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.
Showing posts with label sexual abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexual abuse. Show all posts
Monday, June 25, 2007
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
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Between the (Head)lines
A Canton, Georgia headline reads, “Couple, child victims of apparent murder-suicide.” The headline is sanitized and de-sexed, suggesting that everyone involved is a victim, as if none of the three were to blame. The headline does not tell us who shot who, but we all know. It is not just that 94% of murder-suicides are male on female. It is the headline that gives it away, by what is left unsaid. If the shooter had been female, the headline would read “Woman murders husband, leaves baby to starve.” As another example, consider two arrests that were made Easter weekend. The male-on-female murder was noted in this gender-neutral manner: “Arrest made in teens’ death.” But when three women were arrested for delivering a baby and discarding it, that headline read: “NY sisters arrested in baby’s death.”
Acts of violence by women against men are still extraordinary enough to rate “Man bites dog” news status. When Lorena Bobbitt was arrested for maiming her husband, that story was a great headline-grabber. News of the forced abortion and the continual abuse she had endured at his hands -- so horrible that the judge chose to acquit her for the attack -- barely made a ripple on the news radar.
The media gender bias extends beyond perpetrators; it is also evident in the treatment of victims. Consider the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal. The world was outraged at the discovery that priests were molesting altar boys. We barely noticed that they victimized girls, too. One priest raped numerous teenage girls upon the altar, yet it was boys who made the news. Defenders of the Roman Catholic Church note that children are more likely to be sexually victimized by school teachers than by their priest or pastor. Yet public outrage against student sex abuse has never risen to the level of calling it a scandal. The difference? Girls are the usual target.
Abu Ghraib stands as the strongest testament to the media neglect of female victimization. Emblazoned on our collective consciousness are the images of abused and humiliated men, out of context with Lynndie England’s thumbs-up and happy camper smile. But where are the photos and the stories of the women who were tortured at Abu Ghraib? Perhaps you’ll have to look it up, as I did, but women were (and still are) incarcerated in Abu Ghraib. Many women were stripped of their clothes, tortured, raped, and sexually humiliated right along with the men. A 70-year-old Iraqi woman was harnessed and ridden like donkey. But it was only violence against women, so it did not make the front page.
When mentioned at all, the abuse of women at Abu Ghraib is downplayed. The Taguba report makes no bones about the sadistic torture inflicted on male Abu Ghraib prisoners. As for the women, the report includes an innocuous-sounding admission of “a male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.” The legal term for such an event is rape, because the law recognizes that a prisoner cannot give meaningful consent to an armed guard. Acts against males that involved penetration were termed rape, but the rape of women was categorized as sex. The women who have been released alive went home tight-lipped. After all, this is a culture where a rape victim’s family often stones her to death in order to restore their “honor.”
Journalists tell us about violence against women in the passive voice, as if these things just happen. Consider “school shootings.” Schools don’t get shot; people do. And someone does the shooting. The shooters are nearly always male (boy students or sometimes a man from the community) and the victims are predominantly female. Sometimes the shooters even excuse the males and shoot girls exclusively. Very few media outlets have noted the gender component, preferring instead to imagine that school shootings are senseless or random acts of violence.
Another passive term the media likes is “domestic disputes.” This one sounds like two people on an equal playing field, who are having a bit of trouble working something out. Yet we most often hear this term after the discovery of a dead body (usually female), e.g. “The couple had a history of domestic disputes.” To me, a domestic dispute is what happens when somebody uses up all the hot water on a Sunday morning. The term does not adequately describe what it is like for a woman to be dragged through her house by her hair, choked, or threatened by a person who may be twice her size. Journalists should avoid using vague, sexless terms like “domestic dispute” and instead write strong sentences such as, “Police reports indicate this was not the first time the man choked his wife.”
Statisticians are also guilty of using this neutered, passive vocabulary. For example, they inform us that 1 out of 3 girls “will be sexually victimized” before age 18. Although sexual abusers are almost invariably male, we do not read that “Men sexually abuse 1 out of 3 girls before the age of 18.” Nor do we ever hear the percentage of men who abuse. We read about women in the military “getting raped,” not about “male soldiers raping their female comrades.”
If my rephrasing of these sentences disturbs readers, it should. We should be very disturbed that there are men in our midst, in this very community, perhaps at our church or our children’s schools, who perpetrate crimes against women and children we know. According to the CDC, men commit over 90% of the sexual violence in America against victims who are 78% female. Every year, American men kill 1,000 wives or girlfriends and rape or sexually abuse hundreds of thousands more.
Male-on-female violence is pervasive and is mostly ignored by our society. We cannot adequately address it by talking about how many women are abused. The problem is not abused women. The problem is abusive men.
-- Jeannie Babb Taylor
On the Other Hand
April, 2007
Acts of violence by women against men are still extraordinary enough to rate “Man bites dog” news status. When Lorena Bobbitt was arrested for maiming her husband, that story was a great headline-grabber. News of the forced abortion and the continual abuse she had endured at his hands -- so horrible that the judge chose to acquit her for the attack -- barely made a ripple on the news radar.
The media gender bias extends beyond perpetrators; it is also evident in the treatment of victims. Consider the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal. The world was outraged at the discovery that priests were molesting altar boys. We barely noticed that they victimized girls, too. One priest raped numerous teenage girls upon the altar, yet it was boys who made the news. Defenders of the Roman Catholic Church note that children are more likely to be sexually victimized by school teachers than by their priest or pastor. Yet public outrage against student sex abuse has never risen to the level of calling it a scandal. The difference? Girls are the usual target.
Abu Ghraib stands as the strongest testament to the media neglect of female victimization. Emblazoned on our collective consciousness are the images of abused and humiliated men, out of context with Lynndie England’s thumbs-up and happy camper smile. But where are the photos and the stories of the women who were tortured at Abu Ghraib? Perhaps you’ll have to look it up, as I did, but women were (and still are) incarcerated in Abu Ghraib. Many women were stripped of their clothes, tortured, raped, and sexually humiliated right along with the men. A 70-year-old Iraqi woman was harnessed and ridden like donkey. But it was only violence against women, so it did not make the front page.
When mentioned at all, the abuse of women at Abu Ghraib is downplayed. The Taguba report makes no bones about the sadistic torture inflicted on male Abu Ghraib prisoners. As for the women, the report includes an innocuous-sounding admission of “a male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.” The legal term for such an event is rape, because the law recognizes that a prisoner cannot give meaningful consent to an armed guard. Acts against males that involved penetration were termed rape, but the rape of women was categorized as sex. The women who have been released alive went home tight-lipped. After all, this is a culture where a rape victim’s family often stones her to death in order to restore their “honor.”
Journalists tell us about violence against women in the passive voice, as if these things just happen. Consider “school shootings.” Schools don’t get shot; people do. And someone does the shooting. The shooters are nearly always male (boy students or sometimes a man from the community) and the victims are predominantly female. Sometimes the shooters even excuse the males and shoot girls exclusively. Very few media outlets have noted the gender component, preferring instead to imagine that school shootings are senseless or random acts of violence.
Another passive term the media likes is “domestic disputes.” This one sounds like two people on an equal playing field, who are having a bit of trouble working something out. Yet we most often hear this term after the discovery of a dead body (usually female), e.g. “The couple had a history of domestic disputes.” To me, a domestic dispute is what happens when somebody uses up all the hot water on a Sunday morning. The term does not adequately describe what it is like for a woman to be dragged through her house by her hair, choked, or threatened by a person who may be twice her size. Journalists should avoid using vague, sexless terms like “domestic dispute” and instead write strong sentences such as, “Police reports indicate this was not the first time the man choked his wife.”
Statisticians are also guilty of using this neutered, passive vocabulary. For example, they inform us that 1 out of 3 girls “will be sexually victimized” before age 18. Although sexual abusers are almost invariably male, we do not read that “Men sexually abuse 1 out of 3 girls before the age of 18.” Nor do we ever hear the percentage of men who abuse. We read about women in the military “getting raped,” not about “male soldiers raping their female comrades.”
If my rephrasing of these sentences disturbs readers, it should. We should be very disturbed that there are men in our midst, in this very community, perhaps at our church or our children’s schools, who perpetrate crimes against women and children we know. According to the CDC, men commit over 90% of the sexual violence in America against victims who are 78% female. Every year, American men kill 1,000 wives or girlfriends and rape or sexually abuse hundreds of thousands more.
Male-on-female violence is pervasive and is mostly ignored by our society. We cannot adequately address it by talking about how many women are abused. The problem is not abused women. The problem is abusive men.
-- Jeannie Babb Taylor
On the Other Hand
April, 2007
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