Domestic Violence Ignorance Month
September 6, 2004
Betty Friedan wrote in The Feminine Mystique. “The problem lay buried, unspoken for many years in the minds of American women.” What Friedan writes about is the cultural, societal, and legal barriers that for so many years prevented the equality of women in society.
There are many physiological and biological differences between men and women that can not and should not be altered. However, after 4,000 years of written history, it has become acknowledged that there must be an equity of behavior from everyone and towards everyone, regardless of age or gender.
We would like to think that vast majority of women and men in this nation have agreed to work together to create and continue change concerning equity of behavior between the genders. However, in contemporary American society there have arisen new cultural, societal, and legal barriers that create an equally inequitable 21 st century “problem that lies buried.”
The Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence (MCEDV) is on the forefront of the battle to deny equality to some victims of domestic violence. The MCEDV, want nothing to do with an equity of behavior towards all victims. The MCEDV is so mired in ignorance, bias and prejudice they are unable or unwilling to understand that they display the behavior they claim to deplore.
A Fish Rots From the Head Down
Each year October is proclaimed “Domestic Violence Awareness” month. The logical assumption for the majority of women, men, girls, and boys is that domestic violence awareness month is inclusive of all victims regardless of age or gender. Such is not the case.
In times of strife and danger it has always been “women and children first” and so it should be. I know of no one, man or woman, who would change the time honored tradition of women and children to the life boats first. However, recent comments by President Bush and events in Maine have caused me to wonder if that mantra is being changed to “women and children only.”
In remarks made by President Bush on October 8, 2003 concerning domestic violence awareness month he said that, “Women and children are facing dangers in this country, and they need strong allies.” Are we to assume that men and their children are not facing any danger in this country and that they do not need any allies? In the same remarks the president also stated, “And a lot of time, an abused woman needs good, solid legal advice.” Are we to assume that there are no abused men who may need any legal advice?
Apparently the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence (MCEDV) believes it should be women and children only! In fact they publicly claim that their domestic violence coalition is for “organizations whose primary purpose is to provide a full range of services to battered women and their children. . .” Men need not apply.
Although on their website the MCEDV agrees that men can be victims of domestic violence apparently they just do not care. How has this become accepted public policy?
Irish Need Not Apply
We like to think that the old days of outright bias and discrimination are behind us. We like to think that any reasonable and prudent person would agree that domestic violence is child, sibling, spousal, intimate partner, and elder abuse. Using this logic we would expect that all domestic violence organizations are morally and ethically obligated to support any and all victims of domestic violence regardless of age or gender?
Did we not fight the last half of the 20 th century for equal rights? As we begin this 21 st century should we not expect equal opportunities for our daughters and our sons? Does not everyone, regardless of what percentage of victimization they represent, deserve access to support, services or funding? Does not everyone, regardless of age or gender deserve our sympathy and compassion?
Apparently not!A man seeking assistance for himself and his children in Maine will be told that the domestic violence organizations that belong to MCEDV are only for women and their children and that there is no assistance, shelter, or services for him or his children, regardless if he is Irish or not.
The majority of contemporary domestic violence advocates can not see male victims because they believe that domestic violence “is” violence against women. They believe that domestic violence is singularly or primarilycaused by patriarchal sexism and the power and control men want to exhibit over women.
Once a domestic violence advocate believes that the patriarchy is the cause of domestic violence, and/or that patriarchy is the single or a primarycause of domestic violence, that philosophic belief creates in the mind of that person that they must believe women are victims and men offenders. Hence they believe that domestic violence is not really family violence but gender violence .
This myopic belief, has caused many domestic violence advocates, experts, and public policy makers to ignore the hundreds of public and private studies and reams of data that note that male victims of domestic violence can range anywhere from 5 to 50 percent.
Holding to a single theory means that the findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey that document there are approximately between 835,000 and 2.9 million men who are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually to be ignored. And ignoring male victims of domestic violence has become the official policy of the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence. Those public policy makers who remain silent about this obvious discrimination are as guilty as MCEDV.
Compassion and Empathy Missing From the Head Down
The first National Conference on Family Violence: Health and Justice convened in March of 1994, 10 years after the first Attorney Generals Task Force on Family Violence demanded that the criminal justice system take the issue of family violence seriously.
The 1994 conference noted that the problem of family violence in the United States is epidemic. The conference estimates that the annual incidence of abuse of family members is at 2 to 4 million for children, nearly 4 million for women, and 1-2 million for elder adults. At his conference there were 400 professionals and 80 national experts.
The National Violence Against Women Survey estimates that as many as 830,000 men may be victims of some type of domestic abuse each year. This would mean that every 37.8 seconds a man is abused by an intimate partner. A U.S. Department of Justice reports documents that between 1976 and 1996 20,311 men were murdered by an intimate partner.
If these professionals or national “experts” at their conference refuse to recognize a single murdered or abused male victim of domestic violence how can we expect that the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence to offer services to them or their children? The old maxim of a fish rotting from its head down seems more than appropriate here.
In Search of Equitable Behavior For All
The MCEDV organization member not only refused to assist this man and his children they did not even have the decency to tell him that the only national domestic violence helpline for men is in Maine. They not only refused to provide any help for this man they actually refused to tell him there was help.
In fact the only national helpline for men who are the victims of domestic violence is in Maine. The Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men, phone 1-888-7HELPLINE was founded because so many domestic violence agencies nationwide, while claiming concern for all victims, exclude awareness, services and support for male victims and their children.
And again the truth is often stranger than fiction. At the end of August 2004 the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men has been forced to file a lawsuit against the MCEDV. The MCEDV refused to allow DAHM membership and they even refused to send them an application for membership to the state wide coalition to end domestic violence.
Thus we have an agency that claims its goal is to end domestic violence in the state of Maine that refuses to allow membership to another agency founded for that very same purpose. The only difference between the MCEDV and the DAHM is that one is biased, bigoted, prejudiced and discriminatory and the other is not.
DAHM's primary, but not exclusive, purpose is to provide services to abused men and their children. DAHM's is inclusive and its "door" is open to ALL victims of domestic violence regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or religion. The only difference between DAHM and the other nine programs under the umbrella of MCEDV is that DAHM assists male victims and their children and female victims and their children. And because no one else in the state of Maine will provide this inclusive support, why the exclusion of DAHM?
