Statistics For Thought, or What Does a Victim REALLY Look like?

Date Rape Cases Still Hard to Win

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27825997/

You know what’s depressing to me about this, aside from the basic stats quoted in the article?

How little our society understands the myriad ways in which victims of violence react to assault. Whether it’s date rape or violence at the hands of our partners, there’s a script we’re apparently supposed to follow, and even then we have very little chance of actually being believed.

We’re expected to whimper and cry and shake and act helpless. Only if we act like helpless wretches will the justice system or society as a whole believe that we were victims of violence.

Many of the victims discussed in this article were highly composed during the trial. They were lucid and intelligent. And for that, they were NOT believed.

How screwed up is THAT?

How is it that society is unable to grasp that a LOT of the time, the NATURAL reaction one has to being assaulted, abused, raped, or violated is ANGER?

I know I always felt WHITE HOT RAGE when my ex-husband abused me. But my clueless attorney told me once that the reason he wouldn’t push the abuse issue was because I didn’t present as a typical victim.

WhatEVER the hell THAT’S supposed to be.

My composure, my education, my drive and work ethic were ALL held against me, all while my ex-husband parades around all hang-dog, claiming I ABUSED HIM.

EXCUSE ME? Was I the one that browbeat him for hours? Tackled HIM and assaulted HIM in front of my son? Used HIS dysfunctional family against HIM?

And he has the nerve to call me abusive because I was ANGRY about being abused. He had the NERVE to claim that I wasn’t really abused because I struggled THROUGH that nightmare and REBUILT my life.

How fucked up is that? I’ll ask again.

But because I didn’t “look like a victim” not even my own LAWYER would help me.

An American story:The violence we still allow

Written by: civillydisobedientbitch

Edited by: Good to be Queen.

This is the 21^st century. Like so many ugly aspects of our society, domestic violence has finally been recognized … understood … fought and resolved. Certainly that’s a widespread belief here and now, now that our modern society is so evolved, so socially aware, so enlightened.

Right?

Think again. Like so many social wrongs we think we’ve “fixed,” domestic violence still terrorizes men, women and children. Daily. And the remedies we thought we’d applied – the laws and awareness and organized groups waving signs – the things that let the rest of us sleep at night, secure in our advanced thinking, are failing. Daily.

My son and I are only one story. But I believe we’re a part of something much larger that’s only too easily overlooked by a complacent society that believes we’ve “solved” domestic violence, a society that only registers alarm when an extreme case – a husband shoots his wife on Main Street just before the evening news – jars our consciousness.

My story shines a light on the ongoing, pernicious misunderstanding – even ignorance –of the real face of domestic violence. I want to share my story so that the thousands of other abuse victims in our enlightened society who are terrorized and traumatized daily will know they’re not the only ones. That you don’t have to show up on the evening news to be a victim of domestic violence.

I live in Georgia. The state of Georgia has within its law code a provision that domestic abuse trumps all other concerns in divorce and custody cases. I only wish the state of Georgia actually worked that way.

I married my ex-husband in 2001.

The abuse began on our return from our honeymoon. I was pregnant at the time, but that never stopped him.

First the abuse was verbal. Then it became physical. He would browbeat me for hours and then block me from leaving the room, physically hold me down while I cried. He systematically terrorized me.

He also sexually abused me. He attempted to videotape us being intimate against my wishes. When I caught him, he didn’t see why what he had done was so wrong.

The emotional abuse was always the worst, though. He took painful, private confidences I’d trusted him with and used them against me as a way to control me. My mother had been physically, emotionally, and verbally very abusive to me when I was a child, and my ex would go back and forth between calling her crazy, and then siding with her, claiming that I was lying about her.

I was called a liar a lot. And crazy, unfit mother, a whore, you name it, every sick, misogynistic name in the book.

I left him in 2003. The lawyer I found was willing to get a restraining order for me. And my ex promptly violated it. Though the judge had written into the order that he could have “reasonable” visitation with our infant son, my ex decided that “reasonable” meant every night, and harassed me constantly to get it. He drove past my house, over and over and over. Tracked my every move. Accused me of having an affair. Threatened to sue for custody of our son. He was never arrested even though I called the police for help.

The judge had not included any provisions for child support in my restraining order. I was a student, and I had no income other than student loans. That money soon ran out.

I was scared. I was about to be unable to feed my child. Then my ex began what domestic violence support groups like to call “hoovering” … a reference to the vacuum cleaner. Trying to suck me back in.

He was so sorry. He was going to get counseling. Nothing meant more to him than his family. He would do anything and everything to keep it together.

So I went back. He promptly browbeat me into dropping my divorce case against him entirely.

And the abuse got worse. I now know that it almost always does, once a victim is talked into returning. The abuser, after all, knows that he or she must bear down even harder, escalate the abuse and control, ensure that the victim is terrorized into complete and utter submission.

And so my ex’s abuse escalated immediately. He added financial abuse to the list. He refused to allow me access to any money. I had finished school at this point and was staying home with my son. I had no income aside from occasional money my family gave me. No gas in my car, no way to buy any groceries while he was at work 45 minutes away, because he took the bank card with him every day. He would make me beg for five dollars to buy cigarettes. I was trapped.

When he browbeat me for hours, he would always get this sadistic little smile. He liked to buy extravagant gifts and then threaten to return them if he got angry with me. He would order me to beg for them.

In 2004, he physically attacked me in front of my son. He jumped me from behind, and when I swung my arm to get him off of me, I accidentally blacked his eye. I fled to my neighbor’s place and called the police and our local DV hotline. Amazingly, he ALSO called the police and claimed that I had abused HIM. They didn’t arrest anyone. All they did was ask him to leave for the night.

It still took me another year to get up my courage to file for divorce. I was terrified he’d sue for custody.

I was right.

When I finally did file, I wound up with a new lawyer, who refused to seek a restraining order for me. Despite numerous records of my calls to the police for help, my attorney told me that we couldn’t prove abuse. My ex refused to move out of the house, or to pay any of the bills. He harassed me constantly. I had to lock myself and my son in my room at night to protect us from him. Still, he’d stand outside the door and rant.

I briefly had a long distance relationship during that time. My ex snooped on my laptop and copied documents in order to “prove” my “adultery”. He emailed my friend. He emailed my family. He made outrageous, malicious accusations, calling me a slut, claiming that I had Borderline Personality Disorder, that I was violent and an unfit mother.

He taped me constantly. He attacked me again and I had to flee for several days with my son. I had to call the police just to get out of the house safely. One of the officers saw my bruises but didn’t say anything. And they didn’t arrest him.

This is so hard to type out. It brings back all these memories. I’m shaking.

When we went to court, he won. My attorney, inexplicably, didn’t even bring the pictures of me with bruises from his attacks. At the same time, my ex claimed that my son was autistic. My son was delayed in his speech, due to a medication he took as a toddler, too much ear wax that was eventually cleaned out, and his father’s abuse of me. Not one therapist has agreed with my ex. The physical problems are well documented by my son’s doctor. Even so, I still took my son to additional assessments, while my ex did nothing. Yet he claimed I was the one who hadn’t done anything to help my son.

The judge ruled that because I was in graduate school by this time, I wasn’t “stable” enough as a parent to take care of my son. He stated he believed my son had special needs that I was unable to handle.

During all this time, my ex had never paid for daycare, never took my son to doctor’s appointments, never put him to bed, never did much of anything that parents do. I was the primary caregiver until the divorce, and Georgia law states that the best interests of the child lie with that parent.

And Georgia law also states that domestic abuse trumps all other concerns. Yet a few earnest lies delivered by a skilled liar were all it took to sway a judge. And maybe even prompt my own lawyer to mail it in. I didn’t stand a chance.

My attorney filed a motion for reconsideration. The judge told him to re-file it as a separate motion to modify custody. While we waited, my ex made a habit of sending me awful, horrible abusive emails. He denied visitation when he was angry, he shut me out of any equal decision-making, even though I still had joint legal custody. In short, he behaved just as he’d always done.

And so we went back to court. My attorney once again failed to submit the emails as evidence of the abuse. I had remarried by this time, and my new husband was more than willing to testify to how awfully my ex had behaved. He flat out called him an abuser in open court.

We still lost.

You think the story’s finally over? Oh no. My ex asked for attorney’s fees on top of everything else. And we lost on that one, too.

The judge has ordered me to pay $5000 plus some additional expenses in monthly installments of $500 each. I can’t afford that. I already pay $400 a month in child support.

If I don’t pay, I can go to jail for contempt of court.

I filed for divorce in May 2005. I was finally granted one in October 2007. And I’m still caught in a legal system that seems more inclined to help my abuser abuse me, than to protect me and my son. Domestic abuse was simply meaningless to the police, my lawyer, my ex’s lawyer, even the judge. Just not on their radar.

I don’t understand this. I really and truly don’t. I don’t know how to make this system do what it’s supposed to do. Why has this happened?

This is, necessarily, an abbreviated version of my story, and it’s just one story. But I’ve learned that there are thousands of abuse victims just like me out there, struggling to get someone to take them seriously, trying desperately to find a so-called “authority figure,” a member of the “judicial” system, to hear us, to believe us.

Although I’m scared to death of the idea, I’m ready to go public with my story. I hope to find those other victims who have similar stories to tell. I’ve learned that only by sticking together, by shouting out loud that domestic violence is still alive, well and vastly underestimated by society and our legal system, can we get anyone to notice. And this is my first step. Talk to me.

All that glitters is not gold: the stereotype discussion continues

Written by: crabbypatter

So, the election is over.  I have to admit that my mind has been cluttered and consumed by the endlessness of it, and today I’m thinking a bit more clearly.

 

My good friend, CDBitch, has been provoking some interesting internal dialogue, and I would like to ponder who an abusive man is, starting with the campaign.

 

There are two possible directions for this post.  First, I could discuss how those who have been abused will never look at people in the same way.  I look at McCain and Obama with different eyes than the average person.  As the pundits bask in the adulation of their respective parties, I see them both with a critical eye.  I wonder if the coolly confident Obama had ever poured that smug smile and arrogant tone over his lovely wife, Michelle, who stands behind him.  I wonder if the legendary temper and impatience of McCain has rained down on the fragile-looking Cindy.

 

The abuse I’ve suffered and witnessed colors my perspective that way. But that post, I believe is for another time. 

 

Rather, today, I’d like to look at who the abuser is.  Some might find it shocking—unpatriotic, even—to look at presidential candidates and try to see the cracks in the façade that could reveal an abuser.  Isn’t the abuser a big ape of a man, a shawl of black curly hair sprouting from beneath the straps of a wife-beater undershirt, the stench of three days of unwashed beer and humanity oozing from his greasy pores?  Sometimes, he is.

 

But sometimes, the worst abuser is the charming neighbor who shoveled your driveway last winter while you were visiting your in-laws for Christmas.  He is the doctor who delivered your firstborn. He’s your pastor.  He’s your brother-in-law.  He could be your husband.

 

The statistic that one in four women will be physically abused by a domestic partner is an interesting tidbit.  One in four, according to some sources; others place the number higher.  When one does the math, it is a figure that has sobering implications.

 

Women’s advocate and groundbreaking author Lundy Bancroft has built his career on working with abusive men.  From paradigm-shattering book, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men, Bancroft writes:

 

One of the obstacles to recognizing chronic mistreatment in relationships is that most abusive men simply don’t seem like abusers. They have many good qualities, including times of kindness, warmth, and humor, especially in the early period of the relationship.  An abuser’s friends may think the world of him.  He may have a successful work life and no problems with drugs or alcohol.  He may simply not fit anyone’s image of a cruel or intimidating person. So when a woman feels her relationship spinning out of control, it is unlikely to occur to her that her partner is an abuser.

 

It is unlikely to occur to her that her partner is an abuser. If that is true, then it would stand to reason that it would be unapparent to others that this outwardly kind, charming, and funny man could ever intentionally harm someone, much less his wife or domestic partner.

 

Yet, it happens.  Frequently.  Over the course of my extraction from my own abuser’s vile hold—some call it healing, but I find it more akin to a painful immersion to an awkward adolescence of discovering who I am and what I’ll be when I grow up all while avoiding the mean girls who have it all—I was dumbfounded to think of him as an abuser.

 

He, after all, is the person who helped me understand feminism. A professor who won awards for his quality and standard of teaching, this bright and engaging man was beloved by his students.  If his colleagues didn’t adore him (and some did not), they at least respected his work ethic and dedication to his students. Yet his dominance and cruelty was in complete opposition to his public face.  And he outwardly praised me to his friends and colleagues; the pedestal he set me upon in public belied the psychological and emotional torment at home.

 

As I’ve “healed,” I’ve met some lovely, strong, intelligent and determined women who walked the same path as I.  To my surprise, not one of these fine people has been with a stereotypical abuser.  One was married to an artist. One was married to a musician.  One was married to a lawyer. Two were married to successful business owners. One was married to someone with top government security clearance.  Several were married to respected military officers and soldiers and law enforcement members.  Teachers, professors, doctors: all of these fields were represented.

 

The first book that introduced me to the concept of upscale abuse—indeed, the very piece that opened my eyes to the fact that I might be in an abusive relationship—is Susan Weitzman’s book “Not to People Like Us:” Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages.  The fact that a wife-beater stereotype exists provides a safety net for the “atypical,” professional abuser—and a huge question mark for women living The American Dream. “How can this man in khakis with a $75 haircut be threatening me?” she asks. “It must be my imagination.” And, since the masses don’t want to hear about the abusive professor—or doctor or business owner or teacher—their denial reinforces her doubt.

 

No, I’m not saying that Barak Obama or John McCain is abusive to his wife. I’m saying that they—or anybody we know and admire—could be. And it presents a troubling possibility about what we, as a society, once thought was solid and hallowed ground: that our most revered might be the most despicable.