partner abuse

Give Me Liberty

beth — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Give Me Liberty, by Valerie Joan Connors, is terrible. The book reads like someone narrating a Lifetime movie: one-dimensional, wooden, and worst of all, boring. You can guess what is going to happen well before it does, no characters are anything but exactly what you expect them to be, and the writing is pedestrian.

The story follows Eva Larkin from her courtship with her boyfriend to her abusive marriage in Michigan to her following her dream to write novels in New York. Getting from point A to point B happens exactly like you expect it to. Nothing interesting, new, or exciting happens—even when a possibility presents itself, Connors does not take it. For example, when Eva gets to New York, she has a disastrous first job, and then gets the job of her dreams in publishing. Her new boss loves her, promotes to columnist without reading any of her writing, and supports her without question. Everything goes her way, except for her first husband.

The characters are more than one dimensional—they have one character trait. That includes Eva. She’s saintly. Her ex-husband Leo is an alcoholic. It is hard to see why Eva ever liked him. Besides her ex-husband, the men in her life are generous. The women are supportive. All of them. Every woman she meets in New York City, all five of them, are older, rich, and willing to give Eva money, support, and love without question. And all of them have been abused, and saved by loving second husbands. She and son, Daniel, have no long-term effects of severe abuse, stalking, and assault. No one resembles a real person.

Connors’ dialogue sounds nothing like actual conversation. Characters state their feelings without subtext, or anything approaching conversational language. For example, one character asks Eva about a potential date. The question is “Is he good looking? Smart?” Eva’s response is “I guess so... He’s a little older than me.” That’s the entire explanation of him. Most of the conversations in the book sound exactly like that. No personality, no slang. Every character sounds exactly the same.

As I said, Give Me Liberty is not a good book. The characters need more depth, the writing needs to be sharpened, and the plot could use a twist somewhere. It feels like a first draft. Wait for the next one.

Written by: Taylor Rhodes, March 3rd 2011

Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Belle Yang

W.W. Norton

I jumped at the chance to review Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale, an unconventional graphic memoir from writer/artist Belle Yang. While I am no expert on graphic literature, I did devour Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis series. With this medium, I enjoy (and envy) the way an artist can show emotions through inked illustrations, and use words more sparingly. Further, there is an intimacy created on the page, because the typeface and conversational style evoke a personal journal lying on a nightstand.

Yang is a Chinese-American woman, and her story, in part, tells of the identity struggles she experiences in separating from the Chinese traditions of her immigrant parents. When she travels to Beijing for art school, Yang has a chance to learn cultural history while not being bound to it.

At the outset of her tale, we see the source of Yang’s title: her Chinese name, Xuan, means “Forget Sorrow.” When Yang was thirty years old, she sought shelter from a violent boyfriend by moving back to her parents’ home. While there, she began to give shape to her father’s childhood stories in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, World War II, and Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Yang writes, “I have a voice in America. I won’t waste it.”

The art in Forget Sorrow is tender, powerful, and moving. One ink illustration that stands out is Yang’s nightmare about her abuser, which captures a feeling of stark terror. In contrast, Yang’s illustrations also evoke tenderness between father and daughter, a feeling of comfort for him as he shares painful memories.

Yang’s story demonstrates ways in which strength comes from relationships. Her father’s tales are painful at times. Under communism, family relationships were made subordinate to party affiliation. Important aspects of tradition, such as honoring elders, did not apply if those elders were deemed to be landlords or capitalists. The political side of Yang’s family story makes it very clear that social change should not come at the cost of human life or dignity.

Through telling her family’s story as well as exercising her voice and her artistic vision in Forget Sorrow, Yang found new freedom. As a writer, artist, and woman, she shapes her own future.

Written by: Lisa Rand, August 23rd 2010

Violent Partners: A Breakthrough Plan for Ending the Cycle of Abuse

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Linda G. Mills

Basic Books

Author Linda G. Mills is a scholar, lawyer, social worker, and the founder of the Center on Violence and Recovery at New York University. In Violent Partners, Mills challenges the tenets of the battered women’s movement. These basic principles held that: domestic abuse was caused by deeply rooted misogynist beliefs, which condoned violence against women; women were rarely violent; if women endured the abuse and didn’t leave, it was because they feared the consequences; and criminal action had to be taken against violent men.

Mills proposes a controversial breakthrough plan to end the cycle of violence, which includes counseling for violent couples who want to stay together, group counseling, and healing circles. The author believes that the criminalization of domestic abuse has been unsuccessful in ending the cycle of violence and, in many instances, has only exacerbated the problem. Although Mills uses many compelling cases to support her arguments, she fails to give the reader a specific case to illustrate what it might have been like to be a victim in the late 1960s, before the women’s movement had championed the cause. This would have given the book a more balanced perspective.

The author also uses some statistics that give a skewed picture of violent women in intimate abuse cases. For instance, the author cites a U.S. Department of Justice-funded study, which has neither footnote nor name, showing that arrests in California for domestic violence between 1985 and 1995 grew by 37% for men and 446% for women. These figures were to illustrate the author’s claim that the number of violent women was dramatically increasing. However, there is no mention that this surge could be attributed to increased reporting by men or greater public awareness vis-à-vis domestic violence. In addition, these figures don’t give the reader a clear idea of the percentage of domestic violence cases that are actually perpetrated by women. In Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile of 2004, published by the Canadian government, it states that “females are more likely to be victims of spousal violence (85% vs.15%),” a figure based on domestic abuse offenses reported to police.

Mills objects to the generalization that men are always the perpetrators and women are always the victims. She believes that both partners play a role in the dynamic of violence and that understanding this dynamic is key to stopping any recurrence. I believe that the author’s intention was to emphasize the importance of understanding the dynamic rather than pointing a finger at one gender, but unfortunately, what many may take away from the book is that women are just as violent as men. This, in turn, could seriously undermine the support for and financial well-being of the current system, which has undeniably saved tens of thousands of lives in the past thirty years.

The book is convincing in its explanation of who becomes violent and why, and the impact of domestic violence on future generations. Mills is also successful in showing the complexity of intimate abuse. What’s more, the author makes it abundantly clear that we now know a lot more about family-related violence than we did thirty years ago and that with our new wisdom, we should embrace new solutions.

I applaud the comprehensive approach that involves looking for new ways to stem violence in future generations. I also found the peacemaking and healing circles to be a promising and relatively inexpensive remedy, which could work in certain situations. However, I would only recommend this book to therapists, public health policy makers, and professionals working with victims of abuse and in the criminal justice system.

Written by: Heather Leighton, January 29th 2010

Every F---ing Day of My Life

admin — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:17:00 +0000

Directed by Tommy Davis

HBO Documentary Films

Stark, appalling, and heartbreaking are all words that came to mind when I viewed Every F---ing Day of My Life. Every F---king Day of My Life depicts a woman’s last four days of freedom before being sentenced to ten years in prison for murdering her brutally abusive husband. The film, which follows Wendy Maldonado and her young sons, also bears witness to the resiliency of women and children who must survive within these dysfunctional unions.

The film opens with home video of a long-ago family outing, then cuts to the gut-wrenching 911 call that Wendy made the night she killed her husband, then cuts again to Wendy recounting her early days with her husband, Aaron. After marrying Aaron at age seventeen, Wendy, who is already aware of Aaron’s possessiveness, quickly realizes just how disturbed her young husband is. He becomes increasingly violent, frequently beating her and their four sons. Wendy endures the abuse for nineteen years before impulsively deciding to do away with her partner. She beats him to death with a hammer, caving his skull. Wendy’s eldest son, Randy, who participates solely out of a desire to protect his mother and younger brothers, is eventually charged and convicted of second-degree manslaughter.

Every F---ing Day of My Life serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of ignoring domestic violence. It is a documentary masterpiece due to its very simplicity; there are no voice-overs, no talking head interviews, no fancy cinematography to turn the film’s laser sharp focus away from its emotionally devastated subjects. Instead, the filmmaker cleverly intersperses home video footage (most of which was shot by Aaron) with the present-day activities in the Maldonado house.

As the Maldonados veer between a cheerful denial and a somber acceptance of their circumstances, they discuss the violence they endured at Aaron’s hands. The matter-of-fact, even jocular, tone the Maldonados use to discuss the unrelentingly cruel abuse is even more chilling than the crime scene photos presented at the beginning of the film. As Wendy shows off the only four teeth left in her upper jaw, exhibits the homemade artwork used to disguise the holes Aaron punched in the wall, and takes the film crew to the wooded “kill me” spot that Aaron regularly took her to, she makes an understated yet extraordinarily powerful statement about the chaos that intimate partner violence causes.

The extensive use of the home video footage highlights yet another reality about domestic violence: mainly, that it is perpetrated not by monsters, but by seemingly average men who are often careful not to let their true colors show to the outside world. As Aaron mugs for the camera, he appears almost freakishly normal. He doesn’t look like someone who would beat and terrorize his family for nearly two decades. Director Tommy Davis’ decision to use this footage is an excellent creative choice.

Every F---king Day of My Life also demonstrates how suffering prematurely ages people; as the film progresses, we see Wendy transform from an incandescently beautiful teenager to a worn, nearly haggard woman in early middle age. A teenage Randy, who is interviewed from county jail, also looks old beyond his years.

Every F---ing Day Of My Life should be required viewing for every teenager in America, as well as anyone who is likely to encounter a victim of domestic violence. This story could save lives.

** This film premieres on HBO December 14, 2009 at 10 p.m. ET/PT and will continue to _air throughout December.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, December 13th 2009

The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:06:00 +0000

Edited by Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

South End Press

The Revolution Starts At Home is not your usual zine. At 111 pages, it qualifies as a book, and I’m excited to say the editors are looking for a publisher. Pending publication*, it will soon be available on the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence website. Don’t be turned off by the bulk; this is an important zine that needs to be read by all activists of any sort. Contributors include Alexis Pauline Gumbs of UBUNTU, collective members of Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), Vanessa Huang, Gina de Vries, and a collection of women from the Mango Tribe.

Tackling the touchy subject of partner abuse that occurs within so-called progressive communities is a brave move. The best thing about this zine, of which there is much good to speak, is the variety of voices present. It is written from a perspective of radical action, encompassing diversity in ethnicity, sexual and gender orientation, and yes, there are even male voices. An excellent job has been made to address partner violence between men and women, women and women, against transgender people, and even against the disabled.

One of the most interesting essays is by Peggy Munson: "Femora & Fury: On IPV and Disability." The essay made me rethink some of my own ableist assumptions. There are subtle ways that a differently-abled person can be abused that I had simply never thought of or did not immediately recognize as abusive, but certainly came to understand through this essay.

The one area that I felt was left out was in addressing women abusers of men. While the zine recognizes that women can be the abuser in women to women relationships, it is oddly silent on the matter of when it is the woman in a heterosexual relationship that is the abuser. This is an often-neglected discussion, and I would have liked to see some acknowledgment of it in such an otherwise well-rounded zine.

The zine is not easy, light reading by any means, but it balances personal essay with semi-academic notes, and organizational narrative of growth with step-by-step guidance on ways to address violence. While its core purpose is keeping abused women safe and centering their needs first, it does not leave out abusers. The zine seeks to hold them fully accountable while remaining compassionate to their potential to change. It also confronts how other members of the community can, unwittingly or intentionally, contribute to abuse through denial, privilege, or desire for “unity” within our movements. It holds each of us accountable to each other. There are tips and resources for the abused, the abuser, and the community as a whole so that we can recognize and openly address abuse in a proper and healing way that allows all of us to move forward.

The Revolution Starts At Home does not take the view that abuse can be pushed aside to be dealt with on another day, after the work of our movements is complete. Dealing with the abuse is part of the movement itself. No movement for justice will ever succeed if justice is not prioritized from within by supporting each other and creating a safe place for all members.

* In May 2011, South End Press published this zine as a book.

Written by: Aaminah Hernández, February 2nd 2009