Finally, a program for female batterers...
But, what about a shelter for men?
It's a side of domestic abuse that few people talk about and many don't even know exists, but a growing number of men are becoming victims at the hands of battering women. A new program in Southwest Florida is sparking a nationwide change.
Darlene Hilker is an abuser.
"After years of it building up and just getting to the point where it exploded. You never know when it's going to happen. Something just triggers in your head and you do whatever," said Hilker.
Hilker was charged with domestic battery after an altercation with her husband. She's now one of the first women ordered by a judge to take part in the Women Who Batter intervention program.
"A lot of women don't feel like they can be batterers, but you just get pushed to a point and it just happens," said Hilker.
The program's director Donna LeClerc says she hopes it will change the way our nation deals with often ignored form of abuse.
"I think there's a lack of equality in the justice system. Women serve half of the sentence a man does for the same crime, if she serves time in jail at all," said LeClerc.
posted by GayandRight @ 5:07 PM
3 Comments:
As a cop I can tell you the times that men are abused are VERY rare, and usually drugs are involved and both partners are abusing one another. The real crime is just how little media attention is given to abuse. The violence in the country would literally be cut in half if women were adequately protected and taken seriously (and yes, sometimes the police are at fault as well, we are human). Changing the topic to 'what about men' serves no real purpose except to distract from a very real problem to a problem that is about as prescient as owners beaten up by their pets. In fact, senior abuse is FAR more problematic. You are reading american studies, they have such a huge population that these things turn up in sufficient numbers, they aren't a concern here in Canada (I'm certainly not saying they DON"T exist, just saying that a problem one tenth the size of its opposite doesn't deserve to have the focus changed to them)
Stats Canada has repeatedly reported that spousal abuse of men occurs just as often of spousal abuse of women.
Without minimizing men's violence we have the data the female violence is as frequent but less physically harmful. I have a post graduate course on the topic at http://www.zurinstitute.com/femalebattererscourse.html . We need to look at violence as a system problem not as a men's problem.
Ofer Zur, Ph.D.
Zur Institute
http://www.zurinstitute.com
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