Letters to the Editor
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It's not a "new trend"
It is not as if "all of the sudden" batterers have figured this out. That aside, I do think it is important to highlight this as an aspect of domestic violence.
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silver lining?
One of the advantages pets have is that people tend to think of them as innocent, so there's no justification for abusing them. Unfortunately, not enough abuse victims realize there's no justification for abusing a human either.
Perhaps this knowledge could turn into some kind of effective awareness: if your partner abuses your pet, you need to take action. That action could end up leading towards taking action for yourself as well.
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Why do the women feel the need to be with ANYONE?
You always hear "but he is so loving when he is not drinking".
But who said these women deserve better? If they deserved better or could get better men, they WOULD. Would you not think?
Or maybe, just maybe, they ought to forgo men altogether if the choice is to continue to bed a psychopath or to be alone but be safe.
When do WOMEN begin to take responsibiltiy for their bad decisions?
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Not surprising
Further evidence that some of these guys (and women) are sociopaths.
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Yay Maine, sort of
The good news: Maine is one of the 10 states to allow prosecution for pet abuse under domestic violence statutes.
However in divorces it still requires joint custody under all but the most dramatic circumstances. A father has to be dead or serving a life sentence to lose 50-50 custody if he wants it, and demanding sole custody is a chapter in the batterers' playbook. The guardian ad litem system is broken and ineffective here as well.
So, it's great news for animal companions, not so much for children.
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the cycle
Oftentimes women (or even sometimes men) in abusive relationships are coming from a history of abuse themselves. Blaming the victims of the abuse gets us nowhere. For many victims, the abuse builds from emotional and verbal abuse into physical abuse. At what point are they supposed to break free from their often manipulative abuser? Especially when this is the only treatment they have ever known and they have come to be financially depending on him. From my experience with crisis hotline work, often this includes animal abuse. Two years ago the State of Maine, where I live, passed a law giving victims of domestic violence the right to ask the judge to mandate care for their pets during the protective order hearing (http://www.maineanimalcoalition.org/artman/publish/article_1007.shtml).
My grandmother was severly abused by her husband, who would often beat their animals to near death. He would also abuse his children. He was a drunk and a general bastard. But she never left him. His daughter, who married an abusive man herself, now lives with her abusive father, caring for him in his old age. Domestic violence is not something that is easily escaped. Although my father never hit me, he has confessed to being terrified of his own temper, fearful that abuse was coded into his genes. Being that self-reflective when you're young and beginning your own relationships is nearly impossible. Eroding the reasons abuse victims stay with their abusers is the only way to encourage victims to escape. Terror is a horrible thing to have to live with. Everyone deserves the right to feel safe in their home.
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&$^*#^*
I'm just wondering when we're ever going to see anything on Broadsheet that is even slightly critical of anything a woman or women do? I'd like to see a story one of these days asking why it is that so many women just simply must have a little pet accessory to take everywhere with them and garner attention with? Why is it that so many women just simply need to learn how to pole dance? Why are so many women addicted to shopping?
It just seems like Broadsheet would be a lot more relevant and a lot easier to take seriously if it weren't the most one-sided thing since Bush Jr. declared torture to be okay so long as Americans were the ones doing the torturing.
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If a woman wants to live with a batterer
Fine.
But she should not own animals. I mean, that is a choice she can easily make.
But then I suppose if she were making good choices she would not have herself and her children with such a person either.
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Brightstar
You know brightstar, we might actually agree on something. I personally don't think any man is worth 1) black eyes and broken ribs 2) dead pets 3) getting crazy and killing anyone over.
It's hard for me to be compassionate to woman who get themselves in those sort of situations, especially nowadays. I can understand how it happened before domestic shelters, when women had little or no recource under the law, but it's not like that now. I've never had a man put his hands on me, and if a guy ever did, he might be able to win the fight, but he'd better never sleep, eat, or relax in my presence again.
And It's bad enough they let themselves get beat, but then to watch someone abuse a pet or a child! How can you sit back and allow that! I mean, he'd have a fucking knife in his back, a frying pan upside his head, and he'd better hope there weren't any open windows nearby.
I was raised that way, though. My grandmother used to get the crap beaten out of her by her 2nd husband, and it took my uncles (all 5 of them) putting a smack down on their father t of epic proportions to finally stop him from knocking her around whenever he tied one on. Even then, my grandmother was on her stupid ass husband's side; she always said that the confrontation killed him. (He had a heart attack a year later. I suppose breaking your wife's nose can be stress reliever.)
But she was from an older generation and was pretty damn man-crazy to boot. My mother, maybe because she wasn't raised with her mother, and lived with a lot of strong woman, has always been openly contemptous of her mother's weaknesses when it came to men.
I've really tried to be compassionate and understanding, to say these women are damaged in some profound way (really, as damaged as the men who beat them) but it is really hard. I feel empathy for them, but sympathy, well, its hard.
And as for the men who torture a friggin' dog or a child...it brings out the Marcellus Wallace in me. I would love to go medievel on their asses, get some pliers, a blow torch, and show that what it feels like to be helpless.