Abuse Shelter Watchdogs: See no Evil, Speak no Evil

Tonya,

So, while you claim not to be indoctrinated by feminists, and that you are objective, you toss out feminist DV factoid after factoid.

A few things I wish to address:

1) You write long diatribes, but when I respond DIRECTLY to what YOU said, you do a very (stereotypically) female reaction: dismissive “I didn’t bother to read your post” snark.

Wow – didn’t see THAT coming. Never had THAT happen.

a) People that ignore YOU : evil bad dismissive perpetuators of violence against women.
b YOU ignoring people pointing out your own prejudice and one-sided opinions – not worth your oh-so-valuable time.

Double standards much?

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2) Your false accusation of DV against someone here on this site.

WHO ME!? Yes, Tonya, YOU.

You have never met Mr. Roberts, and his whole article was about prejudice, bigotry, exposing a man-hating ideology, and for the temerity and audacity of just questioning your sacred ideology you accused him, with no facts to back it up, whatsoever, of domestic violence.

While dismissing out of hand that women lie about domestic violence.

Here’s a concept you need to acquaint yourself with: cognizant dissonance.
From Websters New World College Dictionary:
“the confused mental condition that results from holding incongruous, often mutually contradictory, beliefs simultaneously”

That’s what you have going on – and while you’d love to deny it – it’s SIMPLE: You accused someone of DV, not for their actions you had knowledge of, but for daring to point out bigotry.

It’s what people who deny false accusations exist do: falsely accuse.

And, YES, that is what you did. It didn’t “get taken out of context” – you didn’t slip, fall, and blurt out “oops, you’re a domestic abuser”

No, quite simply, you falsely accused a man of DV because he pointed out feminist bigotry – which you then went on to defend.

Those are facts, not opinions. YOU ARE A FALSE ACCUSER.

Now, you may have been, and still are, a survivor of DV – but that does not diminish nor mitigate that you are simulataneously a false accuser – live with it, internalize it, and most importantly – stop doing it and don’t let others around you do it.

At least if you want to be a legitimate advocate of DV survivors while you claim that false accusations are rare to non-existant.
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3) Your long tirade about (to paraphrase) “You can’t know what I’ve been through”

a) No, we can’t – but you are not unique nor special – a lot of people have survived DV.
b) My gender does not exclude me from having gone through it – but you sure made that assumption – both about me, the men here, Julie, and Mr. Roberts. And you REALLY don’t think you’re prejudiced?!
c) We do not engage in the “victim olympics” here. There is no gold medal nor “end all / beat all” victim catagory that gives you, nor anyone else, the absolute moral authority to speak without being questioned. Get over it.
d) The men and women at this site did not get up one day, and spontaneously decide to become misogynists. We saw the bigotry and one sided evil that the feminist movement had morphed into and spoke up – usually because of being wronged by said system.

You, yourself were a victim of DV, and became an outspoken advocate. Is it REALLY so freaking hard to see that MEN could do the same.

You deny, to the very depths of your soul, and apparently truly believe you are not a bigot nor are prejudiced, while holding the disparate view that men, and ONLY men, need to be educated with long ago debunked feminist factoids about “evil men”.

CLUE-BY-FOUR coming your way – the majority of DV committed by adults, to children, is by the biological mother, and is done to their own sons. Check with the CDC or the HHS web sites.

Hmmm, how come your “fair and loving” DV advocates who clearly “cared about you” fed you the load of horsesh*t of one sided factoids if they were NOT trying to indoctrinate you, but were only trying to “arm you with knowledge”?

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Lastly
4) A simple question – but one if you examine carefully and with honest openess (you’re not afraid of that – right)…..

Can a person who is a victim/survivor of DV ALSO be a perpetrator of that crime, or also be a false accuser?

You are, and I DO believe this, a survivor of DV. But you are also, a false accuser.

Does the idea of “Gee, I only hit her once” wash with you? Put simply, if a guy said that, would you excuse him and tell him he had not committed DV, or that “it was only that one time”, or “she goaded you into it” or any other type of thinking?

Now, here comes the hard part Tonya – YOU FALSELY ACCUSED someone of DV. Since your standards of DV abuse are so absolute and “fair” – and even one instance of DV makes one an abuser ….

What does that make you? I mean, you only falsely accused Mr. Roberts …. once.

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My advice: GET AWAY FROM THOSE PEOPLE TONYA.

They have filled you with anger, not healing.

They have made you a repeater of factoids that demonizes 1/2 the population, while simutaneously making your mind so warped as to ignore and excuse (and probably not much remember, let alone acknowlege) that you have become a false accuser.

And your REASON: “He made me mad” – umm, EXCUSE ME!?

Does that sound familiar?

Get away from those people – they’re screwing you up.

If/when you reply, I’d be more than happy to directly respond to whatever you have to say.

Steven

To Tonya,

You are as bad as me with the length of comments. Yet, I read what you wrote with interest.

***No, my amen was not to you, it was Jacquelyn.***

I realized that after I made my comment.

***Tell me Julie, how many shelters have you lived in?***

Why do I need to tell you? Do you think this is a competition and whoever has the worst experience wins the argument?

***Are you a victim or survivor of domestic violence?***

Does it matter? If I said “Yes”, I will be told I am protecting men as a victim and if I said “No” I will be told I don’t have the right to speak. But I will tell you I know a thing or two about a thing or two.

***I don’t care who the perpetrator is, male or female, I feel for all victims because I know first hand how it feels and what it does to you as a human being.***

I find survivors (outside of feminism) care about ALL victims regardless of gender, race, religion etc.

***You rant on an on about things I can tell you know nothing about, and there really is nothing worse than someone with no real knowledge of a subject, repeating bits and pieces they’ve heard and not putting them together properly.***

Is this as bad as what I said to you? (above and below)

****First of all, don’t tell me what I have and haven’t wondered, because you have no idea what thoughts go through my mind.****

Do you think that this is as bad? (below)

***Based on your tone I would guess and say that you are neither. Based on your diatribe, I would guess and say that you are either in a relationship with someone accused of abusive behavior or the relative of one.****

……continued in next comment……

Tonya Says:
“We know that the percentage of male perpetrated DV is well over 90%, in the range of 95-97%.”

And how do you know this? What is your source for this information?

No reasonable person doubts that there are some men who are abusive control freaks but virtually all social scientists studying domestic violence find high rates of mutual aggression. Furthermore, reviews of hundreds of existing studies have found that at least in Western countries, women are as likely to initiate partner violence as men.

Tonya Says:
“Have a nice life wallowing in ignorance.”

I just hope that you will open your eyes and your mind and proceed with wisdom.

Tonya, why did you marry that guy? I don’t understand how a sane person could marry a lunatic. I also don’t understand why a sane person would have kids with the lunatic and stay with him for 10 years of beatings. I don’t believe it. It’s a strange thing how many women prefer assholes. I’m sure a reasonable person could’ve seen it coming.

Why do you think it’s a good thing for men to allow women to abuse them? That’s messed up.

Where do you get your numbers? Post 11 was way too long and I got bored before finishing. If you bothered to back up your claims with some evidence you would end up writing less and we’d be less likely to lose interest in your comments half way through.

Another thing that is not talked about much but that probably deserves a little discussion is legitimate coporal punishment for out of control wives. I wish my dad had smacked my mom once in a while when she got out of hand. I’d have been a lot less goofed up when I was younger. She is a self-indulgent ranter who is frequently preoccupied with morbid topics. She is also very prejudiced against men. My dad had a hard time standing up to her and she terrorized us when she got in one of her dark moods. I’ve known a ton of people who grew up with mothers who could’ve used some corporal punishment from time to time. They’re usually too brainwashed to admit it but they’ll admit that mom was crazy. A well intentioned smack isn’t really abuse but it would be considered abuse by the ridiculous legal system.

Ok Julie, here goes.

No, my amen was not to you, it was Jacquelyn.

Tell me Julie, how many shelters have you lived in?

Are you a victim or survivor of domestic violence? Based on your tone I would guess and say that you are neither. Based on your diatribe, I would guess and say that you are either in a relationship with someone accused of abusive behavior or the relative of one.

I will tell you based on EXPERIENCE not OPINION, about living in a DV shelter. This issue is NOT about feminism. It is about criminal acts perpetrated against one’s family.

I don’t care who the perpetrator is, male or female, I feel for all victims because I know first hand how it feels and what it does to you as a human being.

You rant on an on about things I can tell you know nothing about, and there really is nothing worse than someone with no real knowledge of a subject, repeating bits and pieces they’ve heard and not putting them together properly.

I can tell you about going through the family court system because of my violent husband and how the system really treats both parties. I can tell you why it is ASSUMED that there must be abuse by both parties and not that it is actually possible that there is just one lunatic in the family.

First of all, don’t tell me what I have and haven’t wondered, because you have no idea what thoughts go through my mind. Secondly I will tell you what I believe as to why so few men go into shelter. I believe it is the same reason so few of them report it to begin with. It is the same reason rape is under reported and why so many women live with domestic violence.

It is shame, embarrassment and humiliation. If as a woman being hurt by a man, I didn’t tell anyone for so long, and millions of other women do the same thing, how much harder do you think it is for a man to tell that a woman is hurting him.

I have true empathy and compassion for victims and I have a special sympathy for male victims, especially when the perpetrator is a woman, because I think to myself, “What a good man this woman had. Here he is taking her crap, and allowing himself to be abused because he is too much of a man to hit her back, even when he’d be justified. And here I have a man that is so little of a man he will hit me in front of his children for no reason.”

I have an extra special respect for a man who would take abuse and instead of hit this woman back, he’d take it until he couldn’t take anymore and eventually leave her.

But the reality is, that the VAST majority of victims are women and children, whether you like it or not. We know that the percentage of male perpetrated DV is well over 90%, in the range of 95-97%.

But for the sake of argument I’ll lower it all the way down to 80%. Now 80% of any group makes them the majority right? So if 80% of victims of DV are women and children, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that they are going to be the ones filling up 80% of the shelters?

If 80% of the victims of DV are women then wouldn’t it make sense that when they create posters and commercials that they want to target those who are in greatest need of it and those most likely to make use of it?

Diet pills aren’t targeted to thin people. Toys aren’t targeted to parents. Beer ads aren’t targeted to non drinkers. BUT, just because those people aren’t the main targets of the ads, doesn’t mean that they can’t receive the same information from the ads.

So in trying to save the 80% of DV victims they try and talk directly to them through identification by using females in the ads, doesn’t mean that a man who is a victim can’t call the hotline as well. The ads usually say, “If someone is hurting you, calling you names, controlling the money, etc…you can call for help.” They don’t say, “If you are a woman being hurt by a man.”

As I stated the shelter that I was in took in men if a man called for help. Men just don’t call to go into shelter that often. If there are shelters that say women and children only, that would be for 3 reasons:
1. Shelters have very little room and they want to serve the group in greatest need of the beds.
2. Some women and children are too traumatized to be around men when their abuser was a man.
3. Some shelters simply aren’t co-ed. There are regular shelters that aren’t DV shelters that are men only or women only.

I am part of the problem? I won’t even address that ignorance.
My only bias is against batterers. If men who are abusive go to jail that is where they belong. But you know what? Most of them don’t. My husband didn’t and the ones who do go, come right back out.

I have listened to these women as they recall what they went through. I have seen their tears, real ones – not the crocodile ones that male batterers produce when they want everyone to believe they were victims too.

Abusers are also liars and manipulators and they are very good at it. That’s why there’s a misconception that the abuse must be mutual. In spite of my children telling everyone, the therapists, the social worker assigned to do a forensic report, the children’s services worker, that “daddy hit mommy;” the drawings they made of their father hitting me while they scream and cry and I bleed, the law guardian in the custody case had the audacity to say in court that there has clearly been a tremendous amount of violence in the home witnessed by the children, but he can’t say who is to blame!

Why? Simply because my husband said it was me. So if I don’t just lay there and take my beating like a good girl, then suddenly I’m abusing him? If I defend myself and fight back, I’m culpable? If he is injured or scratched or his hair is pulled out in the course of attacking me and me doing what I am entitled to by law and defend myself, I am a contributor to the violence and now just as guilty as him?

I don’t think so. But that is how batterers put it and then the court goes right along with it. So don’t talk about how if a woman says she is abused everyone just believes her and the man goes off to jail. Because these abusive liars will say they were abused and end up having her hauled off to jail, get a protective order or get custody of the already traumatized children.

So it’s not about feminism. I am no feminist, I’m not a part of any cause, but I can tell you about living with domestic violence in every form for 10 years. I can tell you that if not for the hotline and being placed in a shelter I may still be with my abuser because I had no other way out. I was the stay at home mom, he was the bread winner and controlled all the money. I had as much rights in the family as the children.

It’s about bad people who do bad things and unfortunately in spite of how much you have to say, the majority of the bad people doing the bad things in the area of domestic violence are men, pure and simple.

And for your information, the reason women go back so many times is:
1. they love the jerk who is hurting them
2. they can’t make it on their own if he was making the money
3. the children
4. they choose to forgive him and give him another chance when for the millionth time he says he won’t do it again
5. she is too damaged to make the right decisions about staying away from him for good
6. he threatens to find her and kill her or hurt or kill someone in her family if she doesn’t come back

My cousin was murdered in front of her 3 small children ages 5, 3, and 18 month by her violent boyfriend who is the father of the two youngest. She never went into a shelter and I don’t know why. But probably for some of those same reasons that I mentioned. More women are killed by their partners than men, so this is a serious problem for WOMEN.

Doesn’t mean men aren’t victim too, but relatively speaking, their numbers are so small, and that doesn’t diminish their pain. But you can’t ignore the numbers, even when you bring it down to 80-20, 75-25, it will always be way too many on the women and children side of the equation.

My comment is very long and I’m not sorry at all. People who don’t know what they are talking about, just shouldn’t. And when I don’t comment back, don’t think it’s because you got me and shut me up, it’s because I choose not to waste my time on people who don’t ignore truth and live in fantasy worlds.

Tonya opined:
“If you are so concerned about shelters for men, why don’t you start one and stop hating on women and children that need help.”

Well Gee Tonya, since I pay taxes into VAWA, well, golly, it seems that I’ve paid into the running and maintainence of DV shelters for nigh 15 years.

Seems to me I shouldn’t have to go and “build my own” after paying for the one you got to stay in.

But, since you clearly don’t realize your bigotry – let’s try another tack:

Do you support “Separate but Equal” in other areas of society too? If so, how is your Klan membership holding up these days?

And no, cupcake, .. the “but, but, but, …. that’s different” explanation aint cuttin’ it.

Then Tonya tried the lame-old-female-tactic: Acuse those who disagree with you of a heinous crime to put them on the defensive:
“Why are you so angry? Did you abuse someone and a shelter helped her escape you?”

I notice 2 things in that rebuttal:

1) It seems that those who claim that DV is never falsely reported or lied about – … well, golly, they are the first to falsely accuse.

Thanks for proving our point.

2) Do you realize HOW far down the bigotry road you’ve gone when someone writes an article that SHOWS blatant discrimination and bigotry, and you AGREE with it. Further – that you attack the person who argues against that bigotry?

Wow, posts like yours are like caricatures – we couldn’t make this sh*t up – you’re like the best recruiting tool we have:

Absolute proof of the double standards, bigotry, prejudice, and hatred towards an entire population based solely on a genetic difference.

Thanks for playing Tonya, and thanks for the proof I can copy and paste to other sites that will bolster our arguments.

I swear, she’s proof positive that someplace on earth some primitive village is missing it’s town idiot.

Steven

To Tonya,

***Amen sister.****

I gather you are talking to me? Hope so.

I would never condone what happened to you. (how’s that for an advocate) I am pleased you are a survivor and live to tell about it and I wish you all the best in life and that your children get to have good relations with the opposite sex when they grow up.

I am sorry to say, but I see you as part of the problem men don’t get help. Look at your bias already by putting your own personal into this. You put women and children as victims and say, “Why don’t you go and open a men’s shelter if you care.” You have come to the conclusion men who are also victims/survivors don’t fit in your work.

You haven’t even bothered to wonder why there were only 2 men in the refuge over several years. And you haven’t even bothered to wonder why we already don’t have men’s refuges.

You say the refuge you stayed in took 2 men over several years. I am surprised they took in any with their surrounding environment being so hostile towards men. There are very few man friendly places when it comes to DV. Just look at the pictures on the walls of all community centres and hospitals. Have you ever seen a poster suggesting men get battered too? Or have you only seen posters suggesting men stop battering women? What sort of message do you think that sends out to a male victims? Do you think he feels welcome to ask for help? Do you think he will risk his children to step forward?

Have you ever seen a TV commercial showing men as victims or are they always women and children suffering abuse from men?

Feminism is man=perpetrator and women and children=victim. And all those children who have to suffer (even as a spectator in fear) their fathers getting abused by their mother don’t even stand a chance because feminism will justify her behaviour and send him to prison. Yep, that is where the majority of abused men go. When the relationship is volatile because they both are to blame, he goes to prison, she goes to a refuge.

And starting men’s refuges is not the answer. England has a few men’s shelters and just like America taking men in, the men have to go through rigorous testing to make sure they are not the perpetrator or even 50% of the problem. Have you ever seen a woman have to prove to a refuge that she is a victim?

And what happens when the men’s refuge takes in a man and the controlling female abuser accuses him of abusing her or their children. What then? Is it interest group against interest group? Lobby groups against lobby groups? How will this affect all the other victims still needing to reach out?

The only solution is to have mixed genders in refuges. Take in both when both are dysfunctional. Help them as a family. The women is going to go back to the relationship on average 9 times because she knows it is not all one sided and either they will get well (even if that means breaking up once only, no back and forth) or someone dies.

Take in both male and female who are victims to men and women who go to prison. They will help each other heal well because neither will be able to hate the other gender when they see both are vulnerable. They will make the world better together rather than gendering domestic violence and keeping us stuck in the blame game.

Men’s refuges won’t work under feminist ideology because they won’t get the counselling as a victim.

It is a very tricky situation and I would be writing a post myself if I explained what women who run refuges discuss nationally.

So tell me. Are all your three children female? If not, what sort of future are you hoping for your son/s?

@Jacquelyn

Wow…someone missed the entire point of the post. Women this and women that. Violence against women is wrong but so is violence against men.

“Although there are many places that discrimination is a worthy topic, abuse shelters is not one of them.”

Bigoted people like you are the reason why people like me sue your ass and win. The shelters discriminated against men and they were sued and they lost. Get over it and get ready for more lawsuits while you’re at it.

People with common sense that are tired of the feminist hate movement threw a wrench in the propaganda machine. It doesn’t work anymore.

Amen sister. I am a domestic violence survivor and had to go into shelter with my 3 small children while 3 months pregnant this past January to finally escape 10 years of violence and abuse at the hands of my husband. The shelter that we went into actually did accept men. But the workers there that I talked to had only seen about 2 men in several years.

If you are so concerned about shelters for men, why don’t you start one and stop hating on women and children that need help.

Why are you so angry? Did you abuse someone and a shelter helped her escape you?

Carey, please do your research before attacking domestic abuse shelters.
The facts are: 1) 1/4 of all women have been victims of abuse, and at that rate, there aren’t enough beds available to shelter all the women who so desperately need it. 2) While women do get arrested on domestic violence charges, it is usually women in same-sex relationships. Over 90% of the women arrested in heterosexual relationships were arrested because the man persuaded the police or because the women were fighting in self-defense and both parties were arrested. 3) Over 98% of domestic violence victims are women and children. 4) Domestic violence has the 2nd highest rate of recidivism (repeat offense) of all crimes–higher than rape, murder, and burglary. The only crime with a higher rate is pedophilia. 5) When a woman is subject to domestic violence the only choice she has is how much longer she wants to be the victim–it will always be her or the next woman. 6) Since domestic violence is driven by control, leaving is the most dangerous time for a woman 7) When a woman goes to the only place she can get shelter from her would-be killer, a law giving her would-be killer the right to “Cry Wolf” and be admitted to the same place would only expose the shelter to lawsuits from her soon-to-be survivors, for negligence. Shelters are very far from feminism, since the motto behind feminism is “I am strong on my own” and any woman has to be able to prove helplessness to be admitted to a shelter with such limited beds. 9) It is not uncommon for male abusers to try to jump the fence or break into shelters to make a final attempt at harming their victims (imagine what it would be like if they were allowed to walk in). Although there are many places that discrimination is a worthy topic, abuse shelters is not one of them.
You might as well be saying that free cell phones and public assistance should be given to anyone, regardless of income, because to do otherwise would be discriminatory. Please find a truly worthy cause before you babble on again.