Interesting article, first posted to a family law discussion list.

Dr. Sniechowski is a co-founder of the Men's Health Network. Dr. Baraff is on that organization's Board of Advisors.

The Men's Health Network was cosponsor of the AMA/BOJ National Conference on Family Violence.

Men's HOTLINE : 512-472-3237 : men@menhotline.org

------- A crisis line for men -------

From: "Richard Bennett"
To: Multiple recipients of list <familylaw-l@lawlib.wuacc.edu>
Subject: Must Arrest Laws Anger Feminists

A New Side to Domestic Violence;

Arrests of women have risen sharply since passage of tougher laws. Critics say some men manipulate the system; others say female abusers have long been overlooked.;

By: JOHN JOHNSON
TIMES STAFF WRITER

Tears streamed down her face as the woman described years of abuse at the hands of her husband. He beat her and held her a virtual prisoner in their Encino apartment. In the 10 years the couple--both Middle Eastern immigrants--had been in America, the wife had not had a credit card or access to a car.

Finally, she had had enough. On the day her husband refused to let her drive the family's new car, they struggled over the keys and she bit him on the arm.

The police, summoned by neighbors, looked at the bite mark--and arrested the wife.

This tale of justice turned on its head represents a bitter twist in the war on spousal abuse. Hard-hitting laws requiring police to make arrests in abuse cases have put more men behind bars. But around the country, arrests of women also are rising, sometimes at even faster rates.

Last year in Los Angeles, a record 14.3% of domestic abuse arrests were of women, more than double the rate five years earlier.

"Every state that has instituted mandatory arrest has seen a backlash against women, with more women being arrested," said Joan Zorza, the author of a 1994 study of the problem by the National Center on Women and Family Law.

Many of these cases are eventually dismissed--only 5% of the criminal domestic violence cases prosecuted by the Los Angeles city attorney's office involve male victims. But the controversy over mandatory arrest laws and the subsequent rise in arrests of women show how attempts to correct past injustices can have unforeseen consequences--and how complex the world of domestic abuse can be.

Some women's advocates blame poor police training and negative social attitudes toward women.

Other experts say that men, many of them onetime abusers, are learning to punish their wives and girlfriends with the law rather than with their fists.

Some men's organizations say the new laws are exposing a fact that many are unwilling to face: women also can be abusers.

Mandatory arrest laws gained favor in the late 1980s, when the nation awakened to the mortal danger spousal abuse posed to women. After discovering that police were often driving away from domestic violence calls without intervening--sometimes with fatal results--communities began to adopt statutes requiring officers to make arrests in certain situations.

Twenty-seven states have such laws. The language varies, but the way it often works on the street is that the investigating officer looks for a visible injury, no matter how minor. "We teach, if you see an injury, you have reasonable cause to believe a felony has occurred," said Sgt. Bob Medkeff, who for eight years trained Los Angeles officers to respond to domestic violence calls.

Now, just as the idea of mandatory arrest gains wide acceptance, some women's advocates are beginning to have second thoughts about the whole idea.

Some say the trend shows a backlash among officers who resent being stripped of their discretion by mandatory arrest laws. Zorza cited a study of Boston police that showed just seven officers made half of the arrests of women in domestic violence cases.

"There is an attitude in law enforcement that says, 'If you are going to treat us like kids [by requiring an arrest] we're going to follow the letter of the law,' " said Alana Bowman, the Los Angeles city attorney's special assistant for domestic violence.

Others say inexperience may be more of a problem than attitude, in the LAPD at least.

Because of all the turnover in recent years, "they have a young force," said Gail Pincus, who trains officers in handling domestic violence. "The law is, 'If you see a visible injury, make an arrest.' Because they're young and inexperienced, they do what the law tells them," without determining who warranted the most blame.

In charging that police have problems in deciding whom to arrest, women's groups cite the rise in several states of dual arrests, where both parties are taken to jail. Rather than doing the tough work of sorting out what happened, they say, police arrest everyone who causes an injury.

Some experts say male abusers are manipulating the new laws. They cite the Sacramento man who scratched a scab on his ear to make it bleed. Then he called the police and had his wife arrested. A Northern California man went into the backyard and hit himself on the head with a brick. Police were hauling his wife off to jail when neighbors ran out and said they saw the man injure himself.

In Los Angeles, a man born with a bump on his head got his wife arrested three times before police wised up, said Pincus, co-chair of legal issues for the county's Domestic Violence Council, an advisory board of representatives of public and private agencies.

Pincus, who runs two counseling groups for male batterers, said some abusers freely admit using the system to get revenge. She said "the holding cell is the great school," where men share their favorite techniques for getting back at women.

Until 1994, there were fewer than half a dozen counseling groups exclusively for female batterers in Los Angeles. Now there are more than 30.

However, Bev Slover said that in the Long Beach therapy group she runs for female batterers, most of the members are really victims. One woman was arrested for scratching her estranged boyfriend's face after he broke into her house, Slover said.

Men's groups, however, argue that the new statistics are finally revealing the truth about domestic violence.

Dr. Alvin Baraff, who runs a Washington counseling center for men, said he has begun to notice that men are much more willing to admit being abused.

In the past, he said, those who reported it "were desperate or brave. Men are brought up not to ask for help and they're supposed to take it like a man. What kind of man are you if you can't control your wife?"

Mandatory arrest laws may have helped open up reporting of such problems. After Wisconsin toughened its statutes in 1989, the number of men referred by the courts for counseling doubled. Referrals of women increased twelvefold.

Based on arrests made in 1994, men made up 25% of the victims of domestic violence in Connecticut, an increase of one-third since mandatory arrest policies were adopted in 1986.

Jim Schniekowski, founder of the Menswork Center in West Los Angeles, added that gender stereotypes may be breaking down: "There is a growing impulse to give women support for being aggressive. As a consequence, we're getting more" aggressive behavior by women.

A study by researchers at the University of New Hampshire found that wives initiated serious attacks on their husbands at a 33% greater rate in 1992 than in 1985.

Far from being hostile to women, most men's advocates say, police traditionally have not taken abuse by women seriously. In one high-profile case in 1991, police found Michelle Chapman, 46, at her Tujunga home. She told them to take her husband away "before I kill him."

Despite a long history of drinking problems and fighting in the Chapman household, police ignored the threat and left after talking to her but without checking on her spouse. Thomas Chapman, 52, was beaten to death after they left.

"The officers just relied on the fact that it was a woman and women don't usually kill men," said James A. Frieden, who filed a suit against the police on behalf of the family. "If it had been the other way around and the woman was the victim, that would not have happened."

In 1992, Chapman was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 11 years in prison. The lawsuit was dismissed.

Police say they are hamstrung by the rigid domestic abuse policies. "We can no longer arbitrate like we used to do. We're caught in the middle," said Lt. Anthony Alba, a spokesman for the LAPD.

Officers' "ability to make decisions in the field about who should or shouldn't be taken to jail has been taken away from them," he said. "If there is an injury, you have to put somebody in jail."

To counter the tendency to make dual arrests, Los Angeles and other jurisdictions have further refined policies by directing police to try to determine the "primary aggressor" in a dispute.

Sandy Jo MacArthur, who directs domestic violence training for the LAPD, said new recruits go through a 14-hour class teaching them to differentiate between wounds received in self-defense from those incurred when attacking.

But Mitch Robins, who heads the LAPD detective unit in Van Nuys that investigates spousal abuse cases, complained that officers are frequently confronted with radically different stories from the combatants in cases with no witnesses. "How in the hell are you supposed to tell who started it?" he asked.

The difficulty of judging such situations is one reason police are up to three times more likely to make an arrest in an assault involving a stranger than in a domestic case, according to Eve Buzawa, a criminal justice professor at the University of Massachusetts. That is true even when the circumstances are nearly identical.

Denise Gamache of the Battered Women's Justice Project said she has resisted pushing for a mandatory arrest law in her state of Minnesota because of the problems elsewhere.

"At its best," said Zorza, the author of the mandatory arrest study, "it may be a tool that advocates and others may utilize in an attempt to end the violence. At its worst, the law may be utilized as a weapon to exploit and further victimize battered women."

But advocates say the answer is not to return to the past, when police drove off and let sparring couples "work things out."

"Maybe the answer is to come up with ways to better protect women," said Buzawa. "We put all this money into batterers' treatment. But certain women are prone to being in these relationships. More than 50% of the women studied in a Quincy, Mass., [domestic violence] project had previously been in an abusive relationship. Maybe some of the women ought to be in treatment so they don't find themselves in relationships like that again."

At the Van Nuys jail, the Encino woman was told her bail would be reduced to $250 from $50,000. The tearful woman vowed to leave her husband and his "I am the man, I am your boss" attitude.

After the woman left, Hampton said she had been seeing a lot of these cases.

Asked if any of the cases involved men with serious injuries, she replied: "I don't have one."

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC) Switching Roles

The number of women arrested for domestic violence in Los Angeles has nearly quadrupled in the last nine years. Likewise, more men are becoming victims of violence at home.

Domestic Violence Arrests

         WOMEN    WOMEN AS %    OF TOTAL MEN

     1987 340        7.0%          4,540
            1988 457        7.6%          5,583
     1989 501        7.2%          6,492
            1990 519        6.7%          7,277
            1991 669        8.3%          7,425
     1992 732        9.0%          7,426
            1993 941       10.7%          7,856
            1994 1,079     12.5%          7,580
            1995 1,262     14.3%          7,513

Note: There are more victims than arrests because not all domestic disputes end in an arrest. Source: Los Angeles Police Department

GRAPHIC-TABLE: Switching Roles / Los Angeles Times GRAPHIC-CHART:
Switching Roles / Los Angeles Times

--

Richard Bennett Cupertino, CA

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28 Jul 1996
From: "Men's HOTLINE"

Thanks to Hugh Nations, Esq. (nations@bga.com) for this piece on domestic violence.

WOMEN AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Some Research That Balances the Picture a Bit

1. Only 17 out of 100 women who kill will serve significant prison time.
(Wilbanks, W. "Murdered Women and Women Who Murder: A Critique of the Literature." In Rafter, N.H., and Stanko, E.A., "Judge, Lawyer, Victim, Thief: Women, Gender Roles and Criminal Justice," Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1982, pp. 151-180.)

2. Though females commit one out of every eight homicides and about one-third of domestic homicides, they constitute only one out of every 100 inmates on Death Row. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Capital Punishment 1988"; Uniform Crime Reports 1991.)

3. "If violence against men is recognized in history, recognized by law, recognized by the comic strips, why has there been almost no attention given to this problem? There are several reasons: First...case material has been lacking for abused males. Second, selective inattention, both by the media and by the researchers has been an influence...IT IS NOT LIKELY THAT FEMINIST RESEARCHERS AND COUNSELORS WILL PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MALES MIGHT ALSO BE VICTIMS [emphasis supplied]. (Steinmetz, Suzanne K. "Women and Violence: Victims and Perpetrators." American Journal of Psychotherapy, No. 3, July 1980.)

4. Of urban spouses convicted of murdering a spouse, 41 per cent are wives. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justices, "Murder in Families," July 1994.)

5. Of urban parents convicted of murdering offspring, 55 percent are mothers. Sixty-four percent of the time it is a son whom she kills. (Id.)

6. Of every 100 children seriously injured by abusers, 62 are boys. (Steinmetz, id.)

7. Of every 100 dating couples, 33 men commit a violent act -- but 39 women also commit such acts. (Sugarman, David B., & Hotaling, Gerald T. Chapter 1, "Violence in Dating Relationships." (Pirog-Good, Maureen A., & Stets, Jane E. (ed). New York: Praeger, 1989.)

8. Seventy-seven percent of women in battered womens shelters assaulted their partners in the year before entering the shelter, and 42 percent will assault their partners in the six months after leaving the shelter. (Giles-Sims, Jean. "Wife-Battering: A Systems Theory Approach." New York: The Guilford Press, 1983.)

9. Twenty-five percent of women in dating relationships admit that they have used physical force at some time to impose their will on their partners. (Walker, Lenore E. "The Battered Woman Syndrome." New York: Springer Publishing Co., 1984, p. 174.)

10. Fifty-eight percent of homicides by women are premeditated. (Mann, Coramae Richey, Ph.D. "Getting Even? Women Who Kill in Domestic Encounters." Justice Quarterly, No. 1, March 1988.)

11. Of every 100 women who kill in domestic situations, 78 have criminal histories and 55 have a history of violence. (Mann, id).

12. Eighty-two percent of domestic assaults on men involve weapons used by females; 25 percent involve weapons used by males. (McLeod, M. "Women Against Men: An Examination of Domestic Violence Based on an Analysis of Official Data and National Victimization Data." Justice Quarterly 1(2), 1984, pp. 171-193.)

13. Twelve percent of gay males have been victims of coercive sex by gay male partners versus 31 percent of lesbians victimized by lesbian partners. (Waterman, Caroline K., Dawson, M.A., & Bologna, Michael J. "Sexual Coercion in Gay Male and Lesbian Relationships: Predictors and Implications for Support Services." The Journal of Sex Research, No. 1, Feb. 1989, pp. 118-124.)

BATTERED BY BAD PRESS: MEN ARGUE THAT WOMEN ARE VIOLENT, TOO

They are tired of being typecast because of their gender, tired of being blamed for society's ills, tired of suffering various injustices, and tired of just sitting and taking it.

Men, make no mistake, are getting uppity these days. Organizing into groups. Networking with their brothers. Starting their own publications. Firing off letters and faxes. Taking their cause to the talk shows and anyone else who will listen.

The O.J. Simpson murder case has fired these men's activism as few events have before. And fueled their outrage, too.

For the orgy of Simpson coverage and the outpouring of public comment has, except for a few brief asides, targeted men as the villains of this and other tragedies when love turns sour. It is the same old story, male activists believe Men tarred and feathered again for being the violent sex.

Men do indeed commit some horrible and violent acts, these activist men concede, and that is a serious problem that should be addressed. But that's only part of the story, they argue. These men produce a host of studies and statistics and real-life horror stories, all intended to emphasize that many women are violent too, and are not always innocent victims.

What these activist men try to counter, most of all, is the perception that men are never beaten by women. Or, if they are, the numbers of men affected are so small and so insignificant that they are not worth bothering with.

This is illustrated by what are perhaps the most widely quoted domestic violence statistics in the wake of the Simpson case -- that about 95 percent of the victims of domestic violence seen in hospital emergency rooms or in police reports are female and only about 5 percent are male.

But the male activists contend that such statistics are suspect. Men are far less likely to admit, in any public fashion, that they have been beaten by a woman, an admission likely to call into question their masculinity. And men are even more reticent to report such beatings when they believe the deck is so stacked against them, with a legal and social service system almost entirely geared to assist female victims of domestic violence.

Violence by women has prompted relatively few research studies, but those that have been done do support some of the contentions of male activists. Women are as likely to abuse children as men, some studies have found. And other studies have found violence occurs in relationships between lesbian women with much the same frequency as it does in relationships between men and women.

An observer of all these research studies is Roland Maiuro, a national expert on domestic violence who works at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Maiuro, a 43-year-old clinical psychologist, heads Harborview's anger management and domestic violence program and also edits "The Journal of Violence and Victims," a respected technical publication with national distribution.

Maiuro emphasizes domestic violence is a "much more complicated" problem than its usual depiction of males as villains, females as victims.

Maiuro summarizes the research:

"There has not been much published about female-to-male violence, but the phenomenon does exist. The national surveys that do look at the overall rate of violence of men toward women and women toward men have found that the rate is about equal.

WOMEN RETALIATE

"When you look past those percentages, into the context, much of women's violence is in retaliation to men's violence. And when you look at serious injuries, 90 percent of those documented are those of women. But these percentages are based on what we know and most researchers have not cared about men . . . .

"And when you look at homicides from domestic violence, the gap also closes somewhat; the split is not 90 percent female victims, but more like 60 percent female and 40 percent male, although women, after years of abuse, often feel so threatened that they kill men . . . .

"In the cause of advocacy on domestic violence, statistics seem to be quoted selectively. One of the issues we need to raise now is: At what point in our advocacy does it become oriented toward stopping the violence, instead of selecting one sex to sympathize with more than the other?"

Maiuro's observations come as no surprise to the loose network of activist men and their organizations. They readily distribute copies of academic studies on such subjects as "Incidence and Chronicity of Assaults by Wives on Husbands" by Murray A. Straus of the University of New Hampshire.

But the favored ammo of late, for male activists seems to be the recent book, "Who Stole Feminism?" by Christina Hoff Sommers, an associate professor of philosophy at Clark University near Boston who says she is "a feminist who does not like what feminism has become."

Sommers' thesis is that militant "gender feminists" have captured the women's movement and given it an anti-male bias.

She contends misuse and even fabrication of domestic violence studies is one of the ways militant feminists rally the faithful and sway public opinion in their favor. Sommers zeroes in on two widely published domestic violence reports from 1993 that were used to damn men.

One was that "battery against women is the No. 1 cause of birth defects in this country," more than all other medical and environmental causes combined. Sommers demonstrates this widely reported "fact", supposedly from the March of Dimes, was a complete misstatement of other research that had nothing to do with cause-and-effect. What research showed was that more women in America are screened for birth defects than are screened for domestic battery.

THE SUPER BOWL HOAX

Sommers' other target is "the Super Bowl hoax of 1993" -- the widely disseminated report that "Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for violence against women," with 40 percent more women battered on game day. This "fact" generated so much coverage that NBC was moved to include a pre-game public service spot warning that domestic violence is a crime.

One skeptical reporter from the Washington Post investigated the Super Bowl abuse claim and, as Sommers reiterates, found it had absolutely no basis in research. The fabrication was first mentioned at a Pasadena news conference called by a coalition of women's groups and it was soon spread by the media as truth -- the link between the violence of football and violence against women just accepted as plausible.

The activism of many men is fueled by the belief they have been mugged by a legal system that favors women, especially in this age of acute sensitivity and correctness. There are groups formed by angry men who feel that they have gotten shafted by court decisions on divorce and child custody, or allegations about sexual harassment or physical abuse.

TALES OF PERSECUTION

The latest horror stories about men spread through such groups like wildfire. They include the tale of a 30ish Seattle therapist who, under physical attack by his lover, was fending off her blows while trying to shield his two young children.

The man finally called 911 to report the attack, then left the house with his kids after striking back once at the woman. He says he was never interviewed by either police or prosecutors, but was later charged and convicted of assault and required to pay a $500 fine, perform 100 hours of community service and have absolutely no contact with the woman. His conviction is now under appeal, which is why he asked that his name not be published.

"I was dumbfounded from the very start of the incident," the man says. "I was getting struck by this woman while I was holding my daughter and I was the one who called the police."

From a psych list re: Stuart Miller's posts on domestic violence.

========================================================================

Bob Basham said "there has never been anything approaching objective evidence" [referring to Miller's posts]. I have taken cites from Miller's posts and re-posted them here.

It would appear that someone other than Miller is trying to manipulate emotion and is denouncing research that does not agree with preconceived notions. It is exactly why layman, like Miller, who appear to have more than "a layperson's familiarity" with the research than some who hold themselves out to be professional, are so valuable. They bring attention to "professionals" who ignore research to promote their own popular, but incorrect beliefs. Arguably the Justice Department is often inept, but their research certainly "approaches" objective evidence. As to the rest of the professionals cited by Miller, they are all well-respected members of the scientific community, whose studies have gathered accurate empirical data.

As such, to discount these findings as Miller's attempt to persuade members of this list through emotional response to untruths, is scandalous and possibly even libelous. At the very least, the personal animosity displayed against Miller by one "professional" on the list, gives cause for concern by anyone who is concerned with professionalism.

Miller's position is not to discount men's violence against women, it is bring attention to the violence perpetrated by women-against-men, which is laughed at, cheered, ignored and discounted. It should not be, regardless of the percentages of occurrence. Domestic violence is tragic when it occurs. It is the responsibility of the professional community to view domestic violence objectively and try to develop methods for identifying and preventing familial violence and treating both the offender and the perpetrator when domestic violence does occur.

Some of Miller's cites are as follows:

When children are murdered 61% of the time it is by the mother.

"Source: Murder in Families" - Dept. of Justice, July 1994.

There is no question that while men on average are bigger and stronger than women, they can do more damage in a fistfight. However according to Professors R.L. McNeely and Cormae Richey Mann, "the average man's size and strength are neutralized by guns and knives, boiling water, bricks, fireplace pokers and baseball bats."

A 1984 study of 6,200 cases found that 86% of female-on-male violence involved weapons, contrasted with 25% in cases of male-on-female violence. McLeod, Justice Quarterly (2) 1984 pp. 171-193.

Of every 100 families, 3.8 experience severe husband-to-wife violence, but 4.5% experience severe wife-to-husband violence. (Strauss, Gelles, Steinmetz, Behind Closed Doors: Violence in American Families (1980).

A 1985 study of Texas University students, Breen found that 18% of men and 14% of women reported a violent act by a romantic partner. In the same study, 28% of married men reported that their wives had slapped, punched or kicked them. (Shupe, Stacey & Hazlewood. "Violent Men, Violent Couples (1986) Chapter 3.

In another study, 15.5% of men and 11.3% of women reported having hit a spouse while 18.6% of men and 12% of women reported been struck by a spouse. Nisnoff & Bitman, Victimology 4, (1979), pp. 131-140.

A survey of couples in Calgary, Canada found that the rate of severe husband-to-wife violence was 4.8%, while severe wife-to-husband violence was 10%. Brinkerhoff & Lupri, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 13:4 (1988).

BLAMING MEN DOESN'T STOP DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Domestic violence has at least two sides. One is visceral, physical, impulsive and vicious. When that level kicks in the only response is to take whatever means necessary to stop it.

However, the recently heightened debate has remained fixated on the urgency of the violence. That keeps our national focus on punishment - of the abuser who is almost exclusively and, therefore erroneously, viewed as the male.

The other side, which receives almost no serious attention, is prevention and ultimate resolution. It receives almost no serious attention, because the roots of domestic violence can only be found in the co-created, interpersonal relationship dynamics between both people that foster the violence. Solutions will emerge only from an unbiased look at how the two people are participating in a situation of ongoing brutality. That, however, is politically incorrect, and the denial surrounding co-responsibility is enormous.

There are those who claim that domestic violence "occurs unexpectedly, with little warning, even for people who are in long term relationships and supposedly 'know' one another." That is simply not the case. According to Lenore Walker, Ph.D., a feminist psychologist who made the idea of "learned helplessness" part of the diagnosis of the woman's role in domestic violence, women interviewed in shelters describe a process that has three distinct stages: 1) the tension building stage where both persons sense the oncoming eruption; 2) the battering incident when the violence erupts; 3) the remorseful stage in which both parties express sorrow for what took place. There is an entire phase of warning, especially for the people who have tuned their awareness and responses to the violence. Furthermore, in most cases, the violence is present during the courtship, although not as severe as it later becomes.

We have been asked, "Do men and women marry people knowing full well that they may wind up beaten or killed?" The answer is yes. The proof is in the recidivism rates for both men and women who either return to the abusive relationship or leave it only to resume the violence with a new partner.

Some women take the position that "hope springs eternal" for people in love and they shouldn't be held accountable for the abusive spousal choices they make. That is precisely the kind of romantic notion that men and women cling to and use to seduce themselves into staying in relationships in which there is abundant evidence that they should leave. Often friends and parents try to intervene, but, when "hope springs eternal" obvious dangers are overlooked, denied and women tell themselves something like, "If I just love him enough, he'll change." By the way, battered men say exactly the same kinds of things. What is needed in situations of verbal and physical abuse and danger is not romantic fantasy but a critical and self- protective assessment of the facts followed by a decision based on those facts.

To avoid confronting evidence of women's violence against men, many women's advocates argue that men are stronger and do more damage. Although there are many men who are not stronger, generally men are taller and stronger than women. The facts are, however, that women initiate violence against men in roughly equal numbers (women 24% and men 27%) with both sexes mutually the rest of the time. To offset men's larger physiques, women more often use weapons than do men (82% of women, 25% of men). A woman with a knife, scissors, gun, lamp, frying pan and the like can be very dangerous and damaging.

We suggest that you, the reader, ask your friends and acquaintances. How many of them know situations in which women have battered men? Even though verbal and psychological abuse can inflict a deep wound, if not deeper, than some physical violence (if you have been emotionally wounded in your life, you know what we are talking about), keep your inquiry based on physical violence. We would like to know what you discover.

The belief that "men are more likely to act out their anger in a physically violent way" is a cliche. Women, more and more women during the last thirty years, are just as capable of acting out physically. In fact, when they do, most men, who have been taught "never to hit a woman" are rendered powerless because they must retrain themselves. Our culture teaches boys and young men that to be a "real man" they have to be able to take it, and especially take it from a woman. Multiple studies obtain statistics that support the fact that women act out their anger in a physically violent way frequently and especially with family members.

For example:

The media continues to attribute control and domination solely to men. If we are honest with ourselves we all know that women are just as controlling and dominating in their ways as are men. Yet, what is it in our society, for women and men alike, that continues to protect women and our national awareness from the truth about woman's dark side?

Another myth would have us believe that abusive men are treated more leniently by the courts. Everyone has at least one horror story on both sides of this issue. Most often, those cases have a National Enquirer flavor and make all the news broadcasts. The fact is that many women get off just as frequently. One reason is that, as a culture, we have a deep commitment to the belief that women are helpless and innocent (which, by the way, victimizes and infantalizes them) and, as a consequence, police admit they are less likely to believe that women can be violent and almost always look to the man, regardless of the actual circumstances. Domestic violence is a two way street. As long as women refuse to take responsibility for their participation, they will remain disempowered and completely dependent upon men to change. Is that what women really want?

Domestic violence should not be tolerated. It must be faced and prevented. We must look clearly and fearlessly at the dance women and men create that allows for and sustains that violence. Male bashing and protection of women's innocence only perpetuate the problem.

Sadly, we are a long way from teaching and learning the lesson of co-responsibility, co-accountability, and the mutuality of all long-term relationships, whatever their dynamics. And that is what is needed to prevent domestic violence.

MEN: PREPARE TO GO TO JAIL NO MATTER WHAT THE FACTS ARE!!!

Courts are allowing women's lawsuits to prevail against police departments if the police fail to do a woman's bidding and/or fail to arrest a man that they want arrested!!!

===========================================================

Police Sued For Failing To Stop Assault Inside Apartment

Where a policeman refused a woman's request to break into an apartment because he believed that the incident occurring inside was a "domestic dispute" and not a rape, the city can be sued (1) for "intentional infliction of emotional distress" (under the Restatement (Second) of Torts) and (2) for a civil rights violation under 42 USC 1983, says the Illinois Supreme Court.

The Illinois court made it easier for plaintiffs to sue by allowing them to sue based on ANY evidence that the police department tolerated discrimination against women. In the case at bar, the court allowed the case to proceed because the woman presented "evidence" that the department had a strip-search policy that favored men - even though the policy had nothing to do with domestic violence or any of the circumstances involving the woman's claim.Doe v. Calumet City - Ill. S. Ct. No. 75347 (August 4, 1994)

CLINTON USES INFLATED NUMBERS TO BASH MEN

Washington - The President while announcing the appointment of Bonnie Campbell, former Iowa Attorney General, to head the new Violence Against Women Office, stated that there are 700,000 rapes or attempted rapes every year and 3 - 4 million women are victims of domestic violence every year.

David Murray, Director of Research at the Statistical Assessment Service, said the numbers are "fake numbers." Mr. Murray went on to say that the figures, except for one unsubstantiated FBI statistic, were from a two-year old Senate hearing. The unsubstantiated FBI statistic is that "every 12 seconds a violent crime is committed against a woman." White House Press Secretary Michael McCurry said "We want to take back that statistic.

The Justice Department reports that there are 150,000 rapes per year. Further, the report cited by domestic violence activists in the Senate hearings defined domestic violence as pushing, throwing a magazine at a partner and having a partner "storm out of the room." This report arriving at the 3 - 4 million figure captured "as many male victims as female victims," said Murray. "The figures are at least 500% too high" said Murray.

"One has to keep in mind that these Senate hearings are the same hearings where men's and children's advocates were prohibited from testifying," said Stuart A. Miller, Senior Legislative Analyst for the American Fathers Coalition. "It was a feeding frenzy of women's advocates playing fast and loose with unsubstantiated numbers that cannot be duplicated using the most lenient controls," said Miller.

"False allegations of domestic violence has become the number one weapon of choice by which mothers strip their children of fathers and gain control of his assets," said Miller in closing, but added "It does not surprise us, this is the same type of 'voodoo math' Clinton has been using to promote his child support initiatives. President Clinton will go down in history as the most anti-male, anti-father, anti-family President our country has ever known."

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JUDGE LOBBIES PAROLE BOARD FOR BATTERED WOMEN!

LOUISIANA - A volunteer group headed by a judge is trying to help women who face long prison sentences for killing husbands, boyfriends or relatives. The Battered Women's Clemency Project, headed by District Judge F. Rae Swent, will present evidence of abuse to the State Pardon Board in hopes of reducing sentences for the women.The project will not challenge the women's convictions but rather will present the Pardon Board with evidence of abuse that was not available or not considered in the women's trials. Free legal representation will be provided jointly by Legal Services of Central Louisiana in Alexandria and it's sister organization, Acadiana Legal Services in Lafayette.

              AFC's comments:                            MALES    FEMALES
% of murder victims in domestic violence                 55.5%     44.5%
% of spouses acquitted for murder of a spouse             1.4%     12.9%
% of spouses who receive probation for murdering a spouse 1.6%     16.0%
Average sentence (in years) for murdering a spouse         17         6

When children are murdered 61% of the time it is by the mother. Mothers abuse children at a rate twice that of fathers.

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"Women Who Kill Too Much and the Courts That Free Them: The Twelve 'Female-Only' Defenses"

1) THE INNOCENT WOMAN DEFENSE

I am starting with the innocent woman defense because it underlies all twelve defenses. At first I had called this the "Female Credibility Principle" because of the tendency to see women as more credible than men because of being thought more innocent. However, even when women admitted making false allegations that they were raped or that their husbands abused them, for example, their admission that they lied was often NOT believed.Therefore the belief in the innocent woman ran even deeper than the tendency to believe women.

2.) THE PMS DEFENSE ("MY BODY, NO CHOICE")

In 1970, when Dr. Edgar Berman said women's hormones during menstruation and menopause could have a detrimental influence on women's decision making, feminists were outraged. He was soon served up as the quintessential example of medical male chauvinism.  But by the 1980s, some feminists were saying that PMS was the reason a woman who deliberately killed a man should go free. In England, the PMS defense freed Christine English after confessed to killing her boyfriend by deliberately ramming him into a utility pole with her car; and after killing a co-worker, Sandie Smith was put on probation - with one condition: she must report monthly for injections of progesterone to control symptoms of PMS. By the 1990s, the PMS defense paved the way for other hormonal  defenses.

Sheryl Lynn Massip could place her 6 month old son under a car, run over him repeatedly, and then, uncertain he was dead, do it again, then claim postpartum depression and be given outpatient medical help. No feminist protested.

3.) THE HUSBAND DEFENSE

The film "I Love You to Death" was based on a true story of a woman who tried to kill her husband when she discovered he had been unfaithful. She and her mom tried to poison him, then hired mugger to beat him and shoot him through the head. A fluke led to their being caught and sent to jail. Miraculously, the husband survived. The husband's first response? Soon after he recovered he informed authorities that he would not press charges. His second response? He defended his wife's attempts to kill him. He felt so guilty being sexually unfaithful  that he thanked his wife! He then re-proposed to her. She verbally abused him, then accepted.

4.) THE "BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME" DEFENSE, AKA LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

Until 1982, anyone who called premeditated murder self-defense would have been laughed out of court. But in 1982, Lenore Walker won the first legal victory for her women-only theory of learned helplessness, which suggests that a  woman whose husband or boyfriend batters her becomes fearful for her life and helplessness to leave him so if she kills him, it is really self-defense  - even if she has premeditated his murder.  The woman is said to be a victim of the Battered Woman Syndrome. Is it possible a woman could kill, let's say, for insurance money? Lenore  Walker says no: she claims, "Women don't kill men unless they've been pushed to a  point of desperation." Ironically feminists had often said, "There's never an excuse for violence against a woman." Now they were saying, "But there's always an excuse for violence against a man... if a woman does it." That sexism is now called the law in 15 states.

5.) "THE DEPRESSED MOTHER" DEFENSE:

BABY BLUES AND TERRIBLE TWOS

Remember Sheryl Lynn Massip, a mother in her mid-twenties who murdered he 6-month old son by crushing its head under the wheel of the family car? Massip systematically covered up the murder until she was discovered. Then she testified that she suffered from post-partum depression - or "baby blues." Her sentence??  Treatment. Mothers do, get the baby blues. As do dads. Were the husband to kill his baby, as Sheryl Lynn did, it is unlikely that we would just treat him for baby blues or Save the Marriage Syndrome. Why does her version of baby blues allow her to receive treatment for child murder, when he would receive life in prison for child murder, with or without baby blues?

The Terrible Twos

Josephine Mesa beat her 2-year-old son to death with the wooden handle of a toilet plunger. She buried the battered baby in a trash bin. When scavengers found the baby outside her Oceanside, California apartment, she denied she new him. When the evidence became overwhelming, she confessed. The excuse? She was depressed. The child was going through terrible twos. The punishment?  Counselling, probation and anti-depressants. She never spent a day behind bars.

6. THE "MOTHERS DON'T KILL" DEFENSE

ITEM. Illinois. Paula Sims reported that her first daughter, Loralei, was abducted by a masked gunman. In fact she murdered Loralei. But she got away with it. So when her next daughter, Heather Lee, disappointed her, she suffocated her, threw her in the trash barrel, and said another masked gunman had abducted her daughter. It wasn't until the second "masked gunman" abduction that a serious search was conducted. Only the serious search led to evidence. Might Heather Lee be alive today if mothers did not have a special immunity from serious investigation?

7. THE "CHILDREN NEED THEIR MOTHER" DEFENSE

ITEM. Colorado. Lory Foster's husband had returned from Vietnam and was going through mood-swings both from post traumatic stress syndrome and diabetes. They had gotten into a fight and he had abused her. So she killed him.  Yet, even the prosecutor did not ask for a jail term. Why not? So Lory could care for the children... Lory was given counselling and vocational training at state expense.The most frequent justification for freeing mothers who kill their children is that their children need them. Moreover, if mothers were freed because "children are the first priority," then fathers would be freed just as often. But they are not. Even when no mother is available.

8. THE "BLAME THE FATHER, UNDERSTAND THE MOTHER" DEFENSE

ITEM. Ramiro Rodriguez was driving back from the supermarket. His daughter was sitting on his wife's lap. As Ramiro made a left turn, a van crashed into the car and his daughter was killed. Ramiro was charged with homicide. The reason? His daughter was not placed in a safety seat.  Ramiro explained that his daughter was sick and wanted to be held so HIS WIFE DECIDED to hold her. Yet only Ramiro was charged. The mother was charged with nothing. Ramiro was eventually acquitted after protests over the racism. No one saw the sexism.

9.) THE "MY CHILD, MY RIGHT TO ABUSE IT" DEFENSE

A million crack-addicted children since 1987, but only sixty of the mothers have faced criminal charges. One was convicted. That conviction was reversed by the Michigan Supreme Court. 3 percent of infants in Washington D.C. die from cocaine addiction, but no mothers go to prison. The right to choose means the right to kill - not a fetus but a child. Should the mother who addicts her child to crack have any more rights another child abuser or drug dealer. How can we give a normal drug dealer a life sentence but claim that a mother that deals drugs to her own child should not so much as stand trial? If we feel compassion for the circumstances that drove her to drugs, where is our compassion for the circumstances that drove the drug dealer to drugs, the child abuser to abuse, the murderer...

10. THE PLEA BARGAIN DEFENSE

Once a woman is seen as more innocent, her testimony is more valued, which leads to prosecutors offering the woman a plea bargain in crimes committed jointly by a woman and a man. And if a District Attorney is up for reelection, the Chivalry Factor allows him to look like a hero when his office prosecutes a man or a bully if he should put a woman behind bars.

11.) THE SVENGALI DEFENSE

A beautiful woman dubbed "The Miss America Bandit" conducted an armed robbery of a bank. Federal Sentencing guidelines called for a minimum of four and a half to five years in federal prison. The federal judge gave her two years because she told the judge that she was in love with her hairdresser and he had wanted her to rob the bank. The judge concluded, "Men have always exercised malevolent influence over women, and women seem to be soft-touches for it, particularly if sex is involved....It seems to me the Svengali-Trilby relationship is the motivating force behind this lady....the main thing is sex." [Svengali is a fictional character said to have hypnotic qualities of persuasion over the innocent Trilby.]

12.) THE CONTRACT KILLING DEFENSE...DEFEND SELF BY HIRING SOMEONE ELSE

When I did the first review of my files in preparation for this section on contract killing, I was struck by some fascinating patterns. First, all of these women hired boys or men. Second, their targets were usually husbands, ex-husbands, or fathers - men they had once loved. Third, the targeted man usually had an insurance policy significantly larger than the man's next few years income. Fourth, the women often were never serious suspects until some coincidence exposed their plot. Fifth, the women usually chose one of three methods by which to kill: she (1) persuaded her boyfriend to do the killing (in reverse Svengali style); (2) hired some young boys from a disadvantaged background to do it for a small amount of money; or (3) hired a professional killer, thus usually using the money her husband earned to kill her husband. Dixie Dyson tucked in her husband for his last night's sleep. She had arranged to have a lifelong friend and a boyfriend pretend to "break and enter,", then rape her, kill her husband, then "escape." She would collect the insurance money.

At the last moment, the lifelong friend backed out, but the boyfriend and Dixie managed to kill Dixie's husband after 27 stabbings. They were caught. Dixie "cut a deal" to reduce her sentence by reporting the boyfriend and his friend. The friend who backed out got 25 years for conspiracy.

Deborah Ann Werner was due one third of her dad's estate. She asked her daughter to find some boys to murder him by plunging a knife through his neck.

Diana Bogadanoff hired two young men to kill her husband on an isolated nudist beach, while she watched. After he was shot through the head, she reported the killers but produced no motive for the murder - no money was stolen and she was not sexually molested. Diana did not become a suspect until an anonymous caller contacted a nationwide crime hotline. The caller coincidentally heard about the murder on the radio and remembered a friend describing just such a murder he had refused to do... on an isolated nudist beach while a woman named Diana watched. Without this tip, Diana would never have become even a suspect.

HOW INDIVIDUAL WOMEN ARE GIVEN MORE POWER TO KILL

THAN THE ENTIRE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Taken together, the twelve female-only defenses allow almost any woman to take it upon herself to "exercise the death penalty." The government is not allowed to take it upon itself to kill someone first and declare him or her an abuser later - only a woman can do that to a man.

DO MEN KILL WOMEN MORE THAN WOMEN KILL MEN?

THE SIX BLINDERS

1.) A woman is more likely to poison a man than shoot him, and poisoning is often recorded as a heart attack or accident. [This will skew the figures]

2.) Contract killing is also less detectable because it is premeditated and often hired out to a professional. When it is discovered the Department of Justice registers it as a "multiple offender killing" - it never gets recorded as a woman killing a man. [This will skew the figures]

3.) The money factor. Women who murder husbands or boyfriends usually come from middle class backgrounds The money allows the best lawyers, more acquittals, therefore fewer female murderers to become Justice Department Statistics.

4 and 5.) The Chivalry Factor, the Innocent Woman Factor prevent many women from becoming serious suspects to begin with.

6.) The Plea Bargain Defense sometimes leads to the dismissal of charges.

When the six blinders are combined, we can see how we have consciously and unconsciously kept ourselves blind to women who murder men. A distortion of statistics is created by the Six Blinders. But a distortion of perception  is created by the media's tendency to make it international news when men murder women (the University of Montreal Murderer, the Hillside and Boston stranglers)  and, unless the man is famous, to make it local news when a woman murders only a man.

In brief, it is impossible to know the degree to which the sexes kill each other. The only thing we know for certain is that both sexes kill more men than they kill women.

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