“I have worked with more than 1,500 men in my practice as a domestic violence counselor, and fortunately, [violent men] were in the minority…I don’t win any popularity contests by saying that domestic violence is often bidirectional, but the man is usually the one prosecuted because his blows are usually more lethal. What has been emphasized over and over by the legal system is that domestic violence is a crime, but it really seems biased against men.”–Greg Scharf, licensed domestic counselor
Greg Scharf, a licensed domestic counselor, has an interesting column on anti-male domestic violence laws and policies, and how women like Mary Winkler and Lorena Bobbitt use the system to their advantage. The column is below.
To learn more about the Mary Winkler case, click here. To learn more about the problems with the domestic violence system, click here.
Women get away with murder
By Greg Scharf
The Californian, 8/23/07
Last week, after a dinner at The Promenade mall, I heard a commotion across the parking lot, where I saw a young punk surrounded by a jeering crowd of thugs harassing a young man and his girlfriend. I don’t know what started the fracas, but I saw sharp object being swung at the intended victim, accompanied by screeches of “You don’t know who you’re messing with, bitch!”
But I did. From my practice in dealing with violent clients, he was just one of a million little punks who think they’re bad because they’ve got friends for backup, tattoos on their shaved heads and sharp objects in their pockets.
I have worked with more than 1,500 men in my practice as a domestic violence counselor, and fortunately, these were in the minority. Most of the guys I worked with were good guys who did something in a moment of stupidity, a drunken or drug-induced rage, or simply by staying too long in a bad situation.
I don’t win any popularity contests by saying that domestic violence is often bidirectional, but the man is usually the one prosecuted because his blows are usually more lethal. What has been emphasized over and over by the legal system is that domestic violence is a crime, but it really seems biased against men.
For example, Mary Winkler was recently exonerated for the shotgun death of her preacher husband in Tennessee. She never denied shooting him, but the jury let her go after seven months due to diagnoses of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and stories of abuse by her husband.
She said she pointed a shotgun at him to force him to talk through their problems and somehow it went off. In his back. Had it been a guy, my guess is he’d be getting a life sentence.
Read the full column here.
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