Sex, Lies, and Datatapes of the Partner Abuse Industry
By Carey Roberts (06/18/08)
The domestic violence industry is reeling from a recent series of high-profile scandals, leaving abuse workers to wonder how things could have possibly gone so wrong.
First the Sex.
Recently a woman described her stay at an abuse shelter. In shocking detail, she recounts how threats and bullying had become commonplace among the shelter residents. Once a resident punched her forearm, screaming at her, “bitch!” One night another woman assaulted her, injuring her back and forcing her to seek medical attention.
The woman also recounted lesbian advances by a shelter employee. “If you become her girlfriend, you will be treated very good, I was 100% sure,” the woman sheepishly explains. On another occasion she was referred to a local lesbian attorney whose fetching assistant was “dressed like she was in a nightclub.”
This is a video that has to be seen to be believed: www.vimeo.com/790290 .
Sexual harassment of women in abuse facilities is not uncommon. I have personally spoken with other women who were pressured by shelter workers to engage in lesbian sexual activity in return for better accommodations and special perks.
Now for the Lies.
Two weeks ago a Maryland-based think tank called RADAR put out a report detailing numerous half-truths and falsehoods from the American Bar Association. The distortions are found in a document called “10 Myths about Custody and Domestic Violence and How to Counter Them.”
A few of the claims are eyebrow-raisers, like the ABA’s pronouncement that children who witness domestic violence are more likely to get lung disease! That’s right doc, if your patient can’t breathe, it’s probably because he once witnessed abuse.
And some statements are preposterous, like the assertion that abusive parents win child custody 70% of the time. So if you want to get custody of your kids, just tell the judge you abused them!
That’s just for starters – RADAR compared the ABA’s 19 claims to the actual research and found only two of the 19 are true: www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-Myths-of-ABA-Commission-on-DV-Summary.pdf . Score one for the tin-foil hat crowd!
Ready for the Datatapes?
Family researchers Murray Straus and Katreena Scott recently released a report that documents how the domestic violence industry routinely hoodwinks the American public. “Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence” exposes all the tricks: falsifying research findings, blocking funding, and harassing researchers who cross the feminist party line: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V70%20version%20N3.pdf .
In one case professor Suzanne Steinmetz released a study that proved males and females are equally likely to perpetrate abuse: “Anger over this resulted in a bomb threat at her daughter’s wedding.”
Imagine a cabal of women threatening to blow up a white-dress bride on her wedding day – and in the name of stopping family violence!
Like a cancer that ravishes healthy cells, the corruption of the domestic violence industry is spreading to government agencies, as well.
In West Virginia, any domestic violence program that wants to receive government funding must have one-third of its staff certified by the state’s Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a group that rejects on ideological grounds the suggestion that men can ever be abuse victims.
So earlier this month a group called Men and Women Against Discrimination filed a discrimination lawsuit, charging the state “has unlawfully delegated the appropriation of public funds into the hands of a private entity, i.e., the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence.”
False allegations have become endemic, as well.
Last month former Olympic ice skater Oksana Grishuk accused James R. Halstead, a wealthy California investor, of dropping a date rape drug into her drink. Grishuk had won two gold medals for Russia in the 1990s.
The two had been involved in a lengthy romantic relationship. But when Halstead refused Grishuk’s request to tie the knot, she furtively slipped the pills in her drink.
The Orange County judge dismissed the case last Monday after it was reported she had demanded of her ex-boyfriend, “Can’t you find me a man with money who could take care of me?”
Lesbian advances, propaganda-like claims, fabrication of research, sex discrimination, and false allegations. All in a day’s work for the good ladies of the domestic violence industry.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Carey Roberts
