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Trudy W. Schuett is an Arizona-based online
veteran with 10 years in cyberspace; an author and
multiblogger. She has held workshops on blogging,
writing, and promo for writers at the New
Communications Forum and Arizona Western College,
and has participated in world blogging events such
as Global PR Blog Week. This is also an advocate
for unserved victims of domestic violence. She is
is the author of three novels, two how-to books and
eight blogs. Note: Books are currently out of
print, but two appear in blog form.
She lives in Yuma AZ, with her husband,
Paul. desertlightjournal.blog-city.com/
or E-Mail.
Betrayal
of Women – VAWA
2005
Change
This: Today's Programs for Domestic
Violence
Everybody
Deserves
Better
Stop
the Marketing of Misery and
Fear!
Violence
Against Women Act Ignores Epidemic Of Violent
Women
Stop the Marketing of
Misery and Fear!
The issue of intimate partner abuse has been
reduced to the level of an advertising campaign.
Utilizing techniques most often used to market
sportswear and household cleaners, major
corporations and entertainers are now allowed to
benefit financially from the propagation of
misinformation and fear. To add insult to injury,
Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE), Hillary Rodham
Clinton (D-NY) Harry Reid (D-NV) and Richard Lugar
(R-IN) publicly support this advertising campaign
in order to appear sympathetic to the issue, and
drum up support for the Violence Against Women Act,
which initially funded agencies such as the
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence with
$3.5 billion in feminist pork.
I believe it is time this issue was treated with
the honesty and respect it deserves.
In a public statement announcing the special
screening on Monday of a made-for-TV movie, "Terror
At Home: Domestic Violence In America" the Lifetime
Television network claims this event is intended to
"raise awareness of an issue which affects one in
three women in her life." The event includes a
screening of the movie, and a so-called "panel
discussion" starring entertainer Michael Bolton and
filmmaker Maryann De Leo.
On Tuesday, the senators will join in with a
promotion for the Liz Claiborne Corporation
intended to sell scarves and ties — and more
misinformation.
There is no actual, peer-reviewed research from
a bona fide institution expected to be discussed,
nor is anyone with qualifications or experience in
treating intimate partner abuse featured or
showcased at either event. Both events depend
entirely on the hysteria created by Lifetime's
dramatic presentations, and the advocacy research
privately funded by Liz Claiborne for marketing
purposes.
None of these people care about the needs or
interests of women or families. They care about
their bottom line, or getting reelected. The
American people have been manipulated into
believing such a thing as "gender violence" exists,
completely diverting attention from the actual
problem of intimate partner violence. When you look
at the extent of the junk science they've based it
all on, you have to wonder why.
The NCADV's www.ncadv.org
recently-refurbished website carries blatant
sexism, giving little or no practical advice for
women in abusive situations, in favor of using the
influence of online media to place blame and
promote feminist ideology. It emphasizes only one
solution — divorce, while ignoring the real
problem, as do all of the individual state
coalitions and over 5000 federally-funded agencies
across the US.
At stake, for the coalitions and agencies, is
the yearly federal funding, in hundreds of millions
of dollars, provided by the Violence Against Women
Act, which gives validation to these essentially
discriminatory and ineffective programs. These
programs do little more than facilitate divorces,
and enable women with violent tendencies or
addictions to continue their harmful behaviors.
Meanwhile, they play on the emotions of a gullible
public and magnify and misreport the true nature of
the situation.
This is common practice in the marketing world,
but it does nothing to help victims of a very real
human issue. The American people should not be
expected to fund or support any corporation's
marketing campaign, nor should it be expected to
fund the sexism of the NCADV or any of its member
agencies.
Betrayal of Women –
VAWA 2005
In Congress recently, legislators of both parties
from many states are congratulating themselves and
each other, feeling good about themselves and their
concern for battered women.
They are wrong. They are badly misinformed and
misguided.
VAWA 2005 cannot help women much, if at all.
Worse, it belittles their anguish, ignores their
needs and insults their intelligence. In many
cases, it makes a bad situation so much worse,
it’s a wonder this kind of approach has lasted
a full decade, since originally being signed into
law in 1994. At the heart of VAWA is the mistaken
presumption that by removing women from their
homes, jailing their husbands and indoctrinating
their children, this will have a positive impact on
intimate partner abuse.
Ten years out, there is no evidence that VAWA
and its myriad programs has been of benefit to
anyone beyond those municipalities, organizations
and individuals who are recipients of VAWA funding,
or employed by VAWA-funded agencies. Claimed
decreases in domestic violence may well represent
only a growing number of women unwilling to turn to
these programs for help.
The newest incarnation represents expansion of
the scope and penetration of the Federal government
into state, local, tribal, and family affairs. It
also introduces federally-approved bias against
ethnic groups and Native Americans.
One Solution to a Complicated Human
Problem?
While proponents of VAWA would like to believe
that what they call “gender violence” is
aptly solved by female victims separating from
their male abusers, the actual problem is far more
intricate. There may be a case of mutual abuse, or
an addiction to violence, or a dogged belief that
the abuser will magically change someday. Not all
cases of intimate partner abuse escalate to murder,
or even serious physical harm.
It’s much easier for anyone to embrace a
proffered solution to a human problem when a clear
and apparently obvious solution is provided. It all
seems very simple: men = abusers; women = victims.
It has nothing to do with the rest of the world.
The rest of the world is made up of men and women
who want to live together and raise children,
because that’s the way our society works.
However, if a woman who loves her husband is not
offered any choice but to leave him, and regard him
as a criminal, and her boys if she has them are
targeted as suspects in future crimes, that is an
insult beyond measure. She does not come out
ahead.
Public Knowledge
Fueled by disinformation and misunderstanding of
statistical data, the mainstream media has done its
part to pander to the agenda of bureaucrats and
feminist ideologues. During the past year,
I’ve seen hundreds of newspaper, TV, and radio
reports from all over the world.
They are nearly all identical, except for local
details. It is like everyone from Maine to Malaysia
uses the same press release, but claims it as their
own local work. Only in a handful of cases has any
reporter from any news outlet challenged the word
of their local shelter advocates.
What isn’t reported much is the number of
shelter programs in the US where somebody is facing
litigation or criminal charges, the number of
shelters losing funding due to the fact they are
ineffectual or badly managed, or the shelters
expanding for women only without question, despite
the need otherwise.
The Sacred Cow
It’s true that the social institution of
the Domestic Violence shelter has become a sacred
cow, never to be challenged or disputed. How is it
acceptable to give some women and girls priority
over all men and boys, when there is a need for
help across the board?
Yet we do it anyway. This sacred cow needs to be
slain, and autopsied. There are far too many women
and families running afoul of the shelter culture,
and being destroyed as a result. The feminist ideal
on which VAWA rests has long ago moved into the
area of the dusty, best-forgotten archives. Why can
there not be any realistic approach, that takes
into account the intents and desires of
today’s women?
The answer to that question is easy – so
many programs (and the people who run them) are
simply dependent on VAWA and the self-perpetuating
illogic entailed in the law. Only the most
desperate or manipulative women will enter a
residential program and stay within the untenable
options presented. So the women they see are in
dire straits, or practiced con artists, and
it’s easy for program managers to presume all
women are in need of this kind of program.
There is nothing in VAWA or shelter bylaws or
rules that require any program to keep track of
their successes or impact on the community. They
don’t know if they actually help any women
maintain lives free of violence, and they
don’t seem to actually care if they do. What
appears to be important to shelter advocates is the
number of women who divorce or leave their
communities. Some agencies actually count these
women as “successes.”
Anyone concerned about the fate of women in
abusive relationships will be best served by
contacting their legislator and asking them to vote
against VAWA 2005. Only then will the issue be
approached in a practical manner that does not
destroy women or their families.
Everybody Deserves
Better
On International Women’s Day, it is time to
consider the roots of the women’s movement of
the 1960s. Back then, the issues were focused on
equal rights for women. In 2005, most if not all,
the issues have been successfully resolved, in
terms of literal equality in western industrialized
nations. The movement has evolved over time into
something more about female supremacy rather than
equality. While there are those women who will
never be content with their lot in life and always
imagine their perceived lack of prestige, or
success, or whatever to be entirely the fault of
men in general, that simply does not apply to women
today.
Most women accept the challenges presented to
them in their lives, work through them, and move on
to enjoy the benefits provided women which may or
may not have existed before. They wish to live full
and balanced lives, and are free to organize the
varied parts of their lives – marriage,
children, and career in whatever way they
choose.
Generally speaking, the radical elements who
haven’t yet realized their work is done are
easily dismissed, and most often ignored.
Malcontents in society will always be with us. It
is only when we allow these malcontents to dictate
public policy, and our government to fund programs
to further their extremist philosophies that
society puts itself in harm’s way.
Such is the case with the issue of intimate
partner abuse, most popularly recognized as
domestic violence. Today’s programs are still
operated by the same radical feminists, in the same
ways as they were in the 1970s. The only difference
in these programs is that they are now being given
public funding; to the detriment of any community
which supports these programs. They have ceased to
be helpful, if in fact they ever were.
At the root of the problem is the fact that
domestic violence is neither a political issue, nor
a gender issue. To address this social issue in
this fashion, from this standpoint, is a mistake
which sends victims down a dangerously wrong path.
All it does it set the immediate problem on hold
temporarily while creating a new set of problems
for the victim to confront. Offered no other
choice, victims follow the direction of shelter
programs, unaware the actions suggested will have
ramifications that may never be resolved for years,
possibly even causing permanent, irreparable,
damage to themselves, and their children and
families.
The only victims willingly served by existing
programs are women – preferably those with no
male children over the age of 12. Male abusers are
eagerly placed in re-training or incarceration
programs by institutions created to do just that.
There are no effective screening measures in place
in either case to demonstrate evidence of need;
only a verbal request or accusation is ever
required.
The nationwide network of women’s shelter
programs actively and constantly remind the public
that men are to blame for the problem, and
naturally enough, refuse to aid male victims or
female abusers. (While many programs claim to serve
all, in an awkward attempt to address the public
perception they provide assistance without regard
to gender, in practice there are few
equally-accessible services available for anyone
other than female victims and male abusers.) This
same network maintains a stranglehold on public
funding for domestic violence services, and goes to
great lengths to prevent agencies intending to
serve those other populations from doing so.
It is time this project in the cause of feminist
ideology came to an end.
Everything You Thought You Knew about Domestic
Violence is Probably Wrong
There is a morass of confusing dogma surrounding
the subject. It is often lumped together with other
issues of stalking, sexual assault and divorce
which are in fact, entirely separate issues and
should not be considered in the same way, and at
the same time.
However, the establishment in charge of these
programs has found it expedient and profitable to
allow the confusion. In fact, it could be said that
misconstruction and partial truth is the hallmark
of feminist marketing and activism. This has worked
well for them for decades, but in these days of
transparency and accountability, the abilities they
may have had in the past to revise everything from
history to the laws of physics are no longer so
dependable.
Some misconceptions have become part of
conventional wisdom. But, just because
“everybody says so” doesn’t mean
everybody is right. Here are some of the most
widely-repeated tales:
95% of victims of domestic violence are women.
This came to be due to either a misunderstanding or
an outright manipulation of Dept of Justice
figures. While it seems logical to shelter
personnel, that is because shelters are in practice
open to women only. Female victims are the only
victims they see.
There is an epidemic of domestic violence. Since
the actual meaning of the term is something to the
effect of “a greater than usual amount of
cases,” it can’t possibly apply. Nobody
knows what is usual in the first place. From a
marketing perspective, the word sounds good for
emotional effect, but that’s all.
Domestic violence is unknown and unrecognized.
We maintain a running search for articles in media
and online, and even on a slow day there will be
about 50 articles relating to the issue.
Ironically, many of those articles contain a quote
from somebody saying nobody ever talks about
domestic violence. A recent Google search for the
term yielded 5,810,000 results.
Battering always escalates, and the eventual
conclusion is death. This untrue, unsupportable
statement gives some important insight into the
mindset of those running shelter programs. They do
not recognize their clients as individuals, and
there is no provision in shelter programs for
meeting the needs of individuals. Therefore, it is
easy to make blanket statements regarding this
situation, despite a lack of actual evidence.
Domestic violence is a deliberate pattern of
power and control. While this is true in some
cases, it cannot possibly be true all the time.
Again, this relates to the inability of current
programs to treat victims as individuals. It also
reflects on the viewpoint of feminist-run shelters
that domestic violence is political in nature. In
this ideology, men are the cause, and women are the
hapless victims, unable to deal with their problems
without outside intervention.
We can have an end to domestic violence, if only
_________. This purely human problem has been with
us long before it was given a name, and will be
with us as long as we continue to be human.
Certainly, we can have an end to the parts of it
engineered by the feminists as soon as control of
these programs is given to apolitical professionals
with an understanding of family problems. It is
unreasonable to even consider there will be a day
when there is no domestic violence whatsoever, just
as it is unreasonable to consider there will ever
be an end to crime, greed, or any other human
failing.
How Did Things Get This Way?
People in general, and Americans in particular,
have a deep well of compassion and concern for
other individuals. Yet, in the 20th Century there
was a new reliance on the word of
“experts” in dealing with personal
issues, as the population became increasingly
mobile and separated from the extended family
situations of earlier times. The 20th Century was
also a time when socialist ideals became attractive
to a people faced with issues such as unemployment
and alcoholism. Welfare programs, such as those
established in the Great Depression of the 1930s
appeared to succeed, even though Prohibition on
alcohol did not.
Still, there was an acceptance of the idea that
politicizing and criminalizing dysfunctional human
behaviors was an appropriate means of dealing with
those kinds of issues. By the 1960s, socialist
activists and various groups seeking improved
levels of social acceptance for specific groups of
people appeared all over the country.
Among these groups were the feminists, who
claimed to want “equal rights” for women.
This term was, and still is defined differently,
depending on who is using it. What the most radical
and militant feminists considered equal rights
included dominance over men, and the dissolution of
marriage and traditional family structure. This
would be replaced with government control,
including placement of children in public childcare
facilities from birth to adulthood.
By the 1970s, most of the more-realistic goals
of equality for women were achieved, leaving the
radical elements with few issues to confront. Here
and there, shelters and services were beginning to
be established to help battered women, which were
prime targets for the radical feminists. These were
usually small grassroots efforts run by people with
little or no experience in political activism. The
only thing the early shelter volunteers had in
common with the radical feminists was sometimes a
shared hatred of men and everything they did. This
happened often enough that the feminists were given
free rein in their activism. What had once been
agencies providing simple aid on a volunteer basis
became massive concerns, with infrastructure,
staffing, and funding to match.
The well-publicized goal of these programs was
“an end to domestic violence.” Advocates
for these programs were constantly lobbying
legislatures at all levels for favorable laws
fostering divorce, and criminalization of perceived
abusive behaviors by men, as well as
ever-increasing levels of funding. No law, no
amount of funding, was ever enough.
Any legislator, researcher or public figure of
any kind who attempted to object to this level of
government control of private lives, who suggested
seeking solutions other than divorce or that men
and women were equally responsible for the problem
was labeled a misogynist, an abuser, or worse. Many
careers have been ruined by shelter advocates
resisting change or accountability for their
programs. Some questioning these programs have even
suffered threats of physical harm or specious
lawsuits. This kind of behavior on the part of
anti-male, anti-family factions of the radical
feminist movement continues today.
In 1994, the initial Violence Against Women Act
was passed, and a new social problem was recognized
by Congress. “Gender violence” was
claimed by advocates to be the #1 issue facing
women everywhere. Despite the fact the term has no
meaning on its own, the law passed, and $3.5
billion dollars in public funding was earmarked for
these women-only shelter programs.
Meanwhile the general public, believing the
problem was under the control of well-meaning
experts, not only supported this act, but
encouraged the programs to expand and the laws to
become more restrictive and inequitable.
Legislation suggested by shelter advocates moved
farther and farther away from the core issue as
time went on. Today it is almost impossible to have
a discussion of either divorce or domestic violence
without mentioning the other, or bringing in the
blame issue.
We are no closer to finding practical solutions
to the problem, for either victim or abuser, than
we were when the first shelter was established in
1971 by Erin Pizzey. Her early attempts at
providing equitable services were promptly
eradicated by the feminist takeover of shelter
services everywhere.
What Can We Do to Change Things?
First, the public needs to recognize the
difference between the fictions promoted by those
implementing an ideology, and the reality of the
situation. Those who have been able to avoid
intervention by the established domestic violence
industry, and study the problem using accepted
scientific methodology and objectivity have found a
quite different problem than is generally claimed.
Intimate partner abuse is something that can often
be addressed in other ways than the overly
simplistic intervention/divorce/relocation scenario
provided by existing programs.
There are also different people involved. While
the male abuser/female victim is part of the
picture, there are also female abusers, male
victims, mutual victim/abuser situations, serial
victims, and a small group of those who appear to
have an addiction to violence.
There is a nascent, but emerging pattern of
individuals and groups seeking alternatives to the
ideological approach, which could be encouraged to
come forward. In some locales, human services
programs have deliberately removed themselves from
the national network of services in order to serve
their communities without interference. Some
agencies, that depend on the funding and networking
opportunities provided by the national network,
have an unspoken, but functioning “open door
policy” that provides those limited services
allowed by the network to a greater population than
only the female victims mentioned earlier. Others,
such as the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men,
function independently of the network, as it has
repeatedly been refused admission.
While the issue is nowhere near as cut and dried
as is publicized today, an opening up of inquiry,
allowing honesty and objectivity to prevail will go
a long way itself to provide otherwise-unknown
solutions for some cases. Here and there, in
isolated shelters and counseling programs, are the
seeds of these new, and unidentified
approaches.
Federal, state, and municipal government needs
to stop funding organizations that are using public
monies for ideological purposes and divert those
funds to those who are operating on equitable
terms, and providing practical assistance to
members of their communities without regard to
gender.
A serious investigation of organizations such as
the Violence Against Women Office, National
Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National
Domestic Violence Hotline, and the individual state
DV coalitions needs to be undertaken, and criminal
charges filed where necessary, if misappropriation
of government funds or other wrongdoing is found.
Civil litigation needs to be pursued in those cases
where these agencies and coalitions have caused
economic or other actionable damage to communities
and individuals.
Legislators and public officials at all levels
of government who have opposed the feminist-based
programs and been hesitant to speak out due to fear
of political repercussion should be encouraged to
make their positions clear, by taking the lead in
restoring their communities to the sanity of equal
treatment for all.
In addition, they can withdraw and/or oppose any
legislation that is related to increasing criminal
penalties for domestic violence. Past laws have
been proven to be of little value, and only serve
to add to the burden of already overcrowded prison
populations. They are only reflections of the
politicization of human relationships, which is
part of the feminist ideology, and has no place in
addressing domestic violence from a humanitarian
point of view.
Screening procedures must be developed to ensure
that applicants can demonstrate a need for services
of any kind. There is no screening procedure in
place today, and many cases of abuse of the system
itself go unrecognized. Current services have
resisted any suggestion that they either screen
applicants or network with other agencies to avoid
duplicating efforts.
Finally, since there is no procedure in place to
determine whether shelters actually aid women in
becoming free of abuse in their lives, there should
be some way to establish independently whether
these shelters provide the community with any
service at all.
Some have said to me that this idea of scrapping
VAWA entirely is the wrong approach, that we should
simply correct the problems and give this system
credit for the good it has done. If I knew of any
actual good to anyone, I would give credit where
credit is due. I’ve been writing about this
issue since 1999 and not once have I ever had a
single positive e-mail about women’s shelter
services from a recipient of same. I don’t
believe they come away from these programs any
better off than before.
Allowing these prejudicial, deeply biased and
regressive programs to continue unchecked will only
serve to add to the numbers on the welfare rolls,
in the jails and under the care of
government-sponsored child protective agencies.
In the United States of America, in the 21st
Century, our families deserve better.
Violence Against Women
Act Ignores Epidemic Of Violent Women
In the past few weeks newspapers all over the
country have been brimming with accounts of women
who engaged in monstrous crimes.
To avoid giving offense, I provide only the
sketchiest of details here: Dena Schlosser severed
off both of her daughter’s arms with a knife.
Nathshay Ward starved her three children to death.
Kim Tran mutilated her boyfriend in a gruesome act
of revenge.
These women don’t exist, and these gruesome
crimes never happened.
At least that’s what the Violence Against
Women Act would have us believe. Passed initially
during the Clinton administration, VAWA is a $4.9
billion law based on the simple formula: Man =
perpetrator, Women and children = victims. It is
aided and supported by similar legislation in each
of the 50 states, and each of those supply more
millions of dollars in public funding.
The formulation has been widely accepted,
perhaps because it appeals so powerfully to male
legislators’ sense of chivalry, and plays so
strongly on female legislators’ sense of fear
and vulnerability, or in some cases, revenge.
Feminist ideology elaborates on that formula.
The reason why men, and only men, beat their wives,
is in order to maintain their power and control.
It’s all part of men’s “patriarchal
privilege,” you see.
Of course, that’s sheer hooey.
In my five decades of existence, I have
personally known men who were physically violent to
their wives or girlfriends. These men were anything
but powerful. They were angry, frightened, and yes,
they felt powerless. The same applies to the
abusive women I've known.
Psychologist Martin Fiebert has compiled the
results of over 100 studies that examine partner
violence. The results? Women are just as likely to
commit domestic violence as men. www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
By ignoring the male victim, the Violence
Against Women Act does a gross disservice to men.
That goes without saying. VAWA also violates one of
our most cherished Constitutional protections:
equal treatment under the law.
But VAWA also does an enormous disservice to
American women.
VAWA has created a veritable dragnet of social
workers, counselors, judges, emergency room
workers, and others. All are on the lookout for
evidence of partner aggression against women. But
remember, VAWA contains the ideological message
that women are never perpetrators, so soon the
female aggressor becomes invisible.
Look at Dena Schlosser, Nathshay Ward, and Kim
Tran. These women were mentally deranged. No doubt
there were warning signs months and years ago. VAWA
has imposed ideological blinders on our society
which say, “Ignore the female aggressor,
because the problem really lies with patriarchal
oppression.”
How does that message benefit women?
It also presumes an insulting, basic disability
in women to recognize a bad situation and deal with
it, utilizing their own abilities. Under VAWA, men
are abusive and women are idiots. Only through
accessing the community services mentioned above,
can women be “empowered” to give over
their lives to something even more oppressive than
that imagined patriarchy. There is no mention or
consideration of extended family intervention in
the truly anomalous instances of abuse, either.
Worse, women who recognize they are harming
their families and try to seek help find only a
presumption by strangers that they are actually not
at fault for anything. They are freely given the
tools and aid to continue and escalate their abuse.
Any suggestion to women’s shelters that they
make some effort to screen applicants has been met
with the protestation that screening would be
“too hard.”
In the meantime, an unprecedented chilling
effect has begun affecting personal relationships.
Many of the behaviors which used to be part of the
socially accepted courting ritual are now deemed by
the VAWA nannies to be “stalking,” and
therefore any single man who persistently
approaches a woman in hopes of forming a
relationship is now at risk of arrest and
incarceration. Young girls are constantly bombarded
with messages at school, in media, and online about
the awful risk of contact with boys.
VAWA has effectively guided society right back
into the Victorian era.
Forty years ago the feminist revolution swept
our nation, affording unprecedented opportunities
for women to make their own choices about their own
lives, and to leave their mark on history.
So what will future historians have to say about
the current women’s movement? That it falsely
branded our husbands and boyfriends as batterers?
That it ignored abusive women who needed help? That
it substituted compassion and reason for a
vindictive gender ideology? That it made life worse
for women? Will that be our legacy?
Change This: Today's
Programs for Domestic Violence
This is something I haven’t written much about
in recent months; in fact it’s been almost a
year since I’ve engaged in much public
activism. There was a time, though, when I thought
of little else. For nearly four years I wrote,
e-mailed, faxed, phoned, and even spoke to groups
in public about this. I worked many hours each day
in this truly unpopular cause.
The odd thing was that when I got into a
discussion either online or in person, with people
not directly involved with the issue, I found most
people agreed with me.
Yet in the larger arenas of the Big3 Traditional
media, and the places where the other side of the
story most need to be heard – the
legislatures, the universities, the charitable
institutions – I’ve been labeled worse
than a traitor, or more often, simply ignored. My
ideas are simply not politically correct. The
mistaken belief in these most influential quarters
is this:
To give voice to the reality of the serious
problems and mistakes in the way we now approach
the issue of domestic violence is the same as
saying women do not deserve any help.
This belief is persistent and close to universal
among these people, although entirely illogical and
untrue. Not one of the dozens or possible hundreds
of people seeking change has ever used that phrase,
to my knowledge.
I’m not suggesting the baby be thrown out
with the bathwater; I’m saying the tub is
being filled from a mud puddle, and that dirty
water is no good for a bath.
Before I began my activist campaign, I had about
fifteen years’ experience working either as
paid staff or volunteer at the administrative level
for small private charities. I know how these
non-profits work.
This is a complex, long-standing issue, so bear
with me for a few paragraphs as I go back about
thirty years to the beginning of what we now know
as “women’s shelters.” The first one
I’m aware of was established in England in
1971. This one, as well as those that soon
followed, were established as places where women in
immediate danger of physical injury or those being
repeatedly beaten by their husbands could go and
begin to get some help. Back then, it was difficult
for a woman to find any assistance in these cases.
Society did not want to admit this kind of problem
existed, and these shelters and programs were
limited mainly due to reasons of funding and
staffing, etc. These were practical difficulties,
rather than those of a theoretical or belief-based
nature.
It was not easy in the Seventies to set up this
kind of program. There were no established grants,
no specialties relating to domestic violence in the
fields of psychology or medicine, no peer-reviewed
studies to prove the existence of a problem.
Shelters were generally set up by one woman, or a
small group who managed to seek out funding and
provide the buildings and staff. These same people
established the procedures for aiding victims
because there was nobody else. Few programs were
established by anyone with education or training in
psychology or medicine; they were mainly lay people
with an interest in helping female victims of
domestic violence. The emphasis for designing
procedures was on the practical.
It took a special kind of woman who was able to
draw on her inner strength, remove herself and her
children from her home, and step off into an
unknown void, with no assurance that even the most
basic needs for herself and her children could be
filled. This kind of woman was likely to make the
best of a tragic situation and with a little help
and encouragement from a shelter, build a stable
life, while doing her utmost to prevent an
unfortunate circumstance, or bad relationship to
repeat in her life.
The clear solution for this woman was to divorce
her abuser. In that same era, divorce laws around
the country began to be relaxed, and many
previously-battered women took advantage of the
changes in order to help themselves. Shelter staffs
could recognize the value in this situation for
their clients, and established these procedures for
all their clients, based on the successes of the
first group of women they helped.
Some women found their now ex-husbands not
taking kindly to the fact their wives had left
them, and attempted further violence against them.
So, shelters also established programs that would
assist these women in relocating to other states,
and even changing identities.
There was a one-solution-fits-all approach
established, but apparently it was never recognized
this solution did not fit all.
Around the same time, the feminist movement
began to take hold. Widely circulating catchphrases
like, “men are pigs,” and “a woman
needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” were
taken less than seriously by most people, myself
included, when in fact they were meant in deadly
earnest by those originating them. I don’t
know whether the issue of domestic violence was
“hijacked,” by the feminists in order to
keep their own funding coming, as claimed by Erin
Pizzey, the woman who established that first
English shelter. It could have been that way or
some other, but in any case, some of the
more-radical feminist ideology began creeping into
the inner workings of domestic violence
programs.
There was plenty of feminist writing circulating
at the time. It was highly fashionable, and an
important part of the day’s societal issues.
There is certainly nothing wrong with anyone having
an opinion. Unfortunately, domestic violence began
to be identified as one of the myriad
“women’s issues” in the minds of the
general public. Domestic violence is an issue that
cannot be regarded as affecting only one sex. How
could this single question out of the many
associated with marriage and family affect only
women, when other concerns affect both men and
women equally? It just can’t. To presume
otherwise defies logic.
It is understandable why mistakes were made so
early on. Many, if not most, women’s shelters
were established by victims themselves, and/or
their friends or loved ones. In my experience
working directly with domestic violence victims, it
is quite impossible for them to see the matter
objectively, and there really isn’t any reason
they should. After all, people who are passionately
devoted to a cause make good activists,
fundraisers, and volunteers. They are often bent on
revenge, and while this may be only a phase when
victims are getting treatment, it is not productive
when it comes to allowing these individuals
positions of authority.
Where the problem enters is when those
passionate victims or survivors are in charge of
administrative functions, or directing the future
and policies of an established organization. The
strong bias that serves their organizations so well
in other capacities becomes a liability when it
comes to the areas requiring pragmatism and an
objective viewpoint. In most social services kinds
of agencies, these positions are held by people who
can understand the needs of the clientele, but at
the same time are not personally affected by the
issue the agency addresses.
As time went on, grants from both governments
and private foundations became available, studies
were done, and laws reflecting a
“more-enlightened” attitude regarding
domestic violence were passed. From just a few
shelters for women back in the 1970s, there is now
at least one shelter, program, or some kind of
service for abused women in each of the over 1300
counties in the United States. Funding for these
and their associated agencies concerned with such
areas as divorce and child custody now approach
billions of dollars a year nationwide.
Please note the change in terminology. The
definition of domestic violence has changed to
include a wide variety of circumstances, some of
which would not be considered violence in other
kinds of contexts. Hence, the change from
“battered women” to “abused
women.” While it is understandable that this
has been done in order to improve outreach and
encourage victims to seek aid, it has also opened
the door to manipulation of services and even the
issue itself by those with less-than-honest
objectives.
Today’s Programs
In the shelter programs themselves, little or
nothing has changed since inception of programs.
Even with funding available and numerous programs
now in existence, only a portion of those
immediately affected by domestic violence are able
to find help.
Why has this happened? Are there so many more
battered/abused women the programs can’t serve
them? The answer to that is a resounding,
“no.” The actual incidence of domestic
violence has declined somewhat. The thing that has
changed is the kind of potential client. Other
needs have begun to be recognized. While there are
still battered women, who fit the profile of the
kind of situation shelters are designed to address,
there are also battered men. In addition, while
many organizations have rudimentary programs for
male abusers, female abusers are hardly
acknowledged. Ignored entirely, and frequently
claimed by shelter advocates not to exist at all
are those who are addicted to violence. Sometimes
referred to as “serial victims,” these
women are enabled in their addiction by policies of
the programs in service today. (Because available
programs serve exclusively women in most cases,
there isn’t much known about male serial
victims, but there is no reason to presume they do
not exist.)
Domestic violence programs are still focused on
that small group of women they were able to help so
successfully in the 1970s. Today, a woman
approaching a shelter is offered the single choice
of divorce, and relocation if deemed necessary.
There are seldom policies restricting a woman using
the same services multiple times, which is where
the enablement factor regarding serial victims
enters in. These women often use the shelter stay
only as a cooling off period before returning to
her abuser, or as a hiatus between different
abusers. Because there is no recognition or
practical help for these women, they could easily
become part of the statistics and publicity the
programs use to put forward their numbers of women
murdered in domestic violence.
Some programs offer so-called “anger
management” courses for male abusers, but
abusive women looking for help are often rejected
as not qualifying for services, sometimes forced
into victims’ programs against their will.
There are no dedicated residential shelter
programs for male victims. The few services that
exist for men are only small, severely-restricted
parts of established programs for women. There is
one non-sexist shelter in Lancaster California, and
only one nationwide hotline, The Domestic Abuse
Hotline for Men, giving direct help for male
victims.
There are many reasons for this non-response to
changing times. Anyone who has worked in or with
any social/human services program will recognize
that organization personnel often become
“gatekeepers” for their programs. Outside
influences and change are summarily rejected,
and/or viewed with suspicion. Unlike the private
business sector, where companies change both
policies and staff with relative frequency, social
services tend to retain administrators and board
members for lengthy periods. Often a retiring
administrator will return to serve on a board of
directors, or as a volunteer in other areas, while
still retaining her influence in the organization.
In the case of domestic violence services, many of
those who established operations decades ago are
still in the same positions of administration or
sit on boards.
Domestic violence services are in fact, notable
for their lack of change. While nearly all other
organizations in the social services field have
grown and begun using different kinds of client
services, adopted new fundraising techniques and
ways of communicating with the public, domestic
violence services have only gotten bigger, and
reached farther.
Shelter staffers and advocates would argue that
they have changed significantly and point to the
many activist campaigns and other things
they’ve been involved in. The problem is that
most of the active areas of their sphere of
influence have nothing to do with expanding or
improving client services in domestic violence.
Evidencing the Need
One of the earliest promotional techniques by
non-profits and business alike, and one still in
use today, is to use advocacy research as an
informational device. For the uninitiated, advocacy
research is a study conducted by a company hired by
the organization to use some numbers or statistics
to call attention to a problem. The general public
reacts well to claimed studies, because it lends
validity of a sort to the opinions of an advocacy
group. Since the organization or a friendly donor
is paying for this research, the conclusions are
foregone. Sometimes an organization will conduct a
study on its own, and there are even federal grants
available for this purpose. This is common practice
among many kinds of organizations. Still, the
results of these kinds of studies are not objective
in any way, neither are they scientifically or
statistically valid.
Occasionally an organization will fudge some
numbers a bit from an independent study, to
emphasize a point. This practice is so common among
non-profits it is hardly worth mentioning.
Generally speaking, it is never done to
misrepresent or evade the truth. There is always
genuine information to be had, and readily
provided, by organizations in the social services
field.
There have been so many of these kinds of
studies, so much number fudging done over the years
in the domestic violence field, that today most
people – even degreed professionals in fields
of psychology or social work – don’t
recognize how very little bona fide, analytical
research has ever been done in this area.
While any organization will use studies and
research that agrees with their goals and
intentions, only in the field of domestic violence
has advocacy research come to be relied upon as
actionable truth. Every October, in newspapers
across the country, you will see the statement most
shelters live on today: “95 percent of victims
of domestic violence are women.” This
statement has no basis in fact whatsoever, not to
mention it simply makes no logical sense. Ask any
shelter director, however, and she will swear this
statement is true. She will also most likely
believe it herself. That is because shelter
personnel only see those clients their agencies
serve, which are limited by policy or custom to
female victims.
There is a US Department of Justice study that
says 85% of the cases on record report a woman as
the victim. In other words, the cases they know
about. They don’t claim to know about all the
cases, because most are never reported, or if
reported, are often classified as something else.
You can verify this statement simply by asking any
experienced police officer, or crime reporter at a
local newspaper. Yet the 95% statement alludes to
knowledge of all victims, when that cannot be
possible.
To add to the confusion, there is often
manipulation of figures to present an exaggerated
count of the number of clients served. Without
additional explanation, a member of the general
public can easily make the mistake of thinking the
term, “service unit” represents the
number of people using a service. In fact, the term
refers to one night in one bed. Often, an agency
presenting these figures will accompany them with a
statement such as “We served 23,000 women and
children last year.” This does not mean the
agency has 23,000 clients; it means it provided
23,000 service units. A mother with two children
who spends a week at the shelter will be
represented multiple times in this number. Without
accompanying information, such as the number of
beds, and the number of days in the time period
used for calculation, this figure is useless in
determining the actual number of unduplicated
individuals.
What seems to be happening here is that
they’ve come to believe their own
publicity.
Check a few websites for women’s shelters
or advocacy orgs, and you’ll see a remarkably
similar set of factoids presented as truth or proof
of their basic attitude. “Only women are
victims, only men are abusers.” The quote here
is mine; I’ve never seen the statement
published anywhere, but I have no doubt it is the
guiding philosophy. It is very clear the programs
have an interest bordering on fanaticism in serving
their portion of those they could feasibly serve.
However, some shelter websites and other public
information items seem determined to demonize and
criminalize men, to the point where men have told
me it feels to them like a legitimized hate
campaign. One particular case hit home: In late
2002, my son fell off a ladder and broke his wrist.
As a result, he spent many hours in the emergency
room at his local county hospital. They had many
posters at various locations designed as part of an
outreach program for domestic violence victims.
Each of them was focused on female victims, and
some went so far as to suggest all men are at fault
for the problem. My son was uncomfortable enough
that he wondered if he’d inadvertently
stumbled in to some kind of place where men would
not be given adequate treatment.
The women’s shelters will be quick to point
out there is no exclusionary or hate speech
intended, but rarely, if ever, has an established
women-only program examined its public statements
in light of the way they are received by those
being accused.
What other area of social services exists to
serve one segment of the community while blaming
another for the problems they purport to
address?
Thirty Years of Progress?
I mentioned earlier that domestic violence
services have only gotten bigger, and reached
farther. What I mean by this is that their
definition of domestic violence has expanded to
include as victims women who would not previously
be thought to be in need of residential shelter
services. They have also begun to focus on their
thirty-year-old solution applicable only to some
victims – divorce – and made it nearly
the prime focus of their programs. These agencies
are spending in some cases, the majority of their
time in activist projects related to divorce and
all its ancillary issues. Meanwhile, there is
almost no attention being paid to finding new ways
to address the care and treatment of those directly
affected by domestic violence.
There should have been some progress made in
thirty years. Agencies that address other issues,
such as food banks and homeless programs, have made
dramatic changes in the way they serve their client
population, but have not diverted from their
initial function.
It is almost as if domestic violence programs
have become divorce assistance programs instead of
havens for battered women. Even programs owned and
operated by the Catholic Church function the same
way in promoting divorce as the only solution for
domestic violence. One can only wonder why.
Divorce as a Cure
An accusation of domestic violence has become
almost a given these days in contested divorce
actions. Far more often than not, these accusations
are only cases of one party in a divorce action
deciding to “work the system.” Even the
accuser, when questioned more specifically, away
from the court setting, will often admit no actual
violence has ever occurred.
In my local community of Yuma, Arizona, we have
a shelter. Just like any other women’s
shelter, they remove a woman from her home, and
assist her in divorce. They also provide
“counseling” for any male children, in
order to ensure they will not take on the violent
traits presumed to be inherited from their father.
No special attention is given to female children,
who are presumed to be totally non-violent due to
their gender.
The Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence
claims a 70% “success rate.” What they
consider a success is a woman removed from her home
and marriage, never to return. There is no
follow-up to find out if clients go on to improve
their lives or if the situation occurs again.
Here is how it works today: All a woman needs to
do is present herself in some way. She may phone or
show up at a facility if she knows where it is.
There is no procedure for determining the validity
of her claim, or if she is simply one of those
“working the system.”
She will then be accepted if there is space in
her local shelter, where she will be instructed in
all kinds of ways to apply for government programs,
changing her identity, relocating to another state
or country, and implementing favorable divorce
procedures.
If she has named her alleged abuser, she can put
legal actions such as orders of protection in
place. (Most people don’t realize an
accusation of domestic violence is enough to
restrict military personnel from re-enlisting, and
others such as doctors or teachers to lose
professional licensure. This accusation is
irrevocable in some cases, so the accused can never
work again in his established career, no matter if
the accusation was valid or not, recanted or
not.)
Nearly all the elements of treatment of a
domestic violence victim go back to the issue of
physical separation and/or divorce.
It should be obvious this emphasis on divorce
has little or nothing to do with the treatment of
domestic violence victims or abusers. Yet somehow,
divorce with all its related problems has become so
deeply ingrained in today’s domestic violence
services they are sometimes seen as inseparable
aspects of the same issue. Unfortunately for both
clients and agencies alike, this has resulted in a
situation where nobody wins but those few bent on
revenge against violent husbands. They likely get
some emotional satisfaction from their efforts, but
at what price to the community?
Violence Knows no Gender
Because of the inexplicable and unsupportable
view of domestic violence by current services, the
shelters and programs exclusively for abused women
are becoming harmful to both clients and the
community at large, in their practices.
In the shelter culture, victims are considered
deserving of treatment and aid; abusers are the
enemy, deserving of retribution. All people fit
into one category or the other. The sex of the
individual plays a major part in this
determination. There is no recognition of the grey
areas most often present in other kinds of human
experience, neither is there any recognition of the
expanded roles of women in society. This view is
not only myopic, but sexist. There is no reason to
presume in 2004 that a woman lacks or possesses any
particular kind of capability due to her gender,
yet domestic violence services perpetuate outmoded
myths in all their fundraising and outreach
efforts.
This kind of discrimination is not acceptable in
other agencies, and the general public could be
forgiven for supposing the same rules apply to
domestic violence services. However, under the
national Violence Against Women Act, this kind of
bias is not only accepted but encouraged. Some
municipalities, in support of this misguided
attempt to secure more-universal help for female
victims, have passed laws and ordinances such as
the one passed by Los Angeles County, which defines
all domestic violence as a crime perpetrated by a
man against a woman.
The most troubling aspect of the entire
situation to me, as an advocate for the un-served,
and underserved populations, is the evident lack of
compassion or humanity projected by most services.
I’ve heard horror stories from women bullied
and threatened into accepting shelter services when
they hadn’t asked for help, or felt they
needed it. I’ve heard of public fundraising
events where women were encouraged to physically
assault and humiliate men; behavior that could get
them arrested at any other time. Any suggestion to
an agency that violence addicted people are in need
of their help is either met with resentment and a
counter-charge of “blaming the victim,”
or laughed off. Other agencies that serve addicted
individuals recognize addictions as conditions
needing treatment; why won’t they?
I’d like to know the reasons behind the
stagnation and resistance to change these services
demonstrate. Why have they not recognized the
realities of domestic violence as it exists in the
21st Century? Why do they cling so zealously to
unsupportable data and continue to insist their
view of woman equals victim, man equals abuser is
the only correct one? And last, why is it they put
so much energy into what is ultimately a
destructive solution for a severely limited number
of individuals?
Solutions
Of course, the most effective answer would be
for all the services to dump their ineffective
treatment modalities and harmful ideas, and start
fresh. In light of the fact that the industry has
taken three decades to come to this pass, that idea
is not realistic. There are too many individuals
depending on the status quo for their livelihood,
some of whom quite literally would not know how to
make a living any other way.
I do have confidence that the transparency
beginning to emerge in media, business, and
government will soon reach the non-profit sector.
There will come a time when even the friendliest
media outlet will no longer accept the oft-repeated
factoids at face value and insist on data from
authoritative sources. Funding organizations, both
public and private, will begin to ask hard
questions and expect answers based in verifiable
fact. This will take time, however. There is a
powerful lobby in Washington and each of the fifty
states with a vested interest in seeing programs
continue on their current course of blame, shame,
and division. It will take an equally powerful
mandate from the people to change this course to
one directed for the public good.
If I had one thing, and only one thing I could
do to effect change, it would be to abolish VAWA.
It is a bad, counterproductive law, which has done
much to exacerbate the previously existing problems
in domestic violence services. When it was passed
ten years ago, it was not intended to limit
services to a fraction of those requiring
assistance; however, that has been the pragmatic
result. It has given gender discrimination
validation and stalled productive inquiry into the
issue in ways never expected.
There is no reason domestic violence services
could not serve the community in its entirety at
current levels of funding. The argument given by
shelter advocates that they could not serve the
others without taking away from female victims does
not hold water. Research conducted in an objective
manner would no doubt show the actual number of
bona fide victims to be considerably smaller than
currently recognized. Functional screening
processes in combination with a set of qualifying
standards would determine if anyone requesting
services had a verifiable need for shelter.
Alternate, off-site programs, similar to the kind
of outpatient care used by other services could be
implemented; funded by the budget previously used
to pursue divorce activism.
Finally, domestic violence services must get out
of politics and out of the divorce business. These
programs were originally established to assist
individuals in trouble, but continued failure to
recognize the issue in its entirety will ultimately
prevent their ability to help anyone at all.
©2009, Trudy W.
Schuett
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