A culture of violence against women
If you think females have achieved equality in the United States, just scan the headlines sometime. Misogyny is alive and well. Consider the marine who raped his female comrade, then killed her and buried her in his back yard to avoid a paternity test.
Consider also the husband who stabbed his wife and then burned his own house, killing her along with their four children.
In Florida, police say a man beat his four-month-old daughter Ariana to death on Christmas day. His motive? He wanted a son, not a daughter.
Another man tossed four babies from a bridge after arguing with his wife. On national news, the mother sobbed, “Why didn’t he kill me instead of the children? It’s too much hurting.” She recognized that she was the true target of his heinous actions.
Other hateful men strike more directly, killing women they know and profess to love, or even strangers. As women’s bodies turn up in parks, ponds and parked cars across the southeast, new questions are being raised about old missing persons files.
Whenever the topic of domestic violence comes up, some ill-informed person will inevitably drone, “If the women don’t like it, why do they stay?”
The answer is easy: They don’t stay. The majority of battered women try to escape their abusers as the violence escalates. Most are successful in time. Some women end up in body bags, and others are made to disappear forever.
Part of the problem is that we, as a society, are always asking the wrong question. We should not ask why victims are abused; we should ask why abusers do what they do.
Why do some men feel it is their privilege to exercise control over the woman they profess to love? Why do some men rape and kill women? For that matter, why do some men feel they have the right to forward sexist emails, harass their female co-workers, or try to intimidate female columnists?
Abuse thrives on power inequities. That’s why female-on-male violence and child-on-parent violence are not nearly as common as wife battering and child abuse. We live in a society where most women experience lifelong power inequities.
Economically, men’s earnings still overshadow women’s. Many women are dependent on their husband’s incomes, particularly when women bear the brunt of childcare. Economic inequity places abused women at a disadvantage, as they find themselves weighing safety against homelessness. For the children’s sake, many women stay in relationships that make them prisoners in their own homes.
Biology determines that most marriages involve physical inequity. Men are, on average, taller and stronger and possess a greater percentage of muscle mass than their wives. In a healthy marriage, the physical difference leads to feelings of protectiveness. In an abusive marriage, the weaknesses of the smaller partner are exploited to incite fear and maintain control.
Violence against women is a crime. The law books say so, but society is slow to let go of a paradigm so ingrained in the culture. For women to be safe and equal in America, changes must occur in every facet of society.
Law enforcement must change. Authorities must arrest – and charge and sentence – men who hit, punch, choke, trap, kick, or yank women about the hair. These actions are not privileges included with the marriage license. These actions are crimes, and should be prosecuted every time. The prosecution initiative should not be on the shoulders of the victim, who often caves in to the abuser out of fear.
Policemen who attack or threaten women should be subject to stronger sentences. If a man does not protect women from violence (including his own), then society must not trust him with a badge and a gun. The abusive cop’s crime is double, because he violates his oath of office and his vow of marriage simultaneously. The woman’s fear is also doubled, knowing that such men have resources and training to track her down if she tries to escape, and the opportunity to destroy evidence and cover their own tracks.
Parents must change. We must teach our children that the secret to a successful marriage is in applying the Golden Rule: Treat others like you want to be treated. Parents must teach it, and more importantly, model it every day. Let children see that marriage problems are resolved through consensus, not one-upmanship. Romance is created by putting your beloved on a pedestal, not establishing power inequities where “might makes right.”
Parenting itself must change. Children who are subjected to violence in the home frequently grow up to participate in violence dramas of their own. Parents must learn gentle parenting techniques to guide children without inadvertently teaching them violent tactics or damaging their self-esteem.
Hollywood must change. Violence against women is glorified nightly in every cinema and most every home in America. Shows like Criminal Minds and Killer Instinct almost invariably focus on the glamorized murder of a woman. Another generation of young people is being raised to believe that violence against women is titillating entertainment. Until TV changes, just turn it off.
Churches must change. Many pastors teach that the man has “final say” and that wives should obey husbands. Such sermons typically close with a word about husbands being kind, but the connection cannot be missed: Spiritualizing manhood sets women up for abuse by establishing an eternal and church-ordained power inequity.
The president of Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary stands as a not-so-shining example of such white-washed misogyny. Ten years ago, when the Atlanta Journal Constitution asked Paige Patterson about women, he replied, “Everyone should own at least one.”
Perhaps he wasn’t joking. Patterson became the architect of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention at the turn of the millennium. Under Patterson’s leadership, the conservatives succeeded in stripping ordained female chaplains of their endorsement. They sought to replace the “priesthood of the believer” doctrine with husbands being priests of their wives. They forced missionaries to agree to male-over-female marriages or else give up their funding.
After Paige Patterson became president of the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS), he fired a theology professor just for being female. Dr. Sheri Klouda, PhD, earned her degree at SWBTS and taught Hebrew there prior to Patterson’s gender discrimination. Patterson claims he has a right to discriminate against women, since SWBTS is a religious institution. Klouda responded by filing suit in federal court.
What does this have to do with domestic violence? Everything. Those who strip women of their status and financial means are also happy to subject them to other forms of abuse. Patterson himself was caught on tape telling other pastors that he never condones divorce – and rarely even separation or seeking of help -- for victims of marital violence.
In that transcript, Patterson shares an example in which he advised a battered wife to stay with her husband. He told her to submit to the man, to pray for him, and to get ready for the violence to increase. Patterson said he was “happy” when the woman came back to his church with two black eyes, because her husband also came.
All of these attitudes contribute to a culture of violence against women. We cannot expect abused women to solve the problem any more than we would expect children to solve the problem of child abuse, or pets to solve the problem of animal cruelty. Those of us who are free and strong must intervene to help victims.
To help or receive help in northwest Georgia, contact the Family Crisis Center at (706) 375-7630. In other areas, call 1-800-799-SAFE or TTY 1-800-787-3224.
Jeannie Babb Taylor
www.JeannieBabbTaylor.com
Showing posts with label domestic dispute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label domestic dispute. Show all posts
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
An open letter to Christian pastors
Pastors, have you ever preached a sermon against domestic violence? Odds are, you haven’t. I’ve listened to approximately 4,000 sermons and have yet to hear a pastor condemn domestic violence from the pulpit.
Southern preachers prefer to pontificate on matters like abortion and homosexuality. Sometimes they rail against feminism. On occasion they preach against pornography, using the occasion to slam churchwomen over immodest attire. In every denomination, pastors preach often enough on tithing, and never fail to pass the plate. Yet they fail at addressing an issue faced by approximately one fourth of their congregation.
Recently a wildly popular pastor shoved the problem of Christian violence into the spotlight when he choked, kicked and stomped his wife in the parking lot of an Atlanta hotel. In the South, beating your wife may or may not be a crime. Records show that the most common law enforcement response to domestic violence is “separating the parties.” Victims rarely press charges because they fear reprisal. Law enforcement rarely presses their own charges (though they could and should), essentially treating wife-beating as a “victimless crime.”
Bishop Thomas W. Weeks, III crossed the line that even Georgia will not tolerate: He was wearing shoes when he kicked his wife. That’s a felony. Besides that, he committed the acts publicly and on video surveillance tape. He also threatened to kill her, which is another Georgia felony.
The abused wife, Prophetess Juanita Bynum, is an internationally acclaimed televangelist and best-selling author who empowers Christian women with her preaching. Church members say that couple of weeks before the attack, Weeks announced that Bynum would no longer be preaching at the church they founded.
Bynum is pressing charges against Weeks and seeking to end the marriage. Attorneys for Weeks say he will contest the divorce on the grounds that she was cruel. The strangest part of this story is not that the man who kicked and stomped his wife is contesting the divorce or fighting the charges; that happens all the time. What is so bizarre is where this man was just a few days after the beating: He was behind his pulpit telling his congregation that the devil made him do it.
Finally, a preacher is talking about domestic violence! If only his congregation had responded with a resounding movement down the aisle – and right out the church door. No one should sit under the teaching of a wife-beater. The elders should have stripped this man of his title and never let him behind the pulpit again.
T. D. Jakes, the famous televangelist who helped bring Bynum to power, condemned violence against women in a written statement two weeks after the attack. He pointed out that every day, four American men murder their wives or girlfriends, resulting in 1,400 deaths per year. That’s an FBI statistic. He also mentioned that over half a million cases of intimate assault are reported each year. Most cases go unreported. According to the most conservative estimates, between 2,000,000 and 4,000,000 women are battered each year. In 1990, the U.S. had 3,800 shelters for animals, and only 1,500 shelters for battered women.
Other Christian leaders even try to blame the victims. Christian author Gillis Triplett claims that there are thirteen traits common to abused wives, including “THEY LOVE THE DRAMA!” (Emphasis his.) Evangelical leaders John MacArthur and James Dobson have both gone on record stating that women must be careful not to “provoke” abuse. In the 1996 printing of “Love Must Be Tough,” Dobson told a story about a woman who was physically beaten by her husband. Dobson concluded that the woman “baited” her husband to hit her so that she could show off her black eye, which he calls her “prize.”
Following the advice and example of such leaders, thousands of pastors regularly dismiss domestic violence and send women back into dangerous situations. With “saving the marriage” as the highest aim, these pastors seek to prevent divorce at all costs. Women receive the subtle message that their pain – or even their lives -- are not as important as keeping the marriage intact.
One woman told a victims’ support group how she took her children and fled the state in fear of her life. Her church responded by sending her a letter of ex-communication.
In the introduction to her new book "Woman Submit! Christians & Domestic Violence,” Jocylen Andersen states that "The practice of hiding, ignoring, and even perpetuating the emotional and physical abuse of women is ... rampant within evangelical Christian fellowships and as slow as our legal systems have been in dealing with violence against women by their husbands, the church has been even slower." The Christian wife abuse cover-up is every bit as evil as the Catholic sex abuse cover-up.
Christian leaders set the stage for domestic violence by perpetuating pop-culture stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. T. D. Jakes claims in his book “Woman, Thou Art Loosed” that all women were created to fulfill the vision of some man. Jakes bases his gender theology solely on the physical characteristics of male and female genitalia, insisting that all women are “receivers” and all men are “givers.” This false dichotomy breaks down quickly when one considers that female sexuality includes giving birth and giving milk. More importantly, Jakes deviates from Scripture in claiming that women and men must operate like their genitalia in every facet of life.
John MacArthur also does his part to set the stage for female subjugation. He calls the women’s movement “Satanic.” In a sermon called “God’s Design for a Successful Marriage: The Role of the Wife” MacArthur blames working women for everything from smog to prison overcrowding. As an antidote, he offers this quote from Charles Haddon Spurgeon on the disposition of a godly wife toward her husband: “He is her little world, her paradise, her choice treasure. She is glad to sink her individuality in him.”
Finally, consider Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Patterson recently dismissed Hebrew professor Sheri Klouda, simply because she was female. He claims the Bible does not allow women to instruct men. Patterson then launched a new major at the seminary: Homemaking. Only women are allowed to take these courses, which focus on childcare, cooking and sewing -- as well as a woman’s role in marriage. The courses are taught by Patterson’s wife, who is the only surviving female in the school’s 42-person theology faculty.
Considering Patterson’s view of women, we should not be surprised at his response to domestic violence. Participating in a panel on “How Submission Works in Practice,” Patterson tells abused wives to do three things: Pray for their husbands, submit to them, and “elevate” them. He admits that this advice sometimes leads to beatings, but also claims that the men eventually get saved. Apparently, it’s only the men that matter.
Pastors who truly want to help people and save marriages should stop attacking feminism. Instead, teach couples never to hit, choke, kick, threaten or verbally batter their spouse. Preach against domestic violence from your pulpit. Help abuse victims to escape their batterers – permanently. Encourage them to press charges so that justice can be served.
Pastors, if you want to defend marriage, set an example of a loving relationship. Instruct couples to live in a way that makes their spouse want to stay with them. It really does not take a six-tape series to teach the number one tool of a successful marriage: the golden rule.
Southern preachers prefer to pontificate on matters like abortion and homosexuality. Sometimes they rail against feminism. On occasion they preach against pornography, using the occasion to slam churchwomen over immodest attire. In every denomination, pastors preach often enough on tithing, and never fail to pass the plate. Yet they fail at addressing an issue faced by approximately one fourth of their congregation.
Recently a wildly popular pastor shoved the problem of Christian violence into the spotlight when he choked, kicked and stomped his wife in the parking lot of an Atlanta hotel. In the South, beating your wife may or may not be a crime. Records show that the most common law enforcement response to domestic violence is “separating the parties.” Victims rarely press charges because they fear reprisal. Law enforcement rarely presses their own charges (though they could and should), essentially treating wife-beating as a “victimless crime.”
Bishop Thomas W. Weeks, III crossed the line that even Georgia will not tolerate: He was wearing shoes when he kicked his wife. That’s a felony. Besides that, he committed the acts publicly and on video surveillance tape. He also threatened to kill her, which is another Georgia felony.
The abused wife, Prophetess Juanita Bynum, is an internationally acclaimed televangelist and best-selling author who empowers Christian women with her preaching. Church members say that couple of weeks before the attack, Weeks announced that Bynum would no longer be preaching at the church they founded.
Bynum is pressing charges against Weeks and seeking to end the marriage. Attorneys for Weeks say he will contest the divorce on the grounds that she was cruel. The strangest part of this story is not that the man who kicked and stomped his wife is contesting the divorce or fighting the charges; that happens all the time. What is so bizarre is where this man was just a few days after the beating: He was behind his pulpit telling his congregation that the devil made him do it.
Finally, a preacher is talking about domestic violence! If only his congregation had responded with a resounding movement down the aisle – and right out the church door. No one should sit under the teaching of a wife-beater. The elders should have stripped this man of his title and never let him behind the pulpit again.
T. D. Jakes, the famous televangelist who helped bring Bynum to power, condemned violence against women in a written statement two weeks after the attack. He pointed out that every day, four American men murder their wives or girlfriends, resulting in 1,400 deaths per year. That’s an FBI statistic. He also mentioned that over half a million cases of intimate assault are reported each year. Most cases go unreported. According to the most conservative estimates, between 2,000,000 and 4,000,000 women are battered each year. In 1990, the U.S. had 3,800 shelters for animals, and only 1,500 shelters for battered women.
Other Christian leaders even try to blame the victims. Christian author Gillis Triplett claims that there are thirteen traits common to abused wives, including “THEY LOVE THE DRAMA!” (Emphasis his.) Evangelical leaders John MacArthur and James Dobson have both gone on record stating that women must be careful not to “provoke” abuse. In the 1996 printing of “Love Must Be Tough,” Dobson told a story about a woman who was physically beaten by her husband. Dobson concluded that the woman “baited” her husband to hit her so that she could show off her black eye, which he calls her “prize.”
Following the advice and example of such leaders, thousands of pastors regularly dismiss domestic violence and send women back into dangerous situations. With “saving the marriage” as the highest aim, these pastors seek to prevent divorce at all costs. Women receive the subtle message that their pain – or even their lives -- are not as important as keeping the marriage intact.
One woman told a victims’ support group how she took her children and fled the state in fear of her life. Her church responded by sending her a letter of ex-communication.
In the introduction to her new book "Woman Submit! Christians & Domestic Violence,” Jocylen Andersen states that "The practice of hiding, ignoring, and even perpetuating the emotional and physical abuse of women is ... rampant within evangelical Christian fellowships and as slow as our legal systems have been in dealing with violence against women by their husbands, the church has been even slower." The Christian wife abuse cover-up is every bit as evil as the Catholic sex abuse cover-up.
Christian leaders set the stage for domestic violence by perpetuating pop-culture stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. T. D. Jakes claims in his book “Woman, Thou Art Loosed” that all women were created to fulfill the vision of some man. Jakes bases his gender theology solely on the physical characteristics of male and female genitalia, insisting that all women are “receivers” and all men are “givers.” This false dichotomy breaks down quickly when one considers that female sexuality includes giving birth and giving milk. More importantly, Jakes deviates from Scripture in claiming that women and men must operate like their genitalia in every facet of life.
John MacArthur also does his part to set the stage for female subjugation. He calls the women’s movement “Satanic.” In a sermon called “God’s Design for a Successful Marriage: The Role of the Wife” MacArthur blames working women for everything from smog to prison overcrowding. As an antidote, he offers this quote from Charles Haddon Spurgeon on the disposition of a godly wife toward her husband: “He is her little world, her paradise, her choice treasure. She is glad to sink her individuality in him.”
Finally, consider Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Patterson recently dismissed Hebrew professor Sheri Klouda, simply because she was female. He claims the Bible does not allow women to instruct men. Patterson then launched a new major at the seminary: Homemaking. Only women are allowed to take these courses, which focus on childcare, cooking and sewing -- as well as a woman’s role in marriage. The courses are taught by Patterson’s wife, who is the only surviving female in the school’s 42-person theology faculty.
Considering Patterson’s view of women, we should not be surprised at his response to domestic violence. Participating in a panel on “How Submission Works in Practice,” Patterson tells abused wives to do three things: Pray for their husbands, submit to them, and “elevate” them. He admits that this advice sometimes leads to beatings, but also claims that the men eventually get saved. Apparently, it’s only the men that matter.
Pastors who truly want to help people and save marriages should stop attacking feminism. Instead, teach couples never to hit, choke, kick, threaten or verbally batter their spouse. Preach against domestic violence from your pulpit. Help abuse victims to escape their batterers – permanently. Encourage them to press charges so that justice can be served.
Pastors, if you want to defend marriage, set an example of a loving relationship. Instruct couples to live in a way that makes their spouse want to stay with them. It really does not take a six-tape series to teach the number one tool of a successful marriage: the golden rule.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
A few good men
It isn’t that America lacks good men. It’s that our current culture does not know how to recognize them. Over the past week I have received several emails from Chris Benoit fans angrily defending the wrestler turned murderer. They all say the same thing – Yeah, he killed his wife and child, but Chris Benoit was a good man. They offer evidence to support their claim: “I met him once and he gave me his autograph.” “He was always smiling,” says another.
Many people do not understand the difference between polite and good. Mass murderer Jeffrey Dhamer was always described as polite, but that does not make him a good man. There is more to being a good man than knowing how to nod and smile. A good man does not take lives; a good man saves lives.
Liviu Lebrescu was such a man. He was a Romanian holocaust survivor who went on to become a highly honored professor. Normally he taught college students aeronautical engineering, but on April 16th of this year, he taught us all how a good man should react to terrorism. As the Virginia Tech killer approached Liviu Lebrescu’s classroom in Norris Hall, the professor blocked the doorway with his own body while his students climbed out the windows. He laid down his life so that others might live. Liviu Lebrescu was a good man.
Most good men will never step into the worldwide spotlight as Liviu Lebrescu did with that split-second decision. Most good men are good simply because they do what is right day after day. They change diapers, check homework, and help strangers stranded on the highway. They work to support their children, whether they live together or not. They pay their taxes and their bills. They thank the drive-through attendant. They leave good tips. They treat women with respect. A good man does these things even when no one is watching.
Chris Benoit enjoyed the spotlight. In the ring or in front of a cheering crowd, he wore his assumed persona. He was, after all, an actor. In the world of wrestling, he played “the good guy.” To those of us who are not avid wrestling fans, a “good guy” wrestler is a bit of a contradiction. How can anyone who engages in the sadistic, gratuitous violence showcased by modern wrestling be considered “good”? In the ring, he pretended to hurt people. At home, he really did hurt people. He hurt the very people he was supposed to love and protect. Finally, he killed them.
A man demonstrates his true character in private – away from TV cameras and cheering fans, or (in the case of more ordinary men) away from church friends and work colleagues. At home, a man shows who he really is. A good man is honest. A good man is gentle with women and children. He is responsible. He can be trusted.
My grandfather was such a man. Even if you knew Herchel Babb, you probably did not know about his military service before reading it in the obituary last week. He served in the Asiatic-Pacific theatre in WWII. Papaw rarely mentioned his service, and he certainly did not expect others to praise him for it or to give him special privileges or accolades. He never seemed to feel that civilians owed him something. He served not for personal glory, but because it was the right thing to do.
Papaw understood that a person can honor the troops and the veterans even when they do not agree with the President or the war. In fact, Papaw did not always agree with the Commander in Chief he served. He lamented the loss of life in Hiroshima, and speculated that the Allies would have been victorious soon enough without the devastation of the atom bombs.
My grandfather also felt uneasy about the bombing of Baghdad. He could say so without any sense of disloyalty, because he understood the difference between politics and patriotism. Today that line has been obscured. War hawks preach that anyone who opposes the war is a coward or a terrorist, and that you cannot be a good American without being a Republican. Anyone who disagrees with the status quo is branded as a traitor. We have forgotten what the founding fathers understood so well: Open dissent is only possible in a free country, and a free country is only possible where open dissent is allowed to flourish.
Papaw never preached a sermon – but perhaps his life was a sermon in itself. He loved his wife and delighted in his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He spent his youth scrimping and saving while he built a business with his brother Jack. As their sons grew up, they were welcomed into the business. Illness forced Papaw to retire before I joined the family business, but he was thrilled to see the younger generation coming in. That was always his desire. He wasn’t building a fortune for himself; he was building a legacy for future generations. Proverbs 13:22 says, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.” On June 30th, we held my grandfather’s hands as his breath came slower and slower, till his body at last lay still. The world lost a good man.
Ultimately, we look to Jesus Christ as the perfect example of a good man. Like the other good men I’ve mentioned, Jesus was strong but gentle. He could not tolerate injustice. Jesus courageously challenged the leaders of his day. He used his great power to help the young, the weak and the sick – not to force his will on others.
Jesus did not seek accolades, even though no one deserved them more. Although he was Lord of Lord and King of Kings, Jesus knelt on the dirty floor to wash his disciples’ feet. He did not miss a beat when he came to the feet of Judas, who he knew would betray him that very night. He loved and he served, knowing that in the end the task before him would cost him his very life.
Yet even Jesus, for all his goodness, shied away from being called good. “Who are you calling good?” he asked. “Only God is good.” Perhaps you know a man like this. I’ve got one at my house. All the Christian marriage books say that men want praise. Wives are instructed to compliment and openly admire them. But I found that when I put that advice into action, my good man cringed. He said that he was only human, and did not want to be put on a pedestal.
A good man is humble. He does not demand that others honor him for doing what is right. He doesn’t do it for glory. He does it because that’s just who he is.
Many people do not understand the difference between polite and good. Mass murderer Jeffrey Dhamer was always described as polite, but that does not make him a good man. There is more to being a good man than knowing how to nod and smile. A good man does not take lives; a good man saves lives.
Liviu Lebrescu was such a man. He was a Romanian holocaust survivor who went on to become a highly honored professor. Normally he taught college students aeronautical engineering, but on April 16th of this year, he taught us all how a good man should react to terrorism. As the Virginia Tech killer approached Liviu Lebrescu’s classroom in Norris Hall, the professor blocked the doorway with his own body while his students climbed out the windows. He laid down his life so that others might live. Liviu Lebrescu was a good man.
Most good men will never step into the worldwide spotlight as Liviu Lebrescu did with that split-second decision. Most good men are good simply because they do what is right day after day. They change diapers, check homework, and help strangers stranded on the highway. They work to support their children, whether they live together or not. They pay their taxes and their bills. They thank the drive-through attendant. They leave good tips. They treat women with respect. A good man does these things even when no one is watching.
Chris Benoit enjoyed the spotlight. In the ring or in front of a cheering crowd, he wore his assumed persona. He was, after all, an actor. In the world of wrestling, he played “the good guy.” To those of us who are not avid wrestling fans, a “good guy” wrestler is a bit of a contradiction. How can anyone who engages in the sadistic, gratuitous violence showcased by modern wrestling be considered “good”? In the ring, he pretended to hurt people. At home, he really did hurt people. He hurt the very people he was supposed to love and protect. Finally, he killed them.
A man demonstrates his true character in private – away from TV cameras and cheering fans, or (in the case of more ordinary men) away from church friends and work colleagues. At home, a man shows who he really is. A good man is honest. A good man is gentle with women and children. He is responsible. He can be trusted.
My grandfather was such a man. Even if you knew Herchel Babb, you probably did not know about his military service before reading it in the obituary last week. He served in the Asiatic-Pacific theatre in WWII. Papaw rarely mentioned his service, and he certainly did not expect others to praise him for it or to give him special privileges or accolades. He never seemed to feel that civilians owed him something. He served not for personal glory, but because it was the right thing to do.
Papaw understood that a person can honor the troops and the veterans even when they do not agree with the President or the war. In fact, Papaw did not always agree with the Commander in Chief he served. He lamented the loss of life in Hiroshima, and speculated that the Allies would have been victorious soon enough without the devastation of the atom bombs.
My grandfather also felt uneasy about the bombing of Baghdad. He could say so without any sense of disloyalty, because he understood the difference between politics and patriotism. Today that line has been obscured. War hawks preach that anyone who opposes the war is a coward or a terrorist, and that you cannot be a good American without being a Republican. Anyone who disagrees with the status quo is branded as a traitor. We have forgotten what the founding fathers understood so well: Open dissent is only possible in a free country, and a free country is only possible where open dissent is allowed to flourish.
Papaw never preached a sermon – but perhaps his life was a sermon in itself. He loved his wife and delighted in his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He spent his youth scrimping and saving while he built a business with his brother Jack. As their sons grew up, they were welcomed into the business. Illness forced Papaw to retire before I joined the family business, but he was thrilled to see the younger generation coming in. That was always his desire. He wasn’t building a fortune for himself; he was building a legacy for future generations. Proverbs 13:22 says, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.” On June 30th, we held my grandfather’s hands as his breath came slower and slower, till his body at last lay still. The world lost a good man.
Ultimately, we look to Jesus Christ as the perfect example of a good man. Like the other good men I’ve mentioned, Jesus was strong but gentle. He could not tolerate injustice. Jesus courageously challenged the leaders of his day. He used his great power to help the young, the weak and the sick – not to force his will on others.
Jesus did not seek accolades, even though no one deserved them more. Although he was Lord of Lord and King of Kings, Jesus knelt on the dirty floor to wash his disciples’ feet. He did not miss a beat when he came to the feet of Judas, who he knew would betray him that very night. He loved and he served, knowing that in the end the task before him would cost him his very life.
Yet even Jesus, for all his goodness, shied away from being called good. “Who are you calling good?” he asked. “Only God is good.” Perhaps you know a man like this. I’ve got one at my house. All the Christian marriage books say that men want praise. Wives are instructed to compliment and openly admire them. But I found that when I put that advice into action, my good man cringed. He said that he was only human, and did not want to be put on a pedestal.
A good man is humble. He does not demand that others honor him for doing what is right. He doesn’t do it for glory. He does it because that’s just who he is.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Fans still worship Woman-killer
It seems fitting that she was known simply as “Woman.” She was smart, she was funny, she was successful, and she was beautiful. Yet Nancy Benoit died simply because she was a woman.
That’s not shocking, really. It happens to approximately 1,200 women per year. Many times children, like Nancy’s seven-year-old son, are also killed. Frequently the killer kills himself afterward, so that should not shock us, either.
It is the fans that are shocking. In thousands of posts on dozens of sites, Chris Benoit fans are creating all sorts of conspiracy theories and excuses to justify or explain away the tragic murders he committed before hanging himself.
Some wrestling fans blame Nancy: “She’s not so innocent.” (Seeing as how she was hand-cuffed and strangled a day before her son was suffocated and two days before Chris Benoit’s hanging, she sounds fairly innocent to me.) “Maybe she cheated on him,” dozens of fans suggest, as if murder is a reasonable response to infidelity. Interestingly, no one suggests that he may have been cheating on her, or the more obvious conclusion, that he was an abusive megalomaniac with a lust for violence.
Imagine the outrage if a professional wrestler broke into a home here in north Georgia and slaughtered a woman and child. We would condemn the murderer and demand change in the industry. But our society still views women as belonging to their husbands, and children as belonging to their parents. Thus Benoit fans talk about the “mistakes” he made with his “own” family. They mourn the three victims as if they were hit by a meteor or died together in a car crash. They talk about them playing together in the afterlife. They write “Rest in peace, Chris Benoit.”
Most disturbing are the attempts by fans and wrestling promoters alike to eulogize Chris Benoit as a hero and a really good man. Good men don’t kill people. They certainly don’t kill women and children. Many fans feel they knew Benoit from his TV or ring appearances and claim the Canadian Crippler “wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Chillingly, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) responded to the killings by airing a 3-hour tribute to the dead wrestler. After the public found out that Benoit himself was the killer, WWE vowed not to talk about Benoit again. It is telling that no tribute is planned for his victim Nancy Benoit, who was also a WWE star known as Woman or Fallen Angel.
The excuses offered for the murderer’s behavior are myriad. Some blame “roid rage.” Federal agents raided his doctor’s office and made over a dozen arrests, as if steroid use had suddenly come to light. It hardly takes a toxicologist to recognize that these entertainers are using anabolic steroids and have been for many years. As terrible as steroid use is, it does not explain a man handcuffing and strangling his wife one day, smothering his son the next day, and on the third day taking the coward’s retreat by hanging himself.
Here’s another item steroids cannot explain: the accolades offered by fellow wrestlers. For example, Stone Cold Steve Austin declared after learning of the deaths that he had nothing but respect for Chris Benoit.
Perhaps Austin’s ex-wife Debra Williams can explain it. “The domestic and drug abuse is out of hand in the WWE,” she said in a recent interview with Fox 31 news. According to Fox, Debra and Nancy led similar lives. Both went to the police seeking protection from their own husbands. Both lived in fear and both filed for divorce after repeated attacks. In Debra William’s case, Austin coerced her to write a letter to the authorities stating that the complaint was a mistake. Austin was put on probation for one year, and Debra was placed under a court gag order that prevented her from going public about the drugs, alcohol and domestic abuse so prevalent in the world of wresting. Nancy also withdrew her complaint, and remained with her abuser until he killed her on Friday, June 22nd.
“Why do they stay?” misinformed people ask, implying that battered women can just leave if they do not like being abused. It is a misguided question, which can be answered in three words: They don’t stay. Half of all marriages end in divorce, after all. The number of women who intentionally stay with abusive men for the rest of their lives is a fairly small number.
Leaving an abuser is not easy -- particularly when a woman faces losing her children, her home, her financial stability, and quite possibly her life. Every week the news is filled with stories of men who would rather kill their wives than watch them walk out the door. In fact, the majority of spouse murders take place during separation and divorce. Some men take “till death do us part” to a whole new level. Each year, more Americans die at the hands of husbands or boyfriends than fighting in Iraq.
Wrestling fans are accustomed to suspending belief when a steroid-enhanced maniac lands an elbow on the slick, shiny abdomen of another wrestler. Apparently they are equally willing to suspend belief when the facts (Chris Benoit is a murderer who doesn’t deserve a tribute) diverge from their altered reality (Chris Benoit is a saint, a hero, and a good man.)
WWE producers surely see reality. They know that their actors are not gods. They know that they are strung out on booze and steroids. Rather than condemning steroid use among athletes, the WWE has maintained that steroids could not possibly be responsible.
They know that domestic violence is rampant among their ranks. The slaying of Nancy Benoit presented an excellent opportunity to mourn her passing and highlight the problem of domestic violence in America. Imagine the impact! Wrestling fans could have been presented with warning signs, help-lines, and prevention guidelines. WWE bypassed an unprecedented opportunity to save women’s lives by talking about what one man did to one Woman. Instead, they glorified the monster.
That’s not shocking, really. It happens to approximately 1,200 women per year. Many times children, like Nancy’s seven-year-old son, are also killed. Frequently the killer kills himself afterward, so that should not shock us, either.
It is the fans that are shocking. In thousands of posts on dozens of sites, Chris Benoit fans are creating all sorts of conspiracy theories and excuses to justify or explain away the tragic murders he committed before hanging himself.
Some wrestling fans blame Nancy: “She’s not so innocent.” (Seeing as how she was hand-cuffed and strangled a day before her son was suffocated and two days before Chris Benoit’s hanging, she sounds fairly innocent to me.) “Maybe she cheated on him,” dozens of fans suggest, as if murder is a reasonable response to infidelity. Interestingly, no one suggests that he may have been cheating on her, or the more obvious conclusion, that he was an abusive megalomaniac with a lust for violence.
Imagine the outrage if a professional wrestler broke into a home here in north Georgia and slaughtered a woman and child. We would condemn the murderer and demand change in the industry. But our society still views women as belonging to their husbands, and children as belonging to their parents. Thus Benoit fans talk about the “mistakes” he made with his “own” family. They mourn the three victims as if they were hit by a meteor or died together in a car crash. They talk about them playing together in the afterlife. They write “Rest in peace, Chris Benoit.”
Most disturbing are the attempts by fans and wrestling promoters alike to eulogize Chris Benoit as a hero and a really good man. Good men don’t kill people. They certainly don’t kill women and children. Many fans feel they knew Benoit from his TV or ring appearances and claim the Canadian Crippler “wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Chillingly, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) responded to the killings by airing a 3-hour tribute to the dead wrestler. After the public found out that Benoit himself was the killer, WWE vowed not to talk about Benoit again. It is telling that no tribute is planned for his victim Nancy Benoit, who was also a WWE star known as Woman or Fallen Angel.
The excuses offered for the murderer’s behavior are myriad. Some blame “roid rage.” Federal agents raided his doctor’s office and made over a dozen arrests, as if steroid use had suddenly come to light. It hardly takes a toxicologist to recognize that these entertainers are using anabolic steroids and have been for many years. As terrible as steroid use is, it does not explain a man handcuffing and strangling his wife one day, smothering his son the next day, and on the third day taking the coward’s retreat by hanging himself.
Here’s another item steroids cannot explain: the accolades offered by fellow wrestlers. For example, Stone Cold Steve Austin declared after learning of the deaths that he had nothing but respect for Chris Benoit.
Perhaps Austin’s ex-wife Debra Williams can explain it. “The domestic and drug abuse is out of hand in the WWE,” she said in a recent interview with Fox 31 news. According to Fox, Debra and Nancy led similar lives. Both went to the police seeking protection from their own husbands. Both lived in fear and both filed for divorce after repeated attacks. In Debra William’s case, Austin coerced her to write a letter to the authorities stating that the complaint was a mistake. Austin was put on probation for one year, and Debra was placed under a court gag order that prevented her from going public about the drugs, alcohol and domestic abuse so prevalent in the world of wresting. Nancy also withdrew her complaint, and remained with her abuser until he killed her on Friday, June 22nd.
“Why do they stay?” misinformed people ask, implying that battered women can just leave if they do not like being abused. It is a misguided question, which can be answered in three words: They don’t stay. Half of all marriages end in divorce, after all. The number of women who intentionally stay with abusive men for the rest of their lives is a fairly small number.
Leaving an abuser is not easy -- particularly when a woman faces losing her children, her home, her financial stability, and quite possibly her life. Every week the news is filled with stories of men who would rather kill their wives than watch them walk out the door. In fact, the majority of spouse murders take place during separation and divorce. Some men take “till death do us part” to a whole new level. Each year, more Americans die at the hands of husbands or boyfriends than fighting in Iraq.
Wrestling fans are accustomed to suspending belief when a steroid-enhanced maniac lands an elbow on the slick, shiny abdomen of another wrestler. Apparently they are equally willing to suspend belief when the facts (Chris Benoit is a murderer who doesn’t deserve a tribute) diverge from their altered reality (Chris Benoit is a saint, a hero, and a good man.)
WWE producers surely see reality. They know that their actors are not gods. They know that they are strung out on booze and steroids. Rather than condemning steroid use among athletes, the WWE has maintained that steroids could not possibly be responsible.
They know that domestic violence is rampant among their ranks. The slaying of Nancy Benoit presented an excellent opportunity to mourn her passing and highlight the problem of domestic violence in America. Imagine the impact! Wrestling fans could have been presented with warning signs, help-lines, and prevention guidelines. WWE bypassed an unprecedented opportunity to save women’s lives by talking about what one man did to one Woman. Instead, they glorified the monster.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Parenting Tips for Dummies
You don’t own them. Children are not possessions that belong to you. Children are a blessing, but it’s more important that we bless them. They are not here to entertain or titillate adults, to make us look good, to justify our existence or to give adults a whipping post for taking out anger. They are not even here to love us; they are here to be loved.
Since you don’t own them, don’t be mean to your children if they act badly in public. The public will be more disgusted with your behavior than the child’s. The purpose of discipline is to nurture and train the child so that he or she grows into a healthy adult. It is not to vent your anger, or even to make your life easier. It isn’t about you.
Note to men: Dating a woman does not give you the right to discipline her children.
Note to frustrated parents: Children are not things you can put away when you’re tired of them — not in a closet, not in a car, not in a cage, not in a drug-induced stupor, and not in a shallow grave. They are in your care, but you don’t own them.
In fact, they own you. According to the law, every child has a right to be cared for and financially supported from the moment he or she emerges into the world until the age of 18. If you are the biological or adopted parent of a minor child, that child owns you.
You have certain responsibilities, and the rest of society will condemn or punish you for failing to meet them. Children have the right to expect that their caregivers will feed them (more than once a day, and something other than Lucky Charms), clothe them, nurture them and teach them. When you can’t take care of them, you have to find someone who can.
State law does not specify at what age a child may be left alone — but 6 isn’t it. Parked cars do not make good babysitters, although they do make good ovens. For a small child, being inside a car unsupervised is as dangerous as standing in the highway. In the summer it only takes minutes for a child to become brain-damaged in a parked car (even with the windows “cracked”).
Children in cars are also at risk for kidnapping, car-jacking, parking lot wrecks, engine fires, putting the car in gear, or injuring themselves on the power windows. Many automobile-related child deaths occur in the parent’s or grandparent’s own driveway.
Committing a crime against “your” child is not somehow better than committing a crime against a stranger. In fact, it is worse because you had a responsibility to protect that particular child from harm.
Children are people. This would seem to be self-evident. You would think that when a child emerges from the womb, both new parents would look down at that tiny face — a mirror of their own — and instantly fall in love. You would think that for them, that child would suddenly become the most important person in their life — the very sun around which the rest of their solar system rotates.
But here are some tips for those parents that do not experience such a paradigm shift: Ropes are for cattle, not children. If it is illegal to do to your dog, it’s also illegal to do to a child.
Pavement is blisteringly hot, and the men’s restroom floor is nasty, so put shoes on your child when you go out. Children should never be subjected to addictive, cancer-causing, asthma-triggering cigarette smoke — and certainly not in an enclosed space like your car. Oh, and when the diaper package says a diaper will hold “up to 34 pounds,” that indicates the size of the child, not the amount of excrement it will hold.
In our society, there is no excuse for cruelty to children. If you cannot or will not give your child the basic requirements of life (food, clothing, cleanliness, safety and a little love) then please be grown-up enough to hand that child over to someone who will.
Since you don’t own them, don’t be mean to your children if they act badly in public. The public will be more disgusted with your behavior than the child’s. The purpose of discipline is to nurture and train the child so that he or she grows into a healthy adult. It is not to vent your anger, or even to make your life easier. It isn’t about you.
Note to men: Dating a woman does not give you the right to discipline her children.
Note to frustrated parents: Children are not things you can put away when you’re tired of them — not in a closet, not in a car, not in a cage, not in a drug-induced stupor, and not in a shallow grave. They are in your care, but you don’t own them.
In fact, they own you. According to the law, every child has a right to be cared for and financially supported from the moment he or she emerges into the world until the age of 18. If you are the biological or adopted parent of a minor child, that child owns you.
You have certain responsibilities, and the rest of society will condemn or punish you for failing to meet them. Children have the right to expect that their caregivers will feed them (more than once a day, and something other than Lucky Charms), clothe them, nurture them and teach them. When you can’t take care of them, you have to find someone who can.
State law does not specify at what age a child may be left alone — but 6 isn’t it. Parked cars do not make good babysitters, although they do make good ovens. For a small child, being inside a car unsupervised is as dangerous as standing in the highway. In the summer it only takes minutes for a child to become brain-damaged in a parked car (even with the windows “cracked”).
Children in cars are also at risk for kidnapping, car-jacking, parking lot wrecks, engine fires, putting the car in gear, or injuring themselves on the power windows. Many automobile-related child deaths occur in the parent’s or grandparent’s own driveway.
Committing a crime against “your” child is not somehow better than committing a crime against a stranger. In fact, it is worse because you had a responsibility to protect that particular child from harm.
Children are people. This would seem to be self-evident. You would think that when a child emerges from the womb, both new parents would look down at that tiny face — a mirror of their own — and instantly fall in love. You would think that for them, that child would suddenly become the most important person in their life — the very sun around which the rest of their solar system rotates.
But here are some tips for those parents that do not experience such a paradigm shift: Ropes are for cattle, not children. If it is illegal to do to your dog, it’s also illegal to do to a child.
Pavement is blisteringly hot, and the men’s restroom floor is nasty, so put shoes on your child when you go out. Children should never be subjected to addictive, cancer-causing, asthma-triggering cigarette smoke — and certainly not in an enclosed space like your car. Oh, and when the diaper package says a diaper will hold “up to 34 pounds,” that indicates the size of the child, not the amount of excrement it will hold.
In our society, there is no excuse for cruelty to children. If you cannot or will not give your child the basic requirements of life (food, clothing, cleanliness, safety and a little love) then please be grown-up enough to hand that child over to someone who will.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
A tale of two Marys
When the Virginia Tech shooter killed his first two victims, officials detained the girl’s boyfriend and did little else. After he killed another 30 people, officials admitted that they discounted the first two murders as a “domestic dispute.” Last week, in a column written before this incident, I noted that this euphemism is used to downplay acts of violence against women.
“Domestic dispute” is codespeak for the things men to do their “own” women, which therefore do not really concern the outside world. The distinction is artificial, because violence that begins at home frequently spills into the rest of the world. Consider, for example, Buckhead shooter Mark O. Barton. After he shot 9 people at his office, police later found the bludgeoned bodies of his wife and children at home. In fact, Barton may have killed before. Someone bludgeoned his first wife and mother-in-law to death years before the Buckhead killings. Barton was named a person of interest and investigated by police – but the prosecutor did not proceed with indictment. It makes you wonder if we could prevent some mass murders by taking “domestic disputes” more seriously.
The trial of a woman named Mary Winkler who shot her husband also made front page this week. When a woman shoots a man (or even a man’s tires, in the case of Miss America 1944), it always makes great headlines. “Tennessee preacher’s wife convicted” national headlines read.
Meanwhile, another trial involving another Mary never made front page. Mary Babb (no relation to this columnist) was the victim of many “domestic disputes.” Because the violence was male-on-female, most of us never read about it. “Witness describes fatal shooting,” was the local headline for her story.
Mary W. testified that her husband abused her physically, sexually and emotionally. Friends and relatives said her personality had changed since marrying the controlling preacher, and testified of a black eye and other visible injuries. Mary W. said he subjected her to sexual acts she found physically painful and morally repugnant. She was afraid to divorce her husband, who had sworn to kill her and cut her up into a million pieces if she ever crossed him. After he tried to silence their baby by covering her mouth and nose, Mary W. says she snapped. She does not remember pulling the trigger. She fired one blast from his own shotgun – the one he had threatened her with so many times – then she packed her three little girls in the car and fled.
On Friday, a jury found Mary W. guilty of voluntary manslaughter. The verdict recognizes that she shot her husband intentionally but without forethought. Though Mary W. claims the shotgun went off accidentally, pointing a gun at another person certainly suggests intent. If she was not in imminent danger, her actions can hardly be considered self-defense. Although the gun had been pointed at her many times in the past, one crime does not excuse another.
She should have gone to the police. She should have prosecuted Matthew Winkler for beating and threatening and sexually abusing her. She should have divorced him instead of shooting him. Right?
But let us consider the other Mary. Mary B. was also a victim of an abusive husband, and she did all the things we would have advised Mary W. to do. Mary B. filed for divorce. When her husband Thomas responded by threatening her with a knife, Mary B. sought to prosecute him for assault, domestic violence and criminal sexual conduct. Mary B. obtained an order of protection. She moved to another city with her three-year-old son and she found a job working for a newspaper.
While in jail, Thomas was so vocal in his threats against Mary B. that cellmates requested he be moved. In spite of the threats, and in spite of a prior sentence for assaulting Mary B., the judge let him out of jail on bond. Several months later, with the court date and charges still pending, Thomas found his prey again outside her place of employment. He rammed her Ford Explorer till it overturned. As Mary B. lay trapped on the ceiling of her vehicle, he shot out the window, and then killed her with one blast from a shotgun.
Two Marys faced controlling, abusive husbands. Mary B. did everything right. She did not fight violence with violence. She trusted the authorities to protect her. Mary B. is dead.
Mary W. fought back. Afraid that involving the police would result in her death, she took matters into her own hands. Mary W. survived. Because she survived, she is going to jail. We fail to protect those women who turn to the law for protection – and we prosecute those who protect themselves. Until judges stop letting abusive men go free, we should not condemn women like Mary W. who fight back. What other recourse do they have?
Divorce is a legitimate reaction. The longer an abused woman stays, the harder it is for her to get out alive. Since abuse gets worse with time, churches and counselors should not advise abused women to tough it out or give him one more chance. Yet filing for divorce is not sufficient – particularly if Georgia legislators succeed in prolonging the waiting period between divorce filing and finalizing to 120 days. Statistics show that the rate of marital homicide is highest during the separation preceding divorce. Some abusers continue to harass or physically attack their victims even after divorce. Mary B. had already filed for divorce. Divorce did not save her.
Orders of protection are useless. These are men who ignore social taboos and break existing laws every time they assault their wives. They are not going to be deterred by an additional rule on a piece of paper. Neither is a $30,000 bond (of which he pays just 10%) going to keep such a man from going after his prey.
Violent men are not stopped by un-enforced laws, restraining orders or fines. They can be stopped by prison bars. Until the American judicial system starts locking up abusive men, it should not lock up women who protect themselves.
-- Jeannie Babb Taylor
"On the Other Hand"
April, 2007
“Domestic dispute” is codespeak for the things men to do their “own” women, which therefore do not really concern the outside world. The distinction is artificial, because violence that begins at home frequently spills into the rest of the world. Consider, for example, Buckhead shooter Mark O. Barton. After he shot 9 people at his office, police later found the bludgeoned bodies of his wife and children at home. In fact, Barton may have killed before. Someone bludgeoned his first wife and mother-in-law to death years before the Buckhead killings. Barton was named a person of interest and investigated by police – but the prosecutor did not proceed with indictment. It makes you wonder if we could prevent some mass murders by taking “domestic disputes” more seriously.
The trial of a woman named Mary Winkler who shot her husband also made front page this week. When a woman shoots a man (or even a man’s tires, in the case of Miss America 1944), it always makes great headlines. “Tennessee preacher’s wife convicted” national headlines read.
Meanwhile, another trial involving another Mary never made front page. Mary Babb (no relation to this columnist) was the victim of many “domestic disputes.” Because the violence was male-on-female, most of us never read about it. “Witness describes fatal shooting,” was the local headline for her story.
Mary W. testified that her husband abused her physically, sexually and emotionally. Friends and relatives said her personality had changed since marrying the controlling preacher, and testified of a black eye and other visible injuries. Mary W. said he subjected her to sexual acts she found physically painful and morally repugnant. She was afraid to divorce her husband, who had sworn to kill her and cut her up into a million pieces if she ever crossed him. After he tried to silence their baby by covering her mouth and nose, Mary W. says she snapped. She does not remember pulling the trigger. She fired one blast from his own shotgun – the one he had threatened her with so many times – then she packed her three little girls in the car and fled.
On Friday, a jury found Mary W. guilty of voluntary manslaughter. The verdict recognizes that she shot her husband intentionally but without forethought. Though Mary W. claims the shotgun went off accidentally, pointing a gun at another person certainly suggests intent. If she was not in imminent danger, her actions can hardly be considered self-defense. Although the gun had been pointed at her many times in the past, one crime does not excuse another.
She should have gone to the police. She should have prosecuted Matthew Winkler for beating and threatening and sexually abusing her. She should have divorced him instead of shooting him. Right?
But let us consider the other Mary. Mary B. was also a victim of an abusive husband, and she did all the things we would have advised Mary W. to do. Mary B. filed for divorce. When her husband Thomas responded by threatening her with a knife, Mary B. sought to prosecute him for assault, domestic violence and criminal sexual conduct. Mary B. obtained an order of protection. She moved to another city with her three-year-old son and she found a job working for a newspaper.
While in jail, Thomas was so vocal in his threats against Mary B. that cellmates requested he be moved. In spite of the threats, and in spite of a prior sentence for assaulting Mary B., the judge let him out of jail on bond. Several months later, with the court date and charges still pending, Thomas found his prey again outside her place of employment. He rammed her Ford Explorer till it overturned. As Mary B. lay trapped on the ceiling of her vehicle, he shot out the window, and then killed her with one blast from a shotgun.
Two Marys faced controlling, abusive husbands. Mary B. did everything right. She did not fight violence with violence. She trusted the authorities to protect her. Mary B. is dead.
Mary W. fought back. Afraid that involving the police would result in her death, she took matters into her own hands. Mary W. survived. Because she survived, she is going to jail. We fail to protect those women who turn to the law for protection – and we prosecute those who protect themselves. Until judges stop letting abusive men go free, we should not condemn women like Mary W. who fight back. What other recourse do they have?
Divorce is a legitimate reaction. The longer an abused woman stays, the harder it is for her to get out alive. Since abuse gets worse with time, churches and counselors should not advise abused women to tough it out or give him one more chance. Yet filing for divorce is not sufficient – particularly if Georgia legislators succeed in prolonging the waiting period between divorce filing and finalizing to 120 days. Statistics show that the rate of marital homicide is highest during the separation preceding divorce. Some abusers continue to harass or physically attack their victims even after divorce. Mary B. had already filed for divorce. Divorce did not save her.
Orders of protection are useless. These are men who ignore social taboos and break existing laws every time they assault their wives. They are not going to be deterred by an additional rule on a piece of paper. Neither is a $30,000 bond (of which he pays just 10%) going to keep such a man from going after his prey.
Violent men are not stopped by un-enforced laws, restraining orders or fines. They can be stopped by prison bars. Until the American judicial system starts locking up abusive men, it should not lock up women who protect themselves.
-- Jeannie Babb Taylor
"On the Other Hand"
April, 2007
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