h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So then this guy just lets things go like that and sulks in a deserted cave deep in the woods and thinks about all the bad things he has done in the world. Yeah Right.
That gets him even more pissed of and he finds the girl and beats her worse or maybe even kill her. But at least his pride was hurt and he has a brused ego.

Why should he ever find her? It is possible to dissapear.

Mel

It is also possible to be found.

*Greebo shakes bag of s*

True but if she didn't want to see him she could get things like a restraining order.

Mel

A restraining order??? LOL

Will a restraining order stop a fist from hitting her or a bullet from killing her? A restraining order is nothing more than a piece of paper. If he won't obey the laws that "prevents" him from abusing her then why would he respect the law of a restraining order.

Let's say she got a restraining order and then the scum bag shows up. She calls the police to have him arrested. While the police are on thier way to arrest him he flies into a rage and beats her to death. What good was the restraining order.

It is a very bad situation, she needs help/protection. So I'll ask the question, where are her family, friends, the church, and/or the police. If you knew her would you help?

Mostly

A restraining order is the best thing, but they can be hard to get. How about not marrying the b*****d in the first place? Many of these things wouldn´t happen if it wasn´t for the whole "nice guys finish last.". If you marry the leader of the local biker gang what do you expect?

I would suggest taking off with the kids, disappearing is possible. Fniding her could be really hard.

But domestic violence in this case isn´t about sexism. It is about a stron person taking advantage of a weaker person. The sexism part _is_ when a guy is beaten by his wife and nobody takes it seriously. Or more lightly, when a woman slaps a man and people just think he did something naughty. And if the guy slaps the woman he is suddenly being violent.

That women in prisons is another example, women usually get lighter punishments than men. But I personally doubt what you said about the majority having killed their husband because of abuse.

Xanatic,

I got the "majority having killed their husband because of abuse" factoid from an article written by a NOW (National Org. of Women (a feminist org.)) member on women in prison. She, as I was, only referring to women who are in prison for killing someone. I admit that the writer may have skewed the numbers to make her point. (A political org. skewing number... I am shocked and dismayed. What next Politicians lying)

Mostly

Did she state that it was an _abusive_ husband? Because after all murder is usually kept within the family.

Just to re-inforce the point that "most women-in-prison-for-murder are there because-they-killed-their-husband/lover" let me repeat my statistic from Post #2 that 60 to 70 perecnt of all murders happen in the home, committed by a family member.
Statistically, your home is the unsafest place in the world if you don't want to be murdered.
happy families
~jwf~

(Pedantic note: One should never 'pull' the trigger. This obsolete usage comes from catapult days. The trigger of a gun should be squeezed gently, like a woman, until it goes bang. The Beatles had something to say on the subject ..something about happiness being a warm gun.)

Xanatic,

I don't remember if she used the term abusive husband, but that is the impression I got from the article. The writer was trying to make the point that women are usually not violent but only become so to protect herself and her children from an abusive man and in doing so end up in prison. She stated some numbers of the total number of female inmates in for killing someone and the number of women in for killing their husband/lover who stated that they were abused.

I'll see if I can find the article again and sneak a URL link for it past the moderators.


Mostly

Unfortunately, the overwhelming number (I'd have to look up the statistic, but it's in excess of 75%) of fatalities from domestic violence occur when the woman (I'll address other dv in a moment) does actually leave. The 'hurt pride' and anger at losing 'control' of his 'possession/s' on the part of a batterer or otherwise abusive husband, and the idea of 'losing' is enough to tip the violence over to homicide. Leaving is very dangerous. There is a reason why battered women's shelters do not list street addresses in the telephone book, and have bullet-proof windows, and that reason is homicidal husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends, and ex-boyfriends.

From a moral standpoint, there may be 'no justification' for taking a life. It is very important to remember that the battered woman's life is being 'taken', bit by bit and ounce by ounce, so long as she is controlled by a batterer. There are those who argue that she is still alive, so she is better off than if she were dead. Not all battered women would agree with that statement. It is important to consider her hope for any sort of future... how much brain-damage she will sustain, what sort of internal damage the battery has done which may kill her over the long-term. Women die every day as a direct result of long-term abuse, but the official cause of death is 'aneyurism', or 'peritonitis', or 'phlebitis'. If a blood clot moves from a woman's back to her brain, and kills her, and if the blood clot was put there by a husband who bashed her, how is that different from a bullet? Is it different?

I think it is very dangerous to apply moral absolutes like 'there is no grounds for murder', in situations like this.

I think it is very careless for people to just say 'she should leave', if they have not been in a situation where they honestly face death no matter what they do, and it is just a question of which option postpones death longer. If one has not been double-bound like that, I do not believe one is in a position to moralise.



Yes, there are men who are bashed regularly. Most of them are not bashed by women, though the sensationalist press would love people to believe that, but by male partners. All the same issues apply, plus the social stigma a man suffers for not being 'tough', and the social stigma of being in a homosexual battering relationship, when the gay community does not really want to acknowledge 'yes, we have this problem, too'. The support infrastructure for gay male battery victims is absolutely dismal. It exists, now, and has done since the late 80s, at least in the urban US.

As far as a support infrastructure for men who are bashed by women, I honestly do not know that there is one. For support and outreach, I do not know where these men go. I do know that there are *not* the same sort of fatalities associated with women who are violent (to men or other women) as there are with male batterers. It seems that crossing the line to killing does not happen as often in women as it does in men.

Women who are battered by other women are also in serious danger, of course. The lesbian community started dealing with the issue of battering lesbian relationships in the early 1980s in the US. The only really significant difference between violent relationships between women and those involving men seems to be the use of firearms and knives. Women batterers use them less often than men do.



Should she have pulled the trigger? Given the situation as described, yes. If for no other reason than it meant the *possible* survival and recovery of the children, who otherwise had no hope at all. They were there, and badly traumatised, and there was no chance, given the situation described, that life would have got better until they were old enough to take to the streets.

The fact that the average age of serious runaways in the USA has dropped from 12 to 8 in the last 30 years says something very scary about how unsafe kids are at home. 8 year olds do not run to the streets for fun, or drugs, or to avoid doing their algebra.

Sometimes there are no good choices. Often, moral absolutes are irrelevant to real life. Those who have not been there are really not, in my opinion, entitled to moralise.

Arpeggio, for LeKZ

Xanatic~

Restraining orders are notoriously insignificant. And one does not always know someone is violent and sociopathic until after the marriage is established and there is no way out.

I find your comments about sexism to be unnecesarily trivialising. ALL domestic violence and sexual violence is BOTH the stronger having power over the weaker, AND hate-crime against women.

Illustration:
Same-sex rape is a very large, known problem in prisons. (Much worse in men's prisons than women's, though it is present in both). The PERPETRATORS of the same-sex rapes are, and this has been studied extensively, NOT people who self-identify as 'homosexual'. On the contrary, they self-identify as very tough, bad-ass, heterosexual, who just 'have to get their needs met'.

The VICTIMS of same-sex rapes in prison are overwhelmingly self-identified homosexual men. These men are often kept in separate quarters, for their own protection.

Such victims are called, in prison slang 'WOMEN'.

I do not think there is any need for further comment, is there?

Arpeggio, for LeKZ

Russian women say quite often: If he beats me it means he loves me.

E G Mel ~

It is very darn *difficult* to disappear. Especially if there are kids. What about money? Many abusive husbands have the only bank account. They often isolate their wives and do not let them have car keys. I know one woman whose clothes and shoes were all burnt.

And if she does get away, and has a little money, he still has the car. Where is she going to go? To her relatives, if he knows were they live, and endanger them? The police are not going to look after her and the children. A shelter? Yes, if there is one anywhere nearby?

I am afraid your attitude is the one most people have, because you have never faced a lose-lose situation. You believe the Police help. (What if your abusive husband is a police officer, and all the police in three counties know him and support him? A friend of mine couldn't go anywhere without a police officer tailing her, because she was in that situation, and he had told his buddies she was dangerously crazy.) You believe in the power of Restraining Orders - which are famous for being both unenforced, and unenforceable.

In short, you believe what most people believe. This makes you no worse or better than anyone. It just shows that intelligent people who do not know the reality of human brutality simply have trouble grasping it. That is one of the reasons so much violence thrives. Sane people can't understand the scope of human violence, and honestly believe the available remedies help.

This makes me very sad. I don't know how the situation is going to improve when good-hearted, intelligent people are so unaware of the problems. It will take all of society knowing, and caring and acting, for things like domestic violence to stop. I wish I had evidence that most of society even cared.

Arpeggio, sobered and scared, for LeKZ

Russian women say quite often: If he beats me it means he loves me.

It is one way to avoid dealing with a very serious social problem... Pretend it is not a problem.

A friend from seminary worked in a Fundamentalist Christian (Assemblies of God) church for a while, as a Pastoral Counselor. Women kept coming to her asking:

'Teach me to be a better Christian wife, so my husband doesn't need to beat me'.

That is a neat piece of social mind-control: make the woman believe the beatings are out of love, or deserved and done for religious reasons.

How appalling.

Arpeggio, for LeKZ

I know a woman who was very heavily abused by her husband. Before the marriage, he was Mr. Perfect... he didn't swear, smoke, or drink, and he made her quit all of those things. He was a brilliant student, a hard worker, and a loving man.

Through the course of the relationship, he became a drug abuser, and became abusive. She tolerated it for a few years, because she feared what he would do if she left. She had her children's welfare to consider. Her father noticed the signs, and kept asking her if she was being abused. She lied, because she was afraid her father would become involved, and he might get hurt.

Then, one day, she finally found the courage to leave. She understood the impact the situation was having on her children in one fateful moment, as she walked past her children's room, and heard her three-year old son pronounce with gravity and conviction to his older brothers, "If Daddy hits Mommy one more time I'm going to kill him."

She found safe haven with the one man she knew her husband would not threaten... his own father. She had no skills to speak of, but the support of family and friends got her back on her feet again. Had she *not* had that available, she would have had to follow her youngest boy's advice. The legal system has no way to adequately protect her from her husband. As an illuminating epilogue, many years after they seperated, he came to her house to see the boys. He hit her again. Luckily, she was living with a man, although he was much smaller than her ex. But the ex didn't have a forty-five in his hand. Ex decided to leave in peace, and bother her no more.

You can moralize all you want, but you have no right to force people to live in situations that you cannot even begin to understand. This stuff happens to ordinary people living in ordinary towns. It's probably happening right next door to you.

Absolutist statement:

'Moral answer: No - no human has the right to deny any other human the right to life.'

[I presume anyone who believes this is also an outspoken pacifist, anti-war and defence-spending activist, and against capital punishment.]


Illustration of why absolutes do not apply:

A 16 year old girl is pregnant by her father for the second time. She has no money, and nowhere to turn. She lives with him and a younger brother. The father is well-known and well-respected. The mother has gone home to Momma, abandoning the kids to the tender mercies of the father.

The girl knows (and maybe only females can understand this, I couldn't say) that feeling the embryo growing inside her into a foetus into a baby already feels like being raped by her father around the clock, every second of every hour of every day. It will feel like that for nine months. She will go insane. She is very close to insane already, because the incest has been going on all her life. The first pregnancy was before her 11th birthday, and ended in an utterly terrifying miscarriage.

She has no *good* choices. She can choose to bring this monstrous child of incest into the world, at the risk of her sanity, schooling, reputation, possibly getting thrown out of the house, for no reason other than to preserve its 'right to life'.

What about her life? She is a child, and the pregnancy by her father was not her idea. She considers this option, and decides the agony makes it completely impossible. She would much prefer to die.

She considers the option of jumping in front of a moving train. She realises this will kill both her and the baby. This seems all right. Given a choice, she would rather not die, but she was not given choices. She knows she would definitely prefer to jump in front of a train than endure the pregnancy and see her own life fall to utter ruin. Her sense of self-preservation exists, and makes itself felt.

Ultimately, she resorts to a self-induced abortion. She knows this may kill her. She does not care. It is possible, this way, to save *one* of the two lives. There are only two realistic options for her: jumping in front of the train, or killing the embryo (at about 8-10 weeks). Miraculously, she survives the self-induced abortion.

Now, I invite any moral absolutist to tell me I made the wrong decision. I allowed only *one* of my father's children to survive that day in 1978, and that one was me. Go ahead. Tell me I am a murderer. Be prepared to truly justify your position. Don't just give me absolutisms. I'm ready. This is nothing I have not told myself, and heard others say.

The truth is simple: moral absolutes have very little to do with real life.

LeKZ

All above postings in memory of:

The babies...

Regina - murdered by her husband when she left.

Leigh - tracked down and murdered by her husband when she left.

Alice's mother - blown to pieces along with her home by her ex-husband when she refused to let him see Alice, whom he was molesting.

Joan's daughter - beaten to death by her husband when caught packing.

Kristin's sister - hunted down by her husband and murdered as she slept on the street in a different town.

Helen and her baby - baby died, Helen crippled by beating with lead pipe by husband and father because baby 'cried too much'.

Jeanne - paralysed from the waist down for being the attorney of a woman suing for divorce, by a bullet shot by the husband, a State Trooper

Carla - who watched her mother commit suicide rather than continue to be abused, and watched her younger brother kill their father, rather than let his sister continue to be abused.

I could go on.

Arpeggio ..uhm, do you mind if I call you 'Peg', it's shorter.
Uhmm.. Peg. You and Autumn have made a very strong case for the truth about abuse and the male pigs who abuse. But as you have both pointed out, many of those following this thread, with interest, have little or no experience of these things.
I realise it's difficult but try to imagine the impact these facts have on such innocent minds. Yes, these things need to be brought to light. My post#2 should demonstrate that I agree with the cause. But because I agree with the cause, I think we should let folks absorb all this horror a little.
I have seen a bit of it in my lifetime and even got caught in the middle a couple of times. As you both have said, no one really understands the pain and frustration and hoplessness of these situations until they are in the midst of it. So don't expect to enlighten everyone in one swell foop. Okay?
"The man who is used to loading the elephants should not be trusted to pack the camels, for he will break their backs." (You herd me.)
peace
~jwf~

You're right, John.

It's easy to forget the thick skin we've developed. It was pretty insensitive to just lay it all out there .

Sorry all. That was definitely TMI.

Arpeggio (that's 'Arpeggio', svp ) for LeKZ