From my hometown paper, an article that will give you chills:
Nearly half of the women surveyed in the Puget Sound area reported that they had been physically, sexually or psychologically abused by their partners at some point in their adult lives. That includes 30 percent who had been hit and 11 percent who said they had been raped by their partners.
That’s a whole lot of women. And these are not intimate, personal problems; this is a serious public issue.
Among a random sample of 3,429 adult female members of Group Health, 44 percent reported they had been physically abused or subjected to emotional abuse, such as threats and chronic disparaging remarks, from domestic partners. Those partners varied from current and former spouses, to dating relationships and lovers.
The rate of abuse was higher for women who were younger, single and had lower incomes. And if they had been physically or sexually abused as children, or had witnessed such abuse, they were about twice as likely to be abused, the researchers reported.
Some people, like Phyllis “I’ll tour the country telling you to stay home” Schlafley scoffs at statistics like these, arguing that funding the Violence Against Women Act hurts men. Because apparently men suffer when they can’t hurt women (and they say feminists have a dim view of men?)
For example, it is a shocker to discover that acts don’t have to be violent to be punished under the definition of domestic violence. Name-calling, put-downs, shouting, negative looks or gestures, ignoring opinions, or constant criticizing can all be legally labeled domestic violence.
The ABA report states flatly: “Domestic violence does not necessarily involve physical violence.” The feminists’ mantra is, “You don’t have to be beaten to be abused.”
Well… you don’t. It’s worth pointing out that most of the women in the Puget Sound study who reported verbal abuse also reported physical abuse, so it’s not as if the two don’t over-lap. Physical abuse is often preceeded by verbal threats and insults. And I’m sorry, but what the hell kind of decent human being screams, threatens and cuts down their partner on a regular basis? (Answer: An emotionally abusive one).
Schlafley can brush of verbal abuse all she wants, but talk to women who have gone through it and then tell me that it doesn’t impact their lives like physical abuse does. It won’t land them in the hospital, but it relies on the same patterns of control and enforced low self-image that physical abuse does. And, again, it’s not a separate issue.
From the Seattle Times article:
The second study evaluated the effects of the abuse, and they were often devastating. Compared with women who had not suffered abuse, those who had been abused recently were four times more likely to be severely depressed, and three times more likely to be in poor or only fair health, said the lead author, Dr. Amy Bonomi of Group Health, and her colleagues.
There you go.
But the women surveyed came from a wide range of incomes and education levels.
“This is an equal opportunity problem,” Thompson said. “It’s not just single, low-income people.”
For as many as 13 percent of the women, the domestic abuse lasted for more than 20 years. About 15 percent said they had been abused within the last five years, with 8 percent reporting that they had been abused within the past last year. The study was conducted from 2003 to 2004.
It’s important to emphasize that domestic violence isn’t something that happens to “those people.” It happens in your neighborhood, and to people of all backgrounds. And domestic violence survivors often feel — or truly are — trapped in their relationships. It seems easy, from the outside, to look at a woman who has been abused for more than 20 years and ask, “Why doesn’t she just leave?” But try it yourself: Imagine completely walking away from your entire life, and doing it in a way where your partner won’t figure it out until you’re gone and won’t be able to find you. How do you get your kids? How do you find a place to live? Where do you go? The barriers aren’t insurmountable, but they’re incredibly high. Few of us could simply up and make a whole new life for ourselves. Imagine doing it if you have dependents, or if you’re relying on your partner for financial stability.
Other experts in the field of domestic violence expressed little surprise at the studies’ findings.
“What we’ve come to find in recent years is how widespread this [domestic violence] is,” said Lucy Berliner, director of the Harborview Center for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress. “All studies are showing versions of the same thing.”
In fact, in 2001 Berliner directed a statewide survey of 1,300 women that found 38 percent had been sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, and about 10 percent had been beaten or injured by a partner enough to need a doctor.
In the wake of the most recent studies, authors Thompson, Bonomi and their colleagues were urging doctors to pay closer attention to the problem by asking women if abuse is a problem for them. If so, they should refer them to people or agencies that can help, the researchers say.
“This and other studies show this is an epidemic,” Thompson said.
Not everyone agrees. Back to Schlafley:
Those concerned about judicial activism, i.e., judges legislating from the bench, could observe judges doing this every day in domestic violence cases. Every time a judge issues a restraining order, the judge creates new crimes for which an individual can be arrested and jailed without trial for doing what no statute prohibits and what anyone else may lawfully do.
Well, that’s not exactly true, but we’ll just skip little details like “facts.” For Phyllis, it comes down to the idea that women should not be able to get restraining orders against men who abuse them, because beating up your partner is a “private” issue:
This criminalizing of ordinary private behavior and incarceration without due process follows classic police-state practices. Evidence is irrelevant, hearsay is admissible, defendants have no right to confront their accusers, and forced confessions are a common feature.
This paragraph almost made me feel sorry for her. She thinks that insulting, threatening, hitting and raping your partner is “ordinary private behavior”? If that’s the case, she has bigger problems than just being a hypocrite and a nutjob.
But I think that the best quote comes from one of the comments on Schlafley’s piece, from Townhall reader SilentGen:
Is it any wonder that so many men of marriageable age still live with their mothers of choose to be homosexuals? Why expose your life, liberty and money to bloodsucking lawyers and judges?
So that’s why they live with their mommies…
negative looks or gestures, ignoring opinions
I hate Phyllis Schlafly with the heat of a thousand suns, but I find myself cringingly agreeing with her skepticism that the above two should fall under the definition of DV. Asshole male partners undoubtedly use these tactics. My partner and I, neither of us assholes, do this to each other if we get hot enough. I’d like to see DV understood as physical or verbal abuse, while the more subtle bad stuff recognized as ultimately harmful and maladaptive and as a sign that things could be bad between you or that physical DV could be in the offing. Definitional mission creep always bothers me for some reason. It’s the pedant in me.
ordinary private behavior
Right, the “ordinary private behavior” the government DOES have to get involved in involves medical decisions. *nods*
Jen, I’m thinking it’s more of a repeated pattern… I am quite good at dirty looks and ignoring of my husband’s opinions/feelings/thoughts etc… when I am pissed too, but if I did it on a day in, day out basis it would make him feel like he was worthless and vice versa. Those two things alone probably don’t equal a very strong criminal case, but when paired with a constant barrage of insults and criticism, I could see a very strong case for charging someone with verbal/psychological abuse. For years, I put up with remarks about my weight from my husband and it made me feel like shit. Do I know that I would classify it verbal abuse? No. But had it been combined with constant yelling, screaming, various other issues mentioned, I think it could have been. Now, in my case, it finally involved just sitting him down and talking to him and telling him how awful it made me feel. He didn’t realize it was bothering me that much and stopped for the most part. Every once in awhile he’ll make some smart ass remark and I have to remind him that while he thinks he’s “just being funny” it really does hurt. A lot of women are not as lucky, their partners are doing it specifically to hurt them and enjoy the power it gives them.
And Jill, I think it’s an awesome point to remind people that just getting up and leaving, especially when there are children or years of abuse and tremendous fear of your partner or both, is not as easy as it looks. I have a friend with four children whose husband is physically and verbally abusive and has cheated on her in the past… she continues to stay with him, despite all of us telling her she deserves better and trying to get her to realize what an ass he is, because they have four children, she has no money, no degree, no place to go where she would feel like she wasn’t “intruding” and no clue what she would do by herself with four small kids. A lot of people judge her, but the fact of the matter is it’s not as easy as it looks and I think if more of realized that, it would help these women a lot more.
Thank you.
It’s quite confusing to pay attention when you vary your use of domestic violence. In the beginning, your definition of it contains physical and verbal abuse, the latter part of which I believe is what Schlafley is objecting to.
But when you cite her views on judicial activism (“This criminalizing of ordinary private behavior and incarceration …”) you attribute it to the former definition, characterizing her as pro-physical violence against another person so long as the assailant is male and the victim female.
Though I don’t refute the conclusion of the polling data, generally speaking, I’m not sure exactly how sound its sample is given that it is not a statewide poll but rather one whose population is members of Group Health — whatever that is.
Shorter Phyllis Scahflay: “Judges using their equity powers to resolve indivudal cases is completely illegitmate. As for the common law system, I’ve never heard of it.”
Er … at the risk of sounding ike a MRA rape apologist*, I don’t think I’ve ever been emotionally abusive in a relationship — I’m fairly sure I’ve never been physically abusive — but how do I know?
I’m not trying to say “naturally, this is all about me” (and in any case, while I don’t think my arrogance is completely independant of my gender, I think it transcends it). I’m just wondering how much the numbers are affected by instances of two people subjected to the same behavior only one of whom reported it as abuse.
Now then, Shlafley has a point about restraining orders, if you’re incredibly stupid and steadfastly refuse to read between the lines: if A gets a restraining order against B, B can be arrested for approaching A, which anyone else can legally do. So Shlafley’s not wrong/lying about that; the error/lie is in the implication that a) this is arbitrary, there’s no reason for this restriction to be imposed and b) a resteraining oder is easy to get, all you have to do is say “please give me a restraining order against B” and the judge will grant you one without so much as asking why.
And I’d like some more details on these “forced confessions.”
*Perhaps of the “at least one woman lied about something once” subspecies
I got up one day, left with my son and took as much as I could – got an apartment, moved my stuff and my son in by that night. I am incredibly proud of that, despite the fact that I am still paying financially for my decision.
Freedom rules.
Phyllis and those like her think that the world works a certain way – and it works that way for everyone, when nothing could be farther from the truth.
Overcoming your own flaws is the hardest job anyone will ever do.
Um. There are some missing facts here.
Schafly’s point, that abusive words and non-violent activities should not be called “domestic violence” is correct, in the sense that there’s a huge difference between a person who yells and a person who hits.
I’m not saying that a person who yells isn’t an asshole, and isn’t abusive… a yeller can be both an asshole and an abuser. But a yeller hasn’t been violent.
Now, if a judge will issue a restraining order, forbidding a private confrontation between a yeller and an abuse victim, that’s great, that’s fine, no problem. But if there are further sanctions, that’s when I’ll get worried.
Everytime I read something new that Schlafly has said, it shocks my consciousness to try to comprehend how much she hates women. God.
LHW, I am guessing that Schafly is conflating the terms “domestic abuse” and “domestic violence.”
Thank you for making this point. Thank you. Thank you!
I was in an abusive marriage, and KNEW I had to leave. But this isn’t a TV drama. Its life. It doesn’t wrap up neatly after an hour.
You can’t “just leave”. You have to go somewhere. And have a long term plan. Or at least a medium-term plan. You need cash in the bank. A house to go to. In my case, I had a son on an IEP and I couldn’t just yank him out of school. I had to keep a job. Its was a logistical nightmare. And if you don’t sort it out, you can end up putting yourself or your kids in a worse situation than you started with.
It took me 8 months to save the money I needed. I had to open a separate account and hope he didn’t find out. I had to scrimp and save the money without impacting him. The kids and I did without. If he knew I was cutting corners he would have figured out what I was doing.
I had to arrange for a new home. New schools. Job.
My husband was military. His command (the authority on base for this type of thing) would not give me a restraining order to keep him away, despite the fact that I had gobs of evidence against him (including e-mails from him admitting to the abuse).
He had free run of the house. He could check my son out of childcare anytime he wanted.
The Gucci-clad social worker assigned to my case said that if I didn’t “just leave” that I was as guilty of abusing my children as he was. I was treated like a failure, like a piece of crap that couldn’t keep her life on track. It was very humbling. Its makes you wonder whether you are capable of providing for your kids without him, I mean if those meant to help you are so disappointed in you, how could you possibly be succesful??
They also kept finding that my reports of abuse were “unsubstantiated” and suggested that I cease from making them since I was beginning to have a reputation for crying wolf. I’m not kidding. I think of it now and I’m still in awe that I didn’t go over a desk at anyone and strangle them. When I finally did get a retraining order, it was worded to protect him from “future allegations of abuse from wife”.
And even then he walked through it. Twice. With no consequences.
I am not your “typical” victim. I have a college degree and a resume. I knew that I was being abused, that my kids were being abused. I had awareness of that and how wrong it was.
And it still took months to get out.
Finally one day it all clicked into place. The movers came and got my stuff, we packed up and left and I moved into my own place. Three hours away from him. He didn’t even know we left until he barged into the house one day.
We haven’t fallen on our faces yet… because I had a plan of action when I left.
Not quite a year later, we are still okay.
The only thing I find unsettling about this poll is that it seems to lump together physical and emotional abuse. While both are very serious and frequently complementary crimes, they should not both result in the same punishments, which is what this article seems to imply.
Pretty semantic anyhow… 44% is an apalling result. I would really like to see polling results on how many men have suffered violent injuries in their life while dealing with their fellows. My gut tells me that the results would probably be just as dismal, if not more so.
* 44% is an apalling result, no matter how it breaks down.
Hey, does anyone have the same survey results but for the men?
I don’t think so, Jack, because public policy is primarily made by women. The president is a woman, for example, and women are a majority in both houses of Congress and all 99 houses of the state legislatures and head most government agencies. Historically, women in our society have been given free range to abuse men.