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It is Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the U.S. and here is a website devoted to publicising that.
1. Domestic Violence is, it seems to me, the violence done by the U.S. government and corporations and individual oppressors to the oppressed who live within the U.S. and its "territories". Or to it's "territories" and the land and the air and the water. Poverty, for example, is a form of Domestic Violence. So is institutionalised racism, heterosexism, and misogyny.
2. Domestic violence is distinguished from Off-shore Violence. And in looking at the latter what we may note is how warfare is part of each: warfare against women by men who seek patriarchal/male supremacist control of women and girls, and also to regulate and restrict the behavior of boys so that they grow up to be "good patriarchs", meaning mass murders, serial rapists, and batterers of anyone in punching range.
3. Domestic Violence was the name chosen when discussions about the many ways men dominate women through intimate violence because too specific for contemplation, let alone resistance work and activism to stop men's violence against women. It is the generic term for something that isn't at all generic or ungendered. Yes, we need to acknowledge that there is such a thing as battery in lesbian and gay relationships. And of course there are many ways adults in families do violence to children. But the most common form of gendered-sexual violence in families is fathers and father figures incesting/raping/molesting their own daughters or girls they are supposed to be parenting, not preying on.
4. Why doesn't the Anti-Woman Revengelical Fundamentalist Christian White Right [Wrong) acknowledge that their unwritten and unspoken moral code is this: "The Family That Preys Against Female Family Members, Stays Together Due to Stockholm Syndrome and other effects of Dominance and Control"? And realise that feminism is only anti-family if your idea of family includes men dominating women, heterosexism, and violence against women and children, including sexual violence?
5. Why doesn't the Anti-Woman Libertarian Liberal "Left" acknowledge that their unwritten and unspoken code is this: men should have as much freedom of access and rights to violate girls and women as men desire to have, to do whatever it is men wish to do to girls and women that men learn from predatory men and pornographers and pimps. What is are the liberals and libertarians doing to stop incest and rape? Not a whole helluva lot. Why is that? Because rape and incest aren't worth stopping? Or because liberal men believe that in a liberal society incest and rape are part of the price paid for "freedom"? Too fucking high a price, I say.
6. Why isn't homophobic and anti-girl bullying and battery understood as part of Domestic Violence? How many girls and boys have to take their own lives before conservatives and liberals wake up to the fact that children hurting, degrading, humiliating, and terrorising other children isn't socially good or socially necessary. Clearly anti-bullying and anti-battery policies and education programs could be in place in every school system. Sure, there'd have to be less military massacres going on non-domestically, to liberate funds to pay school systems to implement such policies and programs. But the problem with that would be what? Less profit in Dick Cheney's, Donald Rumsfeld's, and David Petraeus's pockets? Those "poor" men will just have to get along with the millions they already have acquired through mass rape and mass murder of "foreign" people of color.
7. Why isn't the violence boys do to girls in school systems and outside school systems discussed? I sporadically hear about is anti-gay bullying, usually by boys against boys, or anti-girl bullying, usually by girls against girls. I'm not suggesting each isn't a serious social problem--both are, as is anti-lesbian violence against girls, which I hear little to nothing at all about. But we also need to focus on the problem of boys sexually harassing, stalking, physically and sexually violating girls, throughout grade school and on into adulthood. And anti-lesbian violence among children too.
8. There's a simple way to end married het men battering women in their home. It is to remove forever from the home any man who is found to have beaten up a woman in the home. And to prevent him from ever having contact with his female spouse or his children, as beating up a child's mother is or ought to be grounds for losing all rights to ever see your child or your spouse again. Sound harsh? To the men who think that's too harsh: Try not beating up women and avoid the harsh consequence. Any man that terrorises or systematically dominates and controls a woman in their home has no right to raise their children, to have custody of them, or to visit them. Sound harsh? To them men who think that's too harsh: systematically demonstrate regard and respecting for women and children; don't terrorising or ridicule anyone; don't dominate and bully anyone; and don't demean and controlling anyone systematically. Try being non-abusive, compassionate, and caring, not vengeful and vindictive and then, guess what? You get to raise your own children! See how easy that can be? It's all, quite literally, in your hands, fellas.
9. As for the men who declare the "equal" problem of women beating men, show me the thousands of x-rays of those men's broken bones, please. Show me the thousands of photos of their badly battered faces. Show me the shelters. Because it's not that class-privileged men aren't economically posititioned to purchase and set up "safe homes" for men abused by women. No. Straight men can do that if need be, what with all those allegedly advanced construction skills (to compliment all the destruction skills). The reality is that there is no need. Meanwhile, men down-play the violence men do to women and up-play the violence women do to men. (Yes, women can and do hurt men (and women) in a variety of ways. I've seen women who have been abused and neglected by men lash out in frustration and pain and say hurtful things to men, sometimes even to their faces. What I haven't ever seen or heard about is this: a woman abuse a man who was never been abused by a man. Not once. I accept that it is often the case that men who batter women witnessed men beating up women somewhere earlier in their lives. But not that they witnessed women beating up men earlier in their lives. So no matter how you look at it, the source problem here is men's violence against women, not women's against men.
10. Funny (not ha-ha funny, and not ta-ta funny) how the major media might mention something about Breast Cancer Awareness Month--never enough, while generally ignoring Heterosexual Husbands and Boyfriends Beating The Shit Out of Women and Their Children Awareness Month. I know queer battery happens too; I'm gay. But I'm all for naming what the endemic problem is that's part of an overall systemic reality of men subordinating women, which is men battering (and raping) women, intimately. And anyone beaten, even in lesbian and gay relationships, is called misogynistic names, which tells you a whole lot about the gendered foundations of domestic violence. The problem is not, as too many abusive het men proclaim the problem to be: "spouses hitting each other". I raised the issue in a recent post: why it is that anti-abortionists don't seem to give a shit that men beat up pregnant women causing untold miscarriages? I mean even if they only care about unborn female foetuses and don't give a damn about out-of-the-womb girls and women, you'd think they'd be overtly anti-battery and anti-rape (including anti-incest): two reasons for unwanted pregnancy and unwanted loss of pregnancy. Two main methods of terrorising and dominating women through force and violation. How about Pernicious and Predatory Patriarchal Privileges Awareness Month? Let's see the morning shows and evening news deal with that issue honestly in town hall meetings.
The laws dealing with domestic abuse are a disgrace. During domestic abuse when the perpetrator is a white het male he does not even get arrested and when he does he is out within hours on bail enabling him to go back to his wife, girlfriend, daughter etc and finish the job. No wonder so many women and girls who are victims of WHM abuse are too afraid to report it. They know that their abuser while just come back and harm them more or even kill them.
ReplyDeleteIf she survives until trial i.e. her abuser has not managed to bully her into withdrawing the charge she will still have to face him in court which can be extremely traumatizing
It really disgusts me how these WHM can get out on bail so easily. The law should be changed that when they are arrested they will not be entitled to bail and stay locked-up until their trial date. Then at the trial the judge and jury should be all female to ensures that these vermin don't get off on some technicality.
Also the victim should not have to appear in court. If the WHM committed the crime against a woman or girl why should she be punished even further.
Julian, you say that a married man should be removed as soon as he has battered his wife or daughter.
Why should it be allowed to go so far????
Often a woman can see it coming before it actually happens, so what you are saying is that she must first wait until he has smashed her head into a wall then only should she call for help.
She should be able to report the perceived threat and have him removed on that alone
As long as men have all the power in a relationship there will always be domestic abuse.
The law should remove all power from the WHM and transfer it to his wife, girlfriend, daughter etc, then we will see how white males handle a situation where they for once have no power and the women and girls have the power to send him to jail.
Hi vluk,
ReplyDeleteI have a few responses, in an eight-point reply.
1. For the record and for my readers, I don't consider any man or any group of men to be "vermin". Men are human, exactly as human as women, but in the West, among other places, they are positioned in society differently, atop a dualistic gendered social hierarchy wherein they have entitlements, privileges, and power to systematically abuse, economically exploit, politically control, socially subordinate, institutionally dominate, and sexually terrorise women. Individual men can do this as much as they'd like, in most places around the world. As you know, some white-dominated Western countries pretend to be pro-equality but remain steadfastly patriarchal and male supremacist. On this blog it is important to never give men the excuse of being "non-human". I believe men can be just as empathic and compassionate, and unhateful, as anyone else. I know men who are deeply empathic, caring, loving people, to women and to other men. I support plenty of men being this way, personally, in my life.
2. Few men are stopped from raping a woman or battering a woman if he decides he wants to do either. Few men who do it are arrested or even charged with a crime. Few men charged will see any time in jail. Few men in jail will figure out what they did wrong. Men who get out of jail are likely to be just as misogynistic as when they went in, if not more so, even if they are mistreated by men there--for reasons which are very political, men who are, in fact, very abused by men do not become "misandrists" but men who feel abused by women too often do become misogynists. Generally, men don't and won't get that they are, in reality, threatened by other men--especially those deemed racially and sexually superior, not women. I think the reason men don't/won't "get it" is a combination of the effects and functions of unwritten codes of patriarchal brotherhood, institutionalised protections of male supremacist power, fear of other men, and simple willful denial.
ReplyDelete3. The men I have known who have battered and raped women were never charged, never arrested, never socially reprimanded, and in fact any woman who spoke against him has been severely punished either by him or his friends or the legal, criminal, "justice" systems, as well as the medical establishment and media. She is, of course, first accused of "lying". She is also routinely accused of being crazy, vindictive, or a man-hater. She is socially ostracised, demeaned, degraded, and abused. She is met with castigating glances and a "talk to the hand" attitude by most people. Most people don't want to directly and effectively deal with atrocities that men commit against women. That's what I see. A few people feel differently. They are often self-identified as "feminists". Men frequently call these human rights activists and compassionate people, "man-haters" as if opposing men's violence and privilege makes someone a hater. As if the people who abuse privileges and power and who use violence to control others aren't "haters". Men who abuse women are acting hatefully. Women who oppose that abuse are behaving humanely.
ReplyDelete4. Through knowing many abused women and many abusive men, I have experienced how the law and law enforcement, as well as the criminal justice system in the West is white het male (WHM) supremacist. I do not agree with the men who claim that somehow--against all evidence--men are now ruled by women. It isn't true and those men who claim this are either delusional, willfully ignorant, or simply like to state things that aren't true to paint themselves as victims. Men are often victimised--by other men. Why men don't organise to stop that abuse and instead pretend "feminists" are their abusers is about as preposterous as whites who think people of color are taking over because the U.S has a Black president.
ReplyDelete5. WHM who are served restraining orders by law enforcement still can and do hunt down and kill the women they have already threatened, abused, and terrorised. That other WHM don't seem to think this is men's collective responsibility to stop, shows both the power of being dick-whipped patriarchy-worshippers, and the power of men's fear of each other to act humanely in support of justice for all people. It demonstrates the power of a socially supported white brotherhood as well as the power of economic collaboration to keep women poorer than men. It reveals the power of heterosexism to keep men's sexualised violence directed at women, not other men. And when men don't have women to rape, they do show that they can and will rape each other. Prison rape is socially learned heterosexual male supremacist aggression unleashed against other men. And anyone who is raped is seen to be made "more female" or "more feminine" by being so assaulted. Hence men calling those they rape "b-tch", among other misogynistic terms.
6. Regarding men who physically abuse women being removed from the home. First, let's keep in mind that in no country is this likely to become law. Men collaborate far too much to allow men to commit violence against women--women intimately known, lived with, and women unknown or "rented" as prostitutes--to make this into law. I hope for a time, soon, when men will not terrorise, degrade, exploit, or abuse women in any way. I agree that no woman should have to endure all the abuse that isn't physical or sexual that often builds in relationships prior to a man physically battering a woman. I agree that men should not be allowed access to any woman or child if he is determined to control and abuse her or their childen, in any way: psychologically, emotionally, sexually, or physically. But given that men will not even support men being removed from homes when men are physically abusive, I have no reason to believe men will collectively support men being removed by law enforcement from "their" homes if they are being psychologically, emotionally, or sexually abusive to their female partners or spouses. I think it will be a miracle if physically abusive men are removed from the heterosexual home permanently. So that's why I had that as the line in the sand. But I agree with you that it shouldn't have to take being beaten up for society and law to intervene.
ReplyDelete7. I wish women were empowered through social encouragement, economic freedom, and emotional community and media support to toss men out on their asses as soon as they demonstrate any willingness, in words, attitude, or physical action, to be oppressive to women, to be degrading, to be controlling and domineering, to be violent. I wish men would hold each other accountable, and would collectively speak out against this common, normal, accepted abuse of women by men. In most parts of the West is overwhelmingly white het men, not groups of women, not het men of color, and not gay men of any color, in the West and elsewhere, who make laws and enforce them. That some WHM in the West seem to think they are living in a woman-dominated world is also a sign of either significant delusion or a willful refusal to accept the truth of political reality. And I agree the victim of battery--of being terrorised, dominated, controlled, and assaulted should never have to face the abusers in court, once the terrorist/abuser is removed from the home--if and when the abuser is removed.
ReplyDelete8. I'm not sure how the practices that are abuse of power can be removed from men on an interpersonal level. Men have to be willing to become humane, to share power, to find deep value in mutuality, honesty, self-awareness, empathy, and intimacy, and to challenge themselves to be less sexist and to dig out of themselves the reason they are misogynistic. Even then, sexist/misogynistic male-dominated societies continue to reinforce men being callous and cruel to women. I support women refusing to engage with abusive men. I support women not organising their emotional lives around men and men's needs. So there needs to be plenty of systems of accountability in place to make sure men behave humanely. What needs to change, in my view, in addition to individual men figuring out how to be humane and empathic in relationship to women, in addition to having systems of accountability in place, is how society is structured so that all the institutions and customs that support male supremacy and men's violence against women are transformed, radically, so that sustainable humane being replaces oppressive inhumane mistreatment of some groups of people (poor people, people of color, Indigenous people, non-heterosexuals, and women) by those positioned socially and economically to be oppressors (the rich, whites, non-Indigenous people, heterosexuals, and men).
"As for the men who declare the "equal" problem of women beating men, show me the thousands of x-rays of those men's broken bones, please."
ReplyDeleteWomen are a hell of a lot better at emotional and psychological abuse.
Aside from that, us EVIL MEN are often too embarrassed to report abuse.
(Or rape, for that matter)
@khan_viper,
ReplyDeleteWomen are a hell of a lot better at emotional and psychological abuse.
Only someone with the privileges to not be the recipient of men's intimate emotional and psychological abuse could conceive of that as a truthful statement. That's complete horseshit and you know it. Or, you are deeply out of touch, sir.
Ever hear of (or witness, or perpetrate) the way men abuse children in every way conceivable--and in some ways that are inconceivable? They do the same to women--all of it. And while, of course, women can be abusive to children, and can be abusive to men and to other women, what I've witnessed some men do is so heinous that one would be hard pressed to not question whether they are complete psychopaths or sociopaths. How many women do you know who hold guns to men's heads, or knives to their throats? Who force oral sex on a man, causing him to lose consciousness? How many women do you know who systematically, and as a matter of daily practice, call their husbands the equivalent--if there is an equivalent--of "b*tch", "c*nt", "h*", and so much more. How much constant belittling do you think men endure from women? Along with being targeted for rape by strangers. Along with being targeted for rape by their wives? Do you get how emotional abuse outside of a context of profound physical threat is a different thing. Not harmless, mind you. Hurtful to be sure. But an entirely different phenomenon than when your partner threatens you or insults you and you know damn well they can back it up with physical force sufficient to kill you?
This is easy to get: would you be more afraid of a group of women calling you horrid names on the street, or a group of men doing that to you? Do you fear gang-rape from women? Do you fear anything lethal from women at all? Do you know what happened when male and female students were each asked, separately, to name what they most feared in the other sex?
The males wrote, "Being laughed at". The females wrote: "Being killed." You get the difference right? It's not that being laughed at feels good. It's that men laugh at women and also rape them, beat them, rent them, possess them, control them, manipulate them, and kill them. All of it. And you never know which level of violence you're going to get with any given man who you've recently met. I know of no men at all that fear a woman will rape him, or significantly damage him on a first or second date.
Some husbands and boyfriends, as you'd know if you're paying any attention at all to what's going on around you, are bloody terrorists. I've not known of one woman who was a man's terrorist, and I welcome you to produce the evidence of "women terrorising men" being an endemic social problem.
You notice how you want to skirt away from the reality of men's violence, pretending that, against all evidence, women's emotional violence to men is--what? Equal to what men do to women? Is that what you really want to say and have be recorded online?
Aside from that, us EVIL MEN are often too embarrassed to report abuse.
ReplyDelete(Or rape, for that matter)
And who does the raping, sir? Women? No. And so which gender is the problem here? Women? No. To whom do men tend to disclose that they've been molested or raped, if that's what's happened? Answer: to women. They look to women, not men, to take care of them emotionally. Why? Because men will make fun of men who have been raped, and tease him, and tell him to get over it and stop being such a p*ssy.
It's men's violence to women, men, children, and trans people that's the issue here. It's men's wars against each other. The violence has a gendered ideology backing it up and its male supremacist, not female supremacist, which is why if a man is the recipient of rape or other sexual abuse he feels "feminised" by it--degraded by being fucked like a woman, right?
He's not made more masculine and more statused by being raped, is he? That's why in prisons the raped men are called someone's "b*tch". You get the sexual politics of that, yes? They don't call him their "tough macho stud" now do they?
And please don't get so dramatic tossing around terms here like "EVIL MEN". I don't use it, so why do you? Just to pretend that I do?
I don't call men evil. I call some of what men do evil and if a man does enough evil things I, just like you, will consider him to be evil. Horrific, unspeakable violence is what some men do to other people; it's not what women do systematically to men.
As for someone being too embarrassed to report abuse including rape: yes, that applies to men AND to women also, and to trans people, in case you weren't aware of it. Anyone who has been raped usually doesn't report it. Woman, man, transgender, child. Most rape survivors don't report it out of shame and humiliation, and the fear of facing more violation in the process of reporting it. Especially women, who are, so often, treated like shit by sexist male cops and misogynistic courts: juries, attorneys, and judges, as well as the misogynistic media.
So please spare me your ridiculous comments that men are such poor, poor victims of women emotionally and psychologically as if that's the issue. As if that's what men fear each day. As if men aren't emotional liars, cheaters, manipulators, coercers, threateners, and controlers. That's emotional and psychological abuse, right? And men do all that, right? Not all men. Are you really wanting to present as "reality" that while men do horrible things like raping women; women balance that out by being more emotionally and psychologically abusive to men than men are to women? Really?
I've heard this argument before--many times--about men not reporting rape. It's true. Most men who are raped don't report it. Very true. And guess what else is very true? A very small percentage of women who are assaulted by men, including through rape, report it. Do you think it's easy for a woman who's been raped to state that to anyone? And given that so few rape survivors report being raped, and women are far more likely to be raped by a man, outside of prison, than a man, that means a lot more women aren't reporting being raped, or battered, or psychologically and emotionally abused. Do you actually think there are men who physically abuse women without also emotionally and psychologically abusing them? You get that rape and battery is all of that together, right?
If you can't grasp that, you're delusionally out of touch.