51:06 - 00:40:06:12
Brent MacLerie
And I think the biggest change we need to do is find a way to where we can protect survivors, and just having the courage to be able to come forward and share their stories without having to risk their entire livelihood, their reputations, their careers, simply for saying, hey, this happened to me.

00:40:06:12 - 00:40:26:21
Lisa Sonni
I love that. Thank you so much for being here. You know, these are not just opinions floating around the internet. These are myths being presented as facts. And these are the narratives that keep survivors constantly questioning themselves. So I will shuffle everybody to go check out your playlist of These Are Not Facts, because there's a lot more in there that I think are really interesting.

00:40:26:21 - 00:40:37:12
Lisa Sonni
And I know as time allows, I'm sure you'll add more to that list, but it's important for people to have a lot of that dismantled. So I really appreciate this conversation. Thanks for being here.

00:40:37:12 - 00:40:39:04
Brent MacLerie
I appreciate you having me.

00:40:39:06 - 00:40:48:16
Lisa Sonni
If this episode gave you clarity. Share it with someone who needs it. Thanks for being here and for being honest with yourself. And remember, you're stronger than before.

00:40:48:18 - 00:40:52:21
Music
Stronger than before.