Iron Jawed Angels-Mothers of Lost Children March on Washington D.C. 2010

Mother's Day National March on White House and Congress Against ...

May 9, 2010 ... Mother's Day National March on White House and Congress Against ... NBC4 and Fox5 of Washington DC had reporters and cameras on location. ...
www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-442307

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYPIjVyf5M4&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

 

A Mother Does Not Forget Her Children: First March on Washington ...

May 8, 2010 ... May 9, 2010 7:50 am (Pacific time) ... I am with you all Today at the DC March--in Spirit. ... you for being there all these years as not only a mother, but a close friend. HappyMother's Day! ...
www.salem-news.com/articles/may082010/lost-moms-ct.php

Mothers Of Lost Children To Gather For White House Vigil On Mothers Day

May042010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contacts:
Connie Valentine 916-233-8381
Kathleen Russell 415-250-1180

MOTHERS OF LOST CHILDREN TO GATHER FOR WHITE HOUSE VIGIL ON MOTHERS DAY
12 Noon Press Conference with Grieving Moms from Across America

Mothers from across America who have lost their children because family courts ordered them into full custody or unsupervised visitation with their alleged abusers will [more...]

 

 

Battered Women Take Custody Battles to White House

May072010

By Mary Darcy hyperlinked by Parenting News Network™

Battered mothers often shy away from publicity. But this year, in a sign of their growing organization, some plan to spend Mother’s Day in Washington in a White House vigil to draw attention to a court system that often gives custody to abusers.
(WOMENSENEWS)–On Mother’s Day, busloads [more...]

 

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richardson dombrowski hearing transcript 1-29-2010

 

http://connectnow.acrobat.com/angelfury

 

https://acrobat.com/#d=PmMAgfxJL7nTFkVCZiCAig

CNN: Mothers of Lost Children Hold Silent Vigil at the White House

 

Posted by:NCarroll

CNN producer note

NCarroll is the founder of the Indianapolis chapter of this organization and posted these photos, telling me, 'We tried to all dress in white as a sign of peace (as the Liberian women in "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" did). We had about 120 participants. '

- hhanks, CNN iReport producer

 

iReport —

Mothers from across the country gathered at the White House today on Mothers Day to stand in silent vigil for the children who are now in the custody of abusers.  Claims of domestic violence are often dismissed by family court judges during divorces or child custody proceedings, even though the American Bar Association found false claims to be rare.  To raise awareness of this crisis in family courts, Connie Valentine and Karen Anderson of the California Protective Parents Association organized with other groups such as the Center for Judicial Excellence, Justice for Children, and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV).  The event was also supported by Stop Family Violence and the National Organization for Women.

Dr. Mo Hannah (Siena College, New York) of the Battered Mothers Custody Conference introduced the speakers at the press conference held at noon.  Kathleen Russell from the Center for Judicial Excellence, Eileen King from Justice for Children and Rita Smith from NCADV spoke to the public and members of the press present.  Guests included Mildred Muhammad, ex-wife of the DC sniper, and other mothers including Katie Tagle and Amy Leichtenberg, both who lost their children in murder-suicides with their abusive fathers.

Some members attending today plan on continuing the vigil daily at the White House throughout the month.

Tags:child,custody,mothers,children,family,court,white,house,mildred,mohammad

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CONFIRMED: PROTECTIVE MOTHERS WERE RIGHT

A special Mothers Day Article

By Barry Goldstein

For many years, protective mothers have complained about a broken custody court system giving custody to abusive fathers. The courts dismissed the complaints by saying they came from disgruntled litigants. Now, a new book based on multi-disciplinary research has confirmed that common mistakes in the custody courts have resulted in thousands of children being forced to live with abusers. Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody: Legal Strategies and Policy Issues, co-edited by Dr. Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein includes chapters by over 25 of the leading experts in domestic violence and custody in the U.S. and Canada including judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, journalists and domestic violence advocates. Although the writers come from different disciplines and professional experience, there is remarkable agreement that the courts' failure to use up-to-date research is responsible for placing children at risk and undermining laws designed to prevent domestic violence.

The custody court system developed practices to respond to domestic violence allegations over thirty years ago at a time when there was no research. The courts relied on popular assumptions such as the belief domestic violence was caused by mental illness, substance abuse and the victims' behavior. They assumed domestic violence only involved physical abuse and children were unaffected unless directly assaulted. All of these and many other assumptions relied on by the courts have proven wrong, but the court continues to use outdated and discredited practices. Even worse, after hearing misinformation constantly repeated for over thirty years the myths and stereotypes are so deeply ingrained that courts often don't believe accurate information based upon up-to-date research because it is so different from what they have heard repeated their entire professional careers. Hopefully by putting all the research together in one volume, the book will force the courts to take a fresh look at practices that have worked so poorly for children.

Most cases are settled more or less amicably. The problem is with the 3.8% of contested custody cases that continue to trial and usually far beyond. The courts think of these as "high conflict" cases and literally they are, but 90% of these cases involve abusive fathers which is why they can't be settled. Male supremacist groups have developed an unspeakably cruel tactic of encouraging abusers to go after the children as a way to pressure the mother to return, punish her for leaving and avoid child support. As a result, the courts repeatedly see cases in which fathers who had little involvement with the children before the separation suddenly seeking custody, but the court system has been slow to recognize the tactic or respond to it. Judges have constantly been told that children do better with both parents in their lives but not that this is untrue if one of the parents is abusive.

In the typical case, the mother is the primary parent. She complains about the father's abuse and he counters by claiming alienation. Primary attachment refers to the parent who does most of the child care in the first couple of years of a child's life. If the child is separated from their primary attachment figure, the child is more likely to commit suicide, suffer depression, have low self-esteem and other harmful attributes. Children who witness domestic violence are more likely to engage in a wide range of dysfunctional behaviors when they are older and their developmental progress is interfered with. On the other hand, it is common even in intact families for parents to make negative statements about the other parent and there is no research that alienation causes long-term harm to children.

At the same time, in our still sexist society, mothers continue to do most of the child care so claims of primary attachment are virtually always true and often not contested by the father. Contrary to popular myths, women rarely make false allegations of abuse so that at least 98% of a mother's allegations of abuse in custody cases are accurate. Fathers on the other hand, are 16 times more likely to make false allegations in contested custody cases than mothers. This is not because women are so much more honest, but that most fathers in custody cases are abusers using the children to maintain control of their ex-partner and they seem to believe they are entitled to use any tactics to win custody.

Accordingly most allegations of alienation by fathers in custody cases are false. In other words the allegations by the mothers have the most consequences for the children and are most likely to be true, but the courts are paying more attention to the allegations by the fathers that are likely to be false and of little consequence to the children.

The book can be used by mothers and their attorneys to challenge the common mistakes made in domestic violence cases. One of the big problems is that because of the original mistaken assumption that domestic violence is caused by mental health or substance abuse issues, the courts have relied on mental health professionals who have little or no understanding or training in domestic violence. They rarely have any familiarity with up-to-date research and instead frequently rely on myths and stereotypes.

Although professional ethics require psychologists and psychiatrists to consult with an expert if they are handling a case involving an issue in which they lack expertise, evaluators and other court professionals routinely ignore this requirement by pretending they have expertise even with only an hour or two of training.

Evaluators often rely on psychological tests to create the illusion of a scientific basis for their opinions. These tests were developed for a population very different from the parents seen in custody court. When advocates for mothers tell courts that most abusers tend to be manipulative or mothers rarely make deliberately false allegations they respond by saying they are judging THIS case and cannot rely on probabilities. Under the best of circumstances the psychological tests are accurate between 55-65% of the time. So what happens if the mother is part of the 35-45% for which it is not accurate? Even worse factors like domestic violence or the pressure of going through a contested custody case reduce the accuracy significantly.

Furthermore, many of the tests are gender biased and criticize women but not men for the same responses. Of course the evaluators rarely inform courts of this information and most attorneys don't know enough to raise these issues.

A critical problem that does not receive the attention it deserves is that judges and the professionals they rely on repeatedly fail to recognize domestic violence because they don't know what to look for. Judge Mike Brigner wrote a chapter for the book in which he discusses his training of judges about domestic violence. They constantly ask him what to do about women who are lying. When he asks what they mean they refer to women who return to their abuser, seek protective orders, but don't follow-up or don't have police or medical reports after alleged assaults. In reality battered mothers do all these things for safety and other good reasons, but when ignorant professionals use this to discredit allegations of abuse, they have no chance to get it right.

Another common example is when judges, lawyers or evaluators watch fathers interact with the children. If the children show no fear, it convinces these professionals that the abuse allegations must be false. What the children understand is that their father would never hurt them in front of witnesses, especially someone he is trying to impress and in fact they could be punished if they showed fear. At the same time the mental health professionals are discrediting valid allegations based on information that is not probative, they tend to look only for physical abuse and miss many other domestic violence tactics that demonstrate the control and coercion he practices.

The mistaken practices give the courts little chance to recognize the father's abuse, but it is even worse than that. The mental health professionals often use their failure to recognize domestic violence as an excuse to pathologize the mother. She is often called delusional or paranoid because she believes something they missed. This or the assumption she is deliberately trying to interfere with the father's relationship with the children often results in extreme outcomes in which the mother is given supervised or no visitation based on the court's mistakes.

In her chapter on retaliation and manipulation, Joan Zorza says that in light of the frequency in which courts fail to recognize domestic violence they should avoid retaliating or penalizing mothers who continue to believe the allegations of abuse after the court finds against them. This recommendation can be used to ask courts to modify orders with extreme results when there is no proof the mother is unsafe.

Some child protective agencies have participated in programs in which they work with the local domestic violence agency. The train each other and when there is a case with possible domestic violence issues, the child protective caseworkers consult with domestic violence advocates. This helps them recognize and respond more appropriately to domestic violence cases. This should be considered best practices and needs to be expanded to the custody courts.

The custody courts do a particularly bad job of responding to allegations of sexual abuse. By the time a child reaches the age of 18, one-third of the girls and one-sixth of the boys have been sexually abused. The myth is that rape and sexual abuse are mostly committed by strangers but in fact 83% of the time it is someone they know, often the father. Courts don't want to believe a father could do something so heinous especially if he is successful in other parts of his life. Accordingly a very high percentage of sexual abuse allegations result in custody to the alleged abuser.

One of the problems is that sexual abuse of children is very hard to prove. Often there is no physical evidence particularly if the child does not reveal it immediately. Younger children may not have the language to describe what was done to them and older children may have been threatened or don't want someone they love to get in trouble. Few of the evaluators relied on by courts have expertise in child sexual abuse. What is a mother supposed to do when the child's behavior or other clues suggest sexual abuse? If she does nothing she is placing the safety and well-being of her child at risk, but if she asks for an investigation she can lose custody.

We have seen many cases in which a child acts out because the father violated the child's boundaries such as by sleeping with the child. The father did not inappropriately touch the child. The issue could easily be handled by instructing the father to change his routine and it would be totally safe for the father to continue with normal visitation. This would be a win-win situation, but instead courts and the unqualified professionals they rely on assume the mother is making deliberately false allegations and so separate the child from their primary attachment figure and deny the child a relationship with her.

The book also takes on Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) which is one of the major reasons courts get so many cases wrong. Dr. Paul Fink past president of the American Psychiatric Association wrote a chapter about PAS and Nancy Erickson who is an attorney and law professor who went back to school to become a psychologist wrote about how to challenge false allegations of PAS. Richard Gardner concocted PAS based on his belief system which included many statements to the effect that sex between adults and children is appropriate. Many of his quotations are in the chapter and can be cited to judges who presumably will not want to be associated with such behavior.

There is no scientific basis to PAS and it is not recognized by any reputable professional organization. It is based on the myth that most allegations of abuse are false. Psychologists are starting to lose their licenses for using PAS because they are in effect diagnosing something that does not exist. As PAS has become more discredited, abusers and the professionals they pay to support them have started using PAS by other names such as parental alienation or just alienation. It the idea is to assume allegations of abuse must be wrong or to justify giving custody to the alleged abuser and supervised or no visitation to the protective mothers they are using the discredited PAS by another name.

Professor Garland Waller wrote a chapter about the failure of the media to cover the crisis in the custody court system. She writes about the tipping point when enough information reaches the public so that they will no longer tolerate frequent court mistakes that place children in jeopardy. We believe this book can move us towards the tipping point and hope those committed to ending the injustice in the custody court system will consider some of the following actions to help us reach the tipping point.

1. Inform the courts in your area about this book. They can find additional information atwww.domesticviolenceabuseandchildcustody.com Ask the courts to use the research in the book to train judges and other court personnel and to reform practices that the research demonstrates are working poorly for children.

2. Contact your local media to cover the crisis in the custody court system by using the research in the book to understand the harm the courts are doing to children. If you want to seek publicity for your case use the book to show the context and national problem and then your case illustrates how it played out in a local case. When there are local domestic violence stories bring the information in the book to the reporters.

3. If you have local colleges, universities or law schools in the area, ask them to incorporate the research from the book into the curriculum and to sponsor programs about the custody courts based on this research.

4. Ask local and college libraries to obtain a copy of the book. This would be particularly helpful for protective mothers who cannot afford to purchase the book.

5. Cite the book in court cases and appeals. Use the research to challenge unqualified evaluators and other court professionals and to obtain experts who can put this research into evidence.

6. Use the book to inform legislators of the problems in the court. Ask them to hold hearings and sponsor legislation to protect children and prevent abuse. We will soon have legislative proposals available based on the research in the book.

7. Work together with domestic violence agencies, women's groups and anyone else sympathetic to the cause.

8. Come up with your own ideas. We cannot tolerate a system that continues to place children in jeopardy because they fail to use the up-to-date research now available.

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A Mother Does Not Forget Her Children: First March on Washington for Mothers of Lost Children

By Coral Anika Theill Salem-News.com

A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its woman are on the ground. Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors, nor how strong their weapons. - Cheyenne Proverb

Courtesy: Coral Theill

(SALEM, Ore.) - Mothers of Lost Children http://mothers-of-lost-children.com and their supporters are gathering at Lafayette Park, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington D.C., in front of the White House for a silent vigil to protest the grotesque human rights abuses against children by family courts.  Sunday marks the first March on Washington for Mothers of Lost Children.

President Barack Obama will be presented a booklet that includes numerous stories of loving mothers who have lost custody of their children in America's courts.  My own story is included in this booklet. (1)

Oprah Winfrey often states on her program, "America is the safest place in the world for women."  Tens of thousands of mothers in America would be quick to disagree with Oprah's words.  We bear invisible, but permanent battle wounds from years of abuse in America's family court system.  Our mental scars and years of court documentation prove that seeking safety in America often costs more than money.  The price of safety in America has been too high for all of us - it cost our children and our right to be a mother.

Seventy-five percent of mothers who seek safety from abuse in America will lose custody and permanent contact with their children, especially if they have reported criminal acts of abuse in their homes.  
Experts at the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence estimate that more than 58,000 children each year are either placed into dangerous homes or forced to go on unsupervised visits with their alleged abusers by divorce courts that simultaneously deny the children's safe, protective parents access to their sexually and physically abused children. 

Many battered mothers who have lost custody of their children will end up homeless due to the ongoing court abuse they are subjected to in America.  I know this to be true, as I was homeless, too, due to my ex-husband, Mr. Marty Warner, legally stalking me in Oregon's courtrooms for the past decade, i.e., forty-two court related hearings related to my divorce since 1996.

Unfortunately, even though being aware of this epidemic, talk show hosts and the general news media refuse to address this topic.  The court trauma and abuse continues in my life as well as for thousands of mothers in the United States.  I often wonder "Does America hate mothers?" (Exception:  See Tim King's numerous news articles on this epidemic at Salem-News.com from 2007 -2010) 
Many women grow up in homes in which they were conditioned and groomed to be victims.  They marry sociopathic abusers, have children with them, and lose custody and/or contact of their children when they become stronger and break away.  

"When woman is brought before our man courts, and our man juries, and has no bruises, or wounds, or marks of violence upon her person to show as a ground of her complaint, it is hard for them to realize that she has a cause of appeal to them for protection:  while at the same time her whole physical system may be writhing in agony from spirit wrongs, such as can only be understood by peers."    - Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard 

Author and advocate, Elizabeth Packard, wrote the above paragraph 132 years ago in her true life story and book The Prisoners Hidden Life or Insane Asylums Revealed (1868).  Elizabeth Packard was unjustly incarcerated in an insane asylum in the 1860s, because she didn't hold the same ideology and beliefs as her legalistic, Christian husband.) http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Packard
Elizabeth Packard came out on the other side better than I did, since she was set free from her oppressor by the courts, and retained the support of her children.  After reviewing her story, it is my opinion that the courts and religious systems have both regressed over the past 100 plus years.
Nothing, nothing prepared me for the horrors that tens of thousands of women, including myself, experience in America's family court system.  http://www.ncadv.org/files/Bonshea.php

"Most batterers know they can bring criminal and contempt charges at no expense to the abusers, but they take an enormous financial and emotional cost on their victims. The result is that many abusive men drag on the litigation and file spurious claims openly acknowledging they are trying to drive their victims onto welfare or into homelessness; half of all homeless women and children in the U.S. are homeless because of domestic violence. 

"When courts blame victims and fail to hold abusers accountable, they reinforce abuser behavior, subvert justice, disempower the victims, teach children that abusive behavior is permissible and may even be rewarded, and reinforce the cycle of violence.  - Joan Zorza, Esq.  Read Joan Zorza's entire article "Batterer Manipulation and Retaliation, Denial and Complexity in the Family Court" http://angelzfury.blogspot.com/.../batterer-manipulation-and-retaliation_14.html

"Today, the men as a body politic have power over women. They decide how women will suffer: which sadistic acts against the bodies of women will be construed to be 'normal.'" - Andrea Dworkin

Charles Pragnel, Child/Family advocate writes, "The law in the U.S.A. and its implementation by the Courts represents the will and the wishes of the people of America.

It is important therefore that every American is aware of what is happening in their name.
"Yet, while politicians are rightly condemning human rights abuses in foreign countries, they are blind to or are ignoring the human rights abuses of America’s children which are occurring daily in the Family Courts of America.
"These abuses of the Rights of children are their rights to be protected from abuse and exploitation and their right to have their views taken into account and given considerable weighting, when decisions are being taken regarding their future lives."

Mothers of Missing Children

I lost custody of my eight children, including my nursing infant, 14 years ago, per a court order signed by Judge Albin Norblad, http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/S48522.htm on March 10, 1996, in Polk County, Dallas, Oregon.  (See http://bonshea.com)
William Styron, in his book, Sophie's Choice, expresses some of my spiritual and emotional feelings concerning the loss of my children.  He writes, "What Sophie is forced to do is not a choice at all, but is instead a torture without rational foundation, and her experience permanently and irrevocably erodes her sanity and her ability to continue living."

A few summers ago, I watched the news of two missing boys http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2358844n who were found and returned to their families.  My heart was filled with gladness for the parents.  I wept while watching their reunion as I know and understand the anguish of losing a child. I thought about the "missing children in my life."  I have not had visitation privileges in 12 years or the right to send them gifts or correspond with them.  I know where they are and who they live with, but there are no search and rescue teams, police, sheriffs, FBI or other state, government agencies, church groups who care to assist the parent and child in reuniting.  

Society accepted the circumstances that I and thousands of mothers have been forced to survive as “normal."  Some of those who have deep legalistic religious persuasion http://www.bridgeportcommunitychapel.com believe that the cruelty and injustices I have experienced are God’s way of punishing me for seeking safety and divorcing my abusive ex husband, Mr. Marty Warner. 

One attorney informed me I would need one million dollars for attorney fees in order to ever have contact with my children again.  For the right to love and see my children, monies would be needed for legal fees due to my ex husband's legal stalking and ongoing battles in court. 

I realize I live in a very sick and twisted society and it hurts.  
I find it ironic that America is involved in two wars in the Middle East, and insists that they are improving the women's lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the hearts of tens of thousands of America's mothers are laying on the ground.

Children are Sacred Beings - Not Pawns to be Abused by Family Courts

By the time my children are young adults, the intense brainwashing and proselytizing that they have been subjected to has left its mark.  They do not want anything to do with me, the one who sought safety for them years ago.  I do not blame them for their feelings of indifference toward me.  Many children who live with their abusers suffer from Stockholm Syndrome http://web2.airmail.net/ktrig246/out_of_cave/sss.html.  Except for my older son, Aaron, I do not hear from any of my older children on Mother's Day or any other time of the year. 

Their pastors and school teachers have, unfortunately, encouraged their hatred and intolerance of me.  (Please listen to my mantra by Holly Near, I'm Not Afraid http://hollynear.com/media/mp3s/i.ain't.afraid.mp3
The price for my own safety and freedom was an imposed, unnatural and unwanted separation from my eight children.  The injustice committed against me is not just the physical separation from my children, but the willful desecration of the mother-child relationship and bond, a sacred spiritual and emotional entity.

Forcibly taking a mother's children, and then controlling her emotionally by withholding contact must be publicly recognized as one of the greatest forms of 'mis-use' of the American justice system and one of the the greatest hidden vehicles for wide-spread socially approved physical and emotional abuse and control.

Dr. Clarissa Estes writes, 'A culture that requires harm to one's soul in order to follow the culture's proscriptions is a very sick culture indeed.'  I think this is true.  By obeying the Order of the Court, I betrayed my soul, my children and myself.  I was forced to make a choice that no mother should ever be forced to make.

The last few years, I have found some comfort connecting with support groups i.e, Mothers of Lost Children http://mothers-of-lost-children.com ," Dr. Maureen Hannah, Chair for the Battered Mother's Custody Conference, http://www.batteredmotherscustodyconference.org/, Claudine Dombrowski,http://www.angelfury.org/, Stop Family Violence, http:stopfamilyviolence.org, and Liz Argate, Esq., http://thelizlibrary.org.

There are numerous excellent sites that promote healing, enlightenment and awareness of abuse and exploitation.  One of my favorites sites is Sanctuary for the Abused http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.com/   The internet is connecting many mothers who have been battered and abused in America's family court system.  Their voices are strong and loud.

Unless we speak out against the injustices in our society, we become accomplices to the individuals and institutions that are an obstacle to women and children's wholeness, safety and wellness.

Our judicial system is a product of the community we live in.  The courts represent the prevalent views regarding women and children in our communities.  Their judgments are a reflection of the patriarchal religious structure of this country today.  The judges are the instruments of the local community "seizing the moment of power" that has been given to them.  Although many people were appalled and shocked by the removal of my nursing baby per Court Order, the community stood by, watched and did nothing.

I hope and pray President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden will not only listen to us, but that they will hear us and take action. 

"Sentinent without action is the ruin of the soul." - Edward Abbey

A judge's signature on a white sheet of paper can be a shattering experience for an individual.  I believe judges in America will continue to use their absolute power until people wake up from their "huddled fear."  When society responds from a higher state of consciousness spiritually and emotionally, they will desire a justice system that uses emotional and intuitive energy. 

Until then, our judicial system is best described by the slogan, "America - where the criminal is protected and the victim harassed."

(1) Battered Mothers Take Custody Battles to White House

http://angelfury1212.livejournal.com/108640.html

Suggested reading:

Upon completion of writing this article, I received a beautiful Mother's Day gift in the mail.  Dr. Mo Therese Hannah sent me her newly published book she co-authored with Barry Goldstein, J.D., Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody:  Legal Strategies and Policy Issues, published by Civic Research Institute, Inc., Kingston, New Jersey, Copyright 2010, ISBN 1-887554-76-9

http://www.civicresearchinstitute.com/dvac.html

http://www.domesticviolenceabuseandchildcustody.com/#

“This comprehensive book is a gift to the cause of justice not only for victimized women and children but for anyone who cares about the integrity of law itself. The American legal system has for too long facilitated the very violence it purports to forbid, often allowing abusive men to use the courts to punish women and children who speak out against child sexual abuse and domestic violence. Mo Hannah and Barry Goldstein have created a desperately needed manual that will empower generations of victims to fight back.

My favorite section is the one that reminds us of the obvious: 'Therapy is Not the Answer' to violence. The stories of injustice in this book will shock you, and make you cry--but keep reading. Abusers are hoping you won't pay attention because it will be too painful.  Prove them wrong by reading this book again and again and again--and share it with everyone who needs to know the truth.” - Wendy Murphy, JD, New England Law-Boston; author of And Justice For Some

I met Dr. Mo Therese Hannah, my friend and fellow supporter, through the publication of Tim King's Mother's Day article on my life story, May 12, 2007.  Please read Dr. Hannah's review of BONSHEA:  Making Light of the Dark at http://amazon.com

Woman, Church and State:  A Historical Account of the Status of Woman Through the Christian Ages with Reminiscences of the Matriarchate by Matilda Joslyn Gage, 1893, reprinted by Arno Press Inc, 1972

"The scope, breadth, depth, and powerful, no-holdsbarred writing style make Woman, Church, and State my favorite book of all that I have reviewed. It has taken academia, and only the most radical, feminist pockets of academia at that, 100 years to catch up with Gage.  If this work was published today, it would be considered radical. As I read this work, I laughed, I cried, and I grew angry.

You cannot walk away from this work without having strong emotions - whether positive or negative, for good or bad, is for you to say. Many of the ideas that it contains are I at first considered too radical. But, often, after some reflection, I had to admit that she spoke the truth.

I urge everyone to read Gage's Woman, Church, and State in its entirety.  http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/gage/mjg.html

"Peace is Loud" - Pray the Devil Back to Hell http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxEvsj80fsE.

(1) NEWS ARTICLES at Salem-News.com on Coral Anika Theill's life and published book, BONSHEA.

May 12, 2007: Abuse Under the Watch of Oregon's Justice System - Tim King Salem-News.com

Nov. 28, 2007: Marital Rape and Abuse Victim Seeks Justice from Oregon Governor - Tim King Salem-News.com

Nov. 29, 2007: Welcome to Oregon: Land of Domestic Abuse Endorsement - Tim King Salem-News.com

May 30, 2008: What Abuse Survivors Expect from the Portland Crime Victims Conference - Tim King Salem-News.com

May 10, 2009: Oregon Should Consider Coral Theill on Mother's Day - Tim King Salem-News.com Feb. 26, 2010: "The Gift of Healing is Our Birthright - What an Advocate Looks Like" - Coral Anika Theill Special to Salem-News.com

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Coral Anika Theill, advocate and survivor is author of "BONSHEA: Making Light of the Dark."  Her book and articles have encouraged and inspired numerous trauma victims and wounded Marines/soldiers recovering from PTSD.

Coral's positive insights as a survivor have also earned the respect of clinical therapists, advocates, attorneys, professors and authors. Coral Theill believes a great deal of information exists for survivors. See: 'The Gift of Healing is Our Birthright - What an Advocate Looks Like' - Coral Anika Theill for Salem-News.com.

Coral Anika Theill’s published book, BONSHEA, has been used as a college text for nursing students at Linfield College. BONSHEA: Making Light of the Dark by Coral Anika Theill can be ordered at: iuniverse.com, barnesandnoble.com or amazon.com.  Read 12 five star reviews at:barnesandnoble.com  See published book website: http://bonshea.com Email Coral Theill at: coraltheill@hotmail.com

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The Myth of the "Battered Husband Syndrome

iled under Ending Men's Violence, Paper.

By Jack C. Straton, Ph.D.

The most recurrent backlash against women's safety is the myth that men are battered as often as women. Suzanne Steinmetz [1] created this myth with her 1977 study of 57 couples, in which four wives were seriously beaten but no husbands were beaten. By a convoluted thought process [2] she concluded that her finding of zero battered husbands implied that men just don't report abuse and therefore 250,000 American husbands [3] are battered each year by their wives[4], a figure that exploded to 12million in the subsequent media feeding frenzy [5].

Men have never before been shy in making their needs known, so it is peculiar that in 17 years, this supposedly huge contingent of "battered men" has never revealed itself in the flesh. Could it be that it simply does not exist? Indeed, a careful analysis of domestic violence, using everything from common experience to medical studies to U.S. National Crime Survey data, shows that only three [6]to four [7] percent of inter-spousal violence involves attacks on men by their female partners.

In the myth's latest incarnation, Katherine Dunn (The New Republic, 8/1/94) is unable to counter these hard scientific data so she turns to disputed sociological studies by Murray Straus and Richard Gelles [8,9] for "proof" that violence rates are almost equal. She first implies that these studies are unassailable by calling the authors "two of the most respected researchers in the field of domestic violence." Then she cynically attempts to undercut Straus' critics by labeling them as" advocacy groups." In fact Straus' critics are unimpeachable scientists of both genders, such as Emerson and Russell Dobash [10,11] and Edward Gondolf [12], who say his studies are bad science, with findings and conclusions that are contradictory, inconsistent, and unwarranted [13,14,15].

There are three major flaws in Straus' work. The first is that he used a set of questions that cannot discriminate between intent and effect [16]. This socalled Conflict Tactics Scale (or CTS) equates a woman pushing a man in self-defense to a man pushing a woman down the stairs [17]. It labels a mother as violent if she defends her daughter from the father's sexual molestation. It combines categories
such as "hitting" and "trying to hit" despite the important difference between them [18].

Because it looks at only one year, this study equates a single slap by a woman to a man's 15 year history of domestic terrorism. Even Steinmetz herself says the CTS studies ignore the difference between a slap that stings and a punch that causes permanent injury [19]. Indeed, after analyzing the results of the U.S. National Crime Surveys, sociologist Martin Schwartz concluded that 92% of those seeking medical care from a private physician for injuries received in a spousal assault are women [20]. The NCS study shows that one man is hospitalized for injuries received in a spousal assault for every 46 women hospitalized [21].

Even if we ignore all of the reviously mentioned flaws in Straus' CTS studies, they are bad science on a second set of grounds. Straus interviewed only one partner, but other studies [22,23] that independently interviewed both partners found that their accounts of the violence did not match. Also a study by Richard Gelles and John Harrop [24] using the CTS failed to find any difference in self-reporting of violence against children by step-parents versus birth-parents — in vivid contrast to the actual findings that a step-parent is up to 100 times more likely to assault a small child
than is a birth parent [25,26]. Any research technique that contains a 10,000 percent systematic error is totally unreliable.

In fact a third independent case can be made against Straus' study. It excluded incidents of violence that occur after separation and divorce, yet these account for 75.9 percent of spouse-on-spouse assaults, with a male perpetrator 93.3 percent of the time, according to the U.S. Department of Justice [27]. The Straus study relied on self-reports of violence by one member of each household, yet men who batter typically under-report their violence by 50 percent [28]. Finally, the CTS does not include sexual assault as a category although more women are raped by their husbands than beaten only [29]. Adjusting Straus' own statistics to include this reality makes the ratio of male to female spousal violence more than 16 to one.

Police and court records persistently indicate that women are 90 to 95 percent of the victims of reported assaults [30]. Promoters of the idea that women are just as abusive as men suggest that these results may be biased because the victims were selfreporting. But Schwartz's analysis of the1973-1982 U.S. National Crime Surveys shows that men who are assaulted by their spouses actually call the police more often than women who were assaulted by their spouses [31].

· In any case, criminal victimization surveyusing random national samples are free of any reporting bias. They give similar results
· The 1973-81 U.S. National Crime Survey, including over a million interviews, found that only 3 to 4 percent of marital assaults involved attacks on men by their female partners [32,33].
· The 1981 and 1987 Canadian surveys [34,35] found that the number of assaults of males was too low to provide reliable estimates.
· The 1982 and 1984 British surveys found that women accounted for all of the victims of marital assaults [36].

This is not to say that men are not harmed in our society, but most often men are harmed by other men. Eighty-seven percent of men murdered in the U.S. are killed by other men [37]. Those doing the killing in
every major and minor war in this and previous centuries have mostly been men! Instead of attempting to undercut services for the enormous number of women who are terrorized by their mates, those who claim to care for men had better address our real enemies; ourselves.

Of course we must have compassion for those relative few men who are harmed by their wives and partners, but it makes logical sense to focus our attention and work on the vast problem of male violence (96 percent of domestic violence) and not get side-tracked by the relatively tiny (4 percent)problem of male victimization. The biggest concern, though, is not the wasted effort on a false issue, it is the fact that batterers, like O.J. Simpson, who think they are the abused spouses are very dangerous during separation and divorce. In one study of spousal homicide, over half of the male defendants were separated from their victims [38]. Arming these men with warped statistics to fuel their already warped world view is unethical, irresponsible, and quite simply lethal.

References
[1] Suzanne Steinmetz, "The battered husband syndrome," Victimology 2, 499-509 (1978).
[2] Mildred Daley Pagelow's comprehensive history, "The 'battered husband syndrome': social problem or much ado about little," in Marital Violence, Norman Johnson,
ed., Sociological review Monograph 31 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1985), pp. 172-195.
[3] Suzanne Steinmetz, "Wife beating, husband beating – a comparison of the use of physical violence to resolve marital fights," in M. Roy (ed.), Battered Women, (Van
Nostrand Reinhold, New York,1977), p.33.
[4] Time Magazine, "The battered husbands," March 20, 1978, p. 69.
[5] G. Storch, "Claim of 12 million battered husbands takes a beating," Miami Herald, August 7,1978, p. 16.
[6] Deirdre A. Gaquin "Spouse abuse: data from the National Crime Survey," Victimology 2,632-643 (1977/78).
[7] Martin D. Schwartz, "Gender and injury in spousal assaults," Sociological Focus 20, 61-75(1987).
[8] M.A. Straus, R. J. Gelles, and S. Steinmetz, Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family, (Doubleday, 1980), p. 36.
[9] Murray A. Straus, Richard J. Gelles, J of Marriage and the Family 48, 465-479 (1986).
[10] R.E. Dobash and R.P. Dobash, "A context specific approach to researching violence," in N.Johnson (ed.), Marital Violence, Sociological review Monograph
(Newcastle, England, 1981).
[1]1 R. Emerson Dobash and Russell P. Dobash, "The Case of Wife Beating," J of Family Issues 2,439-470 (1981).
[12] Edward G. Gondolf, Social Work 32, 190 (1988).
[13] Elizabeth Pleck, Joseph H. Pleck, Marlyn Grossman, and Pauline B. Bart, Victimology 2, 680-684 (1978).
[14] M. Pagelow, "Double Victimization of battered women." Presented at the meeting of the American Society of Criminology, San Francisco, November, 1980.
[15] Daniel G. Saunders, "Other 'Truths' about Domestic Violence: A Reply to McNeely and Robinson-Simpson," Social Work 32, 179-183 (1988).
[16] P. Newton and G. Gildrnan, "Defining Domestic Violence: Violent Episode or Violent Act?" Paper presented at the American Sociological Association Conference,
Detroit, Illinois, 1983.
[17] Jann Jackson, Social Work 32, 189-190 (1988).
[18] Mildred Daley Pagelow, "The 'battered husband syndrome': social problem or much ado about little," in Marital Violence, Norman Johnson, ed., Sociological review
Monograph 31 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1985), pp. 172-195 (see p. 178).
[19] Suzanne K. Steinmetz, Am. J. of Psychotherapy 34, 334-350 (1980).
[20] Martin D. Schwartz, "Gender and injury in spousal assaults," Sociological Focus 20, 61-75 (1987).
[21] Daniel G. Saunders, "Other 'Truths' about Domes tic Violence: A Reply to McNeely and Robinson-Simpson," Social Work 32, 179-183 (1988).
[22] Maximiliane E. Szinovacz, "Using couple data as a methodological tool: The case of marital violence," Journal of Marriage and the Family 45, 633-644 (1983).
[23] Ernest N. Jouriles and K. Daniel O'Leary, "Interspousal reliability of marital violence," Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 53, 419-421 (1985), as
analyzed in R. Emerson Dobash, Russell P. Dobash, Margo Wilson, and Martin Daly, "The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence," Social Problems 39, 71-91 (1992).
[24] Richard J. Gelles and John W. Harrop, "The Risk of Abusive Violence Among Children with Nongenetic Caretakers," Family Relations 40, 78-83 (1991).
[25] Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, "Evolutionary Social Psychology and Family Homicide," Science 242, 5219-524 (1988).
[26] R. Emerson Dobash, Russell P. Dobash, Margo Wilson, and Martin Daly, "The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence," Social Problems 39, 71-91 (1992).
[27] U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Family Violence April 1984, p. 4.
[28] J. Edleson and M. Brygger, "Gender Differences in Reporting of Battering Incidences," Family Relations 35, 377-382 (1986).
[29] Diana E. H. Russell, Rape in Marriage (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 19990), p. 90.
[30] R. Emerson Dobash, Russell P. Dobash, Margo Wilson, and Martin Daly, "The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence," Social Problems 39, 71-91 (1992).
[31] Martin D. Schwartz, "Gender and injury in spousal assaults," Sociological Focus 20, 61-75 (1987).
[32] Deirdre A. Gaquin "Spouse abuse: data from the National Crime Survey," Victimology 2, 632-643 (1977/78).
[33] Martin D. Schwartz, "Gender and injury in spousal assaults," Sociological Focus 20, 61-75 (1987).
[34] Solicitor General of Canada, "Female victims of crime." Canadian Urban Victimization Survey Bulletin No. 4. (Programs Branch/Research and statistics Group, Ottawa, 1985).
[35] Vincent F. Sacco and Holly Johnson, Patterns of Criminal Victimization (Statistics Canada, Ottawa, 1990).
[36] A. Worrall and Ken Pease, Patterns in Criminal Homicide: Evidence from the 1982 British crime Survey (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1986).
[37] U.S. Department of Justice, Crime in the United States: Uniform Crime Reports, 1991, pp. 17.
[38] G.W. Bernard, H. Vera, M.I. Vera, and G. Newman, "Till Death Do Us Part: A Study of Spouse Murder," Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 10 (1982).

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