It appears that military wives experience much the same types of emotional abuse as civilian wives. However, their options and the culture in which the abuse takes place differ from the civilian experience. Issues include isolation, subordination, economic abuse, required secrecy, humiliation and psychological abuse, coupled with the potential for physical abuse, the proprietary nature of male domination over wives, children and the family home are just some of the issues of military wives. This attitude is prevalent in language spoken in the military and defence industry. The active and conscious view of life asa struggle and power being synonymous with life pervades the military mentality.
Phallic imagery pervades military language and acts as a ideological curtain with macho overtones.
To many military wives, the Canadian Forces is an alien and intimidating environment which focuses on the military member and treats spouses and children as unimportant. This hypermasculine military culture marginalizes all that is female making spouses feel devalued. American research indicates that abuse in military families living off-base is seldom reported to the military so that steps can be taken to hold her abuser accountable. Reasons cited for this phonomenon are that the civilian police and military police often do not cooperate, or there are jurisdictional issues. Although Canadian Forces have policy on abuse and family violence, and some think that this policy embraces zero tolerance, there is no policy that states this explicitly.