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Great Article Marc. I wrote the following note to the letters@latimes.com address:
Dear Editor:
Bravo! Thanks so much for printing the article "Expand Outreach and Shelter to Include Males" By Marc Angelucci. Finally a balance to the brainwashing of so many years by the gender feminists who want us to believe that only women are victims of domestic violence. This article shows us the truth, that domestic violence is a human issue and not a gender issue. Men are indeed in a similar situation now to the battered women of years ago. The shame and lack of services hamper their willingness to seek help. We need to find compassion and assistance for all people who are hurt by this tragedy whether they are men or women.
Many thanks for your stewardship of this important and misunderstood issue.
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by Anonymous User on Sunday January 20, @01:08AM EST (#2)
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Guess I'll just have to say that I agree with Marc's larger point whilst disgreeing with many of his smaller ones. Bravo, and keep up the good work!
Clapping,
Remo
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Great Marc, thank you. We are finally opening the flood gates on this issue - The genfems cannot hide the truth forever. It's a small step, but I see it as a great victory.
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Great job, brother! Here's the response I sent in, which also is one of the reasons I'm involved so actively in the Mens Movement....
Adam Smith
Hello LA Times,
I couldn't beleive it when I saw this article. AT LAST a newspaper had the courage to print something that has been unfortunately more prevalent than even many men have wanted to admit. I also am a victim of domestic violence by a female, namely my ex-fiance. It went on for 5 years, and I hung on for the same reasons women have said they did. "She's getting help, I'll hold on and help her with the change, etc., " Even though we broke up several times, we got back together and things would be fine for a couple of months, and it would start up again. The last time I left, I didn't leave a forwarding address, got an unlisted number and never went looking for her either. I would hear from time to time she was trying to find me, and I had to leave common freinds behind for fear they would tell her where I was. It's been 6 years since then, and it's so baffling to me how I put up for so long with the abuse. It was actually more violent than what was in this article, and she didn't have to drink to get that way, but it was a little worse when she did. Anyway, it gives a little hope to other men in this situation to start talking about it and getting government to fund some safe-houses or shelters for us. I had tried to call a womens shelter, but the reaction was pretty cold and hostile. I never tried again. To make my final departure stick this time, I had to leave my job, friends, and many personal belongings of sentimental nature behind. Thank you for this article.
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Great article, Marc. Good work.
One thing I can't figure out is why we aren't questioning the rationale behind making shelters and services exclusively male or female.
It seems to be that women victims will feel uncomfortable with men around, associating them with their abuser. But that's an illusion. The vast majority of men are NOT abusers. Cloistering them is just buying into feminist propaganda that they are.
I have a female friend who went to a women's shelter with her 5 year-old last year when her divorce turned ugly. The residents shared the chores, worked with shelter personnel, took care of business. I can't see how a man would disrupt that or why he couldn't have taken advantage of that service also.
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by Anonymous User on Sunday January 20, @01:32PM EST (#6)
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Thank you to everyone for their comments and to those who wrote the LA Times. (Remember that the LA Times wants an address and phone number before they print a letter.)
Larry: "One thing I can't figure out is why we aren't questioning the rationale behind making shelters and services exclusively male or female."
At Valley Oasis, they have several secretly located "cottages," and one is set aside for men. When there is overflow, in either direction, they ask the people in one of the cottages if they mind mixing the sexes, and never have they had a problem doing so. In fact, director Carol Ensign says that when there's a male victim in a women's shelter, it's not true that the women don't want him around, but quite the opposite. She says the usual reaction is that some of them are surprised that there is a male victim, but they don't mind him being there and after a while they want to do his laundry and take care of him. So I think there certainly is merit to the question of whether we should even be separating the sexes, although I don't have a problem with doing so as long as it's not an excuse to ignore men, which is what's happening. The bias is so deep-seated in the industry that I think we need a completely separate commission for men to counter it.
Marc
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The bias is so deep-seated in the industry that I think we need a completely separate commission for men to counter it.
Marc, I've spent all day trying to come up with sensible arguments why this shouldn't be necessary, but they keep crashing into the reality of human nature. I'm afraid you're right.
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Larry, you ask a question which I have asked for years. The only reason which I can come up with --other than gender-feminists' bigotry-- is to protect the men from women's mouths. Anyone who has ever run mixed gender self-help groups is familiar with the problem: Few women have as of yet learned to watch their mouth in regard to misandry. Yet, that is a small point and one easily fixed by any competant administrator.
I would say the real answer is in gender-feminist bigotry which requires harm to all males...
Greg
the Volksgaren Project: Intelligent Abuse Recovery, http://clix.to/support/, jaxom@amtelecom.net, 519-773-9644
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by Anonymous User on Sunday January 20, @03:14PM EST (#8)
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There is a DV shelter near me whose advertised purpose is to support women. However, I did have a conversation with the executive director, who told me that they have provided services for men. She made a point of telling me that they do so not on-site, but at a motel. I didn;t dwell on this, but I did get the impression that she was concerned that her female clients would be upset with a man in the building.
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by Anonymous User on Sunday January 20, @04:58PM EST (#9)
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I can tell you that I would not even consider going to a shelter if there were men there.
Not only would it make many women feel threatened but there are quite a few children in shelters that have been sexually abused. It would not be fair on them to have men around when they're already so vulnerable.
After working as a rape counsellor several years ago, I'm quite familiar with the number of men who want to be around female rape victims for their own titilation.
Mixing the genders in shelters would only stop a lot of women from seeking help from them.
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"It would not be fair on them to have men around
when they're already so vulnerable."
These are abused men, not abusers. Shelters these days would rather take in an abusive woman than an abused man. That's what's sad.
You need your beets -- you recycle, recycle!
Don't eat your beets -- recycle, recycle!
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So what do you do when one half of a lesbian couple is abused, and the abusive partner volunteers at the only shelter available to the abused partner? Is that different because they are both women?
To be honest, I agree - when my child and I were being abused by my then-wife, I would not have gone to a shelter run by women for preference, even if one would have taken me instead of accusing me of being an abuser. At the time, I didn't feel that women were very trustworthy. However, the fact remains that the vast majority of the opposite sex are not abusive, nor are they likely to condone abuse. On the contrary, most will act against it, if they can. This applies to both sexes equally, BTW.
If I had been able to go to a woman's shelter for help, and the people working there had not had pre-concieved ideas of "all men are rapists" and "only women are abused", then I probably would have managed quite well, if simply left to care for my child and get myself together. As for dealing with women - I was feeling pretty raw already, I wanted nothing from women but to be treated civilly and left alone. If they could have offered a little help, so much the better. I wanted nothing else.
BTW - as a rape counsellor, did you deal with any male victims, say some of the at least 300,000 rapes of men that happen yearly in US prisons?
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After working as a rape counsellor several years ago, I'm quite familiar with the number of men who want to be around female rape victims for their own titilation.
Excuse me? Where did you ever get the idea that men are "titillated" by rape victims?
I don't care about your personal experiences, honestly. People make crap up all the time to get their points across. Want to show me some research that says men are "titillated" by rape victims?
Also, why don't we interview some of these female victims and find out for certain what percentage of them are uncomfortable around men after they've been abused, instead of just taking the genfems anti-male hateful word for it?
Quite honestly, there's no excuse for generalizing hatred toward an entire group of people just because one individual who shares the same characteristics of that group has done wrong by you.
Men are people, too, and deserve to be able to seek and get help when they've been victims of abuse, whether or not women are "uncomfortable" with that.
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by Anonymous User on Sunday January 20, @08:53PM EST (#13)
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[Also, why don't we interview some of these female victims and find out for certain what percentage of them are uncomfortable around men after they've been abused, instead of just taking the genfems anti-male hateful word for it?]
What makes you think that just because the woman worked as a rape counsellor that she is therefor a "genfem", as you put it?
It's well known among people who work with female victims of either rape or domestic violence that there are men who like to "hang around" these victims. Some men do, in fact, find rape victims an easy target, this might explain why, when a female is raped, her chances of being raped again immediately go up. Who are you to pass off these workers' experiences as crap?
Regardless of what some of you might say, the fact remains that most people who commit rape are males.
Allowing men access to battered womens' shelters is even more frightening. Many male perpetrators of domestic violence also stalk the victim and there have been many instances where the male has tracked the woman down and killed her, often killing others along with her.
It seems pointless to try and keep the locations of such shelters secret, while at the same time allowing men the whereabouts.
If there are as many male victims of domestic abuse as you would have us believe, then why don't men start up their own shelters?
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by Anonymous User on Sunday January 20, @09:46PM EST (#15)
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"If there are as many male victims of domestic abuse as you would have us believe, then why don't men start up their own shelters?"
This is like asking, if as many men are dying from prostate cancer as women are of breast cancer, why haven't men organized to raise more awareness about prostate cancer as women have for breast cancer, so that the government would spend equally on the research instead of four times more on breast cancer? The answer is that men have not organized around their own issues, partly due to lack of information, media bias, political correctness, and gender roles that tell men to be chivalrous, to let women into the life boats first, and to not to ask for help.
In fact, we have created shelters, like the one in Minnesota. I'm working on getting one built in LA. But it requires funding. And not only are we blocked from VAWA funding, but we face tremendous bias at all levels of government and from DV foundations. We now have documented proof of being denied funding based on sex discrimination and are preparing for a lawsuit. It also reqruies awareness. And most peolple, including men, still don't know about the high numbers of male victims. So male victims still think they're part of an oddball category and get stigmatized. Without them seeking help, it's hard to raise awareness. It's a vicious cycle that is protected by an old guard of gender feminists that are constantly lying to the government and the media. Almost all literature from local governments, agencies, and social programs say only 5% of the victims are male, even though no current data supports that number at all. Raising any awareness about this is an uphill battle against bias and gender feminists who want to protect their funding and their political/ideological agendas.
This bias has been historically documented in Philip Cook's "Abused Men" and has been commented on by nationally respected researchers.
I'm dealing with this very thing in Los Angeles. I brought a male victim recently to the DV Commission and he didn't get one minute into his speech before a one of them openly badmouthed him. Later someone on the side said "he probably deserved it." The few sympathetic members of the DV commission tell me I'm in the lion's den, and they're absolutely right. There's no way we can overcome the bias unless we raise awareness from the outside first. And along the way we'll have to deal with comments such as yours. It's taking time, but we're going to get there.
I Promise.
Marc
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Marc, I'm from Minnesota. I didn't know we had a men's shelter. Where is it? I'd like to put together a list of services available to male DV victims in the Minneapolis area-- if there are any.
Another female men's activist
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by Anonymous User on Monday January 21, @08:32AM EST (#23)
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http://www.zip.com.au/~korman/dv/controversy/
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http://www.zip.com.au/~korman/dv/controversy/
Anonymous hasn't bothered to explain the reason s/he posted this link. It *attempts* to debunk the idea that men and women are equal perpetratrors of domestic violence, and attempts to use the men's movements own research against us.
I would be interested in hearing the truth regarding this Web page: Marc? Trudy?
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http://www.zip.com.au/~korman/dv/controversy/
Btw, I can tell you right off the bat that the author of this research has a serious anti-male agenda. She starts out by claiming that the men's movement is attempting to oppress women (or spread hate toward women) and distract attention from the problem of violence toward women by pointing out that men can be victims, too.
That's the most ludicrous notion I've ever read, and I'm not surprised that the genfems are promoting it in their all-fired hate-filled attempts to push back a movement which has obviously started to gain momentum.
Why would a request that male victims of domestic violence be given the same consideration as female victims be misogynist or in any way a bad reflection on women? That's bad logic.
Do you, anonymous, not agree that no matter how man men vs. how many women are abused in this nation, that they all deserve to be able to seek and find assistance? Or do you believe that because you think women are the majority of abused that the sexism and hatred for men perpetuated by yourselves and the government is justified?
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Pretty sneaky. She refers to a "factoids" page offered by Gelles which goes into detail in debunking many of the outlandish "statistics" used by feminists to portray women as victims. In the example that she refers to on her page Gelles doesn't deny that there is equal initiation of violence by men and women he simply says that women are 7-10 times more likely to be injured in these acts of violence and this has been "conveniently" left out.
http://www.mincava.umn.edu/papers/factoid.htm
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You do know that this is Kate Korman's website? You do know that Kate is a notorious man hater? You do know that she will do anything and say anything to get her way?
Greg
the Volksgaren Project: Intelligent Abuse Recovery, http://clix.to/support/, jaxom@amtelecom.net, 519-773-9644
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http://www.zip.com.au/~korman/dv/controversy/
From that page: " It's my belief that many of those who distort or misrepresent this research don't primarily want to help abused husbands, but want to attack women and feminism, and shift the spotlight of blame away from men. Showing that "women are just as bad" takes the pressure off men to take responsibility for their behaviour."
*sigh*
It's my belief that anyone who primarily wants to help abused men has to attack not women, but the myths of feminism, which puts the spotlight of blame on men as a whole. Showing that "women are just as bad as men" stops the blame game so that we can see individuals as responsible for their own behavior, regardless of their sex.
He or she is right about one thing, though. I do want to take the pressure off men.
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by Anonymous User on Monday January 21, @01:44PM EST (#29)
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(from Marc)
These feminists are so tiring. I wish they would do their research before citing this stuff. We know their arguments, but they don't take the time to look into ours.
Dr. David Fontes directly refuted Kate Orman point-by-point. It's online, but I'm having trouble downloading it. You can find it by searching the title: "Critique of Kate Orman's article". But Fontes' paper "Violent Touch: Breaking Through the Stereotype" refutes all the same arguments anyway. It's available at http://www.safe4all.org/resources.html
In fact, Fontes told me that Kate took her paper down after he refuted it. I guess it's still up. These arguments are completely misleading. Like the "7 times more likely to be harmed" argument. Even if severity of harm mattered at all, Kate doesn't tell us that the difference in that same study was 3% vs .4%. Instead of giving the figures, they say "7 to 10 times more likely," and we imagine this enormous number. Typical feminists. And it was only based on what men and women *reported* about having to visit a doctor. Men are much less likely to see a doctor for the same injury, so even that isn't so certain.
Kate also uses the age-old "conflict tactics scale" (CTS) argument. It sounds good, but it was debunked years ago. She says most of the equal violence surveys use the CTS which doesn't ask about self defense, and therefore when women strike in self defense, it gets counted as violence by women. Fontes points out several things in response. First, these same critics of the CTS have cited the CTS since 1972 to show high figures for female victims. As soon as we point out that the same surveys show the same number of male vicitms, suddenly they have a problem with the CTS. And then they assume women strike in self defense more than men. The data they cite to prove it comes from surveys that questioned women who were in a battered women's program. Such a survey is preselected, not randomized, and it doesn't account for all the women who struck for reasons other than self defense and never needed to visit a program. Fontes cites two *randomized* 1997 surveys, using the CTS, that did ask about motives and self defense. And the percentage breakdown for each motive was about the same for both sexes, the most common being "to get through to them." In one study, 90% of the women who struck their male partner said they did not strike in self defense at all. In the other one, it was 80% of the women. And men were striking in self defense at a slightly higher rate than women were. Dr. Martin Fiebert has also done some great research into motives at Cal State Long Beach showing that women who strike their partners usually are not doing so in self defense.
Don't ever let gender feminists BS you about Murray Straus. The menweb page on battered men http://www.batteredmen.com/index.htm has a ton of material quoting Straus. He says over and over that the violence is equal, but admits that women are harmed more often, *on average*. The degree of harm suddenly is important to these feminists only when it comes to male vctims. With female victims, it's "NO EXCUSE!" no matter how severe.
The people are the biggest hypocrits I've ever come across.
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(from Marc)
Damn it's great to have someone knowledgable about the people and the arguments involved in this side of the movement. :)
Thanks, Marc.
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by Anonymous User on Monday January 21, @03:02PM EST (#31)
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Remember that link I posted? Anyone? Anyone?
It was from Feminista, and included the interview with that lady from a domestic violence shelter.
What was the lesson? What did she admit?
The shelter movement has larger goals then helping abused women. Is it any wonder they don't want men around?
Remo
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The shelter movement has larger goals then helping abused women. Is it any wonder they don't want men around?
Remo, yes, I remember it. I almost brought it up, both for that and also to to mention the frustration of the Feminista being interviewed. She saw the shelter movement being clogged up with people who ONLY wanted to help abused women, without an ideological agenda. I think those people are reachable.
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by Anonymous User on Monday January 21, @07:33PM EST (#33)
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Dr. Fontes' response to Kate Orman is at http://www.safe4all.org/essays/KateOrman.pdf
Marc
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http://www.kidsndads.org/
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"Marc, I'm from Minnesota. I didn't know we had a men's shelter. Where is it? I'd like to put together a list of services available to male DV victims in the Minneapolis area-- if there are any."
Starrgirl, I know one was established in Minneapolis, but I don't know its status now and I haven't heard anything for some time. Sorry if I made it sound like I know the current status of it, but I don't. I just know that a man did create on there. There is mention of it in "A Man's World: How Real is Male Privielge? And How High is its Price?" by Ellis Cose.
One was in the works in Kansas City not long ago. I don't know what has happened with that either. It was announced by NCFC and photos of its plans can be viewed by clicking on "shelter" at http://www.kidsndads.org/
Thanks very much for putting together a list.
Marc
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What makes you think that just because the woman worked as a rape counsellor that she is therefor a "genfem", as you put it?
Because she's assuming that men are evil by nature and women are victims by nature. That's genfem philosophy.
AND, if it's such a well-known fact that men "hang around" rape victims for "titilation," why can't you (or the other anonymous, assuming you're two different people) point me to some research which shows this as fact rather than your hate-filled opinion?
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"It's well known among people who work with female victims of either rape or domestic violence that there are men who like to "hang around" these victims. [snip] Who are you to pass off these workers' experiences as crap?"
It's my understanding that men were pretty much pushed out of working in shelters during the 1970's, so these workers' experiences seem unlikely to include men "hanging around." Are you speaking of workers' experiences or workers' folklore?
"Allowing men access to battered womens' shelters is even more frightening."
Only if you consider men frightening.
"If there are as many male victims of domestic abuse as you would have us believe, then why don't men start up their own shelters?"
If there are as few male victims as others would have us believe, opening current shelters to them wouldn't constitute any strain on resources, would it?
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It's well known among people who work with female victims of either rape or domestic violence that there are men who like to "hang around" these victims. Some men do, in fact, find rape victims an easy target, this might explain why, when a female is raped, her chances of being raped again immediately go up. Who are you to pass off these workers' experiences as crap?
What you say is PARTLY true. If you add in the women who like to hang around male rape victims and abused men you will have the whole truth. Your sexism and bigotry blind you to reality.
I have interviwed female victims: Too many times. About 1 in 15 has reservations about accepting men in the shelters: There is about the same number of male victims who have reservations about females. The data from cognitive and reality therapists shows that mixing the genders causes a drop in the time needed to full recovery.
Your sexism and bigotry blind you to the damage you do to all victims of violence.
Furthermore, some of the women who have used shelters have specifically asked for men to be present. Their thinking is that since the shelters have abusive women present and refuse to eliminate known abusers, the presence of a man --especially a male victim-- would be added protection for the abused woman.
Your sexism blinds you to the extreme damage you do to all victims.
What is the difference between a gender-feminist and a NAMBLA member?
I don't know either.
Greg
the Volksgaren Project: Intelligent Abuse Recovery, http://clix.to/support/, jaxom@amtelecom.net, 519-773-9644
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"Men are people, too, and deserve to be able to seek and get help when they've been victims of abuse, whether or not women are "uncomfortable"
with that."
Nightmist, I'm quite disappointed with you. Don't you know that men are NOT people? In fact, we are viscious animals and the genfems have it right when they say we should be treated as such.
You need your beets -- you recycle, recycle!
Don't eat your beets -- recycle, recycle!
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Not only would it make many women feel threatened but there are quite a few children in shelters that have been sexually abused. It would not be fair on them to have men around when they're already so vulnerable.
This is sexism at its worst. Yes, there are children in a shelter. Many of those children are victims of sex offenders and many of those offenders are the mothers in the shelter.
Female sex offenders appear to be less common than male. That is because gender-feminists refuse to add women who use false charges of sex offenses into the data on sex offenders. All newer scientific studies add female sex offenders (including FA) into the data. Now the data looks more realistic. Remember, I live in Ontario and we have an advantage here in the the law requires tracking of "proven" false sex offense charges, (most crimonologists now agree that the standard of proof used is too harsh and should be loosened).
Your perversion in calling all men sex offenders and not even attempting to deal with the reality of female sex offenders is a threat to children. Your views are by far the greatest threat to children existing in today's society as your views are at present all too common and all to commonly enforced. Your views kill and maim children.
What is the difference between a gender-feminist and a NAMBLA member?
I don't know either.
Greg
the Volksgaren Project: Intelligent Abuse Recovery, http://clix.to/support/, jaxom@amtelecom.net, 519-773-9644
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"I didn't dwell on this, but I did get the impression that she was concerned that her female clients would be upset with a man in the building."
It might be worth mentioning to her the experience that Marc described at Valley Oasis. She may be underestimating her female clients. (Or projecting her own uneasiness onto them.)
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