AFCC: The Man behind the Curtain

     AFCC was at one stage a judges slush fund of where bribes perverted the course of justice in California's family Court.  Not only did it serve as a platform for corruption, but was also became the loudspeaker of Dr Richard Gardeners work in the 70s and 80s.  The trail of devastation for victims was left behind with few who held accountable and more who profited upon these ills.  Dr joan Kelly, co-founder of AFCC and CRC  Authored "Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome"  as an attempt to revive Gardeners theories, so that it were more acceptable to its readers with the same custody outcomes, but omitting the obvious quotes that revealed the motives behind his work.  She was also on the advisory panel of Children's Rights Council along with Warren Farrell who was featured in penthouses, "Incest The Last Taboo".  He states,


"the incest is part of the family's open, sensual style of life, wherein sex is an outgrowth of warmth and affection. It is more likely that the father has good sex with his wife, and his wife is likely to know and approve -- and in one or two cases to join in."


   Parental Alienation Syndrome created lavish lifestyles for those who promote and advocate for its existence for many years and so it is no wonder attempts to revive it were made.  The reason why it was beyond controversial, was the fact that this syndrome led to many deaths.  Nathan Grieco a 14 year old boy who did not want to see his father and alleged abuse by him.  Gardner was an expert in his case and ordered what he referred to as, "Threat therapy" where he threatened the child with jailing the mother if he failed to go.  Shortly after, Nathan committed suicide.    


Thanks to one of the many decent fathers who spent $100,000 investigating California courts for his daughter to unravel why his grandchild was rendered motherless without reasonable cause, we know that this organization was used in this manner.  

     Much is left unanswered on why the environment of most family courts contain an automatic contempt for mothers, but hopefully this article will shed some light.  CANOW, provided an extensive report on the activities of the AFCC and how it was creating a system of abuse and corruption.

     The AFCC have denied promoting pro-child abuse and violence against women material, yet the content of their conferences tell a different story.  Below is a training session where it trivializes empirical studies that verify the damaging effects of not only exposing the victim to the perpetrator, but also children.  It distracts away from the safety of women and children to mislead practitioners into believing that there is a guaranteed method to separate those who are "just being abused" to those at imminent risk of death.  There is no credible method in the world and to boast such a tool is clearly negligent.

Just in case the inevitable becomes obvious with the increase of deaths due to negligence, they provide an answer to that too.  Below is a course on how to avoid accountability and continue backyard methods on treating victims of family violence and child abuse.  

  Here is a prime example of how Gardeners perspectives are very much alive and unchallenged in this organization.  The whole topic is dangerously superficial, misogynist and trains professionals to look at the mother as the issue, instead of looking into why she might be 
concerned about the child being alone with the father.  

Again, another training session on how not to be accountable and promotion of Gardeners theory.

More promotion of Gardeners concept where the victim is perceived as mentally ill and distorted as the perpetrator.  

Instead of providing a genuine focus on prevention of risk and subjecting victims to further trauma, professionals are trained on how to avoid accountability and attribute further injustice to their clients.  

Below is advertisements on the typical fathers rights agenda translated in the language of academia.  Despite years of research on the harm of infants spending minimal to little time with their mothers, below is advertisement on how to encourage maternal deprivation.  

Below is a conference from AFCC last year with more about maternal gatekeeping. Whilst "Violence Against women" topics are omitted from these conferences, "Maternal Gatekeeping" appears to be a popular event.    

More disturbing was this article found on an AFCC website instructions on how to use the legal avenues on forcibly adopting out children if the mother does not comply.

Below is a questionnaire targeting alienation.  Note how child abuse factors are not assessed.

This is one of AFCCs conferences on "Differentiating" domestic violence cases.  In other words, a how to expose the children and women to violence unless it is extremely obvious that they are at imminent risk of death.  When they refer to "Situational Violence" this means that if there is only one recorded incident, then they can justify ignoring the victim of further concerns and continue exposing them to risk.  At present, evidence of one episode of violence is not enough in family court law.  They require several incidents of brutality before they decide to order supervised contact and in some cases, nothing is done at all.    

For anyone who has had contact with fathers rights groups, they are anything but silent.  Again it is another example of the organizations lacking neutrality leaning towards the context of the mens movement.  The presenters here are mimicking intimate partner terrorism victims to skew the experience and thus generate encouragement to foster undue control over women parallel to the nineteenth century child custody experience - where children were the property of men.   

Again like every other fathers right organization, they are promoting shared parenting without considering much on the consequences.

AFCCs Influence on the Psy-Law Community in United States 
In "News Today", the article claimed that there was "new research on maternal gatekeeping" that, "Mom needs to know when to let go".  Again, its deemed the mothers fault for fathers taking less of an active role pre and post separation.  When the mother does in fact resist visits, its usually for a good reason.  Surveys on mothers have often reflected contrary to these beliefs that mothers do want their children to spend time and know the father, but not when it he poses a threat to them.  


The influence of AFCC in united states is ingrained in the Family Court system.  Lundy Bancroft explains this well in his publication:



JANET JOHNSTON'S TYPOLOGY OF BATTERERS AND THE AFCC RISK ASSESSMENT:
THE QUEST FOR SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
Efforts are underway nationally to ease the complexity of assessing risk to children from
visitation with batterers by placing batterers into distinct types, based largely on the work of
Janet Johnston. For example, a risk assessment distributed nationally by the Association of
Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) draws heavily from Johnston's work. The types Johnston
posits are as follows:

Type A: "Ongoing or Episodic Male Battering"
Type B: "Female-Initiated Violence"
Type C: "Male Controlled Interactive Violence"
Type D: "Separation and Postdivorce Violence"
Type E: "Psychotic and Paranoid Reactions"
(These types are called by slightly different names in the AFCC risk assessment, but are exactly
the same in other respects.)
Type A is considered the real batterer; he is very frequently and severely violent, and he
uses violence to control his partner.
Type B is violence that is initiated by the victim; she gets hurt because she is smaller, but her behavior is the problem.
Type C is violence caused by
"mutual verbal provocations," and again the woman is the victim only because she is physically
smaller; she is considered equally abusive.
Type D is violence that results from the stress of
separation and is completely uncharacteristic for the abuser.
Type E is violence resulting from a mental health problem.
This typology contains more problems that can be covered here. The types were preconceived,
with researchers instructed to assign each case to one of the categories. The research
has little external validity; her types have no relationship to any patterns observed by domestic
violence professionals in the clinical setting. Relying on these categories leads to serious errors in crafting visitation plans. Risk to children can be assessed, as we will see, but not by this
approach.

  The great majority of batterers do not fit any of Johnston's types, because they exert
"chronic pervasive control," but it is not accompanied by the most severe or frequent violence.
The most common batterer is one who uses violence two or three times a year, whose partner has never been hospitalized with injuries, and who shows no evidence of sadism. Nevertheless, his partner and children exhibit trauma symptoms due to their fear of the abuser, the repeated denial of their basic rights, and the pattern of psychological attack. Assessing the risk to these children from unsupervised visitation is a complex process, and the danger varies greatly from case to case.
  These categories encourage us to assess the victim rather than the abuser. The "A" type of
batterer is considered the only real batterer; he is described as having a victim who is severely
traumatized, who is passive and withdrawn, and who rarely starts arguments or challenges the
batterer. A woman who is stronger, angrier, or generally more unpleasant to interact with, would
be likely under Johnston's approach to be seen as mutually abusive and provocative, the "C" type of relationship; she would thus be considered largely responsible for the man's violence. In
reality, most abused women, even those who are terrified, do not give up all forms of fighting
back, and continue attempting to protect their rights and the rights of their children. The more
that the victim refuses to submit to the abuser's control, the more likely he is to escalate his
violence. Under Johnston's typology, the more courageously a woman attempts to defend herself and her children, the less responsibility the abuser has for his actions. Using this approach serves the batterer's interests well, but endangers the children. The result of this approach is that some of  the most dangerous abusers, those who are the most determined to dominate at all costs, are ironically declared to be the lowest risk to their children.


AFCCs Influence on the Psy-Law Community in Australia
If you think that this organization would not have much influence on the culture of the Family Courts, think again.  The Australian Institute of Families, a research body for the family court quotes references from their conferences throughout their publications and many of its members have presented and joined the organization.  The Family Court of Australia advertises upcoming conferences to the family law community and many judges and court personnel have been members and presenters to the conferences.  


  An appalling example of how the australian government dealt with our indigenous community.  Rather than provide more services to ensure the safety of women where statistics of family violence are much higher, this program was funded based upon "Maternal Gatekeeping".  A term used to divert the focus away from the reason why she is concerned about the child being left alone with the father.  


Sadly Child Protection in Western Australia jumped on the band wagon to preach on how they not only believe that fathers are safer with children than mothers, but that they are "Maternal Gatekeepers".  


In the Australian governments family relationship clearinghouse were a series of articles for and against the use of parental alienation syndrome in family court context.  The fact that it was even listed in the library endorsed junk science and may have mislead readers into believing that such a syndrome was prevalent above child abuse and family violence.   On the last pages of the CANOW report, the American Psychiatry Association verifies that PAS is not a syndrome, that it is not being considered for the diagnostic and statistic manual in the near future as there is no real scientific validity.   


On Lawlink.gov in NSW, a link to Parental Alienation Syndrome is listed which refers to Gardeners books.  By even linking to it is another endorsement from the Australian government that using junk science to conceal family violence is acceptable.  Considering that not only does the syndrome target victims of domestic violence as "alienators", it also promotes sending the child to the abuser.  


Internationally, AFCC has grown and so have fathers rights movements coinciding this culture.  one of the major problems is that a majority of its material erodes protections made available for victims and cultivates a closed patriarchal environment that mothers are at the mercy of.  Whilst outside these courts, women's freedoms are welcomed and accepted, but behind closed doors, she is perceived as a shameful act.  The Family Courts are the last institution that practices values belonging to the nineteenth century.  They do not respect nor value the lives of women and children in their research that could be easily compared to the propaganda authored by nazi researchers that were used to endorse genocidal goals.  The courts need to rely upon more balanced institutions research such as the world health organization that acknowledges violence against women as a major problem, but also provides research on both genders without hidden agendas. 


   Organizations that research violence against women and children need to be wary that due to the fact that abusers are cross class and cultures, they will work towards undermining their protection by any means and monopolizing laws and psych culture, they are able to continue unchallenged.  That is why it is crucial that every organization considers the opportunities that intimate terrorists may have in engaging in terrorism on a larger level whether it be in groups of like minded or by abusing the powers within professions.  This needs not only to be researched, but desperately addressed, before we have more laws that hurt women and children.

Child Abuse Disclosure Causes Outrage

A situation where radio presenters fumbled upon a disclosure of rape has broken out in scrutiny and distaste for the show. Fathers Rights groups have condemned the mother for humiliating the daughter, despite they are to blame for the community attitudes towards rape. Peter Gregory of Fathers4Equality stated,

"What kind of a bitch is this woman!

She knew her daughter had been raped and yet she took her onto this show knowing full well that her daughter could suffer from this.

I'm sorry, but this disgusting excuse for a mother, should not only be howled down in the public arena, she should be charged with some child abuse offence."

Earlier he stated,

"We also need to remember the children who suffer parental alienation.
These children are convinced that the other parent is assaulting them in some way and they do what ever they can to remain with the abusive parent, even telling police or child protection workers detailed stories of the sexual (or otherwise) abuse, so it sounds very believable."

Note that he refers to the parent taking protective action as "abusive".

In every discussion, court judgment and debate on unsubstantiated child abuse, these men have dominated every spotlight to persuade the community that most of the time, children lie about this. We now have a culture that believes that the right thing to do is not report child abuse unless there is undeniable proof that it occurred. The President of Fathers4Equality even states in his own words in appealing to keep the law that asks for costs more often than not against victims,
"Proving that someone has "knowingly" made false allegations rather
than "mistakenly" or "recklessly" is quite a tall order. "

For protective mothers, they face an extremely challenging path in pursuing justice for thier child in these occurrences. The lone fathers association has even promoted a label that has no scientific credibility called, "Malicious Mother Syndrome". Another tactic to convince the community that a mother advocating on behalf of a child who has disclosed abuse is malicious.
It almost lingers into our community's subconscious that mothers are to blame regardless of whether they report or not. Yet once again, the person instigating the abuse has somehow avoided the spotlight, scrutiny and punishment. Maternal Deprivation, more popular than football has become a favorite male dominated sport where the game is set up so the mother is always the loser. The players are the shared parenting mob, the black shirts and other radical fathers groups. Since the 80s they have been playing this game, involving politicians, kicking all mothers in the spotlight and hiding the voice of children so that we as a community will respond with nothing but malice towards every mother and child when they seek help to stop child abuse. With all of the odds played against a protective mother, she has little opportunity but to conform to the current, "sweep it under the carpet regime" only to later endure the scrutiny and blame for a crime that she did not commit. The mother in this sport is not the other team - she is the ball in a game of hypocrisy and propaganda.

The fact that it took thousands of listeners outrage for the police to investigate, is a good indicator that these beliefs are also ingrained within the only body that can properly investigate and bring about justice for our children. Yet with such a confirmatory bias, more often than not police don't investigate when they need to and also face costs if they bring a matter to court without enough evidence. The odds that target mothers are impairing our children and young people. This young girl caught in a tragic set of circumstances making her disclosure on national radio, reveals how far one has to go just to be heard. In the abc report Minister of community services Linda Burney has taken a personal interest in the case. Yet there are 15,000 children in Australia that have been ignored along with their parents.

False allegations in Child Custody Cases

For the past few years, mens groups have been going on about how most child abuse allegations are false and often concocted by the mother. They say how "easy" it is, are able to demonstrate in detail on how such an act can occur. It is then, no surprise that the latest research on false allegations demonstrate from a neutral ground that a majority of the accusers are in fact male.

The response of course has been to diminish its credibility by labeling the research as "bias", whilst at the same time stating that the information from mens groups is somewhat superior to forty years of scientific credibility that points toward all factors including child abuse and intimate partner terrorism are indeed prevalent, underreported and serious.

For years this perpetuated belief has managed to thrive within the community and influence vital laws that were implemented to protect children. The results of this study can be found here and the results are:

Consistent with other national studies of reported child maltreatment, CIS-98 data indicate that more than one-third of maltreatment investigations are unsubstantiated, but only 4% of all cases are considered to be intentionally fabricated.Within the subsample of cases wherein a custody or access dispute has occurred, the rate of intentionally false allegations is higher: 12%. Results of this analysis show that neglect is the most common form of intentionally fabricated maltreatment, while anonymous reporters and noncustodial parents (usually fathers) most

frequently make intentionally false reports. Of the intentionally false allegations of maltreatment tracked by the CIS-98, custodial parents (usually mothers) and children were least likely to fabricate reports of abuse or neglect. - Nico Trocm´e a, Nicholas Bala b

a University of Toronto, Faculty of Social Work

Further countering the claims that such research is bias is that the researchers are male and the report itself reads from a gender neutral perspective. Clearly, the true gender bias is embedded within the culture of male violence, community justification and the courts endorsement of providing orders that maintain the environment where children are mostly at risk.

It is logical to conclude that considering the challenges of both the child and the mother raising the concerns, reports are sadly underreported. Knowing that courts are set up in such a way that re - trauma is inevitable and the possibility of costs being raised against the victim if enough evidence is not provided, can be a major barrier to a natural course of justice.

Most victims see the course of justice as not a place for revenge of the act/actions itself, but rather an endeavor to ensure that no other members of the community become victimized.

Child Abuse in custody cases are far more complex as the laws that surrounds it is tailored to the assumption that the level of conflict derives from equal ground, that there seems to be a problem coming from those "maternal gatekeepers". This is not only a superficial view that lacks insight into the problem, but a harmful on to say the least.

If a survey was conducted on how many mothers were given consideration as to why they had pursued legal avenues to prevent contact, I would hypothesize that the result would be small. Given the mass of judgements I have read and the large number of "unsubstantiated" cases, I believe I would be correct to imply that the access to justice for mothers in custody cases raising issues of protection is very low.

Convicted Sex Offender Granted Custody of Four Children

For some time, politicians have been avoiding the topic of how far they will go in handing the children over to the father. The situation here speaks for itself. Whilst the article does not draw attention to previous cases like this, it is not uncommon for courts to allow convicted sex offenders unsupervised contact with children. For as long as the courts, family reporters and children's lawyers rely upon the junk science of Parental Alienation Syndrome(also referred to as "Parent Alienation"), cases like these will continue to rupture the lives of children.

Pedophile granted child custody

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DAVID NANKERVIS

June 13, 2009 11:30pm

A FAMILY Court judge has granted custody of four children to their father - a convicted pedophile and rapist.

The mother of the four youngsters, all aged under 15, requested custody at a recent Family Court hearing in Adelaide.

The unsuccessful application was made not long after the children's father was found guilty in the Adelaide District Court of multiple sex offences against a minor.

A transcript of the Family Court hearing shows the presiding judge was aware of the father's convictions and that he was on bail awaiting sentencing.

Further details, including the names of the family, cannot be legally reported. The mother and her current husband also both have criminal records.

However, child support groups have condemned the idea that a convicted pedophile could be granted custody of any child.

Victim Support Service SA said the community would be "alarmed" at a situation where a pedophile was allowed to care for children.

"Our organisation would be worried too about that, and we would want to know about the reasoning and rationale behind such a decision and what steps are in place to protect any child in such circumstances," the service's chief executive Michael Dawson said.

"I would think it is inappropriate for someone with a previous history - through conviction of crimes against children - to be provided with the opportunity to supervise children.

"From my personal experience, I've never heard of any such case before."

The Australian Childhood Foundation also expressed serious concern about the risks pedophiles pose to children, particularly in an unsupervised environment.

"Convicted pedophiles can't work as a teacher, be a foster carer or footy coach, because society recognises that past behaviour is the best indicator of future risk," foundation chief executive Joe Tucci said.

"So as a matter of principal, children shouldn't be in unsupervised contact or custody of an adult with convictions for sexual assault against children."

Mr Tucci said courts should err on the side of caution and treat convictions of sexual assault against children as a "red light" when deciding what is in a child's best interest.

A spokeswoman for the Family Court said judges could only award custody of a child to those parties who applied for it.

"If a judge has concerns about a child's welfare, they cannot make an order that a child be put in the care of the state," the spokeswoman said.

"A judge can ask but not compel a state welfare department to intervene if they believe a child is at risk of abuse or neglect."

The Department of Families and Communities said the Family Court may advise it of any "child protection concerns (the court has) about a child".

"Families SA assesses the notification like any other and takes action if necessary," a department spokesman said.

"Also, the Family Court may make a formal request that the Department of Families and Communities become a party to a case.

"If DFC accepts the request and becomes a party, it then makes representations to the court about what is in the best interests of the child or children."

Stop The Responsible Fatherhood Bill

"All I ever wanted was supervised" a repeated phrase amongst family violence survivors.  The Family Court has come under recent scrutiny over unsafe contact and the controversial use of Parental Alienation Syndrome a diagnosis that has not been accepted by any scientific organization globally.  The bottom line is that children are ordered by the court to attend access visits where the parents are abusive.  If the mother objects, she risks losing the children altogether.  That is the state of not only the Family Court in Australia, it is an international problem.  

Until recently, there were few groups that were advocating for children and far too many groups advocating for such forced contact.  "Pro Contact" culture is really just being polite.  "Contact No Matter what" Cult, is more appropriate considering the facts that there is no limit as to who they wish children to have contact with.  

Cult definitions coined from 1920 onward^[1] refer to a cohesive social group and their devotional beliefs or practices, which the surrounding population considers to be outside of mainstream cultures. The surrounding population may be as small as a neighborhood, or as large as the community of nations. They gratify curiosity about, take action against, or ignore a group, depending on its reputed similarity to cults previously reported by mass media. -Wikipedia

Bizarre punishments against mothers are initiated by the courts if they do not comply without consideration for the impact that the children suffer.  

Some of these punishments include:

"Isolating The Child From The Protective Parent"

"Orders inhibiting the Child From access to Counseling"

"Removal of The Mothers Passport'

In cases where the parent has a mental health condition that is one of the leading causes of homicide, the protective action is often minimal.  Some orders are for the parent to take their medication and see their doctor, but left entirely to the device of the patient and the potential victims are left restricted by the court order and helpless to what might come about.  The Court evaluators who make the decisions that the judges often solely rely on are often untrained for these cases, but overtrained in the area of "pro - contact' and too well understand the terms of "maternal gatekeeping" "Alienation" and "False Memory Syndrome".  They believe that the child is not unsafe in relationships with sex offenders if they "just accept it" without the interference from mothers.  

This is due to the fact that in the early 80s, Dr Richard Gardner coined the term, "Parent Alienation Syndrome" and travelled the world with the help of Association of Family and Conciliation Courts(AFCC).  Many conferences were held indoctrinating lawyers, psychologists and judges into the belief that children are better off with abusive parents.  This belief was also supported by the international Child Emancipation, a lobby group for pedophiles.  

Cases where there is not enough evidence to support Family Violence are often referred to as, "False Allegations" and in most cases the victim is required to pay costs to the alleged perpetrator. This goes against studies that support the notion that in 95% of child abuse cases are true.  Clearly it is the interference that the victims receive during the court processes that leads to the lack of evidence that is able to be provided.  

Like the German Lebensborn organization, they said, "Best Interests" but the intention was to reintroduce laws that tie women to men and diminish any concerns regarding child abuse and violence against women.  The current family law regime reduces the value of children and mothers compared to men and promotes the cycle of violence continuing through to another generation.  Like a genetic disease, our children have been infected with family violence.  

The German Lebensborn organization was similarly cruel in its time.  In the context of the German welfare system, it was considered that it was the "best interests" of the child to be German.  By abducting babies of other origins for German families, "Best Interests of the child" was created to serve the purposes of racial intolerance.  Today in the context of Family Law, "best interests of the child" refers to the amount of time spent with a parent no matter how abusive they may be. 

Although there have been more efforts to protect mothers and children affected by family violence with the Violence Against Women Act and the introduction of the Protective Parent Bill, PAS is still alive in the US court system and have progressed to a point where they are supporting it through the "Responsible Fatherhood Bill".  Like best Interests, it is aimed at enforcing contact with fathers regardless of the rise to epidemic proportions of murder suicides.  In sect 2, "Findings" it states that the reason to provide fathers with billions of dollars in funding is due to:

6) Children who live without contact with their biological father are, in comparison to children who have such contact--

(A) 5 times more likely to live in poverty;

(B) more likely to bring weapons and drugs into the classroom;

(C) twice as likely to commit crime;

(D) twice as likely to drop out of school;

(E) more likely to commit suicide;

(F) more than twice as likely to abuse alcohol or drugs; and

(G) more likely to become pregnant as teenagers.

(7) Violent criminals are overwhelmingly males who grew up without fathers.

  

The findings stated here is derived from a confirmitory bias. If you look deeper into the research, it becomes obvious that:

Children were economically abused by the fathers and the state for withdrawal of financial support of children.  It is in fact written in the convention on The Rights Of The Child:

 

Article 26

1. States Parties shall recognize for every child the right to benefit from social security, including social insurance, and shall take the necessary measures to achieve the full realization of this right in accordance with their national law.

2. The benefits should, where appropriate, be granted, taking into account the resources and the circumstances of the child and persons having responsibility for the maintenance of the child, as well as any other consideration relevant to an application for benefits made by or on behalf of the child.

 

The "Violent males who grew up without fathers", were in fact infected prior to the separation by witnessing the actual violence.  According to Amy Coha:

• Boys who witness domestic violence are more likely to batter their female partners as adults than boys raised in nonviolent homes. Of the children who witness domestic abuse, 60% of the boys eventually become batterers.
• Sixty-three percent of boys age 11-20 who commit homicide, murder the man who was abusing their mother. In 50% of the time, if the wife (mother) is being physically abused, so are the children.

Teenage pregnancy is an old sexist phrase that draws the need to look at the pregnant women as the problem.  Contraceptives apart from the condom are directed at her as entirely responsible for the pregnancy.  According to Rape Abuse and Incest Network(RAIN):

Girls ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.

 

Victims of sexual assault are:⁷

3 times more likely to suffer from depression.

6 times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

13 times more likely to abuse alcohol.

26 times more likely to abuse drugs.

4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.

The fact that in some states, the perpetrator can apply to the Family Court to stop the abortion and continue these attacks on her suggests that women and girls are considered by the state as objects rather than human beings.  If such a bill were to pass, it would be a greater violation to the already eroded human rights of women and children.  

Murder in The Family: Fathers Rights attitudes are deadly

Sisterhood is powerless

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Posted by Mirror Man | Posted in Feminism, News | Posted on 08-06-2009

How feminism has made men's lives safer — and women's more dangerous.

By Jennifer Foote Sweeney and Alisa Smith

Feminism, real or imagined, has long been praised and blamed for a whole pile of societal developments, crises and trends. But it has emerged recently in unlikely quarters: as a major factor in the "intimate" murders of women and as a saving grace in the lives of abusive men. In a devastating twist, feminism, while improving women's lives in many obvious ways, may also have made their lives more dangerous. At the same time, by offering escape and support to battered women, it has saved the lives of abusive men.

Much has been made of the fact that, in the past 20 years, the number of homicides in the United States has sharply declined. That is good news, especially for abusive husbands, who, statistics show, are living longer because their wives and girlfriends are taking advantage of shelters, hotlines and other services for battered women. In other words, feminists have invested decades fighting domestic violence as part of the battle for women's rights and their work has paid off — by keeping batterers alive.

But there is bad news too. Only one category of homicide has failed to decline at the same rate as the rest. In fact, in some regions, it has not declined at all. It is "intimate homicide," in which a man kills his girlfriend or wife, often murdering the rest of the family too. In about one-quarter of the killings, the man then kills himself.

While psychologists, social scientists and historians have various explanations for the stubborn nature of this gruesome trend, most agree that feminism, or at the very least what it is seen to represent, plays a role in the motivation of men who commit intimate homicide or familicide. And when it is not a motivation, it is frequently an excuse.

"Batterers are very into making excuses and presenting themselves as victims. They really see other people, particularly their partners, as abusing or attempting to control them. It's the way to rationalize, minimize or deny their own behavior," says David Adams, co-founder of Emerge, one of the earliest treatment centers for battering men, in Cambridge, Mass. "They see women's gains as being at their expense."

Though we assume that attitudes toward women have changed dramatically since 1976 — when authorities began to keep detailed records of "intimate" homicides — the number of murdered wives and girlfriends has not changed much since then. On average, the rates have been going down 1 percent per year, from 1,600 in 1976 to 1,307 in 1998. That year, 32 percent of the 3,419 women murdered in the United States were killed by "intimates," according to the FBI, which reported that just 4 percent of male homicide victims in 1998 were killed by intimate partners.

In a majority of incidents in which a man kills his wife or girlfriend and children, familiar motives are cited. The killer might believe he has lost control of his partner and needs to reassert it. Or he fears losing his partner, upon whom he is deeply dependent. This confusing feeling evokes intense rage in those threatened by it. Usually such men are consumed with anger and a desire to blame as they kill.

Just last year, one man strapped his 3-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son into their car seats and shot them point-blank after his wife took out a restraining order against him. Another pretended that his 3-year-old son had been kidnapped by someone who would not return him until he, the killer, married his girlfriend. Eight days later, the boy's body was found in a black plastic bag. The crime, the murderer confessed, had been an attempt to coerce his girlfriend to marry him. In July, one week before Atlanta day trader Mark Barton killed nine people and wounded 13 others in his shooting spree in two brokerage firms, he killed his wife and two children in a classic case of familicide.

Barton blamed his wife, Leigh Ann, for his troubles, but professed great love for "my honey, my precious love," in his suicide note. The pair had been separated and were attempting a reconciliation, without great success. "She was one of the main reasons for my demise," he wrote.

One could argue that the number of men who kill their wives and/or children would have remained more or less constant even without feminism. A certain percentage of men, so this argument goes, will always possess that deadly combination of insecurity, rage and self-righteousness found in so many who commit intimate homicides — and they would end up killing even in the most repressive, patriarchal societies. Clearly, there is no way to resolve this question. But it seems inescapable that many of feminism's laudable consequences, both tangible and intangible — from increased opportunities and greater earning power to a diminution of the traditional male role as head of the family — have contributed to male violence against women. And when it is not an aggravation, many murderous men unquestionably use feminism as a rationalization, researchers say.

Linda Langford, who analyzed underlying factors in five years of domestic homicides in Massachusetts as her doctoral dissertation at Harvard University, believes that some men — particularly abusive or potentially abusive men — see themselves as victimized by recent changes in traditional male and female roles.

"We are in a social transition from more fixed roles to more fluid rules," she says. "Women are gaining power in more generalized ways. People with more traditional values have a problem with that.

"There's a sense in which men's proprietaryness over women and their children is being challenged. The fact that women are gaining independence might send them into a greater panic. But it's not what anybody else does that makes them the way they are — they are what they are, and they find excuses to justify their behavior."

And the excuses, if not for brutality then for collective outrage, are increasingly stated with barely concealed hostility, by certain men's groups and fathers' rights organizations, often on the Internet.

Hundreds of Web sites dedicated to fathers' rights openly blame the women's movement for their unjust oppression.The Fathers' Manifesto, for example, calls for the repeal of most family court decisions that grant custody and child support to women:

"The present feminist concept of women's 'independence' really means a government-enforced entitlement to be paid for the rewards of being a mother, without the responsibilities that go with it: to men, to children especially, and ultimately to the world at large," says the manifesto.

"We vow," it continues, "to remove all government involvement from family matters by the establishment of the father as the head of the family, under God."

It is when a man's control over his family is threatened that his rage can lead to murder. To be reminded of an intense dependency on a woman while losing control of her becomes an insurmountable emotional task, say experts. Acceptance is out of the question; reassertion of control, by whatever means necessary, becomes the alternative.

"It's 'I'm going to annihilate my family and myself, if this woman is going to leave. I'll kill her before I let her go,'" says Nancy Isaac, co-author with Langford of the Harvard study.

"Something that signifies the relationship is over — that sparks a killing spree," says Mindy Mechanic, psychologist at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and an expert in post-traumatic stress in abused women. "They feel like they can't survive without the woman — as though she's the lifeline. If you realize everything you have and want and need is unattainable to you, what do you have left?"

Children are not usually the primary targets. They might be substitute victims, if the woman isn't available; or they are seen as obstacles to the man's relationship with the woman; or they could be revenge victims, killed as a way of hurting the woman in the worst possible way.

"If you think about domestic abuse, it's a system of power and control," says Langford. "The children are a tool of that control."

And there is sometimes a perverted "Father Knows Best" element when a man slays his own children. The neatly typed note left by Barton before his murderous Atlanta rampage showed that he had persuaded himself that he was protecting his children by killing them.

"I killed the children to exchange them for five minutes of pain for a lifetime of pain. I forced myself to do it to keep them from suffering so much later. No mother, no father, no relations," he wrote.

(He "spared" them by bludgeoning them with a hammer in their beds.)

It's a form of "righteous slaughter," a concept spelled out by UCLA sociology professor Jack Katz in his book "Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions of Doing Evil."

"When people do impassioned killings, they think they're doing something righteous by upholding some universal value," says Katz. "At that moment, they think that everyone would agree with the action they're taking."

David Adams of Emerge interviewed a man convicted of killing his estranged wife after luring her to their former home to watch videos with their children. The man made sure she had too much to drink, got her into bed and then, once she was asleep, bludgeoned her with a baseball bat and stabbed her in the neck.

Adams asked the man a series of questions, including whether he felt a woman who disobeys her husband deserves to be beaten.

"What if you believe she shouldn't be beaten, but she should be killed? the man asked.

"What do you mean?" asked Adams.

"I don't believe in hurting a woman — that's why I waited for her to fall asleep," the man replied. "But I believe you should take the marriage vows seriously."

And, oh, yes, the man added, he'd had sex with her before he killed her. He knew the coroner would discover his semen inside her body. He wanted the man he suspected his wife was seeing to know that he, the estranged husband, had been the last to have her.

Clearly, even when women leave, they are not safe, particularly if they can be lured back under false pretenses. But their departures, while likely to incite rage or even violence by the estranged men in their lives, create a safer environment for those men. Statistics show that women who leave abusive men are primarily avoiding deadly encounters in which their husbands would have been the victim. Women apparently can sense their own murderous impulses but not those of their mates.

Studies show that the numbers of women killing their husbands and boyfriends have plummeted. Women killed 1,357 intimate partners in 1976. They killed 430 in 1997. The decline was most dramatic in the 1990s, and researchers took serious notice of it a couple of years ago, when the Bureau of Justice Statistics published a landmark paper on intimate homicides.

As is often the case with statistical reports generated by government agencies, only numbers, not explanations, were offered in the report. Since its publication, researchers have scrambled to flesh out some theories. They have come up with three main reasons why intimate murders committed by women have decreased by more than 300 percent in 20 years. Feminism is wrapped up in all of them, whether it be the shelter movement and progressive laws, lower marriage rates or women's improved status.

The bottom line, it seems, is that women now have more options for leaving abusive relationships and finding support away from home. "Women now have a means of escape from violent relationships, such as shelters," says Juley Fulcher, public policy director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. When they can leave, they don't have to fight back.

In fact, the decline of intimate murders by women confirms what many researchers have said for decades: Women kill their spouses mainly in self-defense. For instance, one pioneering study by Jacquelyn Campbell in the early 1980s showed that 75 percent of women who killed their partners had been previously abused by them. The study was based on police reports filed over a five-year period in one city, long before investigators were trained to be sensitive to such issues.

"No matter who gets killed, it's wife abuse. That pattern has held up in current studies," says Campbell, a professor at the John Hopkins University school of nursing. "People have found that in states with good domestic violence laws, there are lower rates of men killed by intimate partners."

In addition to shelters and other means of escape from domestic violence, legal advocacy for battered women has played a key role as well, says Laura Dugan, professor of criminal justice at Georgia State University, and co-author of a forthcoming study on intimate homicide in 50 U.S. cities from 1976 to 1996.

Legal advocates, who range from volunteers to full-time paid staff, sit in on battered women's cases when they hit the courts, and guide women through the difficult process. "As opposed to shelters, where the women have to make the first move, legal advocates are reaching out to a large pool of women," Dugan says. "Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an effect in saving women's lives."

Women's increased status and independence also have had an impact on their ability to leave abusive spouses and boyfriends, says Richard Rosenfeld, professor of criminology at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and Dugan's co-author on the 50-city domestic violence study. Women today have higher incomes, education levels and workforce participation than they did 25 years ago. This allows them to leave abusive men they might have otherwise killed. Marriage rates, too, have significantly declined, allowing unsuitable mates in the volatile under-30 age bracket to split up before their differences turn into violence.

These changes, says Rosenfield, are particularly noteworthy among African-American women.

In 1976, the per-capita rate of intimate homicide among blacks was 11 times higher than among whites. Twenty years later, it was only about four times higher. "This is very good news," says Rosenfeld. By 1998, the murder of black husbands by their wives had the most significant drop of all categories of homicide, about 75 percent.

"Black women have become closer to black men on all the status indicators, and are in fact even more likely to have a higher education level," says Rosenfeld, who, with Dugan, is the first to explain this trend.

One parallel phenomenon they uncovered tempered the mostly positive changes. Decreasing welfare payments has led to an increase in intimate homicides, and particularly in those with male victims, says Rosenfeld. "We may think of the AFDC [Aid for Families with Dependent Children] as inducing independence, and it may — but not on abusive men!" says Rosenfeld. In the absence of welfare support, impoverished mothers may choose to stay with violent mates.

"We might have seen an even greater decrease in spousal homicides if welfare benefits hadn't declined," he says. In fact, Rosenfeld notes that since the federal government axed AFDC benefits in 1996, there has been something of an upturn in intimate murders. "It could just be a squiggle, but it's there, especially among African-Americans," he says. "We hope and urge that policy-makers look at welfare reforms, especially as the economy downturns, as it must."

And so, in the world of dysfunctional relationships, survival becomes a matter of luck and timing. A woman linked to an abusive husband might get out in time to save his life. To save herself, she must find a way to evacuate herself and her children before he realizes that she is ready or able to do so. Unfortunately, it can be deadly for a woman to be long-suffering or optimistic.

The emphasis now, researchers agree, needs to be on identifying abusive men as well as creating programs to help them change. "What those programs might be remains a very open question," says Rosenfeld. "Judges are starting to make [violence counseling] programs a condition of probation for men convicted of domestic assault. But no one yet knows the effectiveness of these programs."

Indeed, counseling violent men may not be enough. "There needs to be new ways of raising our boys. We have to challenge the belief that men be tough, non-emotional and in control," says Ty Schroyer, men's program coordinator for the highly regarded Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in Duluth, Minn. "Because of male socialization, they're just not reaching out [for help]. They may not even recognize that they have a problem."

For her part, Jacquelyn Campbell is working on a major study of homicide data from across the nation to determine what specific warning signs to look for in abusive men who go on to kill their female partners.

"Stalking is huge," Campbell emphasizes. This applies whether the couple has separated or is still together. Other factors that appear to contribute: The man threatens to kill her; the perception that he is capable of killing; extreme jealousy; forced sex; abuse during pregnancy; and increasing frequency or severity of abuse. For a woman who is deeply invested in a relationship, this litany of seemingly obvious precursors to murder can be hard to distinguish from plain abuse.

It would be hard to believe that a woman could endure a single instance of any of the factors that Campbell lists if it wasn't so easy to understand the reason that many women do not flee. It is because they believe, as one might, that the men who love them could never kill.

That, perhaps, is the greatest sadness in the statistics. Even as they have battled for the means to get out of abusive relationships, women have not found a way to survive them. When she leaves a disintegrating relationship, a woman may save her partner's life, but she endangers her own. As powerful as sisterhood can be, it cannot always save lives — at least not the lives of women.
salon.com | March 14, 2000

Freelance writer Susan Caba contributed to this story.