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| Scarlet
Letters |
| Selling
Out Our Mothers' Dreams |
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The
feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist,
anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands,
kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become
lesbians.
--
Pat Robertson, fundraising letter, 1992 |
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Law and Order is usually top-notch television.
Famous for its "ripped from the headlines" episodes, the drama with television's
fastest revolving door concentrates on issues of society rather than soap-opera
lives of its characters. With few exceptions, we know very little about
our heroes' personal lives and opinions. The richness of this series comes
from its staggering array of guest stars and the diverse cross-section
on Manhattan life (and American society) they represent.
There isn't a social issue of which I'm aware that this venerable series
hasn't attacked. Real-life prosecutors and police officers have consistently
rated it the most realistic cops-and-lawyers show in television history.
Much of my legal education has come from watching its episodes, and it
is one of my favorites.
But this week it really irritated me. The episode started as a "ripped
from the headlines" piece, loosely based on the Enron scandal. But the
murdered stock analyst, it turned out, wasn't killed by an irate investor,
but by a man hired by the victim's own wife.
Here we are, back with battered-woman syndrome. This time, the show took
a different tack than previous battered-wife episodes: they argued that
battered-wife syndrome is basically false, that all a battered woman has
to do is leave and everything will be all right.
I really couldn't believe what I was hearing. All right: Susan Faludi wrote
her book, "Backlash," several years ago, and even then it felt like it
protesteth too much in its belief that feminism has caused more restrictions
on women than existed fifteen years ago. But to have lost so much ground
since Pat Robertson made his famous witchcraft-and-murder speech that battered
women are now blamed for their own abuse?
"If someone hit me, I would leave, and if I couldn't, I'd hit back," said
the nameless female prosecutor, fourth in a line of female prosecutors
playing second banana to the alpha male prosecutor. This statement was
obviously written by a) a woman who had never been battered and/or b) a
man, who had also never been battered.
Law and Order would have you think that believing in the psychological
effects of domestic violence makes women weaker, keeps them in a subordinate
role. This is utter nonsense. Violence is violence, and a woman trapped
in an abusive relationship needs help, not feminist platitudes.
I cannot believe that after all the years women have fought for domestic
battery to be seen as the violence it is, rather than "home correction"
or some similar nonsense, that we are so willing to take giant steps backward.
We are selling out everything our mothers fought to give us - a truly equal
world. Yes, women are firefighters, soldiers, athletes... and sometimes
men hit them anyway.
(For the rest of this article, I will use the politically incorrect terms
identifying the abuser as male and the victim as female. This is in no
way implying that women are never the abusers. However, in most cases,
the abuser is male, so forgive the pronouns.)
Several years ago, I wrote a two-part series on domestic violence. As part
of my research, I conducted a series of interviews with counselors, crisis
center personnel and organizers of an underground network of shelters.
The fact is, domestic violence is never so much about the physical attacks
as it is about the psychological damage it inflicts on the victim. Battered
women believe they are totally alone, that no one will help them. It may
not be true - there may be options - but they are brainwashed into believing
there is no escape.
See, there are two kinds of men who hit - men who cannot control their
tempers and lash out in anger, and men who hit to control. The former can
usually be helped with anger management therapy. A woman in such a relationship
might be able to "leave or hit back." The latter, however, suffers
from a serious mental illness. It is a pathological need to control, one
that is manifested in violence against the woman because it is she that
he most needs to control. It's one of the most terrible illnesses, because
it affects not only the man, but the woman, who finds herself terrified
of her own shadow and trapped in a nightmare.
In the most enlightened of police departments, a domestic violence call
ends with the arrest of the abuser - overnight. By morning, he's released,
because domestic violence usually carries a lesser penalty than assault
of a stranger, for reasons passing understanding. Few people understand
why an abused woman will beg the police not to arrest the man who was just
punching her in the front yard. It's because she knows what will be coming
her way in twenty-four hours.
And let's face it - many police departments are not the most enlightened.
There are still plenty of cops who think the woman must have had it coming.
Some women may have the education and resources to strike out on their
own, rely on their own careers and support networks to carry them and their
children to safety. But most abused women do not have careers or, in fact,
much contact with anyone outside the home. It's a major facet of abusive
relationships - cutting off contact with anyone who might threaten the
abuser's
power.
An abuser will deny the woman "permission" to seek a job or further her
education. He will control her access to money, monitor her phone calls,
check the odometer of the car (if he allows her one) to track her movements.
He will manufacture evidence of adultery or other betrayal and punish her
for imagined transgressions. This is not the script of a horror movie -
it is the checklist of abusive relationships as described by the people
who counsel the victims and help them to safety.
There's a distinctive cycle to these relationships. There is a period of
escalating tension. A counselor I interviewed said it was like walking
on eggshells - literally. The woman senses his tension increasing and tries
to avoid setting him off by being as perfect and submissive as possible.
"But she can't," the counselor said. "It's a pressure building within him.
She can't stop the explosion. Sooner or later, he'll blow." And he does,
unleashing physical and psychological violence on her with sudden, terrible
fury.
Afterward, he will be sorry. He will beg her forgiveness, promise to seek
help, promise it will never happen again, promise her anything in the world.
He will bring her flowers and presents, and once again, there will be a
honeymoon. Soon, however, it will wear off, and the tension will begin
to build. There is no stopping it.
"Why stay?" the prosecutors of Law and Order whine. I wanted to
slap them.
Where can she go? Can she go to a shelter? How long can she hide there?
And in all fairness, why is she the one who must give up everything she
owns and run away, hide like a fugitive, when it is he who has broken the
law?
She can always go to the police. Get a restraining order. I think Stephen
King described it best: "a document about as useful as a parasol in a hurricane."
I have listened to the voices of desperate women pleading with me on the
phone for years. They beg me not to print the domestic abuse charges against
their husbands and boyfriends. "He'll lose his job if they find out," they
say. "You don't know how angry he'll be."
There are people who help - people like the crisis counselors and shelter
coordinators I interviewed. They have experience in dealing with the physical
and psychological effects of long-term abuse, as well as the legal problems
and immediate dangers. I keep the number next to my phone, and pass it
along to these women who call me. I doubt if any of them call.
You see, the answer is probably not the Law and Order version (hire
a hit man and hope the jury lets you off), or to stay until he beats you
to death. The answer is first to evict him from your head, then evict him
from your life, not necessarily in that order. People can help. Pay no
attention to Law and Order's whining - it is not your fault, and
you are no weaker than anyone else for this man's violence to you. You
do not deserve it. Seek help.
And when in doubt, run.
Need help?
Click here. |
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Column Credo:
I'd be sitting in a restaurant and someone
would come up and say, "I don't like your column on this or that." I'd
hand him 35 cents. That was what the paper cost then. The refund on the
product. He'd get upset. Well, that's one attitude I have. Today,
it's half a buck. What can you buy for half a buck? Do I owe them something
that will be worth reading a hundred years from now? I don't think so.
Do I owe them something of the quality of Mark Twain? Naaa. Not for 50
cents.
I guess what I owe them is that when I
write something, it's what I think. No editor told me to write it. I'm
not doing it because the Tribune editorial page will like it, or not. So
they can be quite sure that they're getting what I think at the moment.
-- Mike Royko
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