New Scottish Gov. Report: Sexes Commit DV About Equally, Damages Fairly Light
January 31, 2010
The government of Scotland recently published its latest "Scottish Crime and Justice Survey" on Partner Abuse, and it looks like pretty good news.
The survey was of about 16,000 adults, conducted in 2008-09, who had had some sort of intimate relationship since the age of 16. They were asked questions about physical abuse and psychological abuse; they were asked about lifetime abuse and abuse within the past 12 months.
The definitions of "partner," "psychological abuse" and "physical abuse" ranged from broad to very broad. So the definition of "partner" included present and former marital partners, present and former non-marital partners and present and former civil unions. The definition of physical abuse included all of the usual actions you might expect, but also "threw something at you," without the requirement of actually having been struck by the thrown object. Psychological abuse included things like "repeatedly put you down so that you felt worthless" and "stopped you having your fair share of the household money."
In short, the questioners cast their net very widely, but they didn't catch much. That's why I say it looks like good news.
For example, within the past 12 months, 5% of those surveyed said they'd experienced any type of partner abuse. Again, given the breadth of the definitions, I'd have thought there'd be more. Men and women reported victimization equally - 5% of each sex. About 12.2% (1,957 total) of those surveyed said they'd experienced some form of abuse in their lifetimes since the age of 16.
Of those 1,957 people who reported having experienced some form of abuse in their lifetimes, 73% of women and 71% of men said they'd ever experienced physical abuse in their lives since the age of 16. Of those 1,957 who reported any form of abuse, 91% of women and 71% of men reported psychological abuse since the age of 16.
It appears that those 1,957 people reporting any abuse at all since the age of 16 were divided about equally between the sexes, but with a few more women. Therefore, the 73% of women and the 71% of men reporting physical abuse averaged out to a 72% overall rate. Likewise the 91% of women and 71% of men reporting psychological abuse averaged out to an 83% overall rate.
It also looks like the damage done by physical abuse was fairly minor as well. Of those reporting physical abuse in the last year, 44% said there was no physical impact of the abuse at all. Another 35% reported minor bruising or cuts; severe bruising and severe cuts made up 12% of the injuries. Supporting the theory that even physical abuse rarely causes serious harm, only 30% of those who said they were victims of physical abuse in the past year, considered it a crime.
Forty-one percent of those experiencing psychological abuse in the past year reported no adverse impact from it.
Interestingly, over the post-16 lifetimes of the respondents, about 60% of the perpetrators were male and 38% were female. Within the last year, however, 48% of perpetrators were male and 45% were female (What happened to the other 7%? I don't know and the report doesn't say.) That seems to suggest that either men are becoming more likely to report victimization at the hands of a woman or that women are more likely now than in the past to engage in partner abuse. Given that this survey asked about current reporting, not past, I'd have to say the latter is true, i.e. that women are engaging in more partner abuse than in the past. But that's really just an educated guess.
Other data show that demographics play a big role in who perpetrates and who's a victim of partner abuse. For example, those aged 16-24 are much more likely to be victims of partner abuse and those over 59 are highly unlikely to be. That's worth remembering in the coming debate about elder abuse.
About 40% of men and 21% of women told no one about the last incidence of partner abuse of which they were a victim.
Abuse tends to be concentrated in a few couples. Forty-five percent of those reporting abuse in the previous year reported only one incident and another 11% reported two. But three percent reported incidents "too numerous to count."
And as usual, the poor are much more likely to be perpetrators and victims.
This report should give everyone, but particularly Scottish citizens, pause. The facts and figures it contains paint a picture of partner abuse (a much broader term than "domestic violence") that is fairly benign and narrow in scope. Of course I don't mean to understate its importance and I would never say we shouldn't pay attention to truly damaging incidents. But public resources are limited and should be directed at problems in proportion to their importance.
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Bio-Dad or Not, Georgia Man Opts to Be Father to Child
January 31, 2010
This is a case out of Georgia that has a few surprises (Leagle, 1/26/10).
Clinton and Cynthia Williamson married in 1996 and had their first child in January of 2004. Twenty-two months later, in November of 2005, they separated and Cynthia filed for divorce in May, 2006. For the first time, she claimed that the child might have been fathered by someone other than Clinton.
So it's a standard paternity fraud case, right? Not quite. It was Cynthia who moved the court for an order to do genetic testing to establish the biological paternity of the child. Clinton resisted the motion. So, even though he might not be the child's biological father, Clinton didn't want to know. He wanted to continue his relationship with the child irrespective of biology.
What's perhaps even more interesting is the fact that the court denied Cynthia's motion for genetic testing and the appellate court upheld that ruling. The reason? Both courts ruled that it would be in the best interests of the child to not know its biological father, if that person is not Clinton. The trial court appointed a guardian ad litem who said that Clinton and the child had a "very strong father/son relationship," and that bringing another father into the boy's life would be detrimental to his best interests.
It's a strange case. First, why did Cynthia want to bring another man into the picture? It's worth speculating about that. Maybe it's as simple as her being angry with Clinton and wanting to put another man between him and his son. Or maybe the other man looked like he had more to offer her than did Clinton, either in the way of money or something less tangible. So maybe that was her way of getting him into her life.
But whatever her motivations were, Clinton's are clear enough. He's bonded with the little boy and he's not about to let that go.
What's particularly strange is the guardian ad litem's stance that it's not in the child's best interest to know who his natural father is. The medical benefits alone of establishing paternity would seem to outweigh everything else. I must wonder what that attorney ad litem, who's whole purpose is to protect the child's interests in the course of litigation, would have to say about that. The court's opinion doesn't tell us.
The bottom line, though, is the same. There may be a man out there who has a son he doesn't know about and whose son doesn't know about him. Fortunately the child has a loving father, but the courts have once again conspired with a mother whose decision it was to keep a child from its biological father and vice versa. In this case, we can't get too upset because Clinton is a stand-up guy who will probably do his best to be a father to the boy his life long.
But the principle that fathers should be given accurate and timely information about their paternity so that they can assume their parental duties and create real, meaningful relationships with their children, has once again been kicked to the curb. The mother's original decision to not tell either Clinton or the other man the truth, has been enshrined in the court's decision. As so many times before, her refusal to tell trumps the unknown other man's right to establish a bond with his son.
And again, mandatory genetic testing at birth would have prevented all of this.
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UK: Fathers’ Parental Leave to be Increased
January 29, 2010
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said the proposals would help millions balance their work and family life. "As both parents work in most modern families, it's right that mums and dads should decide who looks after their baby, rather than the state deciding for them by only paying the mother for parental leave," he said.
The Labour Party's happy; so is the Trade Union Congress. And who wouldn't be happy that Harriet Harman is happy? Meanwhile, Tories and business are way out of sorts. Me? I'm not so sure.
That's because Labour's announced its intention to change the United Kingdom's parental leave policy. They intend to schedule a vote on the new law in April. As it stands now, fathers get a whopping two weeks of paid leave following the birth of a child, while mothers get nine months off. But come April of 2011, that's going to change. For children due or born on or after April 3 of that year, the new law will allow mothers to take the same nine months off with pay up to £123 per week. But after six months of her leave, fathers will be able to take three months off at the same pay rate and another three months off unpaid. So, if a mom and dad decided to do it that way, they could each take six months off to be with little Andy or Jenny.
As far as dads go, that's an improvement and Harriet Harman should be commended for pushing it through, which she apparently did.
But I have a question. What happens if Mom takes six months and announces her intention to take the next three months as well? It looks to me like Dad has no recourse. Maybe I'm wrong, but from the description in this article, it seems that Dad's parental rights are once again subject to Mom's control (The Guardian, 1/28/10). If she agrees, he can take the time off; if she refuses, he can't. In legal terms, he seems to have no independent right that he can assert.
In which case, we once again have a situation that's distressingly familiar in the law relating to families and children - dads are second-class citizens. Their rights are subject to mothers' control. To get some time with their children, they must apply, hat in hand, to the good offices of the mother, who can turn thumbs up or down. It's true in visitation cases, adoption cases, paternity fraud cases and now seemingly parental leave. We just can't seem to grasp the concept of fathers' equal rights.
I hope I'm wrong, but that's what it looks like to me. That said, the new law will be an improvement for fathers; it's a small step toward parental equality.
NOW: ‘Women are Suffering Disproportionately in the Current Recession’
January 29, 2010
Of course we've all been waiting breathlessly for NOW's take on President Obama's first State of the Union Address to Congress Wednesday night. And here it is.
Lo and behold, it includes numerous outright objective falsehoods and some unsupportable opinions as well. Who'd have guessed? But here's Exhibit A:
The president acknowledged the alarming state of the economy, and the fierce challenges facing workers, homeowners, retirees and young people. But he did not explicitly remind Congress that women are suffering disproportionately in the current recession -- seeing more foreclosures, less health care coverage, worse predatory loan practices and struggling to support their families on incomes depressed by a persistent wage gap.
It's just a wild guess on my part, but maybe the reason Obama didn't "remind Congress" of those things is that they're not true. Now, admittedly, I don't know about whether more women than men are having their homes foreclosed or whether they're more subject to predatory loan practices. I suspect Terry O'Neill doesn't either, but "less health care coverage"? That's patently false. As I reported on September 19, 2009, the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation's 2008 figures show that about 55% of adults without health insurance in the United States are men while 45% are women. When it comes to working adults, the data are even worse for men. This 2009 statistical brief by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality shows that working men are "more than 1.5 times as likely to be uninsured as their female counterparts."
And of course, the predictable wage gap claim is without foundation. It's true that women earn less than men do, but study after study shows that that's because (a) women tend to choose lower paying jobs than do men and (b) they work less at paid employment than do men.Â
As to (a), women tend to choose jobs as teachers, nurses and in secretarial/clerical and retail sales employment. Those jobs tend to pay less than the jobs men gravitate to which tend to be manufacturing, construction and the skilled trades like electricians, plumbers, etc. The jobs women choose tend to pay less, but, as this recession amply demonstrates, they're more recession-proof than are men's jobs. Teaching and nursing have been among the very most secure jobs during this recession, while manufacturing and construction have been the hardest hit.
As to (b), the Bureau of Labor Statistics Time Use Survey routinely shows that, even when men and women say they work full-time, women still work fewer hours per day than do men. At last check, full-time male employees worked about eight hours a day while full-time female employees worked about 7.4 hours. Not only that, but women are also much more likely to work part-time than are men.
Again, the idea that the wage gap stems from anything but women's choices about how much to work and at what jobs went up in smoke long ago. Even Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor Robert Reich admitted in an interview with the New York Times back in 2008 that at most a pay gap of 5% was attributable to other factors.
NOW just keeps riding that pony even though it died years ago.
Maybe that's why O'Neill tries hopping to another mount. But her new one was never alive. It's like one of those mechanical horsies you used to see outside of grocery stores that just go up and down, up and down. It's fun for the kids, but adults don't get much out of it and in any case it doesn't go anywhere.
What's O'Neill's latest explanation for the wage gap?Â
[W]e also need stronger legislation, like the Fair Pay Act of 2007, that addresses the underlying causes of the wage gap -- the most important of which is that the vast majority of workplaces in this country are severely sex-segregated.
That one doesn't even make sense. After all, the word "segregation" connotes an involuntary or even forced condition. For example, in the United States, African-Americans were segregated from white society and institutions for centuries. That was not by their choice but by the coercion of the law and sometimes worse. What O'Neill calls "segregation" has nothing to do with actual segregation and everything to do with the choices women and men voluntarily make. Women choose to be teachers knowing full well what the pay is. Men choose to be construction workers knowing full well that the work can be seasonal, dangerous and subject to shifts in the economy.
That the "segregation" card was also played by a feminist academic Donna Bobbitt-Zeher last year is interesting. She actually claimed that colleges and universities are sexually segregating academic majors to keep women out of higher-paying jobs. Just how they do that, given that it would violate numerous laws and women would be screaming bloody murder if they did, Bobbitt-Zeher didn't say. Maybe "segregation" is the new fashion in feminist victimization claims. It's an argument that's so threadbare, so transparently false that anyone can see through it. The fact that O'Neill calls it the "most important" cause of the wage gap just shows how little she has to work with.  Â
O'Neill's desperate attempt at playing the victim card in a recession in which women are making out far better than men is disgraceful and hateful. Into the bargain, I can't see how it can possibly help the organization of which she's president. Actual everyday women know what's going on with their fathers, husbands, lovers, brothers. Does O'Neill truly believe that man-hating is the best strategy, particularly now? Or is the habit just so ingrained that she doesn't know what else to say?
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NOW: ‘Women are Suffering Disproportionately in the Current Recession’
January 29, 2010
Of course we've all been waiting breathlessly for NOW's take on President Obama's first State of the Union Address to Congress Wednesday night. And here it is.
Lo and behold, it includes numerous outright objective falsehoods and some unsupportable opinions as well. Who'd have guessed? But here's Exhibit A:
The president acknowledged the alarming state of the economy, and the fierce challenges facing workers, homeowners, retirees and young people. But he did not explicitly remind Congress that women are suffering disproportionately in the current recession -- seeing more foreclosures, less health care coverage, worse predatory loan practices and struggling to support their families on incomes depressed by a persistent wage gap.
It's just a wild guess on my part, but maybe the reason Obama didn't "remind Congress" of those things is that they're not true. Now, admittedly, I don't know about whether more women than men are having their homes foreclosed or whether they're more subject to predatory loan practices. I suspect Terry O'Neill doesn't either, but "less health care coverage"? That's patently false. As I reported on September 19, 2009, the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation's 2008 figures show that about 55% of adults without health insurance in the United States are men while 45% are women. When it comes to working adults, the data are even worse for men. This 2009 statistical brief by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality shows that working men are "more than 1.5 times as likely to be uninsured as their female counterparts."
And of course, the predictable wage gap claim is without foundation. It's true that women earn less than men do, but study after study shows that that's because (a) women tend to choose lower paying jobs than do men and (b) they work less at paid employment than do men.Â
As to (a), women tend to choose jobs as teachers, nurses and in secretarial/clerical and retail sales employment. Those jobs tend to pay less than the jobs men gravitate to which tend to be manufacturing, construction and the skilled trades like electricians, plumbers, etc. The jobs women choose tend to pay less, but, as this recession amply demonstrates, they're more recession-proof than are men's jobs. Teaching and nursing have been among the very most secure jobs during this recession, while manufacturing and construction have been the hardest hit.
As to (b), the Bureau of Labor Statistics Time Use Survey routinely shows that, even when men and women say they work full-time, women still work fewer hours per day than do men. At last check, full-time male employees worked about eight hours a day while full-time female employees worked about 7.4 hours. Not only that, but women are also much more likely to work part-time than are men.
Again, the idea that the wage gap stems from anything but women's choices about how much to work and at what jobs went up in smoke long ago. Even Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor Robert Reich admitted in an interview with the New York Times back in 2008 that at most a pay gap of 5% was attributable to other factors.
NOW just keeps riding that pony even though it died years ago.
Maybe that's why O'Neill tries hopping to another mount. But her new one was never alive. It's like one of those mechanical horsies you used to see outside of grocery stores that just go up and down, up and down. It's fun for the kids, but adults don't get much out of it and in any case it doesn't go anywhere.
What's O'Neill's latest explanation for the wage gap?Â
[W]e also need stronger legislation, like the Fair Pay Act of 2007, that addresses the underlying causes of the wage gap -- the most important of which is that the vast majority of workplaces in this country are severely sex-segregated.
That one doesn't even make sense. After all, the word "segregation" connotes an involuntary or even forced condition. For example, in the United States, African-Americans were segregated from white society and institutions for centuries. That was not by their choice but by the coercion of the law and sometimes worse. What O'Neill calls "segregation" has nothing to do with actual segregation and everything to do with the choices women and men voluntarily make. Women choose to be teachers knowing full well what the pay is. Men choose to be construction workers knowing full well that the work can be seasonal, dangerous and subject to shifts in the economy.
That the "segregation" card was also played by a feminist academic Donna Bobbitt-Zeher last year is interesting. She actually claimed that colleges and universities are sexually segregating academic majors to keep women out of higher-paying jobs. Just how they do that, given that it would violate numerous laws and women would be screaming bloody murder if they did, Bobbitt-Zeher didn't say. Maybe "segregation" is the new fashion in feminist victimization claims. It's an argument that's so threadbare, so transparently false that anyone can see through it. The fact that O'Neill calls it the "most important" cause of the wage gap just shows how little she has to work with.  Â
O'Neill's desperate attempt at playing the victim card in a recession in which women are making out far better than men is disgraceful and hateful. Into the bargain, I can't see how it can possibly help the organization of which she's president. Actual everyday women know what's going on with their fathers, husbands, lovers, brothers. Does O'Neill truly believe that man-hating is the best strategy, particularly now? Or is the habit just so ingrained that she doesn't know what else to say?
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NOW: ‘Women are Suffering Disproportionately in the Current Recession’
January 29, 2010
Of course we've all been waiting breathlessly for NOW's take on President Obama's first State of the Union Address to Congress Wednesday night. And here it is.
Lo and behold, it includes numerous outright objective falsehoods and some unsupportable opinions as well. Who'd have guessed? But here's Exhibit A:
The president acknowledged the alarming state of the economy, and the fierce challenges facing workers, homeowners, retirees and young people. But he did not explicitly remind Congress that women are suffering disproportionately in the current recession -- seeing more foreclosures, less health care coverage, worse predatory loan practices and struggling to support their families on incomes depressed by a persistent wage gap.
It's just a wild guess on my part, but maybe the reason Obama didn't "remind Congress" of those things is that they're not true. Now, admittedly, I don't know about whether more women than men are having their homes foreclosed or whether they're more subject to predatory loan practices. I suspect Terry O'Neill doesn't either, but "less health care coverage"? That's patently false. As I reported on September 19, 2009, the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation's 2008 figures show that about 55% of adults without health insurance in the United States are men while 45% are women. When it comes to working adults, the data are even worse for men. This 2009 statistical brief by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality shows that working men are "more than 1.5 times as likely to be uninsured as their female counterparts."
And of course, the predictable wage gap claim is without foundation. It's true that women earn less than men do, but study after study shows that that's because (a) women tend to choose lower paying jobs than do men and (b) they work less at paid employment than do men.
As to (a), women tend to choose jobs as teachers, nurses and in secretarial/clerical and retail sales employment. Those jobs tend to pay less than the jobs men gravitate to which tend to be manufacturing, construction and the skilled trades like electricians, plumbers, etc. The jobs women choose tend to pay less, but, as this recession amply demonstrates, they're more recession-proof than are men's jobs. Teaching and nursing have been among the very most secure jobs during this recession, while manufacturing and construction have been the hardest hit.
As to (b), the Bureau of Labor Statistics Time Use Survey routinely shows that, even when men and women say they work full-time, women still work fewer hours per day than do men. At last check, full-time male employees worked about eight hours a day while full-time female employees worked about 7.4 hours. Not only that, but women are also much more likely to work part-time than are men.
Again, the idea that the wage gap stems from anything but women's choices about how much to work and at what jobs went up in smoke long ago. Even Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor Robert Reich admitted in an interview with the New York Times back in 2008 that at most a pay gap of 5% was attributable to other factors.
NOW just keeps riding that pony even though it died years ago.
Maybe that's why O'Neill tries hopping to another mount. But her new one was never alive. It's like one of those mechanical horsies you used to see outside of grocery stores that just go up and down, up and down. It's fun for the kids, but adults don't get much out of it and in any case it doesn't go anywhere.
What's O'Neill's latest explanation for the wage gap?
[W]e also need stronger legislation, like the Fair Pay Act of 2007, that addresses the underlying causes of the wage gap -- the most important of which is that the vast majority of workplaces in this country are severely sex-segregated.
That one doesn't even make sense. After all, the word "segregation" connotes an involuntary or even forced condition. For example, in the United States, African-Americans were segregated from white society and institutions for centuries. That was not by their choice but by the coercion of the law and sometimes worse. What O'Neill calls "segregation" has nothing to do with actual segregation and everything to do with the choices women and men voluntarily make. Women choose to be teachers knowing full well what the pay is. Men choose to be construction workers knowing full well that the work can be seasonal, dangerous and subject to shifts in the economy.
That the "segregation" card was also played by a feminist academic Donna Bobbitt-Zeher last year is interesting. She actually claimed that colleges and universities are sexually segregating academic majors to keep women out of higher-paying jobs. Just how they do that, given that it would violate numerous laws and women would be screaming bloody murder if they did, Bobbitt-Zeher didn't say. Maybe "segregation" is the new fashion in feminist victimization claims. It's an argument that's so threadbare, so transparently false that anyone can see through it. The fact that O'Neill calls it the "most important" cause of the wage gap just shows how little she has to work with.
O'Neill's desperate attempt at playing the victim card in a recession in which women are making out far better than men is disgraceful and hateful. Into the bargain, I can't see how it can possibly help the organization of which she's president. Actual everyday women know what's going on with their fathers, husbands, lovers, brothers. Does O'Neill truly believe that man-hating is the best strategy, particularly now? Or is the habit just so ingrained that she doesn't know what else to say?
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Malta May Abolish ‘Father Unknown’ on Birth Certificates
January 28, 2010
Mothers should not have the option to put down "unknown father" on a birth certificate since children have the right to know who their father is, the parliamentary Social Affairs Committee has suggested.
Hmm. There's a concept for you. Read the article here (Times of Malta, 12/19/09). Back in 2000, I contacted the Bureaus of Vital Statistics of our eight most populous states and got them to computer analyze their birth certificate databases for the preceding year. I asked them to tell me how many birth certificates were either left blank or had "unknown" in the blank for the father's name. All of that data put together showed that 15.1% of all birth certificates had no father listed.
And that's not insignificant. Although a father's parental rights don't usually depend soleley on his being named, sometimes they do, particularly if his child is placed for adoption. Back in 2000, I wrote a whole piece about a North Carolina man who desperately wanted to get custody of his out-of-wedlock child, only to be denied precisely because he wasn't named on the birth certificate.
But if a mother receives TANF payments, state authorities are bound by law to "establish paternity." If they can do that, then the father is notified and required to reimburse the state for welfare paid to the mother. He also has his parental rights established. But many mothers refuse to establish paternity and, with no name on the birth certificate, the state's hands are tied. The father may never find out about his child, much less get to be its father in more than the biological sense. The lesson? Birth certificates can be very important to fathers' rights.
Now, of course there are very limited circumstances in which a mother may truly not know who the father is or have any way of finding out. Rape by a stranger is one and consensual sex with a stranger whom she cannot then locate is another. But in all other cases, mothers should be required by law to name all the men who may be the child's father.
I've called for mandatory genetic testing of all putative fathers and children at birth. That way, we can know from the start who is and who isn't the father. True fathers can then take up their parental duties and have the maximum possible access to their children. Non-fathers won't be forced to pay support for children who aren't theirs.
The suggestion by the Malta parliament's Social Affairs Committee goes a little way in the same direction as madatory DNA testing. By requiring a disclosure on the birth certificate, a man can at least learn that a woman says he's a child's father. Once so informed, he may be able to get testing done himself. It's not as good a solution as state-ordered testing, but it's better than the current system that places all power over the parental rights of a single dad in someone else's hands.
As things stand now, no state in the United States requires mothers to do the simple act of informing the father that he has a child. While he is in the dark, his parental rights are fragile things indeed.
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Canadian Judge Gives Female DV Perp Tap on Wrist; Admits If a Man ‘He Would Be Incarcerated for a Significant Period of Time’
January 28, 2010
[Judge] Tonning said domestic violence is a big problem that cannot be tolerated.
Except, that is, in the case he was adjudicating here (Telegraph Journal, 1/27/10). Then domestic violence can be tolerated just fine.
On the night of November 15, 2009, Mary Lisa Joyce Carrier was mad. She had been taking prescription medication and drinking alcohol which fueled her anger. She attacked her boyfriend, with a frying pan. He tried to avoid her by running outside, but she grabbed a kitchen knife and followed. Outside, neighbors heard him shout "don't stab me," but she did anyway, inflicting multiple stab wounds to his right shoulder area.Â
Carrier was arrested and charged with assault causing bodily harm. But in a plea bargain with prosecutor Kelly Winchester, she won't spend a minute in prison. She was given a six-month conditional sentence followed by a year's probation.Â
Having intoned the mantra of zero tolerance for domestic violence, and then contradicted himself with his wrist-tap sentence of Carrier, Judge Tonning went on to add that his behavior was sexist.
"Domestic violence is problematic," he said. "This is a situation that's fraught with danger. These situations can, in fact, turn into fatalities."
He said if the role was revered (sic) and it was a man who beat his girlfriend with a frying pan and then stabbed her repeatedly, he is "doubtful" the sentence would be as light.
"More likely he would be incarcerated for a significant period of time," Tonning said.
Well, at least he's honest about his gender bias.
This is a case of a woman who attacked a man with a deadly weapon. He did nothing but try to avoid her violent attack. He was at all times non-violent. Despite knowing that she had "anger management problems," Carrier drank alcohol that contributed to that anger before her attack. To me, all of that adds up to a sentence of jail time, probably a year. Going after another person in an alcohol-fueled rage with a weapon that can kill is not behavior that should be glossed over by the criminal justice system, but that's exactly what happened here.
That said, the truth of the matter is that more DV cases should end up like this. As I said above, not this case, but DV cases generally. That's because the vast majority of DV cases don't involve injury at all and most of those that do involve only minor injuries. For example, in the United States, the National Violence Against Women Survey found that 39% of female victims of DV and 25% of males had been injured in their last DV victimization. In other words, 61% of women and 75% of men who were victims of a DV incident had not been injured in that incident. And most of those injuries were less severe than those suffered by Carrier's victim.
Those cases should get a psychotherapeutic response, not just a judicial one.  Criminal law exists to punish certain conduct. It is very poor at altering patterns of behavior.  So if we want to lessen the problem of domestic violence, we'll do more psychological intervention and less incarceration. Again, incarceration is appropriate in cases like Carrier's, but not in most DV matters.
As I've said before, we need to start admitting who does DV and why. Having done that, we need to start addressing the vast majority of DV as the psychological problem that it is and once and for all dispense with the nonsense that claims its a political problem of power between the sexes. Duluth Model "re-education" programs don't work. If they did, we'd have a lot less DV now than we used to, but no one pretends that we do.
We know who does DV. We know why it's done. Overwhelmingly, DV perpetrators grew up with DV in their households. We know how to deal with it. But for decades we've lived in thrall to a DV industry that refuses to admit who commits DV or why and that relies on an ideologically-based response that's proven to be ineffective. Into the bargain, we've poured billions of dollars into that whole dysfunctional system.
Someday maybe we'll learn.
Thanks to Chad and Jeremy (not the British pop duo) for the heads-up.    Â
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Canadian Judge Gives Female DV Perp Tap on Wrist; Admits If a Man ‘He Would Be Incarcerated for a Significant Period of Time’
January 28, 2010
[Judge] Tonning said domestic violence is a big problem that cannot be tolerated.
Except, that is, in the case he was adjudicating here (Telegraph Journal, 1/27/10). Then domestic violence can be tolerated just fine.
On the night of November 15, 2009, Mary Lisa Joyce Carrier was mad. She had been taking prescription medication and drinking alcohol which fueled her anger. She attacked her boyfriend, with a frying pan. He tried to avoid her by running outside, but she grabbed a kitchen knife and followed. Outside, neighbors heard him shout "don't stab me," but she did anyway, inflicting multiple stab wounds to his right shoulder area.
Carrier was arrested and charged with assault causing bodily harm. But in a plea bargain with prosecutor Kelly Winchester, she won't spend a minute in prison. She was given a six-month conditional sentence followed by a year's probation.
Having intoned the mantra of zero tolerance for domestic violence, and then contradicted himself with his wrist-tap sentence of Carrier, Judge Tonning went on to add that his behavior was sexist.
"Domestic violence is problematic," he said. "This is a situation that's fraught with danger. These situations can, in fact, turn into fatalities."
He said if the role was revered (sic) and it was a man who beat his girlfriend with a frying pan and then stabbed her repeatedly, he is "doubtful" the sentence would be as light.
"More likely he would be incarcerated for a significant period of time," Tonning said.
Well, at least he's honest about his gender bias.
This is a case of a woman who attacked a man with a deadly weapon. He did nothing but try to avoid her violent attack. He was at all times non-violent. Despite knowing that she had "anger management problems," Carrier drank alcohol that contributed to that anger before her attack. To me, all of that adds up to a sentence of jail time, probably a year. Going after another person in an alcohol-fueled rage with a weapon that can kill is not behavior that should be glossed over by the criminal justice system, but that's exactly what happened here.
That said, the truth of the matter is that more DV cases should end up like this. As I said above, not this case, but DV cases generally. That's because the vast majority of DV cases don't involve injury at all and most of those that do involve only minor injuries. For example, in the United States, the National Violence Against Women Survey found that 39% of female victims of DV and 25% of males had been injured in their last DV victimization. In other words, 61% of women and 75% of men who were victims of a DV incident had not been injured in that incident. And most of those injuries were less severe than those suffered by Carrier's victim.
Those cases should get a psychotherapeutic response, not just a judicial one. Criminal law exists to punish certain conduct. It is very poor at altering patterns of behavior. So if we want to lessen the problem of domestic violence, we'll do more psychological intervention and less incarceration. Again, incarceration is appropriate in cases like Carrier's, but not in most DV matters.
As I've said before, we need to start admitting who does DV and why. Having done that, we need to start addressing the vast majority of DV as the psychological problem that it is and once and for all dispense with the nonsense that claims its a political problem of power between the sexes. Duluth Model "re-education" programs don't work. If they did, we'd have a lot less DV now than we used to, but no one pretends that we do.
We know who does DV. We know why it's done. Overwhelmingly, DV perpetrators grew up with DV in their households. We know how to deal with it. But for decades we've lived in thrall to a DV industry that refuses to admit who commits DV or why and that relies on an ideologically-based response that's proven to be ineffective. Into the bargain, we've poured billions of dollars into that whole dysfunctional system.
Someday maybe we'll learn.
Thanks to Chad and Jeremy (not the British pop duo) for the heads-up.
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Susan Clancy: Child ‘Sexual Abuse Not Women; It’s Men’
January 28, 2010
Here's an odd piece (Salon.com, 1/18/10). It's an interview with Susan Clancy who, the article tells us is
A former Harvard psychologist and the current research director at the Harvard-affiliated Center for Women’s Advancement, Development and Leadership in Nicaragua.
She's discussing her research into child sexual abuse and what she calls the "trauma myth." According to the trauma myth, children who are sexually abused are so traumatized by the experience that they repress all memories of it. It is those repressed memories, so the myth has it, that can lead to behavioral disorders, depression and even suicide later in life.
The concept of repressed memories was much in vogue when the various daycare center scandals were unfolding in the 80s and 90s. The all-too-diligent efforts of social workers to elicit those "memories" from children resulted in some of the most outrageous star chamber proceedings this country has ever witnessed. The fact that the "memories" uniformly turned out to be fabrications by children who's sole aim was to please the adults questioning them, only came out much later after lives and reputations had been ruined.
Now comes Susan Clancy to tell us that, in her professional opinion, child sexual abuse is rarely even traumatic for the children, at least at the time. Here's her thesis in a nutshell:
[A]lthough sexual abuse is usually portrayed by professionals and the media as a traumatic experience for the victims when it happens — meaning frightening, overwhelming, painful — it rarely is. Most victims do not understand they are being victimized, because they are too young to understand sex, the perpetrators are almost always people they know and trust, and violence or penetration rarely occurs. "Confusion" is the most frequently reported word when victims are asked to describe what the experience was like. Confusion is a far cry from trauma.
Of course it's not Clancy's purpose to defend child sexual abusers. She makes the valid point that "harmfulness is not the same as wrongfulness." In other words, just because it doesn't harm the child doesn't mean it's appropriate behavior. Clearly it's not and when it happens it should be prosecuted.
And I don't read her to say that there is no harm done by child sexual abuse. She seems to be talking about what a child experiences at the time. Certainly, long-term psychological harm from sexual abuse of children has been well-documented.
Clancy reports that, at Harvard, her take on sexual abuse of children was met with incrdulity and outright hostility. Academics there, she says, wanted to focus on the 2% of abuse that's violent and ignore the rest that, according to her is usually not trautmatic to the children at the time. She also complains about popular culture that tends to portray sexual abuse as exclusively that violent 2% as in the movie Mystic River.
All of that is interesting enough. I haven't read the social science she critiques, so I can't produce an informed opinion about what she's saying. I suspect that there are many who will vociferously disagree with her. But I'll keep her points in mind though, as I read more.
But at the end of the interview, Clancy just goes off the rails. She gets a little loony. First, she makes this claim:
I think practically, sexual abuse victims need to hear loud and clear that what happened to you is what happens to most people.
"Happens to most people?" Nope, not even close. There's nothing to indicate that "most" children are sexually abused. But, since this was an interview, I'll accept that maybe she just misspoke. I'll assume she meant "happens to most people who were sexually abused." But what comes next isn't misspeaking, it's just wrong. Unbidden, Clancy says,
What the fuck is wrong with all of these men? Sexual abuse is not women; it's men. Every once in a while a woman will sexually abuse, but in 95 percent of cases it's a man that is known to the child — a teacher, a friend, a family member.
Cough, excuse me? This woman is supposed to be some sort of highly-funcitioning academic in the field of child sexual abuse and she apparently doesn't know some very basic facts about it. Either that or she's intentionally misrepresenting what the science is.
It is certainly true that most child sexual abuse is committed by males. But to claim that women do none of it, or close to none, is just flat wrong. Various studies produce various figures, but 20-25% of child sexual abuse by women looks about accurate, or even an understatement. For example, researcher Frederick Matthews found that,
[I]n six studies reviewed by Russell and Finkelhor, female perpetrators accounted for 25% or more of abusers. Ramsay-Klawsnik (1990a) found that adult females were abusers of males 37% of the time, female adolescents 19% of the time. Both of these rates are higher than the same study reported for adult and teen male abusers.
In studies of adults who were sexually abused as children, Matthews found that,
In some of these types of studies, females represent as much as 50% of sexual abusers (Risin and Koss, 1987).
In the United Kingdom, the charity Childline last November released it's report of callers seeking help from abuse. I reported on that here. Childline revealed that almost 25% of children reporting sexual abuse said it was committed by a female. Police at the time said that finding was in line with their own figures.
And when it comes to self-reporting, it's almost certain that female abuse is understated. That's because children who are old enough to understand what's happening to them also understand that if Mom gets busted, they may well end up in foster care. So they tend to refrain from reporting a female abuser for fear of losing a parent. It's a Hobson's choice, but it's the one they have to make.
So what's Clancy doing with her claims that "sexual abuse is not women; it's men?"
Thanks to Alyce for the heads-up.
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