Hello Amy Goodman,I feel charmed to read such a good post, I would like to thanks to you for this fabulous information about Domestic Violence.

Thanks and regards
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We have been talking about this a lot my my psychology class.  I don’t believe it is a pre existing condition as much as a trait that you could pick up.  If you witness it too much than it will imprint onto you.  There is a hosted call center if anyone needs help.

This is my first time i visit here. I discovered a lot of interesting things within your blog especially its discussion. custom outdoor banners

Domestic violence across the world has been steadily rising. One can’t really say whether it’s because of people actually physically abusing women more or whether women have finally started to take a stand and report these incidents to the law. But in eiter case, it’s time we all make a stand.

The U.S. doesn’t celebrate women’s day, and as the post says, perhaps it’s time we really took an initiative to make a difference. Helpless teen girls are being teased by men, and women are bing abused by their partners. What sort of a world are we creating for our children and what sort of an example are we setting. Just look at this article, http://www.lovepanky.com/women/girl-talk/outraged-an-indian-girls-perspective-of-the-law where it reveals that even the laws in several countries have several loopholes and flaws. People say it’s domestic abuse if the man hits the woman, but what if he treats her badly, ridicules her and breaks her from within? Isnt that some form of abuse? What if someone on the street pats a woman on her backside, or stares at her while she’s crossing the street? Isnt that abuse of some sort?

We live in a world were abuse and domestic violence is accepted and acknowledged. But what are we doing about it? Can Anything be done? Unless we live in a voyeuristic world where everything is seen and proven, women can’t prove anything.

I really do hope we can make a change, one baby step at a time.

To Expat… the research is crystal clear. Children, are at the greatest risk of injury and death in the home of a single mother. Clearly the genetic connection between mothers and children does not prevent mothers from harming them. After over 50 million abortions world wide, this is self evident. Men don’t get abortions.

John:

Of course you are correct that, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”  However, where there are “contradictions” (even seeming ones), one has to start somewhere.  As noted, I defer top the words and actions of Jesus, Peter, Paul et al as “primary,” and the OT as “secondary.”

Peace.

John:

This is not the place to debate theology.  However, re your comment on the Numbers passage, I ask you a simple question: as a CHRISTIAN, which is more important: the words of the Old Testament, or those of the New, which are the words of Jesus and those who were either with him (Peter et al) or directly influenced by him (Paul et al)?

As an evangelical minister, I learned - and strongly believe - that the order in which Christians should be considering various issues (including the current one) is: (i) what did Jesus DO re the issue?; (ii) if He did not DO anything, what did He SAY about it?; (iii) if He did not do OR say anything about it, what can be reasonably inferred from something He DID do or say about a similar issue?; (iv) if none of these three apply, what did the apostles and disciples (including Paul) do or say about the issue?; and (v) ONLY failing to find guidance from ANY of these four methods, what does the OT say about the issue?

Since Paul gives us guidance on the issue here, there is no reason to invoke the OT.

And by the way, middle-class and even upper-class men do NOT always win in divorce court.  In fact, in most divorces - in all socio-economic levels - women gain custody of the children in 90% of cases, unless there is clear and convincing evidence that she is an “unfit” mother, whether due to drugs, alcohol, economic instability, etc.  One of my colleagues is one of the top divorce attorneys for men in NYC, and he has been vocal about this for decades.

G. Anderson:

Wow!  Powerful stuff.  What can be said?

I ran accross the following article, coincidental though it may be, consider it as a counter point to ms. Goodman’s, description of alleged domestic violence of Govenor Pattersons aid.

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/woman-charged-with-killing-344266.html

purplegirl:

Although I offer no apologia for John’s fundamentalist reading of Scripture, I disagree that you cannot love and fear something at the same time: it depends on the definition of the word “fear.”  “Fearing” God is not the same fear as you are describing.  It is more like “awe” or “respect.”  John is correct here in as much as (generally) one loves ones parents, but also “fears” them to the degree that they can withhold things or actively punish.  But that is a “healthy” fear (as long as such withholding or punishment is “healthy”), not the type you are describing.

John:

You need to reconsider your understanding of the Scriptures you cite.  Romans 7:2 states: “For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.”  Nothing there about “force” or “control.”  1 Cor 7:39 states: “The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”  Nothing there about “force” or “control.”  Similarly, there is nothing in Numbers 30 that relates to “force” or “control.”

Rather, you might look at Ephesians 5.  There, it does say, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church…Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”

However, Paul follows this with, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it…So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.”

Here, not only is there no mention of “force” or “control,” but the CLEAR admonition is AGAINST any such “force,” and even toward “equality.”

Peace.

John Ellis: Seems you have had a bitter relationship. But by you justifying violence against a woman “to keep her in her place” according to God’s, word is just plain wrong. Violence to make someone else mold into what you want them to be is never good in a relationship. The fact you state it from God’s so called good book proves that this entity is far from superior or understanding of male/female relationships one on one(as far as we know about God, it/he/she never married or had a partner) and by promoting evil acts against other people, certainly not something a supreme being would even justify, but would, if truly existed as the kind and loving God as some do, would condemn violence of all kinds against any other living thing.Here again, the bible is filled with violence. The fact that the bible was all written by human males, centuries after the fact or story goes should make people question the authenticity even more. But then again some of these same people who claim they are God loving Christians also refer to themselves as God fearing Christians, kind of an oxymoron. And if you fear something, you can certainly never trust it and if you cannot trust that being, you can never love it either as fear reigns.

One of the local church groups that make the rounds of my neighborhood have talked about violence against the wife/partner and they stated that even though divorcing yourself from the violent partner could be thought of in a negative light, God did not intend for the victim to remain in an abusive relationship to be the punching bag for the abuser. So in that instance, it is better to leave this type of commitment rather than to stay in it, as it is clear the abuser has NO real love or respect for their spouse. So therefore it is not really a relationship in the sense it was originally designed to be, but rather a master/slave type relationship.

Amazing how humans can always find biblical passages which they think justify their crimes, violence or acts against others to make them seem correct in the eyes of their Gods/

Expat.. “In general, males can abuse females because they are bigger and stronger”..

Actually, no, this begs the question and is reductionistic. It avoids the question as to how one defines excactly what deomestic violence is. 

In short it depends on how one defines Domestic violence.

If one adds to what is now considered as Domestic violence, child abuse, then the perpetrators of the vast majority of physical violence in the home would be women, against children.

Women may not commit as much domestic violence against men, not because they are intrinsicly less violent but because they don’t have the physical means. The fact that they abuse children in much higher numbers demonstrates a willingness to use violence, when they are not restrained. The single most dangerous place for a child is the home of a single mother.

In fact it may well be that one advantage of a father in the home, is to protect vulnerable children from infanticide by the mother.

John:

Although it is true that the existence of children can create additional tensions within the family, in my experience (and from the plethora of studies and articles I have read) either one or the other parent (and sometimes both) already have a “predilection” toward violence, whether as a direct result of the “cycle” (i.e., they were abused as children) or otherwise.  It is simply a red herring - and, in my opinion, a particularly inappropriate one - to blame domestic violence on children.

Tropicgirl:

Personally, I “preach” against all forms of violence.  Before I became a minister (and also since), I was a political activist in the Gandhian mold: I am trained in civil disobedience through Peacekeeper (the highest level), and was arrested many times for CD actions against wars and other forms of violence.

In this regard, I agree with you that ANY violence is wrong, and leads to the unnecessary harm (and often death) of men, women and children.  However, I think the point here is that the violence we do to each other at home does not just affect us more directly, but is something over which we have greater control - since it starts with controlling ourselves.

Peace.

As a minister who counsels victims of domestic violence, I would like to add something that will undoubtedly lead to controversy.  Because while domestic violence against women is a well-known (and admittedly despicable) fact, reverse domestic violence is perhaps the last “truth that dare not speak its name.”

In a 1977 paper called “The Cycle of Violence,” Dr. Suzanne K. Steinmetz, in a study of 57 families from a wide range of socio-economic status categories and age groups, found that “60 percent had used physical aggression…to resolve marital conflicts.  Thirty-nine percent of husbands and 37 percent of wives had thrown things, 20 percent of both husbands and wives had struck their spouses with their hands, and 10 percent of both wives and husbands had hit their spouses with a hard object.”  Dr. Steinmetz observed that there were “few differences” between husbands and wives in the type and frequency of physical aggression.  Women, she noted, were “as likely” as men “to select and initiate physical violence” to resolve marital conflicts.

And in a 1979 study, “Spouse Abuse: Incidence and Relationship to Selected Demographic Variables” by Nisonoff and Bitman, published in the journal Victimology, the researchers found that “Wives reported hitting their husbands almost as frequently as husbands reported hitting wives, and a higher proportion of men reported having been hit by their wives than vice versa…men often are the victims of spousal violence.”

There have been dozens of other studies since these admittedly older studies that show that these statistics have either remained static or, more likely, increased.  In fact, given the lopsided coverage of domestic violence, even the admission (by some in the women’s movement) that “perhaps 15% of violence is against men” is a pretty high figure. Yet any such low figure is highly suspect.

Men are far more reticent than women about filing complaints of domestic abuse: among other things, there is the stigma attached to the societal assumption that men are “stronger” than women; thus, male victims of domestic violence often feel emasculated, and are unlikely to repeat their stories to others – particularly to male authority figures (e.g., police).  Add to this that there are few places for them to go for help – and thus few places where accurate statistics can be compiled and maintained – and you can see why “15%” is a highly unlikely statistic: indeed, my own experience working with battered men over the past 20 years leads me to believe that the figure is far closer to 50-50 than the women’s movement would like to believe.

There is also a truly obnoxious double standard here.  When a woman hits a man (in other than self-defense), it is often excused by saying the woman is “getting emotional.” Yet when a man hits a woman – for any reason – he is automatically labeled a “batterer.”  This assumes (incorrectly) that (i) all men are stronger than all women, (ii) all injuries caused by men are worse than injuries caused by women, and, perhaps most obnoxiously, (iii) that the injuries caused by women simply “don’t hurt.”

Domestic violence of any type – husband, wife, lover, child - is inexcusable.  And to argue that one form is worse than another is also inexcusable.  But to simply ignore or dismiss domestic violence against men is the most inexcusable of all.  Even if it were true that “most domestic violence is against women,” this does not negate or lessen the trauma experienced by men in domestic violence, nor eliminate the need for emergency help and support groups for them.

Ultimately, any Domestic Violence Awareness Month that does not actively and vocally address reverse domestic violence is not simply wrong, but dishonest.

Excellent post Tropicgirl..