The Current State of Domestic Violence Services
I am deeply concerned about what is happening with domestic violence services in the United States. There’s been an alarming increase over the past ten or so years in the number of women who are reporting bad experiences with programs to me and to people I work with. With the sharp rise in reports of domestic abuse in the country, lawyers such as Jarret Maillet (or someone in your vicinity) could prove to be crucial if the abused do decide to go legal.
To be fair, I don’t know how much these trends are also occurring in other countries; I hope that readers will comment about their observations around the world.
Today I’m going to write a summary of my key concerns. I’ll then follow up with another post offering more detail and, more importantly, proposing solutions to all of these problems.
I want to emphasize, before I dive into the core of this post, that there are domestic violence programs all over the country that continue to do a terrific job. Lawyers can help protect your rights in a conflict. Of course, if you are wrongly accused, there are more reasons to hire a New York domestic violence lawyer. Remember, you should always hire someone qualified and experienced to handle such cases.
Please keep these in mind as I discuss the worrisome direction in which services are moving. Be aware also that many of the changes I’m describing are actions that funding sources are now requiring programs to take, and that occasionally involve new laws that are requiring programs to take these actions. These restrictions can put programs in difficult positions as they try to figure out how to keep providing the services they believe in providing.
WHAT IS MOST DISTURBING ME IN OUR TIMES
The seven problems I describe below are ones that I have been encountering with mounting frequency and severity across the continent, beginning to be noticeable perhaps as much as ten years ago but becoming more so with each passing year.
1) Staff who are not adequately trained and informed
Women are reporting to me times when:
staff told her that she doesn’t need to worry about CPS trying to take her kids
staff failed to recognize key warning signs of a potentially lethal abuser as she told the history of his behavior
staff advised her to request that a Guardian ad Litem be appointed on her custody case (with predictably awful results)
staff recommended that she attempt to talk certain issues through with her abuser (!!)
and many, many other similar examples. Current training of staff in many locations is inadequate. I’m finding this especially likely to be true in places where the domestic violence services are being offered by an agency that was not created to serve abused women, but rather that decided later in its existence to add domestic violence services to what it already did.
2) Professionalization of staff
There are now typically specific educational requirements for program staff, such as a college degree or even, fairly commonly, a master’s degree. These standards may seem like a good thing on the surface, but they aren’t. These hoops have done nothing to strengthen the preparation of program staff; in fact, I’ve seen the problems with errors by staff increase over the years that these kinds of requirements have been spreading.
The issue is that there is nothing (yup, nothing) that you learn in college or graduate school that helps you be a better advocate for abused women. Schooling is almost entirely irrelevant. You need an extensive body of specialized knowledge that you can only get from studying domestic violence itself; and that means by being trained by a high-quality, knowledgeable program. And, even more, you need to view and treat abused women as your equals, approaching them with complete respect; and professional training makes you less likely to do this, not more so.
The actual effects of requiring the professionalization of the staff are: a) Making it much harder for survivors to get jobs as advocates — and survivors are our most valuable advocates; b) Leading hiring decisions to be made based on the wrong qualities in the applicant, c) Contributing to programs being staffed by personnel who consider themselves superior to abused women and who don’t understand what abused women are actually up against; d) Causing important divisions by social class, because abused women come from all classes but professionals are much more likely than other people to have grown up with privileges.
In short, the problems I described in #1 (and that I’m about to discuss in #3) are not in any way being helped by professionalization of the work; in many ways, they are being made worse by it.
3) Lack of respect for clients
I hear more and more cases where program staff are talking down to their clients, scolding them, dismissing their experiences (especially their bad experiences with other agencies or providers), and perpetuating myths about abused women. Battered women who flee to shelter often find a list of rules that they have to follow in the shelter that feel as restrictive as living with the abuser did.
Many programs are discouraging survivors from taking leadership, telling them that they aren’t ready to do public speaking about their case, or to help with a support group, or to go protest at the legislature. There is a failure to trust the judgment of survivors about what they’re ready to take on.
One of the deepest principles of the battered women’s movement was that abused women were to be viewed with respect and equality. They were to be seen as women who had experienced a particularly virulent form of oppression, and therefore needed support, options, concrete assistance, and a way to feel part of a movement of people who are fighting back against the system that feeds that oppression. This meant that abused women were to be considered the experts on their own circumstances and their own lives, and were to be assumed to be the only ones in a position to really know what they needed to do.
This original, liberating outlook, although it has not completely vanished from domestic violence work, has faded to a disturbing degree.
4) Huge problems being caused by the fact that the programs now also serve men
The most common problem that’s arising in this category is that abusers are running around to domestic violence agencies claiming that they are the victim, and then when the abused woman tries to get help from the program, the program informs her that they can’t help her because they are already serving him.
The fact that men can also be victims of domestic violence does not make it in any way a good idea for the same programs that serve female victims to also serve males, including any biological male even if he identifies as a female. Separate services — at separate agencies — need to be created for people in these categories in order to avoid the serious repercussions that are coming to abused women from current policies.
5) Defending turf
Some domestic violence programs appear to be more invested in defending their funding than in making sure that abused women are getting the support and services that they need. One of the sharp ways in which this comes out is to observe what happens when survivors decide to start their own independent support groups for abused women. Rather than domestic violence programs being eager to support these efforts by referring women to them and offering spaces where the groups can meet, they are often responding with criticism and superiority (“you aren’t qualified to do this”) and with turf-defending reactions (“you’re offering your group in an area that we already serve”).
We all know that we need far more services for abused women than currently exist (especially with the past 15 years of budget cuts), and that survivors can lead their own groups to great effect. Survivors and their allies who, for example, decide to create independent groups using the Nurtured Parent model (which is specific to domestic violence) and/or the Peak Living Network principles (which are not specific to domestic violence), should meet with full support from existing programs.
6) Failure to confront the custody court system
The greatest domestic violence nightmare of our times is what is being done to abused women and their children by the custody courts, which have become enthusiastic enablers and abettors of domestic abusers and of child sexual abusers. Thousands of women and children are having their lives destroyed by the deliberately oppressive conduct of the custody courts. Few domestic violence programs are speaking out publicly about these atrocities, and there aren’t even many who know what to advise women who are in custody litigation with abusers. Very little (close to none) of domestic violence funding is going to pay for lawyers for abused women who are threatened with loss of custody of their children to the abuser.
7) The disappearance of the battered women’s movement
The battered women’s movement was a powerful force in the United States from the late 1960’s through about the mid 1990’s. Since that time the movement has lost its activist force and been gradually replaced by a huge social service delivery system, in the form of the modern domestic violence programs. Importantly, these programs are no longer referred to as battered women’s programs or abused women’s programs; they’re just called “domestic violence programs.” The de-genderizing of domestic violence work also represents the de-politicizing of domestic violence work, in other words the end of the abused women’s movement.
The results of the loss of this movement are disastrous. The language of human rights and women’s liberation has almost vanished from domestic violence work. Arrests of battered women are skyrocketing across the country over the past five or more years, and there is no well-organized movement to stop police from doing this, so it’s just continuing to balloon. No national organized force is challenging the corruption in the custody courts (though many amazing groups and individuals are doing what they can in fighting in their own areas, and they certainly keep striving to build a national movement).
One of the highest priorities of current work is to bring the social movement aspect of our work back to life.
WHAT I’VE JUST SAID IS GOING TO MAKE SOME PEOPLE MAD
I know that what I’ve written here is going to upset many people, and they’ll be angry at me for putting these concerns out there. But we can’t solve a problem that we aren’t facing. Besides, it’s been my deep commitment for over 30 years to listen to abused women carefully and believe what they’re telling me; the listening and believing that I’ve done is the reason for the success and impact of Why Does He Do That?. I’m not going to be silent now about what dozens and dozens of abused women across the continent are reporting to me.
I have the utmost admiration and respect for the women and male allies who work in the domestic violence programs with commitment, respect, and determination. But that can’t be a reason to not talk about all the opposing trends happening within domestic violence work.
I’ll follow this post up soon with some further comments regarding the above seven concerns, and then a bunch of proposed solutions for where we go from here. Please join this discussion by commenting, we need this to become a large dialogue.
Photo credits in order from top:
Photo by Baim Hanif on Unsplash
Photo by Trung Thanh on Unsplash
Photo by Leighann Renee on Unsplash
Photo by Loren Joseph on Unsplash
Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash
Lundy Bancroft’s new book is The Joyous Recovery: A New Approach to Emotional Healing and Wellness, published this past May.
Wow, this is eye-opening, thank you. A couple problems I have run into are: 1. my children were offered counseling but the counselor is not available much, so it is minimal help, 2. the legal aid staff used to be very helpful, but the new staff refuses to help because I have hired an attorney (my ex has spent $120K over 2.5 years in attorneys fees on his “side”, I HAVE to have good representation). The issue is that attorneys are rarely truly educated in DV, and denying advise just because a woman has hired an attorney is very disheartening and frustrating. I know the person has information that can help keep my children safe, but she refuses to help.
I was contacted several times by the DV advocate from my local police Dept because of the numerous calls to our house for my husband’s actions towards me. She said I needed to get out of my marriage to protect myself and my daughter. The last time my ex assaulted me in front of my 2 yo daughter he was arrested because of visible injuries this time. I immediately moved. The DV advocate reported it to DCFS and I was investigated for neglect of my daughter! In court, I was screamed at by my ex’s criminal defense attorney and the judge, states atty and DV advocate did nothing to stop it. I was in tears and shaking by the end. I was denied an OP. Eventually I didn’t follow through on the charges because I couldn’t stand being abused further in court. During our divorce, the first DCFS investigator lied on the stand about me moving out of my home immediately. It was proven right then and there by emails between me and him. Nothing was done to him for blatant perjury. Then my daughter disclosed sexual abuse by her father when she was 3. DCFS investigated and after talking to my ex’s divorce atty it was unfounded and believed to be a means for me to get custody. Even though the DCFS assigned therapist who did the abuse asessment for DCFS confirmed the abuse. Custody evaluator who I was ordered to pay half of $32000.00 (when I was unemployed) in my case who is a psychiatrist never reported 2 more disclosures by my daughter who was then 4 yo. She did put it in her report to the court who ignored it. My ex was given custody of our daughter and I am forced to live only a few miles from him in order to have my visitation. He has total control over where I live and even who I date. I ended up filing bankruptcy for nearly $200,000. Because I filed bankruptcy the judge then awarded all money to my ex and I now have to pay the taxes on that money of nearly $10,000 and I also have to pay the remainder of the GALs fees. I lost everything I owned and now live with friends because I can’t afford the rent in the city my ex lives in. My ex is still abusing my daughter and I was threatened that I would lose my parenting time if any more allegations are made by anyone, including my daughter. I have lost all ability to protect my daughter. I have lost all faith in the entire system and humanity as a whole. I exist day to day just to see my daughter and nothing more. I simply exist and no longer live.
This is one of the worst experiences I can imagine. I’m deeply sorry you have been marginalised and abused so greatly by the services system which continues to prop up your ex-partner’s power and control over you. This is appalling treatment of victims like you and your daughter. Sending love and strength to you.
Validation!
Without going into details typing on my cell phone, I will just say, my experience with abused woman’s services in Bucks County Pennsylvania was awful.
I felt that these organization are a front for collecting funded money only ;actual help was non-existent. I did all the leg work, research in the law library, crying, scared to death & fighting the extortion from lawyers
ALONE
Eugenia!
This is a long shot but I’m hoping for some reason you see this comment three years later. I’m nearby in Delaware County where I was unfortunate enough to have moved with my abuser in late 2019, right before the hammer of Shelter In Place came down and stripped me of the ability to escape. I had skirted death narrowly by the time society reopened a year and a half later… so when I finally got someone on the phone at legal aid I felt like I’d been saved.
In reality I was rushed into a courtroom with a lawyer who may as well have been working for my abuser. She scared me out of testifying to the felonies committed against my body, and tricked me into signing a PO that waived all my rights. Unbeknownst to me it relieved my abuser of legal responsibility for the lease on HIS OWN HOME that Im still, and perhaps moreso now, trapped inside. His debt to the landlord was absolved and placed in my name… So the second I left that courthouse thinking I was free it was I instead of he who’d become a criminal.
Less than 24 hours later, with my protection order in hand, I had to let him into the house to get his things. The police escorts I was promised were simply not there and when I called my representation they said that nobody was available on short notice.
So I locked myself in a room for 9 hours while he legally terrorized me, breaking furniture against the door I’d barricaded myself behind. From the window I watched as two and then three cops parked outside the bodega eating sandwiches, playing scratch tickets. When the noise subsided and I saw the moving van pull away I emerged to find an empty house strewn with dirt, garbage, and broken glass. My medications and family photos crushed up in the sink and covered in food.
The following week I was served an eviction notice- for the house Id sought help escaping from. At this point I still had no idea what was written into the PO (and didn’t fully understand the wording or the magnitude of what I’d signed until months later). I called legal aid and they said my case had been closed. My petition for protection had been ‘successful’. I’d have to reapply for eviction help.
My new county appointed eviction lawyer refused to hear my story and said I was lucky to not be homeless. I asked for help in getting a relocation grant but was told the best they could do was rental assistance where I am. I received 3 months of future rent paid directly to the landlord- who applied it to my ex’s old debt. So I’m back on the eve of another eviction, mentally and financially ruined. Not by the act of abuse itself but by the crooked deceitful programs masquerading as protection from it.
Anyway wanted to share this with you and say you’re not alone in being failed by the PA county programs. I wish I knew where to find you so we could put our heads together. So sorry we have this in common but I’m comforted you’re out there ❤️
This is true. All of the above. What I also find troubling is the organization I dealt with in the past failed to recognize that emotional and mental abuse IS abuse. And this very same organization, from what I hear, represented a man with legal services when it was, in fact, that woman who needed assistance. That makes my stomach turn. This organization also provides services FOR men who are/were abusers. I understand the point, but it is unacceptable. Period.
They refuse to recognize that non-physical abuse is abuse. I have PTSD from my non-physical abuser and rapist and he is trying to take my children as well. I was denied services by our local DV legal help group and they refused to tell me why. Just ghosted me.
CPS frequently asks me if I’ve tried to speak to my ex husband about an abusive incident when I call to report it.
Really? Since when has it been efficacious or advisable for a woman to confront a man who has just punched their child? And what is she supposed to talk to him about that she hasn’t already said?
If I had been successful in talking him out of his penchant for hitting, kicking, knocking down, or shoving our kids around, we wouldn’t be divorced and he wouldn’t have been arrested once and investigated repeatedly for the past 8 years.
So no, I didn’t “talk to him!!!”
You have heard my story, tried repeatedly to help me, and provided me the sanity saver of a safe advocate. Do you already know my local services has been almost s caricature of your criticisms. I wish I had something positive to add. I simply know that this town has an abysmal track record from DV services to law enforcement to prosecutor’s office to family court. And the lack of robust and safe advocacy services is at the center of the failings here. It has destroyed mine and my children’s lives. It started with my abuser and rapist conning the shelter into providing him services and helping him target me. And it has only been when the fourth child went suicidal that anyone has even considered re-examining the situation and listening to us. Unfortunately my children are done speaking, most of them completely cut off from me and unable to even remember how much I love them under the control of our abuser.
In addition, I have found that domestic violence organizations only serve low income individuals or those on government assistance. If you are working, earn a decent wage or your family income is higher than The poverty level there is NO help. I’ve been told by the director of my local women’s shelter that they assume those women have the resources to pay for their own counseling or they can go to their local church for help. Where does a professional, working woman go to participate in a battered women’s group with other women who can identify with her story. We make triple digit income and I’m ostracized when I share my struggles (abuse in every form) in the DV center groups. My struggles are real but I get no support. I’m out safely now, not yet divorced but I have the funds to donate to DV organization. I won’t do it now that I’ve seen what goes on inside them.
100% correct observation! In my county, they turn their noses up at you if you are not on government assistance or not a minority. It is classic exclusion! Like we don’t need support and we can hire our own support.
Problem lies when you have been controlled and manipulated to depend 100% on your husband/stbx’s income b/c he manipulated your life, to become dependent on him. So strategic was his plan that you are stuck! You have No resources, no income and no job. You’ve been a stay at home parent homeschooling your kids and you have been unemployed for 20 years…Who’s going to hire me? Ok…I’ll make $12hr and work 2 jobs for 60 hours a week, being 61 years old and kill myself doing it!!
The system is broken and men/husbands have objectified women way too long!
Time for a paradigm shift … because this domestic violence issue, is now an epidemic!
Agreed. I have found this too and it’s disheartening. I reached out to the local DV shelter and was shamed for spending money on a profiler and private investigator. When my ex showed up unexpectedly in my town (from another country!!!), I called them immediately for assistance. My mother asked the DV advocate, “Should we hire a PI?” She shrugged, and said, “We don’t usually work with people who have money.” What I needed her to say was: “Yes. Do anything and everything you can, etc., etc.”
Additionally, wealthy, working women aren’t necessary going to go to a government-funded “shelter” for services. There is a gap here and I would like to help these women. DV doesn’t discriminate.
Yes! This was my experience too. I made good money but I couldn’t access any of it to get out without tipping off the abuser since we shared finances. I couldn’t even get anyone to just tell me some basic information or point me to support groups because I made too much. I took a lot of time off work to try to get some information since that was the only time I didn’t have to account for with my ex. Only to get no where. I was so lucky I found an online group to help me through it or I probably wouldn’t have left.
Spot on!!!!!
Yes, women desperately need access to good knowledgeable legal advice (even if it’s just knowledgeable advice & not actual representation) before, during & after court whether they have a private attorney or need help being pro se. And desperately need help & support navigating to obtain restraining orders.
In general services in NJ were atrocious w exception of one organization, which no longer offers all of the services previously offered due to changes in staff.
New location, much better (not listing location bec I’m also a stalking victim – please, please bring awareness for the need for resources for the stalking aspect of DV).
Danielle, I’m so sorry to see this comment. It is a comment I could have left 40 years ago. Surely, we can do better in this field if women are stuck in first gear on domestic violence reform. Sad! (for real)
Thank you for everything you have written here. As a survivor of DV, I have worked solo, tirelessly for 15 years to bring awareness to domestic violence. I have thought about getting a degree, but it didn’t feel right. I totally bond with the victims I work with, not because I read about it in a book, but because I have lived it.
Thankfully, our area has a wonderful shelter, which I sat on the board of last year. (I had to leave for a bit for personal reasons, but I will go back to serve again.) They have embraced me and supported me and have even included me in trainings. But the hoops they have to jump thru, the red tape they have to deal with, the insane amount of paperwork…all of that takes away from serving victims. Having said that, I attended the PCADV (I live in PA – that’s the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic violence) conference last year and was deeply disappointed. I heard more about funding, government regulations, and people identifying as something they aren’t more than I heard about victims amd how to help them. When other advocates found out that I serve the victim first, don’t answer to anyone how I spend my money, don’t spend hours doing senseless government paperwork…every last one of them were envious. They just want to help victims and raise awareness. And they spend most of their filling out forms and writing grants.
Our local shelter had to do major, expensive renovations to accept male victims by July 1st. Even though for years, they have put them up in a motel, fed them, counseled them and did exact what they did for women victims, just under a different roof, the shelter was told (by the PCADV) it was discrimination to not allow men in the shelter. So now, women who have been terrorized by men, and men who have been terrorized by women, have to shelter together.
There are good people trying to help victims, but you are so right that those of us who have walked thru the fire are the ones most qualified to listen, comfort and support the victims.
Thank you for all you do!
Pam Lambert
DV Awareness Advocate
Author: Knight in Tarnished Armor
This is really upsetting, as an outsider (neither a professional nor a victim) I had no idea. Especially upsetting for me is the news about the PCADV as I’m in Pennsylvania and donate regularly to a local shelter.
How can outsiders find out who is really worthy of our support?
I also donate to Vancouver Rape Relief, I hope my confidence isn’t misplaced.
trans women are women. calling them biological males and saying they need a separate facility is transphobic af. i agreed with your comment about lack of training and you proved your own point there – you need more training here.
If trans women are women, then what is a woman? Your definition of woman clearly isn’t ‘an adult human female’, so what is it?
forgot to write this, if a mod wants to add it to my previous comment instead of posting this one as well, go ahead:
Saying transwomen are biological males is truth. It is not bigotry to state a fact. The fact that you think it’s bigotry shows how ridiculous your ideology is.
I agree 100% with Minty.
People of the female sex are women.
Transwomen are transwomen. Transmen are transmen.
>what is a woman
“For the category of sex is the category that sticks to women, for only they cannot be conceived of outside of it.”
(Wittig, The Category of Sex, pg 7)
“Fifty-four percent (54%) of those who were out or perceived as transgender in K–12 were verbally harassed, nearly one-quarter (24%) were physically attacked, and 13% were sexually assaulted in K–12 because of being transgender. ”
( https://www.transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS%20Full%20Report%20-%20FINAL%201.6.17.pdf )
“woman” is a social category that we don’t choose to be in. we’re socialized female based on our oppressors’ perception of our behaviors. how we can be exploited, hurt and abused. trans women aren’t free of this socialization because wanting to be a woman – to say “woman is wonderful” – is very much an outcome of female socialization.
>saying trans women are biological males is truth
its not. trans women are biologically distinct from both males and females, because males don’t normally have estrogen running through their bodies and block testosterone. they also don’t normally undergo SRS, FFS, laser, etc..
biologically, “trans women” aren’t a coherent category unless you want to specifically group them by whether or not they’ve begun HRT, and possibly other medical interventions as well.
Trans women are women. I agree 100%. But I also agree with Bancroft here in that there need to be separate services based on the victim’s gender self-identification. And I really hope when he explains himself that he is NOT coming from a TERF perspective, but a pragmatic one, like I am trying to.
Do we think abusers– who already very often claim to be the victim in all circumstances and do everything possible to maintain power and control– aren’t going to lie and claim to identify as trans when they really don’t identify that way? In order to access their victim in a shelter, to create a conflict and prevent the victim from receiving local services, to prevent their victim from receiving shelter, etc.? These are problems agencies serving “both” or ALL genders ALREADY experience and have done nothing to fix.
A women’s shelter inclusionary to trans folx is susceptible to the same or similar issues– we’re definitely NOT gonna have an “are you trans enough?” form for intakes, so how do you screen for abusers trying to get into or work the system? This is part of the all-gender-inclusive-agencies issue Bancroft is talking about in this post, specifically re: the problems in agencies providing services for both cismales and (all) women.
What about the high rates of prevalence of violence against trans women by cis people? I know many trans women who would NOT feel safe staying in a dormitory or shared bathroom setting with a bunch of cis women strangers due to their past experiences. We can’t have these conversations and discussions about the best services for ALL women if everyone just starts screeching PUT THEM WITH THE CIS LADIES every time the topic of appropriate and holistic services arises. We need to discuss appropriate and holistic services for all women and what those services specifically look like depends on each woman’s physical/emotional/cultural needs, ability or disability, individual comfort level, etc., etc.
The answer to all this is NOT “good luck, trans friends, we can’t serve you.” Of course not. In fact, these services already exist for nonbinary people and we need to bolster them. Services specifically for women who are trans and men who are trans, or perhaps policies that support trans victims that are less susceptible to abuser exploitation, like agency paid hotel rooms & meals, etc.
I don’t know the right answer and I don’t have any bright ideas. But we do need to talk about it.
Agree with Rhi very much. Trans women are women, and providing facilities and programs specifically for trans women is important because – as is evident in the comments here – they are likely to face transphobia in women’s programs and facilities, and trans people need support that’s relatable to their experience. There is actually a higher risk of abuse and murder for trans women than for cis women. And a lot of that violence stems from the myth that they are men in disguise.
Nope. They are MEN, and have the same rates of violence that all other men have.
Nope. They are MEN, and no matter HOW MANY TIMES you repeat that idiotic mantra, it will NEVER be true.
/r/gendercritical
/r/thisneverhappens
The fact that you’re willing to sacrifice the safety and well being of women in order to defend the lie that “trans women are women” makes you a pretty awful human being. Trans women are male bodied people living as women. That’s the reality, not matter how loudly you chant. And the facts, the evidence as listed in Mr Bancrofts post, indicate that WOMEN need separate shelters. Shame if it hurts some people’s feelings, but womens’ lives are more important than anyone’s feelings. Why don’t you care about women?
I would just like to state my personal feelings that a trans woman being counseled under the same roof as I am is not something I take issue with, although I DO think her experiences require unique insight and awareness as to what she’s facing versus what I’m facing. She will have a set of traumas and experiences unique to her, regardless of the side effects of those traumas being potentially similar. I am far more enraged that men who identify as such, and often hold viewpoints that are not only sexist and a danger to me, but also potentially anyone in the LGBTQP community who would be served alongside those men, are being served and accommodated under the same roof I am!!! Just walking into a DV or an abuse-related facility designed for men could potentially put a trans woman at great risk of being harmed by abusive and violent men whose mindsets might be very closed off to begin with! I’m not afraid of a trans woman, I AM afraid when I walk into a facility designed to help me with my abuse from men and see a beefed up obviously emotionally hyped man pacing around in the waiting room, with no receptionist or security guard in the room, while I anxiously wait to get inside to the therapy session I’m there for!!! Why would I think he was a straight male I don’t trust!?!?! Because the facility I went to also counseled my boyfriend to help him support me (I will make a separate comment concerning that aspect)!! How many abusive husbands and boyfriends were also were being given therapy as well? Why would I be concerned about a trans woman being counseled alongside me in the face of THAT!?!?!? In fact, I’d be worried for HER safety too!!! And in that facility I went to, how long would it take for that potentially hyped up aggressive and abusive male to choke me out within the 10 minutes I spent waiting for a therapist to come and get me with no receptionist or guard nearby!?!? I personally feel that in the same way we would ask any group under oppression for their own input, we should do the same for each of the LGBTQP categories within their community as a whole!!!
Trans women and real women have nothing in common.
Trans women retain male strength, male bodies, male sex organs, and most importantly male pattern criminality and male sexuality, including autogynephilia.
Nothing about them is female and they should stay the hell away from services for women.
I love transwomen and actively loathe transphobia. But it is bullshit calling this transphobia, and in the end does nothing but destroy alliances on the side of justice. Transphobia is the oppression of a marginalized group. This is another marginalized group (women), who respects, values and relates with the oppression of transwomen… asserting their right as equals to define what safety means for themselves. And with comments like yours- being told, once again, they don’t have the right to do so. It is bull effing loney using the plight of one group to justify the continued oppression of another. And let me ask you this- if cis women attempted to speak on behalf of transwomen- and demanded inclusion in rare and long overdue safe spaces that (even some) transwomen felt no longer safe in because of it – would that be ok? Because if transwomen are women then aren’t women transwomen?? And by your argument justified in ignoring the boundaries of (actual) trans people who have a right to decide for themselves what safety means?
yes ive noticed and witness this in canada also
Thank you for validating my experience. I was disappointed and frustrated at the lack of experience and knowledge of the staff and counselors at my local center for abused women. Their lack of understanding of emotional, psychological abuse and manipulation and the effects of this “emotional terrorism” on my disabled child and myself were stunning. The counselors’ lack of respect for me and my experience, victim-blaming and lack of knowledge in understanding the barriers I faced in protecting myself and my child and providing any kind of resources and strategies needed led to more confusion, trauma and re-victimization. The center seemed to have a “formula” to which a white, upper middle class woman with a non-verbal handicapped child who had no physical marks did not seem to fit. They did not know how to address my situation nor have the interest in trying.
For a DV survivor who is now trying to get a degree in order to work with women and children, your article is sobering and sadly very apt. After completing a unit on violence against women I was invited to train to advocate for a local service provider. However, they have changed their policy to service men and actively push the gender identity cause. The units I am studying at uni are no longer feminist; gender identity theory is now central to the curriculum and everything is labeled ‘gender studies’. In criminology, working with offenders in a restorative practice framework is central to the coursework and to my disappointment and disgust, aspects of victims rights are ignored, the vulnerable position of women and children in programs, such as mediation rather than prosecution, is promoted. This means a return to a ‘family problem’ model of domestic violence and child abuse rather than a feminist one which addresses male violence and inequality. In Tasmania,we currently have law activists seeking to decriminalise sex crimes against children in favor of treatment and this is presented as a just alternative to retributive justice! I feel so disgusted by all this I think I would rather drop out and get a volunteer position in a women’s support service, but will it still actually cater for women or be dedicated to ‘gender equality’?
Saying a friend’s son in law, who was following her around screaming and yelling at her endlessly, was not domestic abuse because they had never had a ‘romantic relationship’ and screaming and threatening was not violence. Seriously. They said that.
I have been appalled at the Family Court System and lack of comprehension of the GALs in in an ongoing case involving a child threatening to commit suicide rather than have visitation with her father. The focus has been totally to protect the parental rights of the father. What can be done to fully inform these key players whose main focus should be Safety of a Child, so that ongoing psychological abuse is not ignored?
The situation you describe also applies to Australia
Yep. Australia is horrible with domestic violence – it’s an epidemic there.
Yes…DV is an epidemic in Australia and the courts favor men. I know from experience marrying an Australian. NIGHTMARE! When I told everyone, the reaction I got was, “Oh, yes, Australian men are known for that.”
“The most common problem that’s arising in this category is that abusers are running around to domestic violence agencies claiming that they are the victim, and then when the abused woman tries to get help from the program, the program informs her that they can’t help her because they are already serving him.”
This is EXACTLY what the only DV service in my city did to me. Even after they realised we were both in contact with them and that he had been violently abusing the kids and me, while at the same time claiming he was a victim of “emotional abuse” (ie the bastard didn’t like being told to stop beating the kids and me, because telling him he can’t do something is “emotional abuse”) and despite that, they helped him snatch my then 3 year old daughter and hide with her, and even when I rang them up frantic thinking he’d killed her, did they mention they were helping him and had seen my daughter and she was “safe” in a hotel paid for by them? no, they just said they couldn’t help as he is her father so there is nothing that could be done. I mean FFS, if they hadn’t been helping him, they’d have at least told me about options for recovery orders etc.
They helped a violent abuser snatch a battered 3 year old from the battered mother trying to stop a little girl from being further abused. They also tried to help him kidnap (and I mean actual criminal kidnapping) my older daughter who he has no legal right to as he is not her father, AGAINST HER WILL. i mean seriously, what kind of messed up “DV” servie helps a 35 year old man try to kidnap a 15 year old girl who is not his child knowing full well he intends to take her 1200km across two state borders and hide her away from both of her biological parents when he has no legal relationship to her and is not her biological family (just the father of her half sister which is not legally or biologically related). against her wishes!!!! They knew the relationship (or lack thereof) between my ex and my older daughter and yet they helped him for weeks in advance plan the attempted kidnapping of my older daughter and the actual snatching of my younger daughter. All of this while I kept reporting to them about his assaults of me and verbal abuse of the kids (I didn’t dare tell them about the physical abuse of the kids because I know they only take away children from mothers who ask for help to flee abusers who are abusing the kids). They claim it happened because they don’t cross reference people who contact them with other people who contact them UNLESS THERE IS POLICE OR CHILD PROTECTION INVOLVEMENT. The thing is, there WAS both police and child protection involvement and they DID cross reference our files – and how do I know this? because their records were subpoenaed for family court, and the subpoenaed records showed that when they had cross referenced our files, they accidentally put some of my info in his file and some of his info in my file – precisely how I found out that they’d been involved in the snatching of my younger daughter and attempted kidnapping of my older daughter – because they’d documented it in MY file. So for them to try to use lack of cross referencing as an excuse as to why they helped him (and didn’t help me and the kids to flee the beatings despite begging for their help over and over I will add – despite me having genuine safety fears), their files show they DID cross reference our files, so why the hell did they help him???
My little girl has been trapped and abused ever since then – two and a half years now. She continues to report the abuse and no one listens. Because why would they? A DV service helped him snatch her the day after we separated so that means he must be a nice guy right????
And when their wrongdoing was pointed out, they did withdraw from helping him, but they also withdrew from even pretending to offer my children and I support. They are the ONLY DV service here in a city of half a million people. I cannot get any support to try to rescue my battered little girl. We’re before a family court judge who has actually ruled he will NOT look at the evidence of child abuse or family violence – he ruled that I’m not even allowed to submit it into evidence in any way, shape or form – and then ripped into me for not proving the abuse. But how does one prove the abuse when forbidden from putting in any evidence of it?
And then people wonder why I’m angry. My little girl who had barely spent any time away from me was suddenly torn from me (and I mean her father literally tore her from my arms at daycare in front of all her classmates the day he disappeared with her). For the first 10 days, I really thought he’d killed her because of the escalating violence and bizarre behaviours, and then to find out a few months later that the same DV service who had constantly told me they didn’t have the funding to help me leave the violence (for more than a year I’d been begging!) and the only option was a referral to homelessness services where I’d have to be actually homeless for a month before getting into a refuge, with child protection saying that if we were homeless, they’d take the kids THAT DAY and put them in foster care, inform my ex THAT DAY, and they would not oppose him taking the kids out of foster care, meaning if I escaped with the kids, I would be homeless and the kids would be forced back into his hands within 24 hours of me leaving. And yet when we separated due to HIS violence, they put him up in a hotel at their expense and helped him snatch my younger daughter and attempt multiple times to kidnap my older daughter over the next few days. This is an abuser who had all our money – all our savings in his name only, all our assets in his name only, he’d just spent nearly the entirety of my monthly pay from my low paid part time job (I’d only just been paid 3 days earlier) and with their help, he got PAID domestic violence leave from his job for the few days he took off to smuggle her out of state and hide her with extended family. It’s been two and a half years since then, my older daughter and I hardly see her, she begs to come home to me (even though my ex used taking my little girl to force me out of the family home, and my little girl is hardly here, my little girl considers the new place I’m staying in to be her actual home), she’s reported assaults, but the judge in our family case won’t even look at the evidence of abuse.
If the DV service had done their job, my little girl wouldn’t be in this situation. A simple “sorry we screwed up and we’ll help make this right” would be enough for me. Or even just a “we’ll put measures in place to make sure this never happens to another battered child and mother ever again”… but they won’t even do that. It’s not a matter of liability – their records were subpoenaed so it’s on the record what they did. Saying sorry, they’ll make it right or just make sure it doesn’t happen to others won’t make them more liable. But they just won’t do anything to help even to make sure it doesn’t happen to other DV victims.
And yet still people wonder why battered women feel angry when this is what they face???
Lundy: This is a good article, but you have completely missed the role that intersectional feminism plays in addressing the social side of abuse. You are looking into the past hole of where things were but missing the future of where they are going. Feminism is not dead, it has evolved and we cannot go back to what was instead of going forward to what will be. We need to uplift all marginalized people and this is not about degendering violence, it is about making all intersections of violence places where the powerful can no longer hide.
Intersectional feminism is not about including males in feminism, or women’s shelters. It was never the job of women to uplift men, even marginalized ones. If you are saying “All lives matter”, you ARE degendering domestic violence and ignoring that it’s mostly male on female crime.
Feminism is for females (that is, girls and women), not men in dresses who claim to have a “female brain”.
“Intersectional” refers to the intersection of sex and race, and has ZERO to do with males.
Hi Jenny
The point of intersectional feminism was a term coined by a Black woman to properly address the ‘intersecting’ ways different forms of oppression compound in Black women’s lives in such a way you can’t detach them and creates issues. Its not short hand for being inclusive and it has very little to do with the largely white trans population people tend to use this term for when they invoke it.
Regardless what trans women are and aren’t, a professional that has devoted his life to domestic violence is pointing the material consequences happening right nkw about how these ideas are simply not working . Not paying attention to what is being flagged is willful neglecance at best.
It’s not working for women or serving trans women There’s no point building a house and being more proud of the blue print than the fact when you follow these blue prints through, the house you built collapses on the heads of the people it’s supposed to keep warm and safe and that’s what’s happening. A house that can’t stand on its legs isn’t worth building or propping up
What’s the point of being inclusive if the experiences of those groups are so disparate you literally are not helping either properly by forcing them to use the same resources? Is the moral glow more important that making actual change in lives?
Alot of people are only interested in what’s possible in ~theory~ and being proud they can agree with that and not the hard work of if that theory is working in the context it’s supposed to and it’s not
The point of feminism isn’t inclusivity but ending sexism etc and changing the lives of women in a woman hating world and creating resources that works, is one way and currently, this hard fought resource isn’t working and is enabling abuse and trauma so why do we keep travelling down this road ?
Thanks, Lundy, for an excellent article. I am a mature student in the third year of a Bachelors of Social Work program. Slow going but I’m getting there! I have found precisely what you have said above…care of battered and abused people IS getting handed off to social workers. One of the things that I have found most alarming about training in the social work field is the concept of “fairmindedness” i.e. there are always two sides to an argument ?–no, there aren’t! The majority of people seem to think they are “good people” by being so…open-minded; what they need to understand is that abusers are not “good people” that are misunderstood. Ugh.
Many thanks to you, as well, for “Why Does He Do That?”–it answered all of my questions (and more) about the abuser I was married to for nearly twenty years, until he died (along with our son), in a car accident. I am looking forward to perusing your new book. Many blessings to you, and best wishes! Take care.
I am so devastated to read that you do not regard trans women as women – especially since I know several trans women who circulate your work and have found it helpful in understanding abuse. In general, insofar as your work has circulated in activist spaces, I’ve *only* seen your work circulated in activist spaces that identify transphobia as harmful.
What harm have trans women done to cis women, exactly? I notice this section of this article did not elaborate or articulate any concrete harms that trans women do to cis women. And I *agree* that many men who are abusers claim to be victims. I just do not see how this assertion relates to trans women.
Hi Stephanie. I agree with you that trans women are women and should be included in space is designed for women. if a trans woman is a victim of domestic violence, it is usually by a man. I would absolutely feel safe in a support group with trans women (provided they were not abusive to women when or if they ever identified as men- that’s the only caveat I could think of to make me feel unsafe).
If I had been born male (say no one else knew that but me, for example ) I would be devastated to know that other women would not consider me one of them and therefore I would not welcomed in their support group, which I very much needed.
I am not scared of women, trans or not. It is only been men who have abuse me and we know that men are the majority of abusers and women the majority of victims. This power abuse does not change when the victim is a trans woman. Men abuse women. End of story.
I think those who believe there is a significant danger of cis gendered men identifying as women in order to infiltrate spaces for women are highly overestimating the number of people who actually attempt this. I believe it’s similar to the panic that was widespread a few years ago, and still is in some cases, about trans people using the same bathroom as cisgendered people.
I used to work with a population of adults in which there were more trans people than average. I just never encountered any trans woman who didn’t want to be seen as anything but female and who wasn’t in danger of being abused by men, the same way other women are. The men around us who were abusive considered the trans women potential victims of theirs just as much as any other woman in the population there.
coming from a trans man, trans women are biologically male. that’s why they’re called ‘trans.’ i try to respect people’s dysphoria ( being dysphoric myself ), but i don’t deny biological reality.
as for what harm trans women have done to cis women, please do some research. ‘cotton ceiling’ rhetoric is rape culture and is everywhere in trans activist spaces. cis lesbians are being relentlessly harassed, having their sexual boundaries interrogated, being subjected to conversion therapy, being threatened and verbally abused, being witch-hunted, etc. for not being attracted to biological males.
women’s shelters are being de-funded and shut down. women’s spaces are being erased. in many places, they’re turning female bathrooms into gender neutral bathrooms but leaving male bathrooms intact. health organizations are erasing female biology/terminology ( reducing women down to ‘uterus-bearers,’ ‘bleeders,’ ‘vagina-havers,’ ‘womb-bearers,’ calling the vagina a ‘front hole,’ etc. ) while sparing male biology/terminology this treatment.
trans women are being transferred to female prisons and assaulting female inmates ( karen white, matthew harks, adam laboucan, unnamed trans women at HMP downview, etc. )
data from the uk women’s group fair play for women shows that 48% of transgender prisoners in england and wales were convicted sex offenders. in the uk, currently (2%) 1 in 50 male prisoners are now claiming to be a woman.
trans women are gaining access to female shelters and assaulting battered women ( christopher/jessica hambrook, etc. ).
self-ID policy is dangerous and it’s literally impossible to tell a genuine trans women apart from a cis man pretending to be trans, especially because the trans community asserts there is no such thing as ‘transtrenders’ and that anyone is a woman if they simply say they are or if they feel like they are, and how can you possibly judge what another person feels like on the inside? a person doesn’t even have to be dysphoric anymore to be considered trans.
there’s a surprising number of mtf sexual abusers in the trans community. eli erlick and jessica/jonathan yaniv, for example.
you’ve got trans women in politics like emilia decaudin who are undoing the work of the women’s suffrage movement by removing sex-based language from party rules that ensure biological females a seat at the democratic table.
not to mention all the offenders documented at peaktrans.org and transcrimeuk.com.
there’s so many more offenders and abusers and policy changers that i’m not covering because i don’t have the names or articles immediately on hand.
Thank you for the honest comment. I think you’ve explained risks that I’ve never thought of, and none of what you said was hateful. It was about safety and erring on the side of caution.
I’ve been looking for a domestic violence support group in my area for a few months. I have found a few, but many of them are run by individual therapists who charge anywhere from $25-$75 for a single group meeting. There are some nonprofit meetings but they are an hour away and require you to come to six consecutive weekly meetings in the beginning. I understand this, but since it is so far away it is difficult for me. Although the person I met with for the pre-screening was kind, the first thing I noticed when I walked into the office was a large sign saying that 20% of men are domestic violence victims. Maybe I’m just being sensitive, but it just felt like another Maybe I’m just being sensitive, but it just felt like another “not all men” thing. I believe they absolutely should offer support to men if that’s needed, but it was kind of the last thing I wanted to be reminded of in that space. It wasn’t a sign saying 8% of victims are women and 20% or men. It was just highlighting man It wasn’t a sign saying 80% of victims are women and 20% are men. It was just highlighting men. I’m sure on a different day it wouldn’t bother me, but it did that day.
With all the truly dangerous things that women leaving abuse face, financial abuse may seem to pale in comparison. Money is one factor that causes women to stay and/or go back to abusive situations. In Colorado, some counties are actually helping financially abusive men lower their child support based on dishonest facts and hiding income information.
I had a hard time believing it as it happened to my family. My abusive ex was in this program (CO-PEP) and they provided him lawyers, claimed this former auditor making $53,000 a year could only make $12 and hour and not provide the children health insurance. The county claimed my ex was indigent and had nothing (all the while he had my vehicle and asked me to pay for storage fees on his property). I couldn’t afford to continue paying my lawyer to fight for information and his support dropped. HIs “win” with regard to lowering his child support only inspired him to become more obnoxious towards the children and I.
I’m wondering how much The Fatherhood Initiative (who helps fund CO-PEP) has to do with some of the abuse women face after leaving the situation?
People were eager to help me in the beginning. Once we were in the process if a divorce, not so much. Police figured I was building a case against him, and the judge seemed to be punishing me for taking up the court’s time. Advocates were good, but this was back in 2001-2006, which apparently was a good time for the field.
Excellent. Lundy Bancroft has listed all the main reasons women and children are destroyed in domestic violence. Hats off and many cheers to Mr. Bancroft.
I’m from Canada. My abuser is being charged with sexual assault charges against our daughter. He refuses consent for therapy because it is trauma treatment therapy and he denies the sexual assault. The judge sided with him because the therapy may harm his criminal court case.
The assumption is always to side with the abuser and presume that the mother is vindictive. Claiming “child’s best interests” is an Orwellian nightmare.
Asking for child support makes me look “vindictive ” according to my lawyer – who specializes in domestic violence.
I chose to become a social worker to give back to women. I was turned down from women’s shelter jobs because I had a biased perspective. Children Services told me my experiences created an unprofessional viewpoint.
I can relate to all of your points about the failings in support.
This is definitely not limited to the USA. I believe it is global and it is scary.
I’m so sorry, I feel your pain. While mine did not escalate to the same level as yours. My abuser filed a false police report after assaulting me, nothing came of the report because I didn’t assault him. He was able to use it to access the local domestic violence program and I was blocked from services I needed for our children. When I asked them for a program for battered women they told me none exist
I’m glad to read this. I’ve had the same understandings for a long time and have attempted activism in some of these matters but have found myself mostly alone as well as experiencing negativity and disconnections for speaking out. I am now at retirement age and because of domestic violence, and devoting my life to the work of social activism and change as well – my needs have not been met, I’m in an unhealthy situation with extremely limited resources. I know the basic problem is that I am lacking appropriate community for what I face. I have also experienced things that cause me to distrust, especially professionals. Online connections can be found but moving these connections to active work offline seems to be a hurdle. I was trained to work at shelters but choose to continue doing my own creative and activist work because I did not agree with the direction of where things were going and experienced the professional takeover with much dismay. I have lived through the changes of the movement and stay strong in the original battered women’s movement actions, concepts and beliefs. I have consistently been opposed to the mental health industry, labeling and diagnosing victims instead of addressing the mass social structure that harms women as a group. On top of it I have a background in a variety of interdisciplinary education, including Women Studies, but also have done my own research as a writer, on the history of women and related topics to domestic violence. Point is that it is a travesty that the work I have done is going unused to the degree it is when what I have is so needed. I continue to work on it against an entire system that discounts and disrespects my work. I know and have been an advocate for women’s history because I’ve learned that not only is women’s work having to be reinvented and redone as is the usual pattern for our history of women….because we do not have a system that honors and preserves the work of our foremothers to pass effectively to future generations without a system that is still dominant that is destructive… but also that women’s history is made invisible while women are still living! Women’s work is also coopted and then used in a way that harms women, again. The steps to free women wind up being used to trap women again. I have worked online with some amazing people over the years but some of the treasures in the movement have retired, and notably younger people coming into this as a ‘job’ rather than activism do not have the experience, knowledge, etc (as Lundy states)… and there is a loss with that. Older women are worse off in some ways because there is less organization to meet their needs. Reading this article gives me hope that I’m not so alone with my views and I’d like to be able to continue to contribute when there may be an environment that is open to work on these problems. I’m very interested.
Thank you these are exactly the pattern of experiences I have seen professionally and personally. Where do I sign up to help with the movement to affect change? What needs to be exposed and to stop the ACEs in children is the continued abuse and violence by the abuser that continues AFTER the victim leaves The biggest catalyst for this travesty is the corruption in the US Family Court System. This is widespread and we all know the Family Courts do NOT abide by the same practices of the other court systems. Victims and children are endangered on so many levels directly due to dangerous decisions made by ill informed judges. The lack of adequate, accurate up to date knowledge among the court “professionals” (judges, lawyers, staff) is shocking. The data being complied is astounding. We need a robust movement.
I have been living nightmare number 6.) for the past 4 years… And no end in sight. This is in Germany.
Thank you for opening up this discussion. I work for one of those agencies (20 years +) that I believe has successfully managed to stay the course, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t challenged on a daily basis. I will encourage others I know to open a dialogue, and look forward to hearing more from you!
My soon to be ex husband, after 8 hours +of verbal abuse and being in a choke hold while driving, forced sex on me in a hotel room. When I could I texted a friend who had called the police.
When they showed up, he had just kicked me out of the bed and when I was dressed slammed the hotel room door on me.
The officers were very kind and gracious to me. The one talking to me “reminded” me that I do have a concealed carry permit.
I didn’t press charges that night (I wish I had). But they waited till I left to go home.
After they left he called and told me to come back and that I had all his stuff in my car. Clothes etc.
Apologized, was crying etc.
I shouldn’t have, but went back. When the police (4 now) came back and arrested him on a probation violation, a new officer pointed at me and yelled “And YOU came back to this”
I can’t even tell you what I felt in that moment. 4 officers, my abuser, and me.
I already felt so stupid for doing it.
I started as an advocate in 1996. I can do this work because my husband has a good job and with great benefits. You make no mention to the pay that advocates receive. Our highest paid advocates makes $15.00 per hour, and that is in a rural area. Urban advocates do not make much more and the cost of living is much higher. Along with this, there are too many men in this movement making “extraordinary” money as “experts” while advocates who do the day to day work struggle.
Thank you for the courage too observe and document the destructive trends in DV services. I’ve observed them all and was in fact deeply harmed by going to a DV service
1. My abuser was a clinical director of the mental health center. Unknown to me the DV shelter supervisor was in his graduate school counseling program. After being nearly abused to death I went to the center surreptitiously. They seemed compassionate, but called my then husband to tell me I’d shown up (he’d done a secret smear campaign with the director that I was nuts and a liar) He came home put a pillow over my face trying to smother me. I survived but he told me gleefully no one will ever believe you, and the DV shelter manager demonstrated that truth
2. A friend whose boyfriend battered her told everyone he was the abuse victim even though he was much larger than the female. The neighbors called the police when she tried to escape him and he dragged her by the hair back into the house and continued to beat her. The state issued a restraining order… the batterer went to the DV shelter told them he was the victim, they got it all wrong and the center helped him with a paralegal and couched him how to file a counter restraining order. The staff was unbelievably naive but they all had their masters degrees
3. When I finally got free I went to another city, in another state, I’d been out of the home 3 weeks, when I went to a shelter where a male therapist was leading the group. I shared that my abuser was a therapist, he’d let it be known he would hunt me down and kill me so I was in hiding. When I shared it, the male therapist said it was in inappropriate share, and I needed to get over the past. At the same time another woman shared about an event 20 years before that still caused her PTSD to which the therapist responded with supportive affirmations
4. I asked one of the DV intake workers that had someone in the middle of a busy hallway asking personal questions that were extremely sensitive if she was aware of trauma informed services and the need for a safe and private space. She rolled her eyes at me and said she knew exactly what she was doing, but if I could overhear the questions and answers and the woman being questioned looked embarrassed then she was traumatizing her.
Even though I obtained a masters degree to help women trying to escape violence as I did, I’ve never found an open door, its almost a social club based on a lack of lived experience with domestic violence. That is like running a Veterans Affairs service with no actual vets. They are clueless and apparently proud of it….
Perhaps a model like Alanon would serve women out there in need of therapy but do not have access to DV programs. Alanon/AA from my experience is great in terms of accessibility and openness and leaving treatment up to the individual. Participants are free to come and go without judgment. That is definitely necessary for people who suffer the results of DV. I think women who have been isolated to such an extreme need a place to go and talk to other women and find words of courage and encouragement. Women who have been so isolated should also feel they are free to take what they need from these words or encouragement or not. And that is where the Alanon / AA model is appropriate. Abused women do not need someone else to further tell them what is or is not good for them. Abused women may need guidance but if they are seeking help in the first instance, what they need is assistance – validation and information. I don’t believe an abused woman seeking help out of her situation needs yet another person or institution turning her away or assessing whether or not she qualifies for assistance – being judged. Again.
I called a hospital DV program and asked if I could participate. The program director stated I would have to go through a 2 interview process and have had at least 6 mos of personal psychological therapy. I was astounded. How many women in general have time and money for that? It was outrageous.
I agree with Mr. Bancroft that victims of DV are in the best position to help other victims of DV. And with the guidance of Mr. Bancrofts literature, self help is a huge probability.
These meetings can and should be restricted to female victims of DV for security purposes. It is well documented legally and publicly that the vast majority of physical violence victims are women. Security should be first and foremost. Perhaps these can live interactive web sessions at a designated time for women who are stalked. Perhaps these meetings may take place at venues where there is security, e.g. a hospital. Alanon and AA sessions are frequently at hospitals. Or perhaps in a building where there is security. These meetings should be voluntary and donations to pay for the venue as it is done in Alanon could be welcome.
If such a DV organization already exists, I wish I could participate in one.
Thank you Mr. Bancroft for providing this forum.
Your book is so good but you have to understand that trans women are at the exact same or WORSE risk of violence from men as cis women. Creating separate shelters for trans women only adds to the false conception that trans women are not women and are some “other” category which leads to their stigmatization in the first place. You are causing HARM with this rhetoric, I hope you understand this.
Transwomen ARE a separate category. Pretending otherwise is a disservice to women, and is harmful to our sex specific spaces that are under constant attack.
False.
Meanwhile:
outofmypantiesnow. wordpress. com/2013/10/28/when-is-90-not-substantially-all/
/r/thisneverhappens
www. independent.co. uk/life-style/ women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html
appropriately-inappropriate.tumblr. com/post/161606755575/the-tip-of-the-iceberg-please-add-to-this-list
The transphobia in #4 is toxic and harmful. Trans people are abused and murdered at higher rates than other populations and need support. Telling a trans woman to go to a shelter for men is denying her the help she needs and is compounding the violence already being done to her. I cannot state this strongly enough. You absolutely MUST educate yourself about the issues trans people face and what they need if you are going to write about them. Your assumptions combined with your influence in the field of DV could very well result in trans people being turned away from agencies that support survivors, and this will result in some trans people being murdered. This is a matter of life and death. You are perpetuating a culture of transphobia and violence exactly how rape culture is perpetuated and you must stop.
He has educated himself, and that’s the problem. Because when you look into the claims that trans women are the worlds most vulnerable, it all falls apart. The statistics that gender ideologists rely on to claim the ultimate vulnerability of transwomen in fact come specifically from black Brazilian sex worker transwomen. No other group of transwomen are at particular risk. In fact, in the UK there are more trans women murderers than murder victims.
Which brings me to my next point: transwomen have male strength, male sex organs, male violence, male sexuality, male socialisation, and retain male pattern criminality. They have nothing in common with actual women, and are every bit as dangerous as any other male.
You do not care about the feelings of women traumatised by men.
If transwomen are so dainty and vulnerable then the seven billionaires who are funding their movement ought to provide them with their own shelters, rather than invading and compromising women’s shelters.
I agree with you except about one thing: I believe the danger to transwomen is real and big, based on a lot more than the Brazilian study. But I don’t believe that danger is an excuse to put biological women at risk, nor is it an excuse to erode women’s rights in multiple additional ways, which is what’s happening. As with Israelis and Palestinians, there are options readily available to protect both sets of rights. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening currently, where women and girls are (once again) being thrown under the bus.
Mr. Bancroft, you need to read this: https://vawnet.org/sc/serving-trans-and-non-binary-survivors-domestic-and-sexual-violence/violence-against-trans-and
Your transphobia will result in the deaths of vulnerable people.
Your book, ” Why Does He Do That ” has opened my eyes and answered alot of my auestions. A life if all abuse. Emotional, Physical & Mental abuse in one form or another. Every ex?. I read that book and donated my copy to dv shelter that helped me and ordered the book again. I want to help women with 2-3 of your books and ones who are experiencing or just getting out of those bad relationships. That book saved me and now I got custody of my son and our own place and a brand new life at 53yrs old????
Thank you so much for your work. Please continue to do what you can to help survivors of domestic abuse avoid joint custody arrangements with their abusers.
At the age of 83 I am clearing out old documents and was reminded of our family’s journey. In my divorce and custody struggle 40 years ago I was asked inappropriate questions by a male psychiatrist as part of a custody evaluation(how did I achieve orgasm, a line of questioning that felt like abuse).Once, though conservatively dressed and not a glamorous babe, I had sexual advances made by the male social worker evaluating my case.My attorney said to say nothing and that it would be held against me if I brought it up.
Joint custody was in favor at the time, so I was forced into joint legal custody with my batterer and repeatedly told to discuss things with him with no witnesses and to trust him. He lied and broke promised arrangements so much and was so abusive on the phone that I got a machine(quite expensive at the time) to record phone conversations, but no one charged with decisions on the case would ever listen to the tapes
. In our case I did not think he was abusing the children physically, though I learned of two incidences of it in my older son’s case that I brought up in mediation which his father then denied and did not repeat. But at 6 ft 6 and over 200 lb , verbal abuse, threats, and intimidation were enough. to keep them from asserting any independence. Still, counselors insisted that the children could and should work out their difficulties with him themselves. I never opposed the children having significant time with their dad, but he was determined to use joint custody to dictate every aspect of our lives as much as he could while he himself did not stick to rules or promises.
The male evaluators were the most easily manipulated. Women professionals usually figured it out, but then he would break off counseling or mediation when he could not manipulate them. Eventually, after a brief evaluation by a male psychiatrist, the children and I were forced into joint physical custody with a bizarre schedule that created no end of tension and was very isolating since it interrupted so many aspects of normal life and was so unusual no one could relate. We called it “the situation.”
There was a tiny sliver of a sliver lining in what was a really destructive arrangement. In the course of all this I thought up one adjustment that reduced our contact. That was that when the children went to his house for the weekend he was responsible for picking them up at daycare(on Friday( I had a full time job) and returning them to daycare or school on Monday morning. This posed logistical issues and some embarrassment for the children, dragging their clothes and other belongings in backpacks) but reduced a lot of tensions and chances for intimidation during pickups and drop-offs. And since I had been so traumatized already and he was so intimidating in mediation, I eventually suggested we sit in different rooms while the mediator did shuttle diplomacy. She said she had used this in other cases after mine.
And now it is time for me to trash those documents and again make the mental effort to forget it all. Please keep up the good work and please do what you can to keep abused partners out of shared custody with their abuser.
I would like to preface this by stating that my boyfriend and I have been best friends since childhood. I would very much be single today if l had not known him as I do. It was 3 & 1/2 years after my intervention and escape that he and I began dating.
Not that long ago, I attended individual therapy and group sessions at my local rape crisis center with the urging and support of my current boyfriend. My boyfriend felt that my therapist at that time was completely ignoring the degree of trauma I had been through and was misdiagnosing me as having depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety, while completely ignoring that I was displaying symptoms of complex PTSD that were not being addressed (like having flashbacks and reliving my past experiences during which he could not pull me out of them, dissociation, depersonalization, etc.). My boyfriend was insistent that I did not show signs of schizophrenia at all, and that my disability was a direct result of the repeated and severe abuse i had been through. I didn’t see any harm in his suggestion, so I followed his advice and went. In the group sessions, I was given handouts on the symptoms of PTSD, and abuse-related trauma. I was shocked by how many symptoms I had and how much my therapist seemed oblivious. As far as I knew up to that point, I was just mentally ill. I expected that my group and individual therapy sessions would help me to learn more about these things; statistics, what types of flags to look for, learn what healthy boundaries are, offer some guidance on how to express to my boyfriend, mother and friends when I was feeling sensitive or might feel a crash coming or needed something in a way they could understand, reading materials and books that might be of assistance to both myself and those supporting me. Instead, the group therapy sessions reminded me of being in a mental hospital (why, exactly, am I doing arts and crafts instead of getting the information I need?). My individual sessions were not much more helpful. I was working with a woman who had a degree, was well dressed and clinical in her approach, and clearly had no experience of her own to draw from. I always left my sessions feeling like I had no more information behind me walking out than when I walked in. I was such a mess. I would show up to my sessions in mid- July wearing this huge and puffy winter jacket. It was dirty because I never took it off, not even while sleeping. It gave me the closest thing to a barrier I felt like I could get because I always felt I had some sort of energy barrier to protect me missing. I always felt vulnerable and exposed – it hid my body too – it hid my body from men. I was so uncomfortable taking that winter coat off that I didn’t even shower unless I absolutely HAD to. So you can imagine how I felt walking into this place, where all these professionals ran everything and clearly had no experience with DV much less the areas of some of the abuses I had suffered (almost no one does) and they were all so well dressed and seemed…normal. Not that I didn’t imagine they likely had their own challenges in life, but I felt even more of a mess walking into that place that O cared to. Hiwever, with me not knowing how to communicate my state to those around me at home, I was happy to hear that this facility also offered sessions for those supporting the victims. My boyfriend and mother had been trying to find ways to understand my processes, my cycles, my flashbacks, my states of terror etc., and didn’t know what to do to support me. So when I told them about it, they both became excited and eagerly began to attend individual sessions as well, both hoping to get the same types of information I was in search of, in addition to understanding better what was happening to me and how they could get me through the states of terror, or complete shutdowns. They both came away utterly frustrated!!! They also felt they had walked away with nothing helpful, and even resented being asked how they felt when dealing with me, only to hear how normal it was to feel a certain way and get no ideas or insights into what their abused loved one was feeling or going through and how to help her at all! As we all collaborated on the situation we outlined several things we felt were very wrong:
1) I was treated like a mental patient who was insane, not like a victim of severe and prolonged abuse.
2) The therapists had little or no knowledge about the wide ranging types of abuse that are out there (cultic abuse, working with women who had been drugged without their knowledge and abused, women’s rights and related topics, knowledge about how technology has now become an issue in situations of DV and abuse, stalking, complex PTSD, the list goes on).
3) My boyfriend was told repeatedly in all of his sessions how lucky I was to have him as a boyfriend. When my mother attended as well, she was not given a single complement as to how lucky I am to have her, and she endured the worst of watching me go through what I had been through not knowing what was happeningto her daughter; and had struggled daily for years to keep me feeling supported and safe, after I had escaped through the intervention of friends, but before my boyfriend I were together. Something we all took note of.
4) When asked for assistance to become equipped in manner that was reflective of truth, assitive with the challenges we all faced, has some actual data behind it, statistical insights, was unbiased, was in-depth, and helped to heal our relational dynamics, we all left feeling like Google would have been a better teacher on the subject.
5) Why was the front waiting area open unattended when men were being given services as well, and we didn’t know those men, why they were there, or what type of person they were?
6) Why was the bathroom located outside the facility’s offices, quite a distance away, where i felt like I practically had to run not to feel unsafe being exposed. There were other businesses and organizations on that same floor in the building. That might sound ridiculous, bit it was hard enough for me to even leave my house!! I always felt I was in danger!
7) In order to get in, you had to be buzzed in after confirmation you belonged there. They stopped enforcement of the process altogether shortly after I began attending. When I would arrive, the front desk would be void of an occupant and the door was completely unlocked. I could just walk right in. My mother and boyfriend confirmed they could do the same from the very beginning when they came for their own sessions.
8) They offered to recommend some couples therapists for my boyfriend and I, rather than offering any assistance or concrete resources for DV, types of trauma and abuse, cultic abuse and being drugged without knowledge (which was relevant to my most severe trauma) or any subjects closely related. They didn’t even know if my boyfriend was a true advocate or not. They simply threw couples therapy out there to us, as if it was an issue of communication, rather than one of education, coping skills for all of us, and worthwhile and founded knowledge.
9) I would sometimes go a week without sleep. I knew my mother and people in my support structure needed sleep. I wasn’t going to disturb them unless I was having an absolute emergency. So I tried the center’s crisis hotline at those times I needed to talk and just make it through the night – the only one available in my area and where I get directed to when I call the national hotline. They are useless. I always ended up getting off the phone because their support was about as effective as a fly on the wall. It was obvious they, also, had no experience from which they could assist me.
10) They said they offered help with finding legal services and assistance, bit never once suggested I just file a police report for the record in case any other women come forward. My friend who is a cop suggested I do so, because even if I can’t press charges, if another woman ever comes forward, her story would be backed up already. Something I was more than happy to do, even though doing so resulted in a week of backlash and torture from my CPTSD.
So that outlines my experience with my local rape crisis facility (the same place they send all victims of abuse of pretty much any kind around here)
I cannot speak on my local shelters for women, although I can say some women I’ve known who have gone, did not share good sentiments about their experiences.
In New Zealand where I am from no state funded domestic violence service is safe. There may be individuals who work in them who are safe, but this is despite the system, not because of it. The DV services are simply part of the state machinery that keeps women and children oppressed and unable to reach safety. One of the many unsafe things they do is funnel unsuspecting women into the family courts and as this article articulates, they never speak out about the horrors of the family courts – at the end of the day they seem to be more interested in not jeopardising their significant state funding. Until such times as all who work in DV are accountable to victims nothing will change.
Education does not prove competence is a principle I’ve learned over and over as someone that supervised the quality of mental health services in my state. Both on a personal level and a professional level I’ve been disgusted and appalled that the ignorance in DV systems I’ve used personally and heard about professionally.
There is a class system involved in hiring, in which people with lived experience (even with the pre-requisite education) are passed over to hire a 22 year old with a BA in psychology that still lives at home and never experienced dv or emotional violence on a personal level. I spoke to several clueless DV workers without lived experience that said they just wanted to “help” and “empower” the women as if they were the personal messiah. They had all the answers but knew none of the questions.
Lastly, the first time I went to a shelter took all the courage I had, I went through a back alley made sure I wasn’t seen, as my then husband ran the mental health services in the county and was a psychology professor. He was extremely violent and I covered bruises for years torn between telling the truth and the shame I felt for being battered. The director of the center was glib, full of trite stigmatizing assumptions. When my then husband came home, he told me “I know where you went today” named the DV supervisor and said “she is my graduate student, told me you came in but not to worry since no one believed you”
He laughed, and the violence got much worse. A friend whose boyfriend was extremely violent and was arrested after observers witnessed him beating her, convinced a DV worker he was the victim and got paralegal help at a DV center to fill out a restraining order against his victim. When I’ve supported people I know they often tell me they got zero help at the DV center but I seemed to say the right thing at the right time. I credit that to living through personal domestic violence, systemic misogynist abuse , and the lack of good help in the system that is supposed to help but harms.
The professionalization of DV services by those trained in the sexist and pathology minded field of mental health results in pathologizing victims, misunderstanding the dynamics of power and control in the helpers and how they back up the taunts of abusers “there is something wrong with you” For many, an experience with the DV helping system only reinforces the emotional abuse they are enduring already.
Domestic violence agencies refuse to help or even refer a woman who is a domestic violence survivor who owns her own home and whose home has been violently destroyed by a domestic violence abuser who does not share in the ownership of the home, and whom the victim/survivor/homeowner is not married to. After a man violently destroyed my home, causing $20,000. worth of damages to my home in an act of violence, the domestic violence agency in my area refused to help me or even refer me to somewhere else that might have helped me. It has taken me nearly 15 years after this incident for me to find out that the domestic violence agency in my area was supposed to refer me to a Crime victim’s advocacy program, of course, the domestic violence agency did not refer me, and I was unable to find out until many years later. You cannot find out about these programs unless you ask, but when I asked I was simply told “No” there is no help for domestic violence victims who own their own homes and whose home has been violently destroyed by an abuser. As a result, I was forced to let the abuser to get away with destroying my home because I could not afford to pay for the damages that the abuser caused to my home myself, and I was forced to depend on my family to help me to get the damages that the abuser caused to my home fixed. I have found that there is nowhere to turn to make a complaint against Domestic violence agencies that refuse to help a domestic violence victim when the victim does come forward and asks for help after experiencing domestic violence, or to refuse to refer the victim to a related program to help the domestic violence victim if the domestic violence victim is suffering from a form of domestic violence that the domestic violence agencies do not have much experience with.
Same in the uk. I got laughed at by one and custody handed to my abuser mother because the IDVA refused to help me get my children from school. I had placed them for safety until I left. The school refused to give my younger daughter to me and them and social made up a false allegation about me ‘apparently being drunk’ with the help of social services. I wasn’t I was with my older son and had just drove there. They rang my abusers mother and alerted her. My abuser was already in jail for abusing me. Ever since Childrens services have tried helping her blocking my contact with my younger daughter and let her ignore the court order. If I don’t keep in touch with my abuser his mother cuts my contact and he’s allowed there all the time.
Also here they automatically inform children’s services who then blame you and threaten and take children if he harassed you to often or if he keeps coming around. They don’t understand the cycle of abuse, it’s leave then go through court where they give 50% to abuser or the child to abuser or the abusers family. They ignore any disability a victim has and basically you have to speak up for yourself no one helped me in court either. My legal aid solicitor took my custody. If your on a program because you have addiction issues because of the ex and stay off it all they still won’t give the child to you they favour the abuser. It doesn’t matter how much work you do, they stay there forever and no one will help.
Also the court ignored my clean hair test which proved the school was collaborating with my abusers mother and I was not under the influence of anything
At least I know that in the future, if anyone else were to violently destroy my home, it would be best for me to simply press criminal charges against them without turning to anyone or anywhere for support, because the way the legal system works, or (doesn’t work) is that a crime victim can only get help if they press charges against the perpetrator within 48 hours of when the crime was committed against them. That places an unfair burden on the crime victim because unless the crime victim knows this because they had suffered from a similar incident in their past, most crime victims are going to want to take the time to ask those in authority of what and how they should take action in their situation. If a crime victim is punished by the “system” because they took the time to ask, the “system” needs to be changed. In the meantime, if someone were to violently and deliberately destroy my home, I would know not to waste my time trying to find support, because I know that I would get punished for taking the time to ask. I would know to keep quiet and not talk to anyone (except to go to the Police to press criminal charges against the perpetrator) Hopefully after I would press charges I would be eligible to receive help from the state that I reside in, and better yet, I hope that Domestic violence laws become Federal laws, because when a Domestic violence victim needs financial help because of being victimized by violence, the Domestic violence victim would be more likely to be able to receive the help that she needs through the Federal Government than from any particular state.
https://omny.fm/shows/kywam-on-demand/woman-arrested-held-in-contempt-of-court-while-hav
I have since endured 2 medically necessary reconstructive cranioplasty surgeries (brain surgery) in result of this.