5.5.09

Rates At Which Batterers Receive Custody

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by Joan Meier, Esq.

One statement in Breaking the Silence: Children’s Voices that has provoked controversy was my statement that “the studies are showing” that up to 2/3 of accused or adjudicated batterers receive joint or sole custody in court.  While no empirical study can definitively determine a universal statistical rate, the key point is that the research consistently shows that accused and adjudicated batterers receive joint or sole custody disturbingly often.  This confirms the anecdotal experience of domestic violence attorneys and victims around the country.  The following research supports this perspective.

I. A History of Domestic Violence is Common among Contested Custody Cases.

The remarkably consistent research on this issue is compiled in my previously-issued statement , Research Indicating that the majority of cases that go to court as ‘high conflict’ contested custody cases have a history of domestic violence (Nov.  9, 2005).

One good example is a study cited by Janet Johnston, a leading researcher of parental alienation, which found that, among custody litigants referred to mediation, “[p]hysical aggression had occurred between 75% and 70% of the parents . . . even though the couples had been separated. . . [for an average of 30-42 months]”.  Furthermore, [i]n 35% of the first sample and 48% of the second, [the violence] was denoted as severe and involved battering and threatening to use or using a weapon.” 
- Janet R. Johnston, “High-Conflict Divorce,” The Future of Children, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1994,  165-182) citing Depner et al., “Building a uniform statistical reporting system:  A snapshot of  California Family Court Services,“ Family and ConciliationCourts Review (1992) 30: 185-206

II. Domestic Violence Perpetrators are More Likely to Contest Custody than Non- Abusers.

The American Psychological Association’s Presidential Task Force on Violence in the Family, the leading review of the research as of 1996, found that men who abuse their partners contest custody at least twice as often as non-abusing fathers.  They are even more likely to contest custody if the children are boys.
- American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence in the Family (1996) at p. 40.

III. Accused and Adjudicated Batterers Receive Joint or Sole Custody Surprisingly  Often.

The research on this has only emerged in the past few years and most studies have been small and local.  Nonetheless, they document disturbing trends, which surprised even me when I first discovered them.

A. Multiple studies have documented gender bias against women in custody litigation.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that women are favored in custody litigation, both the experiences of battered women and the empirical research are showing that women who allege abuse are deeply disfavored in custody courts.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Gender Bias Task Force was one of the first states to document the gender bias against women in family courts.  This court-initiated study expressly found that “our research contradicted [the] perception” that ”there is a bias in favor of women in these decisions.”  Moreover, it found that “in determining custody and visitation, many judges and family service officers do not consider violence toward women relevant.”  The Court’s study further found that “the courts are demanding more of mothers than fathers in custody disputes” and that “many courts put the needs of noncustodial fathers above those of custodial mothers and children.” 
- Gender Bias Study of the Court System in Massachusetts, 24 New Eng.L.Rev. 745, 747, 825, 846 (1990)

More recently, and since the evolution and widespread adoption of “parental alienation syndrome,” a multi-year, four-phase study using qualitative and quantitative social science research methodologies by the Wellesley Centers for Women found “a consistent pattern of human rights abuses” by family courts, including failure to protect battered women and children from abuse, discriminating against and inflicting degrading treatment on battered women, and denying battered women due process.  Histories of abuse of mother and children were routinely ignored or discounted.
-  Wellesley Centers for Women Battered Mothers’ Testimony Project, Battered Mothers Speak  Out:  A Human Rights Report on Domestic Violence and Child Custody in the Massachusetts  Family Courts (Nov. 2002)(hereafter “BMTP”), Executive Summary at 2.

A comparable study by the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence found that most of the women surveyed felt the history of abuse was not taken seriously and that they were ignored, disrespected and discriminated against by court personnel. 
- Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Battered Mothers’ Testimony Project:  A Human  Rights Approach to Child Custody and Domestic Violence (June 2003), pp. 47, 49, 6.

A study of the Domestic Relations Division of Philadelphia Family Court conducted by the Philadephia Women’s Law Project in cooperation with the court, found that litigants are often denied due process, and that applicable legal standards are “not always observed, particularly in the consideration of abuse in custody proceedings, leaving families at risk.”
- Tracy, Fromson & Miller, Justice in the Domestic Relations Division of Philadelphia Family Court:   A Report to the Community, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE REPORT, Vol. 8, No. 6 (Aug/Sept. 2003), p. 94.

B. Studies show Accused and Adjudicated Batterers Receiving Sole or Joint Custody  Surprisingly Often.

My own survey of the case law in 2001 identified 38 appellate state court decisions concerning custody and domestic violence.  To my astonishment, 36 of the 38 trial courts had awarded joint or sole custody to alleged and adjudicated batterers.  Two-thirds of these decisions were reversed on appeal.
- Meier, Domestic Violence, Child Custody, and Child Protection:  Understanding Judicial  Resistance and Imagining the Solutions, A.U. J. Gender, Soc. Pol. & the Law, 11:2 (2003), 657-731, p. 662, n. 19, and Appendix.

These cases included a case in which the perpetrator had been repeatedly convicted of domestic assault;  in which a father was given sole custody of a16-month old despite his undisputed choking of the mother resulting in her hospitalization and his arrest;  in which the father had broken the mother’s collarbone;  had committed “occasional incidents of violence”;  and had committed two admitted assaults.   More such instances can be found in Meier, supra.

The American Judges Association has found that approximately 70% of batterers succeed in convincing authorities that the victim is unfit for or undeserving of sole custody.  Another way of saying this is that 70% of batterers obtain sole or joint custody.
- American Judges Association, “Domestic Violence and the Courtroom:  Understanding the Problem . . . Knowing the Victim”     http://aja.ncsc.dni.us/domviol/page5.html  (at “Forms of Emotional Battering. . . Threats to Harm or Take Away Children”)

A survey of battered women by the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence found that courts awarded joint or sole custody to the alleged batterers 56-74% of the time (depending on the county).  Many of these cases involved documented child abuse or adult abuse.
- Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Battered Mothers’ Testimony Project:  A Human  Rights Approach to Child Custody and Domestic Violence (June 2003), pp. 33-34, 47-49

A study of 300 cases over a 10-year period in which the mother sought to protect the child from sexual abuse, found that 70% resulted in unsupervised visitation or shared custody; in 20% of the cases the mothers completely lost custody, and many of these lost all visitation rights.
- Neustein & Goetting (1999), “Judicial Responses to the Protective Parent’s Complaint of Child  Sexual Abuse,” Journal of Child Sexual Abuse 8 (4): 103-122.

The Wellesley Battered Mothers’ Testimony Project found that 15 out of 40 cases resulted in sole or joint physical custody to the fathers, all of whom had abused both the mother and the children.
- BMTP, supra at Appendix A.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Gender Bias Task Force found that 94% of fathers who actively sought custody received sole or joint custody, regardless of whether there was a history of abuse.  While fathers received primary physical custody 29% of the time, mothers received primary physical custody in only 7% of the contested cases.  The Study also cited other research which similarly found that fathers who sought custody received primary physical custody 2/3 of the time, with mothers receiving it less than ¼ of the time; and another study which found that fathers seeking custody received joint or sole custody 79% of the time, with mothers receiving sole custody in only 15% of those cases (compared to fathers’ sole custody in 41% of the cases). 
- Gender Bias Study at 831-832 and citing Middlesex Divorce Research Group relitigation study and Phear et al., 1983.

While the Massachusetts study and those it cited were not able to identify what proportion of the contesting fathers were batterers, the studies cited in my other Statement indicate consistently that 75% of cases have a history of domestic violence, with a substantial proportion of severe violence.  Hence, it is likely that a substantial proportion of the fathers receiving joint or primary physical custody in this study had committed domestic violence.
- Meier Statement, Research Indicating that the Majority of Cases that go to Court as ‘High Conflict’ Contested Custody Cases have a History of Domestic Violence (Nov. 9, 2005).

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UNDERSTANDING THE BATTERER IN CUSTODY AND VISITATION DISPUTES

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If you are involved in a custody battle with your abuser, this article is a must-read.  I have included below only the topics and first paragraph of each, click on the topic to read the entire article.

 

UNDERSTANDING THE BATTERER IN CUSTODY AND VISITATION DISPUTES

by R. Lundy Bancroft c 1998

 

A sophisticated understanding of the mind of the abuser, his style as a parent, and of the tactics that he most commonly employs during separation and divorce, are essential to anyone making custody recommendations or working to design visitation plans that are safe for the children and their mother.

Contrary to popular belief, children of batterers can be at just as much risk psychologically, sexually, and even physically after the couple splits up as they were when the family was still together. In fact, many children experience the most damaging victimization from the abuser at this point.

A genuine batterer can be difficult to distinguish from one who is unfairly accused, and batterers who will be a grave risk to their children during unsupervised visitation can be hard to separate from those who can visit safely. The insights and expertise of those service providers who have extensive experience working directly with abusers needs to be drawn from, and the level of contribution from victims themselves to policy design also needs to be greatly increased.

Custody and visitation battles amidst allegations of domestic violence require policies and interveners (judges, mediators, and Guardians Ad Litem) based in the most detailed knowledge, experience, sensitivity, and integrity. The stakes for children are very high.

This article is drawn largely from the author’s ten years of experience working as a counselor and supervisor in programs for abusive men, involving contact with some 1500 abusers, and hundreds of their victims, over that period. During the first few years of this period I worked almost exclusively with voluntary clients, and during the latter period worked primarily with court-mandated ones.

The characteristics of the clients changed remarkably little during that shift. In the late 1980’s, professionals in batterer programs began paying particular attention to the behavior of clients with respect to probate processes, and we began asking victims more questions about the man’s conduct with respect to visitation and custody. Since leaving direct work with batterers, I have served with increasing frequency as a custody evaluator (both as Guardian ad Litem and as Care and Protection Investigator), and have worked closely with child protective services. I also have drawn from numerous published studies, several of which are listed in the back of this article. [I have chosen for reasons of ease to refer to the abuser as "he" and the victim as "she," but I am aware that there is a small percentage of cases of domestic violence to which this language does not apply.]

PROFILE OF THE BATTERER (view article)

Generalizations about batterers have to be made with caution. Batterers come from all socioeconomic backgrounds and levels of education. They have the full range of personality types, from mild and mousy to loud and aggressive. They are difficult to profile psychologically; they frequently fare well in psychological testing, often better than their victims do. People outside of a batterer’s immediate family do not generally perceive him as an abusive person, or even as an especially angry one.

They are as likely to be very popular as they are to be “losers,” and they may be visible in their communities for their  professional success and for their civic involvement. Most friends, family, and associates in a batterer’s life find it jarring when they hear what he has done, and may deny that he is capable of those acts.The partner and children of a batterer will, however, experience generalizable characteristics, though he may conceal these aspects of his attitude and behavior when other people are present:

BATTERERS’ STYLE IN MEDIATION OR CUSTODY EVALUATION (view article)

Batterers naturally strive to turn mediation and GAL processes to their advantage, through the use of various tactics. Perhaps the most common is to adopt the role of a hurt, sensitive man who doesn’t understand how things got so bad and just wants to work it all out “for the good of the children.” He may cry in front of the mediator or GAL and use language that demonstrates considerable insight into his own feelings. He is likely to be skilled at explaining how other people have turned the victim against him, and how she is denying him access to the children as a form of revenge, “even though she knows full well that I would never do anything to hurt them.” He commonly accuses her of having mental health problems, and may state that her family and friends agree with him. The two most common negative characterizations he will use are that she is hysterical and that she is promiscuous. The abuser tends to be comfortable lying, having years of practice, and so can sound believable when making baseless statements. The abuser benefits to the detriment of his children if the court representative fails to look closely at the evidence - or ignores it - because of his charm. He also benefits when professionals believe that they can “just tell” who is lying and who is telling the truth, and so fail to adequately investigate. Because of the effects of trauma, the victim of battering will often seem hostile, disjointed, and agitated, while the abuser appears friendly, articulate, and calm. Evaluators are thus tempted to conclude that the victim is the source of the problems in the relationship.

WHY CHILD ABUSE MAY BE REPORTED AT SEPARATION/DIVORCE FOR THE FIRST TIME (view article)

Allegations of child abuse that arise during custody and visitation conflicts are treated with similar skepticism by court personnel and service providers. A large-scale national study found that the rate of false child sexual abuse allegations does not increase at this time, contrary to popular belief (Thoennes and Tjaden). As with domestic violence allegations, there is no substitute for careful and unbiased examination of the evidence. Batterers who do abuse their children can be convincing at portraying themselves as victims of a deliberate strategy on the part of the victim in order to derail proper investigating.

There are two salient reasons why child abuse reports may first arise at separation or divorce. First, children may disclose abuse at this time that is longstanding. The awareness of the custody battle can make the children afraid of being placed in the abuser’s custody, or of being forced to spend increased time with him without the protective presence of the other parent. This fear can lead children to make the frightening leap involved in discussing the abuse. After separation, children may begin spending extended unsupervised time with the abuser for the first time ever, so that the abuse escalates or they fear that it will. Increased visitation may cause panic in a victim of child abuse; a case of mine illustrated this point, with a child disclosing a detailed history of sexual abuse immediately after her visitation with her father was increased from one night every other weekend to two. Finally, children are known to be more likely to disclose abuse in the midst of any disruption or major change in their lives. (See MacFarlane et. al. on the above points.)

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN BATTERING AND CHILD ABUSE (view article)

Batterers are several times as likely as non-batterers to abuse children, and this risk appears to increase rather than decrease when the couple separates. Multiple studies have shown that 50% to 70% of men who use violence against their intimate partners are physically abusive to their children as well. A batterer is seven times more likely than a non-batterer to frequently beat his children (Straus). A batterer is at least four times more likely than a non-batterer to be an incest perpetrator. (Herman 1991, McCLoskey et. al.) Psychological abuse to the children is almost always present where there is domestic violence; in fact, the abuse towards their primary caretaker is itself a form of emotional abuse of the children, as numerous studies now document. It is true that battered women are also more likely to abuse children than non-battered women are, but unlike with batterers, those levels decline rapidly once the relationship separates(Edleson and Schecter).

JANET JOHNSTON’S TYPOLOGY OF BATTERERS AND THE AFCC RISK ASSESSMENT:THE QUEST FOR SIMPLE SOLUTIONS (view article)

Efforts are underway nationally to ease the complexity of assessing risk to children from visitation with batterers by placing batterers into distinct types, based largely on the work of Janet Johnston. For example, a risk assessment distributed nationally by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) draws heavily from Johnston’s work. The types Johnston posits are as follows:

Type A: “Ongoing or Episodic Male Battering”

Type B: “Female-Initiated Violence”

Type C: “Male Controlled Interactive Violence”

Type D: “Separation and Postdivorce Violence”

Type E: “Psychotic and Paranoid Reactions”

ASSESSMENT OF RISK TO CHILDREN FROM VISITATION WITH A BATTERER (view article)

Assessing the safety of children with batterers during unsupervised visitation requires careful examination of all available evidence, with as few preconceptions as possible about the credibility of either party. Even a highly skilled service provider cannot “just tell” that an alleged abuser is telling the truth or is not dangerous, even after several hours of interviews and even with the assistance of psychological testing. These can be important sources of information, but careful assessment of the alleged victim’s version of events, comparison with outside sources (to assess credibility), examination of court records, and confrontation of the alleged abuser to assess his reactions are all essential to an evaluation.

Posted in abuse, children, domestic violence, family, fear, home, laws, legal, resources | Tagged child abuse, child custody, children, court, disputes, divorce, domestic violence, education, family, law, legal | No Comments

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People You’ll See in Hell

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Jeffery Leving.

Do you have anymore excuses for fathers murdering their families, for the latest murder-suicides the last day in Florida in your bag of tricks?

Do you think the teenager that was running from his dad last night in Lakeland, Florida to avoid being shot to death like the rest of his family, was cursing his mom or the family court for so-called “gender bias?”  I highly doubt it, but there is a definite bias against moms now, it is documented in all the studies now.  Yes, our society is getting so much better for it.

Here are some more people you’ll see in hell:

Troy Beller.

(CNN) — A man shot and killed his wife and two of their children and then killed himself in central Florida on Sunday night, authorities said.

Troy Ryan Bellar shot and killed his wife, Wendy, and two of their children, sheriff's officials say.

Troy Ryan Bellar shot and killed his wife, Wendy, and two of their children, sheriff’s officials say.

Troy Ryan Bellar, 34, used a high-powered rifle with a scope to shoot his 31-year-old wife, Wendy, when she tried to leave their home, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Two of the couple’s children — 5-month-old Zack and 7-year-old Ryan — also were killed, but a 13-year-old got away, with the father chasing and firing after him, officials said.

“It is beyond my understanding why a man would shoot and kill his 5-month-old baby boy, his 7-year-old baby boy, try to kill his 13-year-old son, shoot his wife and then turn the gun on himself,” said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd. “There is no explanation for that.”

The shootings happened in Lakeland, Florida, just east of Tampa.

When the shooting began, the couple’s son, Nathan, ran out of the house and down the street — with his dad chasing him through the garage and firing several shots, authorities said.

Nathan was unhurt and will be placed with family members.

Investigators do not know what led to the shooting, but believe it was preceded by “some kind of domestic disturbance,” a statement from the sheriff’s office said.

Bellar was arrested twice in Polk County: for aggravated assault in 1994, and for driving under the influence in 1999.

His wife was arrested in March for battery domestic violence. (Was she protecting herself?)

Here’s another one you’ll see in Hell (thankfully the child was not there to be murdered too):

Terry Wayne Scott

Divorce filing and arrest come before Dade City couple’s murder-suicide

By Joel Anderson, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Monday, May 4, 2009

DADE CITY — In a matter of days, things seemed to go from bad to worse for Terry Wayne Scott.

Scott spent four days in the Pasco County jail after an April 17 arrest on charges of grand theft. Two days after his release, Scott’s wife of 10 years filed for divorce.

At some point, apparently, it became too much to handle.

According to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, Scott, 59, fatally shot his wife, Veronica, and then killed himself Saturday at their Dade City home.

“There had been some animosity from him toward her because of the divorce,” said Kevin Doll, a spokesman with the Sheriff’s Office.

Detectives were still investigating the shooting deaths Sunday, looking for more clues into what might have led to the grisly scene they found at the couple’s mobile home at 14507 Mount Zion Road. The home sits on 2 acres of mostly sprawling pasture, far back from the road and down a long sandy drive, barely visible at night.

Deputies were sent to the home about 8 p.m. Saturday to check on the pair, Doll said. Veronica Scott, a registered nurse, had not shown up for work that day and a co-worker was concerned.

Earlier in the day, neighbors reported gunshots in the area but mostly thought nothing of it in such a rural area.

“We wouldn’t have had any reason to respond until we got the welfare check,” Doll said. “And these are big yards, multi-acre properties. … Gunshots probably aren’t all that uncommon out there.”

When deputies arrived at the home, they found the bodies of Veronica, 48, and Terry Scott in the garage.

Preliminary information indicates that Terry Scott first shot and killed his wife and then shot himself with a handgun. Doll wouldn’t comment on whether a suicide note had been left.

But according to public records, it’s clear Terry Scott had been having a rough couple of weeks.

Scott was arrested by the Zephyrhills Police Department on April 17 for grand theft. He was released from jail on April 20 after posting $2,500 bail.

A copy of the arrest report couldn’t immediately be obtained from the police, and Doll didn’t know details of the arrest.

Then on April 22, Veronica Scott filed for divorce. The Scotts, who were both previously divorced, lived at the Dade City home with her teenage son.

The teen was not home at the time of the shootings. Doll was not sure if Terry Scott was the father of the boy.

A day after the shootings, most neighbors still had not heard news of the grim discovery at the Scotts’ home. And mostly due to the secluded and sprawling nature of the rural area, few knew much about the couple and their son.

“We saw a bunch of cars coming in and out of that area last night,” said Ruth Blessing, who lives farther down the road on Mount Zion. “We had no clue. That’s awful news.”

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No Survival Guide for Victims of Crime. Answering the proverbial question from victims, "What do I do?"

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No Survival Guide for Victims of Crime. Answering the proverbial question from victims, "What do I do?"

| Lexi.Moore@yahoo.com (Alexis Moore)Go to full article

Cell phone stalking, repeated hang-up calls and harassing text messages. What are you supposed to do?
Teens receiving unsolicited sexual photos and lewd verbal texts. What should they do?
Raped and beaten by someone that you thought was your friend. What should you do?
Left an abusive relationship with only the clothes on your back. What should you do?
You are a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and your colleagues and clients received unsolicited emails photo shopped depicting you in a compromising situation. What should you do?
Your daughter and grandchild were murdered by their husband/father. What can they do?
Your Father's care giver has been funneling monies out of Dad's savings account leaving him penniless. What can you do?
You are being stalked at your workplace. What can you do?
You have been receiving calls everyday from collection agencies demanding payment for accounts you never knew about. Someone has stolen your identity. What should you do?
You were told by law enforcement you need an order of protection and that you should get a restraining order. What should you do?
The perpetrator has been sentenced to 17 years for attempted murder. Does this mean he will serve all 17 years?
These are only a handful of situations and questions that victims of crime face.
Contrary to what a person may believe, it is very difficult for victims of crime to become survivors. When victimized by crime it can be a trauma that lasts a lifetime.
If you are a victim of crime you are not alone.
For more information visit http://www.SurvivorsInAction.com
Celebrating Victims of Crime Week, April 26th Through May 2nd

 

Fathers’ depression ‘harms young’

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fom BBC News

Father and daughter

Fathers’ mental health problems can affect their children

Children whose fathers have mental health disorders are likely to have psychiatric or behavioural disorders themselves, researchers warn.

University of Oxford experts reviewed existing evidence and said, in the Lancet, there had been too much focus on mothers’ mental health issues.

They said boys in particular could be affected if their father had depression or was an alcoholic.

Mental health campaigners said men often had problems seeking help.

Alcoholism

The Oxford team said it was not surprising much of researchers’ emphasis had focused on mothers as, in most societies, it is mothers who provide the majority of childcare - particularly when children are very young.

But they said the role of men had been “underemphasised” and that they had more influence on their children’s development than previously thought.

In addition, the peak age for men to be affected by psychiatric disorders is the same as the peak age for becoming a father - between 18 and 35.

In years gone by, if fathers were depressed and distant it may not have made much of an impact

Emily Wooster, Mind

Paternal depression during the postnatal period, measured at eight weeks after birth, has been associated with increasing the chance of the child subsequently developing behavioural and emotional problems from 10% to 20%.

Teenage offspring of depressed fathers also have an increased risk of various psychological problems, including depression and suicidal behaviour.

Around 2% of men are affected by generalised anxiety disorder, and children whose parents have anxiety disorders have a two-fold increased risk of developing such disorders themselves, researchers say.

Previous studies have also found links between a father’s alcoholism and an increased risk of conduct disorders, where children behave aggressively and destructively and abuse substances - particularly in sons.

Paternal alcoholism is also associated with an increased risk of mood disorders, depressive symptoms, poor performance at school, low self-esteem and problems forming relationships.

Adolescents whose parents have bipolar disorder are up to 10 times more likely than adolescents with mentally healthy parents to develop bipolar disorder, and three to four times more likely to develop other psychiatric illness, research suggests.

‘Nurturing role’

The Oxford team, led by psychiatrist Professor Paul Ramchandani, said more research was needed on how fathers’ psychiatric disorders affect their children’s development.

He said: “Fathers are more involved in child-rearing in countries including the UK than they used to be.

“In years gone by, if fathers were depressed and distant it may not have made much of an impact.

“We now need a more general understanding of what effects psychiatric problems in fathers can have on children.”

Emily Wooster, policy and campaign manager for the mental health charity Mind, said: “Men’s roles in bringing up children have changed significantly over the last century, with many dads now taking on an active ‘nurturing role’ so it’s important that there is more research into the relationship between fathers’ mental health problems and how these may affect their children.

“Mind has found that men often have difficulties coming forward and talking about their mental health problems, perhaps because of the way they are socialised into being ’strong, tough men’ who can’t show their emotions.”

She said the charity was due to launch a campaign next week calling for “male-friendly” mental health services and better support for men.

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1.5.09

What about the girls? What about the women? Recognition, Discrimination, and Warfare

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What about the girls? What about the women? Recognition, Discrimination, and Warfare

[the above image is from here]
Common issues that dovetail with matters of oppression are the definition of harm and the matter of whose pain is seen and responded to as if the ones in pain were human? In the dominant society in which I live, words are sometimes seen as acts that can do harm, but often are not. I grew up with the saying "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me". Uhhh, bullshit.


We are now, in this first decade of a new Christian calendar century, just realising that homophobic speech is a harmful act, harmful the way physical assault is harmful: injurious to the being of another; inducing shame; causing pain; changing who a person is so that they henceforth have lower self-esteem and are more prone to being self-destructive. We can now begin to collectively see, in the dominant media--between the latest fashion news, mid- and small-sized automobile crash-test results, Hollywood gossip, sports scores, weather reports, and kitchen recipes that can be cooked in less than twenty minutes--that harm through speech acts can and does cost some young and older people their lives. Witness the cases of the two boys, Carl and Jaheem, who committed suicide due to repeated anti-gay harassment. The speech acts alone, without adding in physical bullying, without these children also being punched or hit while being called those misogynist/homophobic names, are, in some cases deadly. Will those among us who use such terms repeatedly against one or more individuals be considered murderers, should the tormented child take their own life? If not, why not? (If I drink and drive, I might face a fine if caught, as long as I'm not in a car accident along the way from point A to point B. If I hit a vehicle and kill someone, serious charges can be, and ought to be, brought against me. Regardless of my intentions, if I get into a car while drunk, and end up hitting another person and killing them, I have committed, at the very least "(hu)man-slaughter".


I think of this also when I consider how, post-"9/11" it became a much more serious matter for white males, particularly non-Nordic looking ones, to "joke" about having a bomb while waiting on line to board an airplane. This has everything to do with a society's shared experience of threat or harm. Usually, only those who are in oppressor classes (whites, Christians, men, the rich, Westerners, the non-disabled, etc.) are understood by the media to have experienced a single act of harm or threat that was VERY SIGNIFICANT. I was deeply saddened, and at times angry, after "9/11" because it became extremely clear to me that only some people's pain matters. White folks' pain matters. Men's pain matters. Westerners' pain matters. The pain of those with wealth matters. The pain of those in nations bombed by our missiles don't matter, in our media.


The harm of grossly intensified discrimination against anyone who looks "Middle Eastern" or who is categorised, often stupidly, as "Muslim"* is not really registered in the hearts and minds of the oppressor-class masses as real harm. (*For example, Sikhs wearing a turban with a chunni, or one or the other, is part of traditional Sikh attire, and is not a form of religious dress connected with any branch at all of Muslim attire.) "Their" pain becomes "our" pain, if "we're" white and not Muslim or Middle Eastern, only when "one of our own"--a middle aged "clean cut" (read: not swarthy) white male, an elderly white woman with grey and white hair, is detained and frisked at the airport because they happened to be the seventeenth person randomly chosen to be detained and frisked before being allowed to board a plane that day.


Only when that happens does discrimination against a non-dominant group, in recent years particularly against Muslims and Middle Eastern people, globally, become remotely real. Derogatory language and other violence against anyone who looks Muslim or Middle Eastern*, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or region of family origin, is experienced in the form of harassment, threats, taunts, physical shoves, misogynist slurs, and other forms of violence against women, girls, men, boys, property, and land. (*Only about 20% of the total world Muslim population live in Arab countries.)


So when "our" economy, for example, takes what's termed a "downturn" (as opposed, say, to naming it a necessary step in the ending of capitalism), suddenly the media is aware of "people's distress and anxieties" about money and property. This "new concern" more deeply invisibilises the anxiety, distress, and pain many feel who were already not economically secure, inside and outside the U.S.


Whole classes of people only know economic distress; they never experience the "comeback". Some of my family falls into that category, of the permanently poor. Others in my family fall into the category of those who have "wealthy white folks' blues", which is to say, they are upset, worried, anxious, or distressed about whether the value of their half-million dollar home has gone down by 20%, or what's happening to their financial investments. Wealthy white folks speak to one another about "the market" and the condition of their stock portfolio often in earshot of people who will never own a stock portfolio, or a home. I say all of this because if you are wealthy, but are less wealthy now due to the downturn in the economy, please don't expect poor and working class people to offer you a back rub or foot massage if they overhear you being so rude as to discuss such matters in mixed class spaces. For example, telling your corporate colleague, over breakfast at a nearby diner, about "how much your stock fund has taken a hit" in front of the woman who is serving you eggs, bacon, and toast with extra butter, please, may be experienced by her as both of you being "jerks", at least. For good reason.


What we experience is often determined, if only partly, by past experience. Because, where I live, what happens to white men in certain kinds of off-shore wars is viewed as some kind of "standard" for what we comprehend as "traumatic" and "disablingly distressing", we can commonly refer to the U.S. white male war vet as having "post-traumatic stress disorder". Rarely do those of us who are white and male in the U.S. see the civilian war survivor--usually of color, often female as a likely sufferer of "post-traumatic stress disorder". Rarely do white men, as a group, see women and girls as "survivors" of a gender war. Someone "fighting as military personnel" counts as being a human being, often a hero, especially if you are white and male and from a white-majority country. Such a man is understood immediately as "probably having gone through something that has been so awful that he may never be the same". Note how invisibilised the civilian war survivor is, and women and girls across region and race, when we express only this amount of concern about "those impacted by men's military wars".


If we understand both the military war veteran and the civilian military war survivor to have varying forms of PTSD, we might appreciate and be sensitive to the fact that sudden loud noises might have a different effect on "them" than they do on "us", unless we're also survivors of trauma that involved sudden noise. It is not for "us" to tell "them" they are "over-reacting". What constitutes "over-reaction", in other words, is contextual, and depends, in part, on what someone's life has been up to the current moment. My experience of white men, generally, is that we "under-react" to most things, except when a woman doesn't coddle and care for us.
The experiences of the disabled and the oppressed are usually invisibilised by dominant media. Rarely does popular media show us what it means to be oppressed or disabled, in a way that registers viscerally as well as cognitively. And obviously there are a great number of ways to experience oppression: defiantly, depressively, aggressively, hopelessly, etc.


In the U.S. during the last forty years, the general population, including the oppressor classes, have been sensitised, to varying degrees, to the reality of sexual violence by men against women. What has yet to make the mainstream press, on any consistent basis, is an understanding of this violence, both endemic and systematic (not "accidental" or "anecdotal") as a form of warfare. That guns and knives are often used against women when men do their misogynistic harm, does not suffice to make it "count" as warfare. That men maim and kill women routinely does not warrant the phrase "war against a group of people by an aggressive enemy" being uttered.


I think this means dominant society and its media is in huge denial about men's war against women and girls.
One of most common liberal issues I see use up a lot of people's time and energy is when someone who is experiencing being oppressed by someone--verbally, states that is the case, the verbal oppressor states "You're just taking that the wrong way" or "You are too sensitive" or "You are over-reacting--chill out!" or "Why do you take offense to so many things!!"


Each of these responses is not only insensitive, but is another layer of emotional harm to the one being oppressed. Personally, as a white gay Jewish man, I don't need any white non-Jew telling me what is and is not "anti-Semitic" in speech. My gut tells me just fine, thank you very much. And if I'm speaking or behaving in a way that is condescending or threatening to a woman, and don't realise it or intend it, that doesn't mean my actions are not what the hearer says they are.


Oppressors historically define reality, including what constitutes fair and reasonable treatment of those they oppress. Inside many white Christian communities, for example, even those that are not "fundamentalist" there is a notion, an idea, promulgated, that women and men are "compliments" not "equals". This argument is used to spiritually support up all manner of misogyny and sexism, and many forms of male supremacist behavior and attitudes. If a man sees women as "his compliment", I'd assume the man has some serious sexism issues he hasn't bothered to check at the doorway of his social world.


What I think about whenever I hear about the media's presentation of human pain and atrocity, is "who else is suffering in this or other ways"? We know that the pain and suffering of males, whether they are males in only-oppressor classes or not, is real. We understand, for example, that boys who have been and are being molested by Catholic priests and other Christian preachers, are being harmed, irreparably. A great deal of media attention was brought to bear, critically, if also exploitively, on the horrid matter of priests sexually abusing boys.


And white men suffer too, of course. I have suffered as an adult, as has my brother, and other white male relatives in my family of origin. Our suffering, or dimensions of it, at least, is registered as real and is also transformed, as Andrea Dworkin once noted, into great theatre, visual art, and literature. We assume, here in the U.S., at least, if not also in the U.K., that Shakespeare writes of "human" suffering, even while he writes of a specific kind that is very gendered and raced. Which students are being taught that Shakespeare wrote colloquial ethnically specific stories primarily about the inner and outer worlds of those with gender and sexuality privilege?


I do not wish to minimise anyone's pain, except when its expression is grossly insensitive to those who are suffering far more.
When I hear the stories of the abused, including of white male military war veterans, and of white Catholic boys I feel sadness and sometimes rage at the unchecked harm produced by white male supremacist societies. This is the case whether stories are of young males being bullied, teased, taunted, exposed to homophobic and female-hating slander or slurs, enduring spiritual and physical and psychic betrayal at the hands of those entrusted to spiritually care for young people, or of boys neglected and abused in other ways.
And, mixed in with that sadness and rage, I often wonder: what about the girls? Is their pain also being recognised? Are there as many reports about girls who kill themselves because of lesbophobia and heterosexism?

If a woman who knows her sexuality not to be "hetero" becomes the spouse of a man and has children with him, and also becomes increasingly depressed and despondent, does her depression and despair count as being caused by homophobia and heterosexism? If she has committed suicide, is her death registered as "in the same category" as those others who have taken their lives due to these forms of oppression and discrimination? If women are "never the same" after being raped and battered by a father, boyfriend, or husband, or due to growing up impoverished, or because they were given up for adoption because they are female, or were not given up for adoption but knew, very clearly, that their care-givers value boys more than girls, is their pain registered in the dominant society's psyche and told in its media, accurately and honestly, not exploitively and sensationally? Does it, too, become great art?


The question I want the answer to, if there is one, is this:
What else has to happen to girls and women for the dominant media to regularly report on what happens to them as "part of men's war against women"? We in the U.S. seem to barely grasp economic class warfare, although elsewhere in the world Leftists seem quite clear about it: capitalism kills, not just when a caught, criminal corporate executive shoots himself in the head. We seem to barely grasp racist warfare, the war of whites against all people of color, although at least some anti-racists are clear about that.

The plights and plans of those of us who are Indigenous are never spoken of it dominant society, and the destruction of Aboriginal people is rarely seen as "genocide".


To this list of grievances I add one more: what of this endemic and systematic violence against girls and women by men? Why doesn't that count as "warfare" too?

Posted by Julian Real at 4:42 PM

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Use of Parental Alienation Syndrome Soon to Be Outlawed in California….

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Family Court Crisis; Our Children at Risk

www.CenterForJudicialExcellence.org

http://blip.tv/file/1199654/

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.817865&w=425&h=350&fv=]

Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis/GH) Testifies About Personal Ordeal

By Michele Dargan | Monday, April 27, 2009, 10:46 PM

An interesting press release arrived today that I thought I’d share with you.

When I saw Nancy Lee Grahn’s name in the headline, it immediately got my attention.

And as I read on, it became even more interesting.

As a soap fan, I have - for years - enjoyed Nancy Lee Grahn’s portrayal of the strong, smart, ever-so-efficient attorney Alexis Davis.

But I had no idea that she was involved in a court battle regarding her child.

According to this release, Grahn is testifying Tuesday at the California Assembly Judiciary Committee Hearing on behalf of Bill AB 612. If passed, the bill would outlaw the use of Parental Alienation Syndrome to gain custody of children in divorce situations.

The syndrome describes behavior where one parent turns a child against the other by convincing the child the parent has treated him or her badly, even when they have not. Many call it “junk science” and are trying to get it banned from being used to gain custody in divorce cases.

Below is the press release which describes Grahn’s participation in these hearings and her support for this bill.

T.V. Star Nancy Lee Grahn to Join Dozens of Family Court Victims to Urge Passage of Assemblyman Jim Beall’s AB 612

What: Pre-Hearing Press Conference

Who: Daytime TV Celebrity Nancy Lee Grahn & dozens of family court victims & court reform advocates

When: 8:30AM on Tuesday, April 28 - Press Conference; 9:00AM Hearing in Room 4202

Where: State Capitol- Room 444

Acclaimed television star Nancy Lee Grahn will address reporters tomorrow about her personal family court ordeal before she testifies on behalf of AB 612 at the California Assembly Judiciary Committee Hearing. Grahn will join dozens of parents and children to speak about the ravages of Parental Alienation Syndrome, or PAS, on their lives, and the desperate need for family court reform.

Like thousands of parents in California’s family courts, Grahn was falsely accused of alienating her child against her father, yet she eventually prevailed in her protecting her child. AB 612 would outlaw the use of this unscientific theory that is typically responsible for placing more than 58,000 children per year in the U.S. into dangerous homes with parents the children have identified as their molesters and abusers (Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence). Beall’s bill is just one of a handful of measures addressing the need for family court reform in California this year.

PAS is a controversial, unscientific theory that does not meet legal evidentiary standards, yet it is commonly used in family courts everywhere. PAS and related alienation theories are not accepted or endorsed by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, American Psychological Association, American Prosecutors Research Institute, National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse, and nearly all credible researchers on the subject.

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