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Male Domestic Violence Victims
This is domestic violence month... Sooo I thought I would post this article about Med help and see what peoples thoughts were!!
A big piece of stone just fell out of the Domestic Violence version of the Berlin Wall
October 15, 2008, 8:43 AM by Jonathan Kay
Barbara Kay
***@****
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/10/15/barbara-kay-a-big-piece-of-stone-just-fell-out-of-the-domestic-violence-version-of-the-berlin-wall.aspx
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and I am sure that to 99% of readers the two words "domestic violence" means violence against women. Only. The politically correct view that all domestic violence (DV) can be accounted for either by the inherent aggression and controlling instincts of men or by women's defensive reactions against those instincts is so deeply entrenched in our culture that it has become the Berlin Wall of the gender wars - or rather the war of feminism against men. In fact women initiate violence against their partners in an almost equal ratio to men. And in many cases the violence they inflict is severe (as one woman in a woman's shelter told the director, "knives make great levellers").
For all the men who have suffered at the hands of battering women, a chunk of stone just fell out of that huge gendered wall. In a taxpayer lawsuit by four male victims of DV, the Third District appellate court in California reversed a previous ruling holding that because they are not statistically situated with women, men are not entitled to equal protection. The new ruling declares the exclusion of men from Domestic Violence programs unconstitutional.
The presenting case, that of David Woods and his daughter Maegan, now in her early 20s, was compelling because the evidence was irrefutable, the worst case of gender bias in this area I have ever seen. David Woods is a handicapped man in a wheelchair, incapable of living on his own, and dependent (or was during the relevant period, the 1980s, when Meagan was a young girl) on his wife Ruth, who is bi-polar with violent tendencies. David frequently attempted to get help from a Sacramento DV agency, who always told him "We don't help men," explaining that men were perpetrators of violence, never victims, the usual mantra so clearly inapplicable to his situation. Churches and various other programs were equally unhelpful.
If David had fled with his daughter, he would have been arrested for kidnapping, unlike women with children who are offered shelter and sympathy. He would certainly have lost custody in a divorce, so neither flight nor divorce would have served Meagan's interests. Bias in the law enforcement system exacerbated the problem. In one 1995 incident, Ruth aimed a shotgun at Meagan. David managed to wrest it from her. Ruth called the police, telling them she wanted to kill her husband, but when the police arrived, they immediately handcuffed him.
People who have followed the heartrending story of the Woods family can only rejoice at this moral victory, which of course comes too late to rewrite the tragic trajectory of Meagan's unhappy childhood, but hopefully will provide a strong foundation for the reversal of the tide of gender bias the case represents.
The entrenched prejudices against men in the DV industry know no borders. California today, other states tomorrow. And Canada? The issues are the same, the right of taxpayers to equal access to services is the same, the bias in the legal system is the same, and the cultural blindness to the plight of male suffering is the same.
It would be a grace note for judges here to take note of the chunk of wall on the ground, and pick up a proactive hammer. The faster this wall comes down, the better for democracy and for gender relations, soured by years of feminists' indifference to the suffering of male victims and their children.
A big piece of stone just fell out of the Domestic Violence version of the Berlin Wall
October 15, 2008, 8:43 AM by Jonathan Kay
Barbara Kay
***@****
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/10/15/barbara-kay-a-big-piece-of-stone-just-fell-out-of-the-domestic-violence-version-of-the-berlin-wall.aspx
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and I am sure that to 99% of readers the two words "domestic violence" means violence against women. Only. The politically correct view that all domestic violence (DV) can be accounted for either by the inherent aggression and controlling instincts of men or by women's defensive reactions against those instincts is so deeply entrenched in our culture that it has become the Berlin Wall of the gender wars - or rather the war of feminism against men. In fact women initiate violence against their partners in an almost equal ratio to men. And in many cases the violence they inflict is severe (as one woman in a woman's shelter told the director, "knives make great levellers").
For all the men who have suffered at the hands of battering women, a chunk of stone just fell out of that huge gendered wall. In a taxpayer lawsuit by four male victims of DV, the Third District appellate court in California reversed a previous ruling holding that because they are not statistically situated with women, men are not entitled to equal protection. The new ruling declares the exclusion of men from Domestic Violence programs unconstitutional.
The presenting case, that of David Woods and his daughter Maegan, now in her early 20s, was compelling because the evidence was irrefutable, the worst case of gender bias in this area I have ever seen. David Woods is a handicapped man in a wheelchair, incapable of living on his own, and dependent (or was during the relevant period, the 1980s, when Meagan was a young girl) on his wife Ruth, who is bi-polar with violent tendencies. David frequently attempted to get help from a Sacramento DV agency, who always told him "We don't help men," explaining that men were perpetrators of violence, never victims, the usual mantra so clearly inapplicable to his situation. Churches and various other programs were equally unhelpful.
If David had fled with his daughter, he would have been arrested for kidnapping, unlike women with children who are offered shelter and sympathy. He would certainly have lost custody in a divorce, so neither flight nor divorce would have served Meagan's interests. Bias in the law enforcement system exacerbated the problem. In one 1995 incident, Ruth aimed a shotgun at Meagan. David managed to wrest it from her. Ruth called the police, telling them she wanted to kill her husband, but when the police arrived, they immediately handcuffed him.
People who have followed the heartrending story of the Woods family can only rejoice at this moral victory, which of course comes too late to rewrite the tragic trajectory of Meagan's unhappy childhood, but hopefully will provide a strong foundation for the reversal of the tide of gender bias the case represents.
The entrenched prejudices against men in the DV industry know no borders. California today, other states tomorrow. And Canada? The issues are the same, the right of taxpayers to equal access to services is the same, the bias in the legal system is the same, and the cultural blindness to the plight of male suffering is the same.
It would be a grace note for judges here to take note of the chunk of wall on the ground, and pick up a proactive hammer. The faster this wall comes down, the better for democracy and for gender relations, soured by years of feminists' indifference to the suffering of male victims and their children.
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Mom, 4 daughters found hanging
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By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY
Police in east Texas are working to explain the inexplicable: the hangings of a mother and her four children.
The mother, Gilberta Estrada Vega, 25, was found dead in a bedroom closet early Tuesday alongside three of her daughters, ages 5, 3 and 22 months, Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler said. An 8-month-old baby girl also was hanged but survived.
VIDEO: Relative found 8-month-old alive
"This is an absolutely horrendous situation," Fowler said.
"As far as the motive or what happened, we don't know yet."
The heart-breaking scene was in the Oak Hill mobile home park just outside Hudson Oaks, a city of about 2,000 people 20 miles west of Fort Worth.
Evidence pointed to a murder-suicide, but the investigation continues, Fowler said. The sheriff said the trailer's door had been tied shut from the inside with a piece of string, and he said the aunt told police Estrada had been depressed. He said the bodies were hanging by pieces of cloth from a rod in the closet.
The children's father, who did not live with them, was interviewed by police, but is not currently a suspect, Fowler said. Estrada had gotten a protective order against him in August, he said.
The children's aunt, whose name was not released by police, found the bodies about 6:30 a.m. after her sister did not appear at her restaurant job, he said.
She heard the 8-month-old making sounds, released her from her noose, ran from the house with her and called 911, Fowler said.
"It's an absolute miracle" the baby survived, he said.
"She is in very good condition," Winifred King, spokeswoman for Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, said.
A similar killing recently shook Montgomery County in Maryland. On April 3, Gerardo Roque killed his 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son by hanging them from tree limbs before committing suicide the same way, Montgomery County police said.
"This was certainly one of the most difficult cases to investigate," said Lucille Baur, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County police department.
"It's heart-wrenching."
Hudson Oaks city administrator Robert Hanna said the city has offered counseling to employees who responded to the crime scene.
In July 2002, another Hudson Oaks resident, Dee Perez shot and killed her 9- and 10-year-old sons and 4-year-old daughter before killing herself.
"We're not looking forward to reopening those wounds," Hanna said.
"Overall in the community, there's a feeling of tragic loss."
It's Never Her Fault: Four Texas Women Murder 11 Kids, All Found 'Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity' (Gilberta Estrada, Part II)
May 30th, 2007 by Glenn Sacks
As the Associated Press article on the Gilberta Estrada murders notes, in recent years there has been a spate of Texas women murdering their children, and not one was held criminally culpable for her actions:
In 2004, Dena Schlosser fatally severed her 10-month-old daughter's arms with
a kitchen knife.
In 2003, Deanna Laney beat her two young sons to death with stones in East Texas.
In 2003, Lisa Ann Diaz drowned her daughters in a Plano bathtub.
In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the family's Houston bathtub.
All four were found not guilty by reason of insanity.
(In addition, Dee Etta Perez, 39, shot her three children, ages 4, 9 and 10, before killing herself, and Gilberta Estrada murdered three of her daughters this week. To learn more, see my blog post Texas Mother Murders Her 3 Children--and It's Ex-Boyfriend's Fault?!).
May 30th, 2007 by Glenn Sacks
As the Associated Press article on the Gilberta Estrada murders notes, in recent years there has been a spate of Texas women murdering their children, and not one was held criminally culpable for her actions:
In 2004, Dena Schlosser fatally severed her 10-month-old daughter's arms with
a kitchen knife.
In 2003, Deanna Laney beat her two young sons to death with stones in East Texas.
In 2003, Lisa Ann Diaz drowned her daughters in a Plano bathtub.
In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the family's Houston bathtub.
All four were found not guilty by reason of insanity.
(In addition, Dee Etta Perez, 39, shot her three children, ages 4, 9 and 10, before killing herself, and Gilberta Estrada murdered three of her daughters this week. To learn more, see my blog post Texas Mother Murders Her 3 Children--and It's Ex-Boyfriend's Fault?!).
Amanda Ham watched the car sink and helped puss it into the lake and knew what was going on. But she wanted to be with her boyfriend.
RE: boyfriends & stepdads? I agree with you. Oddly though men are more likely than women to kick a woman who is abusive to the curb.
http://books.google.com/books?id=FnAtAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&dq=mother+chopped+child&source=web&ots=eOoAyqkHsx&sig=cAgQl4JsZMRss-wgwbHvJki-Nn4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=21&ct=result
RE: boyfriends & stepdads? I agree with you. Oddly though men are more likely than women to kick a woman who is abusive to the curb.
http://books.google.com/books?id=FnAtAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&dq=mother+chopped+child&source=web&ots=eOoAyqkHsx&sig=cAgQl4JsZMRss-wgwbHvJki-Nn4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=21&ct=result
Serious Sam, you're wrong about the stats of women in the courts. You're also wrong about Amanda Hamm. He killed the children: she didn't stop him. So what else is new in the world of boyfriends killing the kids. She didn't plan it, she didn't do it, she didn't stop him. So for once, she got the lighter sentence as should be. My guess is he wouldn't have even been tried if he had been in the passenger seat and not stopped her from doing this.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art24538.asp
And in the case of Nixzmary Brown, in the news yesterday. The mother who wasn't even in the room was convicted of the same charge as the boyfriend, who actually beat the child to death. The mother's crime? She did nothing. Same charges, same guilty verdict.
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/nixzmary.brown.verdict.2.843447.html
The death of 2 year old Christopher Wohlers, beaten to death by his new dad Gerald Zuliani. His mother, Boutwell, did nothing and in fact wasn't in the room. By all accounts, it was Zuliani who beat the child, including the account of an older girl in the home. He served one year in jail, she's in prison for life. I couldn't find a decent article about the whole thing, just this:
http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=9026623
Logan Bowman. His mother is in prison for not reporting his absence to authorities - her boyfriend who undoubtedly killed and hid his body and lied to her about it wasn't even tried. "Not enough evidence" the prosecutor decided against the boyfriend. Logan's bio father came many times during his absence to try to see him, each time Schmemmerhorn (the boyfriend) told the dad Logan was elsewhere. Later, Shmemmerhorn told police the reason he didn't report Logan missing was he believed the biodad had him the whole time. Murderer.
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/bowman_logan.html
I could go on and on (I already have) but I'm sick to my stomach of men who kill children and the mothers rot in jail for it. Actually, I'm sick of the women who don't defend their children too, but they aren't the primary criminals. The boyfriends/stepdads are and they aren't held accountable.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art24538.asp
And in the case of Nixzmary Brown, in the news yesterday. The mother who wasn't even in the room was convicted of the same charge as the boyfriend, who actually beat the child to death. The mother's crime? She did nothing. Same charges, same guilty verdict.
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/nixzmary.brown.verdict.2.843447.html
The death of 2 year old Christopher Wohlers, beaten to death by his new dad Gerald Zuliani. His mother, Boutwell, did nothing and in fact wasn't in the room. By all accounts, it was Zuliani who beat the child, including the account of an older girl in the home. He served one year in jail, she's in prison for life. I couldn't find a decent article about the whole thing, just this:
http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=9026623
Logan Bowman. His mother is in prison for not reporting his absence to authorities - her boyfriend who undoubtedly killed and hid his body and lied to her about it wasn't even tried. "Not enough evidence" the prosecutor decided against the boyfriend. Logan's bio father came many times during his absence to try to see him, each time Schmemmerhorn (the boyfriend) told the dad Logan was elsewhere. Later, Shmemmerhorn told police the reason he didn't report Logan missing was he believed the biodad had him the whole time. Murderer.
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/bowman_logan.html
I could go on and on (I already have) but I'm sick to my stomach of men who kill children and the mothers rot in jail for it. Actually, I'm sick of the women who don't defend their children too, but they aren't the primary criminals. The boyfriends/stepdads are and they aren't held accountable.
What mayflower wrote was that men who were abused were weak and deserved to be abused.
Most women who are raped, are raped by people who know them.
I find it offensive to say that men deserve it as much as I find the argument that a woman who is raped deserves it.
So far as the court bias? Check the statistics from any state and look it up! Or better yet write any bar association! Write any district attorney and ask them how many visitation interference cases they have prosecuted.
Most women who are raped, are raped by people who know them.
I find it offensive to say that men deserve it as much as I find the argument that a woman who is raped deserves it.
So far as the court bias? Check the statistics from any state and look it up! Or better yet write any bar association! Write any district attorney and ask them how many visitation interference cases they have prosecuted.
Regarding perspective:
I see it similarly to mayflowers and RockRose, Sam. I do think you are very bitter and that’s distorting your view. You obviously have been hurt and are hanging on tightly to it. And that’s your choice—we all do what we need to do. But the tone in many (if not most) of your posts is anger towards women—towards the courts you view as always ruling in favor of women, towards the penal system that doesn’t hold bad women accountable...but mostly towards women. If volunteering your time is helping you to heal, then it's good. If it's perpetuating your own pain and negativity, then it's not good--for you, anyway.
I think that perspectives often get skewed by experience—like when you get a new car, suddenly you see hundreds of them all around town; or when you are pregnant, suddenly so is everyone else. There really aren’t more of these things, you’re just now noticing them because you are focusing on them. And if you are only noticing and focusing on Toyota Highlanders (your new car), you may not see all the other cars and it could be easy to believe that there are far more Highlanders on the road than any other car.
Regarding what mayflowers wrote:
We all have choices in life. We choose our mates and those with whom we procreate. We choose our employers and friends. We choose whether or not to stay in relationships—whatever type of relationship, for whatever reason. But only children and adults who are truly helpless and at the mercy of others for their care (handicapped, elderly, mentally or physically disabled, etc.) can truly be victims, in my opinon. Not always, mind you, but I do think that “victim” is, more often than not, a role that many adults choose to play (I know many in real life who do choose this role and I’ve seen posters here at MedHelp and other sites do the same). Let’s face it—to look at yourself and admit that your life (and the life of someone you love) is the way it is because of your own choices is tough to swallow. It's often easier to look externally for reasons that excuse yourself from the responsibility (at least partially).
Just my non-socio-economic, self-help-book, armchair analysis of the situation, mind you.
I see it similarly to mayflowers and RockRose, Sam. I do think you are very bitter and that’s distorting your view. You obviously have been hurt and are hanging on tightly to it. And that’s your choice—we all do what we need to do. But the tone in many (if not most) of your posts is anger towards women—towards the courts you view as always ruling in favor of women, towards the penal system that doesn’t hold bad women accountable...but mostly towards women. If volunteering your time is helping you to heal, then it's good. If it's perpetuating your own pain and negativity, then it's not good--for you, anyway.
I think that perspectives often get skewed by experience—like when you get a new car, suddenly you see hundreds of them all around town; or when you are pregnant, suddenly so is everyone else. There really aren’t more of these things, you’re just now noticing them because you are focusing on them. And if you are only noticing and focusing on Toyota Highlanders (your new car), you may not see all the other cars and it could be easy to believe that there are far more Highlanders on the road than any other car.
Regarding what mayflowers wrote:
We all have choices in life. We choose our mates and those with whom we procreate. We choose our employers and friends. We choose whether or not to stay in relationships—whatever type of relationship, for whatever reason. But only children and adults who are truly helpless and at the mercy of others for their care (handicapped, elderly, mentally or physically disabled, etc.) can truly be victims, in my opinon. Not always, mind you, but I do think that “victim” is, more often than not, a role that many adults choose to play (I know many in real life who do choose this role and I’ve seen posters here at MedHelp and other sites do the same). Let’s face it—to look at yourself and admit that your life (and the life of someone you love) is the way it is because of your own choices is tough to swallow. It's often easier to look externally for reasons that excuse yourself from the responsibility (at least partially).
Just my non-socio-economic, self-help-book, armchair analysis of the situation, mind you.
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