Larrfirr,

Actually there was a book written about this subject that I always meant to read. It is called "Hitler's Willing Executioners" and is by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. I don't know if the book was persuasive or not but I do remember that it got lots of press.

Also, the psychiatrist Alice Miller has theorized that the German method of childrearing had something to do with the German people's acceptance of an authoritarian government.

If you do not believe the culture of a people has much to do with the leaders they elect, then what do you think caused the rise of George W. Bush? It cannot be stolen elections alone.

We will never give the sort of political asylum that these people merit because Bush has done too good (evil!) a job demonizing everything and everyone Islamic. The same people he scared into war will be still too scared to open their hearts.

I did read the novel recommendations. They (il)licted from me a chuckle about homonyms. I did not feel cheap or sexy but rather like a stuffy grammarian with a blue pencil behind my ear. However, a cleverer blue pencil type beat me to offering corrections.

Ah well. It is back to my beloved Jane Austen.

I guess I will start with my own doubts, saying in advance that I know the PC words to say and I know what I ought not to say to be a "good" feminist.

I used to work as a victim advocate. I was also once married to a man who did not abuse me except for one slight shove and an incident I won't go into because it might identify me.

My response to the shove was to ask him if he knew why a gun was called an equalizer. Even before I married him, I was quite clear with him that I would tolerate no physical abuse. I was clear on this because my mother -- who had many flaws of her own -- told me this when I was a teenager: "You are no daughter of mine if you ever let a man abuse you!"

I later passed the same information to my daughter, only not quite so emphatically. She's my daughter no matter what.

When I became a victim advocate, I received the usual training with the usual correct point of view: Ask not why women stay; ask why men batter. This did not really prepare me for the feelings -- the anger -- I had when I met women who were battered and refused to leave. I wanted them to be tougher. I did not realize that they were already tough. Some of them took abuse standing up that would have had me crawling on the floor. Why didn't they just leave?

Now, we have better statistics on the dangers of leaving. Men really do kill women who leave and they do so frequently.

I read the excerpt but I would have to read the book to be convinced that there is nothing in these women's backgrounds that predisposes them to stay. I would like to know what sort of behavior their mothers modeled for them.

My own motto has always been that it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. I know from some personal experience that I would have found a way to leave.

I cannot be more explicit -- but there ARE ways to leave.

because sometimes people don't believe that men can be battered. Battering is not only a women's issue, although being killed by a battering spouse is something that happens more often to women.

I know a family -- a man and woman -- who are headed down a bad road. She hits. So far, she has not caused lasting physical damage, but this is happening more and more frequently as this couple's marriage turns out not to be the romantic idyll they had hoped. I was unfortunate enough to hear the story from both sides. One time, she kept hitting and hitting him with her fists and he got out a gun and pointed at her and told her he would use it if she ever hit him again. The upshot is that both threatened to leave and then they both decided that they cannot live without each other. He refuses to go to counseling with her.

Both the drama queen and the drama king in this instance come from abusive families. His family used physical violence and hers was one where sexual abuse by her brother was tolerated.

Here is what I suspect was not studied in the backgrounds of these women. I'll bet no one ever asked if hitting was allowed in their families. By that I mean, any hitting at all, because to allow it is to excuse it. No one needs to hit anyone.

Families where any sort of abuse or physical violence is allowed are families where children do not learn the boundaries that are so essential to respectful adult relationships. People learn to be both victims and abusers in such families.

There are so many families like that. I bet everyone reading this knows of one. I bet some people come from one. I know I do.

I don't think all abusers are alike and I do think some programs for abusers can make a difference. The problem is how do we know which abusers can be helped and which can't, and how much waiting around should victims be doing hoping for the abusers to get better?

First, you have to persuade abusers to get treatment. From my experience, most of them are pretty resistant to that idea, but I confess that I have not been involved in victim advocacy for many years.

Although the thrust of the article is about a book that examines why victims don't leave, I would certainly be open to hearing about solutions for abusers.