I was pleased so many Salon readers were interested in my book. So let me put some things straight. First it called "Coercive control" to highlight that woman battering is as much about tactics used to intimidate, isolate, and control women as it is about physical or emotional abuse. I start by showing how far we've gone over the last decades to tackle abuse. But I show these interventions are failing-- almost no offenders are going to jail and violence against women hasn't changed much in 30 years-- because we're taking on the wrong target. All the laws against domestic violence focus on acts of assault. But the reality for millions of women is that abuse consists of a much broader,ongoing, and unrecognized, pattern of subjugation called coercive control. Violence is an important piece of this pattern. But even the violence has been misunderstood. In most cases, what is most harmful is not the sort of bone-breaking violence you see on TV, but the accumulation of poushes, shoves, slaps, grabbing and the like-- what I term routine violence--and the fact that this pattern is combined with tactics that isolate women from friends and family, intimidate them with direct as well as more subtle threats and gaslight games, and most importantly to regulate their lives,the control piece of entrapment. While its true that this pattern looks like kidnapping in some sense, it is also highlgy personal, because the offending men have a personal knowledge about their victim the kidnapper doesn't have about his, and because these tactics often can cross social space and oppress women at work or at other sites far removed from the men. The other new thing I argue that is that unlike violence, where injury is the focus or psychological trauma, coercive control is designed to take away women's freedom, autonomy and dignity and so should be considered a "liberty" crime. And it does this not just around their money or access to transportation or phones and such, but also around sex and the conduct of everyday life such as how women dress or clean or cook or care for their children. Others have said some of this before. But I think you'll find, when you read the book, that it hasn't been put together in this way before. Coercive control is happening all arouund us. Yet it has been invisible in law, medicine, and even to much of the movement dedicated to helping battered women. I'm happy to answer any questions Salon readers may have. the underlying point is that if these harms happened to men or in a public setting, we would see them as completely unacceptable. And I don't say why women stay with abusers...but the tactics men use to stay with them and how hard it is to get them off women's back,

Women kill their husbands all the time.

Women kill their kids all the time.

And invariably, when they do, newspapers write articles about how horrible their lives must've been. And how horrible their husbands must've been. And all the women's columnists pile on. And Oprah.

Look at Gilberta Estrada last week, then look at:

In 2004, Dena Schlosser fatally severed her 10-month-old daughter's arms with

a kitchen knife.

In 2003, Deanna Laney beat her two young sons to death with stones in East Texas.

In 2003, Lisa Ann Diaz drowned her daughters in a Plano bathtub.

In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the family's Houston bathtub.

And on and on and on.

But we must remember that girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice and jo vandenberg can't remember a single time when women hurt their families.

Jo vandenberg, yet another sexist bigoted female chauvinist pig.

You and I probably don't mean the same thing by remorse. If a person experiences remorse for their actions, then they make amends and take steps to ensure that it never happens again.

Back in the 1940's my grandfather drove a bus for his family's business. I don't know all the details, but there was an accident and a child was killed.

He was a careful driver and a lifelong teetotaller (Baptist), but he was never the same man after this accident for which he blamed himself, suffered a stroke a year later, and died a year after that.

Today he probably would have been given Prozac and blood pressure medications, but the point is that that was remorse. Being sorry and then doing it again is not remorse. It is being an asshole.

I married a lovely handsome dynamic man after a good solid courtship. Thirteen months later we had a son, and during the delivery I had a stroke. To save you from the grueling details, my husband said I would be better off dead and he would be a fine father to the baby.

We lived in a rural area of great beauty, one of those places in picture books and novels. I left the child with him and went to a major city for advanced medical care five months after the birth. I returned and then left again with the child after Christmas for more care. I was getting stronger and returned for the child's first birthday in March. During a 'small fight' I was slapped across the face, the toddler standing between us and hanging on my leg. I waited for an apology, and when I finally asked for it, my husband said, 'You deserved that, and if you ever misbehave again, I'll slap you again."

I was very fortunate, incredibly fortunate, because I had a loving family and an intact sense of self-esteem that enabled me to recognize his words and actions as deeply dysfunctional and dangerous for both myself and the child.

I made plans to go visit my Mother in another state for Mother's Day, no big deal you know! I did go for that small holiday, with the fourteen month old boy and two suitcases. I never went back; I filed immediately upon arrival for temporary custody of the child and that was granted with the lawyer asking for five thousand dollars upfront. I never went back. I had a place to live, family and friends to support me, and still I felt a sense of failure for a love and marriage lost.

After that, I knew deep in my soul that anyone can be systematicaly abused, liminted, isolated, diminished, ignored, and belittled into fear and emptiness.

REPEAT: I was very fortunate, incredibly fortunate, because I had a loving family and an intact sense of self-esteem that enabled me to recognize his words and actions as deeply dysfunctional and dangerous for both myself and the child.

POSTSCRIPT: When the boy was ten, and we were talking about the idea he could go meet this man who was his absent father, (with an escort of my brother, with care and consideration) the boy refused. I asked why? The answer was chilling. He said, 'because I saw him hit you, and he was a bad man.' I had never told anyone about that smack aside from the lawyer, I had never told the child about that smack, and yet he told me where he was standing, what the room looked like, and what color my dress was. I never felt another second of guilt for leaving.

I post anonymously because I want my privacy; I do not want someone doing a search and finding this. Women and Men and Children stay with abusers because they have no place to run and be protected; they have not the money to fight a legal battle, and they have no one to love them.

REPEAT: I know deep in my soul that anyone can be systematicaly abused, liminted, isolated, diminished, ignored, and belittled into fear and emptiness.

This is terrifying, and anyone who helps anyone escape is a hero. Kudos to any of you who work in the system. It might not be prefect, but it's better than secret murder and systematic control of the soul. Kudos to Evan Stark because his premise is deep-down correct.