I'm sure physical violence happens against men as well. Many would never retaliate or really physically defend themselves against a woman. And you can be very vulnerable when you sleep or look away.

While you're correct about the social conditioning, I think it's a ecosystem sort of feedback loop. "Real men dont need shelters" so then we dont make them. So then when men need shelters they think "See? Other men dont need them, I must suck it up and be a realmens"

I've spent the last 20 years providing informal supports to street-involved gay and bisexual youth and adults, many of whom are fleeing abuse of some kind.

I was distantly involved in opening one of Toronto's first shelters for abused men and sole fathers with dependents, and it's been difficult to secure public funding comparable to what is given to women's abuse shelters on a per capita basis. The government largely seems to have the attitude that the general men's shelters are adequate, even for non-gender-conforming men and men who are abuse victims, and that children of men who are in shelters should simply be taken into foster care, rather than trying to keep the family together like they try with women's shelters.

I say this with the hope that it doesn't devolve into a flamewar about gender relations and roles, but for whatever reasons, our society seems to be less sympathetic to a man fleeing an abusive partner or violence than it is to a woman in the same circumstance.