NORTH COAST TIMES EAGLE, OCTEMBER 2003
PAGE 8
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
The most vulnerable victims of violence and murder are women. They are usually
assaulted for purposes of rape and frequently die in the course of it. There is a lie among men
that women willingly submit to rape or that it is impossible to rape a woman if she fights back.
Contradictorily, it is suggested a woman should be passive if a man is raping her or she will be
hurt, which of course would be her own fault for resisting.
Men joke about rape. They call it assault with a friendly weapon. That kind of thinking
gives the men who think that way the sense they can use their friendly weapon on any woman
at any time or place whether she likes it or not. The assumption is that women — all women —
are subservient to all men. This idea is not limited to the Walter Mitty sort of men who deflect
deep inferiority with lurid fantasies of machismo. Men who hate women, who are psychopathic
in their contempt for women, promote the same opinion. These men make war on women: they
batter, rape and murder women. They use their muscle and social power to dominate women
absolutely and crush them when they resist. They beat up their wives and girlfriends habitually
BY KAREN MELLIN
Domestic violence sounds like an oxymoron, the juxta
position of two absolute opposites that contradict each other in
a joining that startles the mind. Home ought to be a safe place;
but it isn't. The words domestic violence, so unsuitable to each
other, indicate a schizophrenic condition that is pervasive in
our culture. However, we are not alone. Domestic violence is
an integral part of most cultures that reside on Mother Earth,
our home. It affects us all, everyone of us. Whether we choose
to talk about it or keep it hidden, our shared experience binds
us in one universal wish: we don’t like it one bit, and we want to
see it eliminated. No small task.
Eliminating violence from our society is the major goal
of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the
Oregon Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence. These
coalitions provide assistance to programs that serve victims
of domestic and sexual violence, such as the Clatsop County
Women s Resource Center,* and their purpose is to change
societal conditions that cause violence to exist. Awareness of
the problem is the first step in dealing with the cure. Violence
against women won’t subside until public attitudes change.
A sense of entitlement is a major cause of violence
against women and children by men. Many males believe they
have the right to get what they want from women even if it
includes rape, torture, mutilation, sexual slavery, incestuous
and extrafamilial child sexual abuse, physical and emotional
battery, deprivation, sexual harassment, genital mutilations,
unnecessary gynecological operations, forced motherhood,
forced heterosexuality, forced sterilization, psychosurgery,
abusive medical experimentation, cosmetic surgery and other
mutilations in the name of beautification. Jane Caputi & Diana
E. H. Russell coined a new word in a Ms. Magazine article that
best describes this gruesome list of violent behaviors against
women. They called it Femicide, which is sexist terrorism moti
vated by hatred, contempt, pleasure, or a sense of ownership
of women.
It happens all the time It is estimated that a woman
is battered every 15 seconds in America; it is the single largest
cause of injury to women. These figures are from the United
Sates Department of Justice, which reports that more than
one-third of women homicide victims over 15 are killed by a
Bikes & Beyond
1089 MARINE DR.
ASTORIA, OREGON
(daughters also), and beat them again if they complain or seek help — and often, eventually
beat them to death.
Women who have fought back have been ostracized, imprisoned and executed:
thousands, perhaps even millions were burned to death as witches during medieval times
and afterward as late as in 17th century New England. Nineteenth century suffragists were
often attacked and jailed and although modern feminists have suffered less than their fore
bears, more verbal abuse and ridicule than physical assault, the problem of violent attacks by
men against women is no less serious than it has ever been. Organizations to protect women
from assault and battery have sprung up all over the USA, inspired not by official concern but
by battered women themselves.
The articles on these pages are reprinted from earlier issues of the Times Eagle in
observance of October as both Domestic Violence Awareness Month and the 24th birthday
of the Clatsop County Crisis Service/Women's Resource Center.
~MPMc
male spouse or boyfriend. The Journal of the American Medical
Association states that 50% of the families where the wife is
being abused, the children of that family are also abused. Until
recently law enforcement and judicial systems have viewed
spousal abuse as a “private matter" and have been hesitant to
intervene or treat domestic assault as a crime.
Violent crimes against women have escalated in recent
decades, say authors Caputi & Russell. “We see this escalation
of violence against females as part of a backlash against femin
ism. This doesn't mean it’s the feminism: patriarchal culture
terrorizes women whether we fight back or not. Still, when male
supremacy is challenged, that terror is intensified. Women who
stepped out of line in early modern Europe were tortured and
killed as witches (estimates range from 200,000 to 9 million
killed), today such women are regarded as...deserving whatever
happens to them."
The Statement of Philosophy of the Oregon Coalition
Against Domestic & Sexual Violence recognizes that the root
causes of this violence stems from a belief in the supremacy
of one sex over the other that is legitimized by a complex series
of institutional and social arrangements that define and treat
women as subordinates. “It is painful for most women to think
about men’s violence against us, as individuals and collectively,
because the violence we encounter, and the disbelief and
contempt with which we are met when we do speak out, is so
often so traumatic and life threatening that many of us engage in
denial or repression of our experiences,” state Caputi & Russell.
However, “We must demand an end to the global patriarchal war
on women."
All women have the right to freedom from violation and
to their own self-determination. We must all, collectively and
internationally, take on the task of formulating strategies of
resistance to the massive and formidable horrors that confront
women and children everywhere. We must eliminate violence
from our lives.
Karen Millen was director of Clatsop County Women’s
Crisis Service for seven years. She wrote this article for the
NCTE in 1990.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
BY MARGARET FRIMOTH
The fear of male violence is bred into women’s very
souls. It is the fear of being harassed, beaten, threatened and
kidnapped, of being raped, of being tortured and treated as less
than human, and then killed at the hands of male power. The
single most common fear of women is being violated by a man
she does not know — the stranger rape, the mugger, the burglar.
However, women are constantly surrounded by many forms of
male violence. It is in our homes and in our relationships. Our
stories are in the newspapers. We hear it in popular music. We
are shown violence to women and children in advertising and on
TV shows and the movies. Still we fear the stranger more than
we recognize the violence that threatens us every day
Women are trained to be conflicted about these fears.
We are simultaneously taught to fear men because of their
greater physical strength, and to rely on men as our benevolent
protectors Most of us learn to minimize our fears. When we
discuss the intuitive dangers around us and our terrors of walk
ing alone at night or the subtle threats that come from male
peers, we are often categorized as oversensitive or hysterical.
When we find ourselves in abusive relationships, we are told we
love too much. When we reject the blaming and focus on the
acts of male violence as the problem, we are targeted as angry
women and men-haters. And most importantly, we have been
taught to fear the targeting more than the physical dangers,
so that when one woman is targeted other woman learn to step
away and remain silent. Their silence is seeped in fear. Histor
ically women who have been models of strength, outspoken
and verbal about the abuses around them, have been publicly
ridiculed and socially chastised. Many women are beaten when
they speak out. No less than 3 million women were burned as
witches. Male violence and the fear of violent male retaliation
has effectively hidden these truths behind the guise of male
protection. Individual violence is also systemic violence.
Women and children fall prey to both these violences.
If I were granted the power to eliminate all the violence
done by women to men and children, would there still be
violence in the world? Yes, indeed! If I could eliminate all the
violence done by men to women and children, would there still
be violence in the world? Yes, probably, but this thought calms
me more than the previous question. If men were held account
able for acts of violence neither individual nor systemic acts
would be socially tolerated. I am weary of being assigned to
the role of caretaker based on my gender. I am exhausted from
caring for women and children without substantial financial
stability. Perhaps men could hold themselves accountable
by passing a “restitution tax" subject to all men based on the
premise that men are the predominate violators of women and
children. Money from this tax could fund women’s crisis services
and child abuse centers. Crazy? Radical? Perhaps. But the
thought brings to mind a more peaceable kingdom. Perhaps
it is time for outrageous responses to the outrageous acts of
violence.
Margaret Frimoth is a former director of the Clatsop
County Women’s Crisis Service and is the director of VOCA
(Victory Over Child Abuse) Camp This article has been
excerpted from one she wrote in 1989