Legal Eagle posted an interesting piece on domestic violence recently. And the Daily Flute has had a hot debate over white ribbon day, which I've contributed to. So I feel it's my time to put something together on this, having had some experience in the area of domestic violence and criminal law.
Regular correspondent with Legal Eagle, Iain, wrote on his blog that:
Women who goad, nag and belittle their partners must accept some responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
Perhaps, for the sake of argument, you have something of a point Iain - if you're talking about conventional relationships, which can indeed become emotionally toxic, some of which become violent, usually superficially and briefly (a chair through a window, a high-heeled shoe thrown, etc). Most of these battles, however, are fought in and out of family courts, or in gossip circles. (at the same time, men are bigger and stronger than women, so there's still no excuse... but *sigh* anyway...read on...)
In my experience prosecuting (not extensive but very in-depth), and in teaching criminal law, cases of domestic violence are not conventional relationships, but ones of malignant violence and entrapment.
Sometimes the woman in the relationship has been beaten by a father or brother in childhood, so she already knows what violence means and how impossible it is to escape from. Either that, or she has been "caught" in the situation, by a man who promised everything and then began to frighten and terrorise the woman until she is completely unable to escape out of fear for her life. (Indeed, this fear is genuine - most of the women we studied were killed when they were trying to leave. This is why I don't believe in the learned helplessness of early battered women syndrome theories)
Often - almost always - the man in question is heavily into a cocktail of drugs and/or is an alcoholic, and the beatings happen during those sessions. Either that or they are seriously troubled and insanely stressed individuals. Often these men carry illegal weapons in the house, just to refer to occasionally, if the woman threatens to leave.
Women in these situations are not "nags". They are usually asking for common needs - to know when the man will be home, for money for the kids' excursions, etc. The man feels overwhelmingly ashamed of his incapacity to care for his family, but uses rage to deflect this "criticism", as he sees it... and takes it out on his partner. Beatings are usually accompanied by rapes. As the woman becomes more terrified, the welfare of her children become her primary focus. So she sets herself up between the child and her partner and gets pummeled.
Usually she tries to leave at least once, and is found. Some of the cases show men who travel all over the country, waiting outside parents' houses, cruising streets, looking for her. Just to "show her who's boss".
This isn't being a nag, Iain. Have a look at the AIC website for the statistics, and have a look at some of the cases. Tell some of my victims when I was prosecuting that they "have to take some responsibility" for this.
Heather Osland's history was a good example of what can happen - the facts of the case are compelling. Unfortunately, her case was argued badly (the High Court - mainly McHugh J - acknowledged this), and she ended up in jail for what she did, with the real legal points left behind.
I think ordinary, gentle men try to relate to these other men, but they can't. So they try to imagine what would make them so enraged to become that violent - and they imagine that the woman must have been extremely provocative. Sorry guys, but there's other stuff going on here. This is what White Ribbon Day is all about - telling men that this is not on. That they don't actually relate to their experience. That it's F*CKED UP to treat another human being like that.
Men who do this persistently defend themselves, way beyond comprehension. None of it was their fault, it was all her fault, it was because of the kids, it was because a job fell through, you know what it's like, etc, etc. It's the same with most violent criminals. So standing up and saying "no - you're the one at fault here" could be very powerful. I support it.
On the legal points (having taught crim I hope I've got a couple of accurate observations here) - yes, the provocation cases do have a couple of female ones, but they are all examples of self-defence as provocation, not overwhelming anger. The self-defence cases were about 50/50 successful. The anger cases are all men, and all but one that we studied were successful. And they all stemmed from an inability to cope with the independence of a woman from them, be they a woman who they stalked and hardly knew, or a woman they were married to for many years (eg the Ramage case).
The true tragedy of provocation is that the evidence of the accused that he was provoked simply cannot be contested. Usually the confrontations leading up to the killing happened in private, so there were no direct witnesses. And any other evidence to suggest that the man himself was frightening the victim is generally hearsay and inadmissible. It's one of those serious imbalances in the interaction of evidence law and criminal law. Julie Ramage's sister, Vicki Ramage, wrote about this devastating principle of law, and how the facts as accepted by the court were totally contrary to what her sister had told her, about her fears for her life.
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6 comments:
Very interesting post, Cherry! You made some great points there analysing provocation cases. You have a much greater knowledge of this area of the law than I do (practically and academically).
The way I read their arguments, I think that Iain and others would join with you and I in heartily condemning the conduct of men such as the ones you describe in your post.
The issue they had was that some of the people who were promoting WRD were using incorrect statistics and painting a picture in the media that most (if not all) men are violent. Further, they were ignoring cases of violence towards women by other women.
Although these criticisms have validity, I still think White Ribbon Day is a good idea, because I think it's more important to support women who are victims of men like the ones you describe than to get turned off by idiots who promote WRD.
I've been debating the issue at Oz Conservative. Someone even managed to ruffle my Eagle feathers. It's all good, though, because it makes me think about why I believe as I do, and how these issues should be resolved.
The blogger there, Mark, has a post on provocation too, which you may be interested in.
Hi Cherry
Thanks for not falling into the "Iain is defending /condoning domestic violence" line of thought I have specifically denounced it many times since I wrote my original post. As you surmise I was thinking more about the more common or garden verity domestic conflicts, which I would expect to seldom come to the attention of the law.
Perhaps that is a problem that WRD sets out to remedy but it seems to me that the fact that women’s groups instigate it s here (in Australia) explains the hyperbole from its proponents. They wish to show the ultimate extent of the problem; with cases like the one you refer to I am fortunate not to have seen such tragedy but I did see an example of extreme provocation that was resisted.
As you agree with my suggestions about the intergenerational repetition of such events I suspect that you have some sympathy for my view that the task to improve the way that men and women relate to each other is very important, I don’t think that I can change the world but I hope that my children learn by word and deed how to relate with the partners that they eventually choose (they are both very young). For those who are already tainted by their own child hood experiences it is more problematic. Sadly there is no easy answer. And in these cases I suspect that the sort of peer disapproval that WRD seeks to encourage would be totally ineffective. I am reminded that the road too hell is paved with good intentions.
So the natural question that comes to mind is what can be done in the more extreme cases that are cited as a justification for the WRD campaign? If I knew I could do the world a favor and share the solution but I do know that despite its good intentions that WRD is deeply flawed in its desire to demand collective responsibility upon all men for the abhorrent behavior of a very small minority. Some one else has pointed out that we rightly reject the idea of holding all Muslims responsible for the actions of the Jihadi terrorists. Yet the Feministas demand just such collective male responsibility on this issue.
My consistent claim in the case of domestic violence is that it is a human issue and not a gender issue and that it must be tackled on those terms. All of those that I have seen objecting to WRD have without exception denounced any type of domestic violence only to have to endure ad hominem slurs and suggestions that they support “wife bashing”.
Iain, make no mistake. I do not, and will never, agree with the statement that you made about responsibility for violence. The responsibility for any violence is wholly and solely with the person committing it. And if you look at the numbers, the overwhelming majority of violent crime - domestic or otherwise - is committed by men.
I'm glad, however, at your willingness to engage in a debate of ideas, unlike the bros at OzConservative, who appear to be in merry agreement that all women who are concerned about women are "feminazis/feministas" and worthy of hatred.
I might do a post soon about why I think feminism is important...after reading some scary blogs I think I need to.
I'm also impressed by your concern about domestic violence. I'd be interested to hear what you think can be done about it. White Ribbon Day is one idea - why can't we have a number of approaches?
Just one thing: I don't see anyone rejecting the position that Muslims should take responsibility for extremists - in fact I think this has been the dominant approach.
I just thought of a point about moral consistency of approach. How can I say WRD is fine, and Greenpeace is not fine, when in each case, idiots with misinformation do more harm than good when promoting the cause (see my post on climate change)?
The difference in my mind is that the official WRD site incorporates statistics from the ABS, whereas my experience with Greenpeace is that it doesn't particularly care whether the statistics or information it uses to promote its cause are correct or not. Referring back to my post on the issue of Greenpeace, from what my mother saw, the Greenpeace man was using Greenpeace-supplied material to explain that climate change caused tsunamis.
Further to my adventures at Oz Conservative, BobbyN and I are pretty much talking civilly and (somewhat) rationally now. I've got him to explain what his issues are, and raised my own in turn. As so often, when you dig into things, it turns out that there's more to agree on than disagree on. And hopefully I may convince BobbyN that not all feminists are feminazis who think all men are evil???
I look forward to seeing your post on the importance of feminism, Cherryripe! :-D
CR, your post isn't typical of feminist views on domestic violence because you are willing to share your observation that:
"Often - almost always - the man in question is heavily into a cocktail of drugs and/or is an alcoholic"
In other words, it is clear that you are not setting out to attack all men, or to ascribe domestic violence to normal patterns of heterosexuality.
I've posted a number of quotations at OzConservative from prominent feminists (both male and female) in which the claim is made that there is no difference between men who commit acts of violence and those that don't - that all men are equally responsible.
If the message, that men are to blame for all kinds of social evils, is repeated often enough it has the effect of alienating young men from their own society and from relationships with women.
I presume too that if young women are told often enough that they are at a high risk of attack from all categories of men, that they will not invest themselves emotionaly in relationships as readily as they might.
There is much, in other words, at stake in these debates about domestic violence.
http://boltwatch-watch.blogspot.com/2006/12/toxic-relationships-and-domenstic.html
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