Domestic Violence Realities
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Interesting information consistently comes to light and as much as I talk about it, I still feel as though I don’t talk about it enough, particularly when it comes to the ongoing societal propagation of myths surrounding information about “domestic violence against women“.
I happened upon another corner of the internet where I found this comment, regarding my site specifically, among a few others that were mentioned by another poster… It will be paraphrased for copyright reasons, but I’ll direct you to the thread which discusses domestic violence and you can see the exact content for yourselves (if you want to dig through the mess and find it)…
When I see videos like that and read websites like the ones you’ve mentioned, I see men who are used to asserting their dominance over others encountering for the first time ever, a system of power in family court that doesn’t automatically defer to their words or their command. The family court system doesn’t defer to their own narrowminded view. Some may have legitimate problems and maybe they continue to work to solve them. Still, their voices express rage at not being able to dominate the system or their exes anymore. Further, the animation is atrocious. You might not want to link to that outside of certain kool-aid drinking societies.
The topic is “Women Abusers On the Rise?” The particular writer in this instance belongs to one of those kool-aid drinking societies - the one that will find any excuse to shake a finger at the “male-dominated, patriarchal society” that radical feminists and their ilk so often like to dredge up as justification for their one-sided view of everything. It is a common theme in his (assuming it’s a him) responses throughout the thread. I guess it’s okay to blame a victim of such abusive behavior if the victim has a penis.
There is always an excuse or justification for women’s violence. If a man is complaining, it’s because he’s “lost control and dominance over his victim.” He’s not the only person on this earth who believe that my blog is demonstrative of someone who has “lost control” over the poor, helpless victim of the PEW. While granted, all you get here is my one-sided story and you only have my word that these experiences are the truth - if you reversed the sexes, I absolutely guarantee you this guy would be praising this site as an expose’ on the control and dominance that men try to exert over their wives throughout this country and the world! Numbnuts like him are just that transparent.
And jackasses like this lead the charge when people (informed men and women alike) point out why, as prevalent and public as domestic violence against men has become lately… it’s still an alarmingly under-reported crime by male victims.
On that note, please check out this timely report recently put forth by RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting), which serves to dispel 50 of the Top Myths often reported as fact (either in the media or by organizations looking to pull more billions of taxpayer dollars to fund their “causes”).
Domestic Violence affects men, women, and children in profound ways. However, I’ve had enough of the blame-men society in which we struggle to live and the wealth of resources that are (mis)directed to “violence against women’s” initiatives and not equally distributed to domestic violence committed against men and children (especially male children).
I would suggest that, in addition to forwarding the link to everyone you know so that they may educate themselves on the realities of domestic violence (or, at the very least, make them think twice about parroting such gross misinformation)… that you print it out and keep it handy for those face-to-face discussions that you may periodically encounter by someone you know who has had some of that “Kool-Aid” that the above referenced poster spoke about so erroneously.
It covers quite a bit of ground in a short and well-supported report, including:
- The DV Superbowl Hoax (which I’ve previously made fun of).
- The numbers comparison between deaths in the Viet Nam War and women’s deaths from DV.
- Marriage License = Hitting License.
- The overblown reports of total costs and medical costs associated with DV “against women.”
- The “1-in-4 women have been a victim of rape or attempted rape in their lifetimes” claim.
- False allegations of DV or rape are “almost non-existent.”
- The false reference to an alleged “March of Dimes” report about partner-battering being a leading cause of birth-defects.
- Women are just as likely to be “controlling” as men (contrary to popular belief, which has been changing as of late).
And many, many more.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Abuse, of any type, is the one crime that you are percieved as being guilty just by the allegation.
There is no defense and evidence is not required…just make the allegation. If the accuser were to recant the thought process is: she (yes, the overwhelming number of accusers are females) is just defending him again. Denial is met with the following response: of course he (again men are accused in much larger numbers) wouldn’t admit it.
This mentality has made abuse a favorite tactic to justify leaving a relationship or controlling visitation of children after leaving.
July 6th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Incidents like these don’t help either:
http://www.t-g.com/story/1549895.html
July 6th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I tried to rationally discuss the DV topic with that nutcase Allen Spaulding (the person you quoted) on metafilter.com, but he seems to be some kind of academic feminist who relies on obviously flawed sociological studies.
The study he’s using to claim that men lie about child abuse during custody battles something like 15 to 20 times more often than women lie a garbage-in, garbage-out study. You can tell because it was by CPS case workers self-reporting with no attempts to independently verify any facts.
Anybody who has had the displeasure of interacting with numerous CPS case workers knows they tend to be male-hating feminists who lack objectivity and have little understanding of personality disorders and psychology. Sorry to the few CPS case workers out there who are objective and not male haters, but it really does appear to be a true generalization. They end up hurting a lot of children and reasonable parents because of their incompetence and bias.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
The best normal, rational, and intelligent human beings can do is to continue to share reports like the one linked above and spread it far and wide.
The only thing that will stop the flow of such gross information from people who stand to gain more power and more federal funds - is to spread supported studies and reports.
RADAR is a leader in that department. Glenn Sacks in conjunction with Fathers and Families is another leader in terms of putting forth meaningful, well-supported information in the hopes of engaging in reasonable discourse on such subjects and keep these growing truths in the public eye.
July 8th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Mr M, I’m new to your blog, and let me just tell you, the more I read, the more depressed I get. I am a fairly new girlfriend to a great guy with a PEW. Reading your posts has made me giggle and be horrified, because I know that we have YEARS to go. We call her Jabba the Ex, and my bf says that she grows every week he sees her to exchange their 3 y/o daughter. She took out a restraining order against him, then alleged that he violated said restraining order. He was arrested and his bond was doubled by the judge. She then failed to appear for the hearing to make the temporary restraining order permanent. They FINALLY dismissed his charges as the DA stated that there was nothing that they could convict him on (ie: no motive, etc). The judge only dismissed the case because Jabba wasn’t in the courtroom at the time; she would have been able to push forward against the DA’s recommendations had she not been in the cafeteria stuffing her face… After she learned that the charges (and manditory protection order issued by the judge at the time that bf was charged) were dismissed, she rushed right down and got ANOTHER TRO using the exact information she had used to get the initial TRO. I believe she has mental issues as she, like your PEW, either takes a morsel of truth and exaggerates it (ie: We sent daugther home with 2nd degree sunburn that blistered her entire back, when in reality, her swimming suit slid down her back a half inch lower than sunscreen was applied, and she had healed within 36 hours of the “incident), or she completely fabricates things (she told us that we have a cat?? who scratched daughter’s arms… Yah, pretty sure, no cat here!). We’re doing our best to keep our sense of humor, and my friend says that I should write a book entitled “You’ll never believe what she did next.” As much as it sucks for you, it is nice to know that there are others out there with similar experiences. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that things finally turn toward the better, in both of our lives! Thanks for your humor.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Great website! I’m glad people are talking about this.
I used to work at the Domestic Violence Court as a liason for the Prosecutor’s Office, and it was common knowledge that it was the women that instigated most of the problems, and that they “played the system” by starting fights with their men, and then calling the police to back them up. But the judges usually threw the book at the men because it was easier to do than to deal with the issues. The common predjudice being that it was the man’s fault. So all these poor guys were getting prosecuted for domestic violence when they were really the victems.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
While I agree with a lot of what you posted regarding the under-reporting and lack of funds to support DV against men, I don’t think posts like this, in which you discuss reports of DV, rape, or attempted rape as “claims” with a decidedly false connotation, do anything to support your cause. If you seek to promote awareness of DV against men, why disparage the very real problem of DV against women by casting doubt on their reports? I don’t doubt that a certain number of DV reports are false, but the large majority of them are real, and a number still go unreported each year. The prevalence of DV and rape in our society today makes it important to deal with the reality of the truthful claims rather than focus on the damage of the false ones.
Furthermore, in response to the above comment regarding women who “play the system” by starting fights with their men - does an argument really justify a beating? The fact that the “she had it coming” mindset exists enough to be represented in the short number of responses to this blog to me illustrates that we are still in need of the “wealth of resources that are (mis)directed to “violence against women’s” initiatives” - however much I feel DV should be included as well.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Ty,
You’re flat-out wrong, because the damage done by false claims are significant… and discussing the power and abuse that is given to those who get away virtually unpunished by false claims of either domestic violence or rape is undeniable and their existence unconscionable.
Minimizing the significant problems associated with false claims (with regard to Domestic Violence and Restraining Orders… the number is NOT a “significant minority”) does nothing to help either those who are real victims of either domestic violence or false allegations.
This is a tired old straw-man argument that isn’t going to fly here.
Your last paragraph barely warrants a response because it presents an “argument” being met with a beating, and in many, many cases, it’s a physical assault that may be what prompts the calls to police and self-defense which gets someone jailed.
The rape hysteria that is put forth by rad-fem organizations and the outmoded and false premise that men are almost exclusively perpetrators and women almost exclusively victims has been put down by a great many reliable, supported studies.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:37 am
Funny thing…I have seen the marks on my now husband from his ex. The scratches, the blood on his face, crooked and bent glasses…and heard his daughter actually tell him that she told Mommy never to hit Daddy again. His ex is barely 5 feet tall, my husband is just over 6.
And yet…she claimed that he abused her. Tried to get CPS involved even, claiming that he was sexually and verbally abusing his son(who was living with us), and my daughter(who she’d never even met). CPS came, investigated…and dropped every charge.
Due to CPS actually removing his daughter from his ex’s care, there were steps even we had to follow to ensure that we kept his son and tried to get his daughter(she was at the ex’s mother’s house during this time, per ex’s choice). One of their mandates was that he deal with his ‘anger issues’. There really aren’t any, he’s never laid a hand on me, my kids or his own son. But, he was game for ANYTHING it took to keep his kids. So, off to one class he went, and they were going to require him to actually sign something that stated he’d hit his ex. He steadfastly refused. Upon calling the case worker and explaining it to her…he even said, he would attend the class, but he would not sign anything stating that he’d ever hit her. They wouldn’t let him attend the class without signing. In the end, it was agreed that he would take an ‘anger management’ class instead of an abuse awareness class.
In the end, even though he’s a guy, CPS didn’t do wrong by him…nor did they do right. It was truly, rather neutral. Not great, and I’d do my best to steer around them in the future if I could, but…I trust them enough to get the kids out of a bad situation first, then ask questions…which is what I want.