Posts Tagged ‘women’s rights’
Wait a minute! “IPV,” “DV”– Social Scourges or Euphemism and Oxymoron?
Vocabulary Analogies.
I was tempted to call this “in which I discuss the dissemination of obfuscation,” but it’s not really a laughing matter when people are dying over this, weekly, and around the globe.
I am not of the belief that utopia is possible, at least as enforced by any state agency, government, religion, NGO, or anyone else. When I hear someone wanting to “help” me, at least someone I don’t know and didn’t personally solicit to do so, I try to head for the hills, and highly recommend this.
Unfortunately, with the advent of the Internet, the Language Police lurking around every corner, and our children being CAUGHT, practically, as they exit the womb by someone funded by someone fanatically suspicious of the mother/child relationship (i refer NOT to the practitioners — thank you, mine were born in a hospital — but to the premises behind some of the policies) — there are fewer and fewer hills left.
This includes hills and pockets of time as well, and that is almost nowhere as true as when a woman, with children, tries to exit a man, who has threatened and hit her, with institutional intervention.
Just as, thanks to the increasing attempts to criminalize “homeschooling” (another misnomer) in my home state, there is less and less time available to the average citizen — whether parent, teacher, commuter employee, or child, unless it is built into one’s profession. I have some perspective (age, profession, and parenting) from which to say this, but have not as yet decided to share identifying go public in more blatant identifying detail (see topic, leaving domestic violence…)
So in general, people do lack either time, or motivation, to address IPV and DV unless we are typically involved by personal association. It is, after all, less pleasant than stopping to smell the roses; in fact it’s profoundly disturbing.
But I say, how about time to stop and smell the vocabulary? Those most inclined to do this are those who have tasted its fruit, where that fruit is sometimes stale and putrid. Maybe you could from the safety of your home (I’m not asking for money, or for you to call your legislator, am I?) might stop a moment to consider.
Some of these terms have become SO proprietary they are almost meaningless, although I am VERY grateful for the women and men before me who passed laws to criminalize “IPV” and “DV” and I am VERY very grateful that I had at least one opportunity to evict someone who had battered me in the classic definition of the word and was engaging in a pattern of what is called “domestic violence.”
IPV for the uninitiated is a version of “Intimate Partner Violence,” itself probably a linguistic migration from “DV” (Domestic Violence). Trust me, there is nothing domesticated about violence, it is per se a refusal to be domesticated. Nor does it only occur domestically (in the home). It’s a lucky person that can domesticate a few cats, but who can “domesticate” a person that has taken to hands (or other handy implements) to intentionally: tame the shrew, or beat/threaten/punish the woman (oops, “partner”) in the process of teaching gender differences DO rule, and some divides were ordained by God (yeah, right) and not cross-able. Note in that concept the transference of protesting hitting one’s (in this example) opposite-sex partner (with whom one has engaged in sex) to illustrate the girls do NOT rule, Boys do. [This is a particularly religious thing, though not limited to it].
Intimate PARTNER? Now that I think of it, when the relationship is He hits Her (or He hits Him, She hits Her, or She hits Him for the politically more correct than I am feeling today), it is the precise opposite of what the word “partner” means. I mean, there’s a “partners in crime,” a humorous phrase used sometimes of a rapscallionly escapade that’s not really a crime. I was mugged twice myself –outside the home. I didn’t go back and “partner” with the guy who made off with my purse.
Why then would I attempt to with the guy who made off with my children? Can we not depart in peace, or get some assistance in this process, eh?
More to the point, why would some agencies in Washington, D.C. and (yes, I looked) Colorado, as tested in a variety of states, usually including California, determine that my doing so would be good for the overall populace? It really goes against nature and common sense. WHO was it that didn’t respect boundaries to start with, generating what’s called some form of separation?
Therefore I say, Intimate Partner Violence has GOT to be some kind of triple oxymoron non-think that has just wormed its way into our vocabulary, nonprofit [and governmental] organizations to distinguish it from stranger violence.
Well, folks, IPV is far WORSE than stranger violence. Stranger violence, if you AND yours survive it, and are not maimed, is not statistically likely to reoccur and escalate to death. Stranger violence has the concept of accidence in it, you could MAYBE have avoided it, or it was unavoidably bad luck. Not so with “IPV,” which when magnified through the institutions designed to (but in general failing to) put a stop to it, is closer to a total blood transfusion, and entails a personal, specific, and persistent hostility and will to hurt from a specific individual specifically against another.
Anyway, words don’t just drop down from the sky. Many of the times (at least in the U.S.) they are federally mandated. Like “Access Visitation” — but that’s another topic for another time.
Once these words have been mandated, and promoted, from “on high” (that’s called, government of the people, by the people, and for the people — or it seems I once heard it was….) they are then circulating through the lower, plebian realms — courts, schools, police stations, nonprofit agencies, and so forth. And the attendant associations to these agencies and institutions, FEW of which YOU are going to be involved with unless you (a) work there, or (b) deal with someone who does, or (c) whose life has led through their doors, or (d) someone dependent on you, or vice versa, as a friend or relative, has also.
My sarcasm here is not really out of place. I have been tracing funding of dysfunctional organizations, with some guidance (NAFCJ.net being among but not the only source) of WHY when I knock on a door and sit down in an office, the agency-speak is simply in my native tongue, but with an entirely different set of rules. The general rule I apply anymore is that whatever it says on the door, the OPPOSITE is not just the effect, but the intended effect and implicit in the design.
Gentle readers should also understand re: blogger/survivors — there were years of being told NOT to talk (and still are) under our belt. So, part of blogging is just telling it. One woman’s simple attempt to summarize the problem (see “Australians Talk,” previous blog and links) spoke to me, so I slapped it up here, thinking it would suffice for a post.
No, darn it, I had to actually think about it. I thought about how insane/inane it is to sterilize these words, as we do, face it. If even God had to do quite a bit of show and tell (miracles, sending a Son, etc.) (was that a Freudian or Theological slip — mine is showing, I suppose), similarly, those who have actually survived this violence, trauma, and losing someone or something to it, should be setting policy AND vocabulary.
That’s enough for now.
Intimate, Partner, Violence.
Domestic, Violence.
No wonder we need mental health professionals throughout the fields attendant on these terms.
Can you wrap your mind around that one? (No wonder it’s a market niche around “family courts” etc…..)
the word “court” certainly applies, in the sense, court someone’s favor, or in the royalty application. The word family, again, has just about become meaningless when those promoting it as essential to the fabric of our nation (and to a degree, I Do agree, believe it or not).
I know women who went homeless fleeing abuse. They had homes and professions after the exit; the stability appeared to threaten the status quo, the basket was turned over and emptied out, and through the same mechanism that has put my stomach hungry some days, blogging where the internet is free, and unable to purchase a simple meal at the same time.
Alternately, these terms rolls off your thinking like water off a duck’s back, how many intimate, wonderful, partnering, dynamic, sensitive moments in life have along with the oil coating also rolled past your door? Some of the best parts of life (not just your body) are sensitive to others around you, and what national policies mean to immediate neighbors.
Let’s properly sort those terms:
“Intimate Partner Violence” and “Domestic Violence.”
Move the words around, and it makes much more sense:
Put “intimate partner” with “domestic” and you have something user-friendly.
Take the two “Violences” and keep them separate, and the antagonism is right there out in the open:
V2 (Violence X Violence). There’s no place for this in the home.
Again, just as a reminder, the definitions include a pattern of oppression. No, I don’t mean, being asked to wash the floors if you’re awoman. I mean being TOLD to wash the floors NOW, or else, and the “else” you already know, because it happened before, and hurt. Or destroyed. Or violated one of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights.
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Opening Salvo
Why it matters…even if you’re not inside the doors. . . .
You are probably living with, next to, or in association with someone who has. You may be sleeping with one — or with someone raised by one. You may be blissfully unaware of WHAT that guy who cut your car off in traffic this morning was upset about, and why he’s wound so tight you might get hurt if you honk back. If you teach, your classrooms are going to be affected –either by getting some resources deleted from them, or from having a different quality of children in them.
One person going into this system is going to be traumatized. Another will be probably robbed. A third will be shocked. A fourth will be rewarded. A fifth will be back for more behavioral modification.
A sixth will be forced back to negotiate with the abusive partner she (OK, now you can argue: “or he”) was attempting to separate from — and will be lectured, after having worked up courage to do this — not to upset the children by showing anger, or conflict, because in this YOU-topia supposedly conflict never happens — or at LEAST never between parents.
- This belief, along with belief in Santa Claus, according to the same logic, is going to set your children on a good path for life.
A seventh will be hired to report on your demeanor after having just found out, you won’t be seeing your kids this weekend — or month – – or as it turned out in my case — next month either.
An eighth will be in an associated office saying, that wasn’t her department.
A ninth will be hired by taxpayers to enforce court orders dispensed from the bench — and possibly not do so if those orders were issued to protect a woman.
I am a woman, and I speak for myself, and add a qualifier, “possibly.” In my case, the statistical odds seemed a little stacked, as my prior concept of the word “law enforcement” was the common English usage. Not so any more. Which brings me to the ninth:
The ninth person going through those doors will have learned that the majority of the English language is entirely context-specific, kind of like a Mac. Until you “get” this — that the words are not spoken or written in these parts for their meaning, but for their EFFECT. As such, you will quickly learn the buzz words (whether by having them sting your situation, or I hope not, by using them yourself to sting someone else).
As such, the ninth person is going to be alienated from sense of self, reality, and that the world operates according to certain principles.
Of course the real cure for that is simply to know that you fell down a rabbit hole. And you will not emerge intact. It’s a virtual religious experience — transformative.
Which, of course, was the purpose. Every good oligarchy needs a Family Court, lest the rabbits stop breeding, hopping, getting snared, and nibbling the same low-cut grass jobs (or going underground) in the same geographic areas, generation after generation of market niches and material for the next set of pharmaceuticals or animal behavioralists. The bait is money, custody, and social respectability.
After all, if they all went “Watership Down,” who would serve? Without enough servants, landscapers, nannies, fast-food retail workers, and the multitude of unseen people that make the infrastructure “go,” how would all the certified specialists come up with the theories, and where would THEY self-propagate?
What would they do down on the non-ethereal grass, floors, garages, at the foodbanks, or for that matter shelters, prisons, and so forth — with the rest of us?
Label? Write a report? And then stand alongside “Street Sheet,” charge a $1.00 and see if that will buy dinner?
Wikipedia: “Street_Sheet”
What it Is
STREET SHEET is a monthly tabloid written primarily by homeless and formerly homeless people that provides its readers with a perspective on homelessness that mainstream media simply cannot match. It provides a unique opportunity to its vendors as well: a dignified alternative to panhandling. The STREET SHEET (cover price $1) is given free to qualified poor and homeless San Franciscans, who get to retain 100% of the proceeds from their sales. Last year, the paper celebrated its 15th anniversary, making it the oldest continuously published street newspaper in the world.
Contact information:
STREET SHEET Vendor orientations take place
Fridays 10 A.M. @ 468 Turk Street
Phone: (415) 346 3740 ext. 304
Or tell the truth like The Beat Within?
.
Other Literature from BCD (“Behind Closed Doors”):
[Co-Pieces, found today]
It made me realize that a person who makes threats of death, can’t be taken lightly. It also left me with a low tolerance and a lack of respect for individuals who choose to treat their significant others in such a violent fashion.
The abusive language and exaltation of violence in most gangsta rap music are the reality of our present day society. Most of us are intelligently mature enough to realize that by not talking about something won’t cause it to go away.
Back in the day when I was going to school, getting really good grades not getting in fights or getting in trouble of some kind. I used to be a honor roll student.
we make mistakes listening to our thoughts
we make mistakes from things we’re taught
we might change if we get caught
we fell in love with fake dreams we bought
He grabbed her arm, turned her around, slapped her so hard her long hair went flying as if she were a doll. I was pretending I didn’t know what was going on and the loud sound of the slap make me flinch and put the video game on pause
Like a blind man who’s walking in a state of darkness, the same for the poor man in the ghetto who’s taking his anger out on his fellow comrade.
Beware of these politicians who pander to the public by legislation which they purport is “tough on crime,” but which in reality erodes civil liberties.
[end quote]
This is true in all our boxes: Womb to Tomb, sometimes only the first one ain’t a box and interacts with a real, living, pulsing human being.
Boxes along the way; Play pens (sometime), apartments, schools, courts, police stations, prisons, office cubicles, nursing homes, mental institutions, and finally that last long literally underground box. For the lucky ones.
Then there are the air-conditioned, Danish & coffee-serving, large conference halls where the certified ex-spurts (experts) talk to each other about what to do about those not invited to the talks.
Hurt doesn’t dissipate — it goes somewhere. It changes things.
Let’s talk. Family Court matters, it’s agonna hurt someone. Otherwise they’d “settle out of court.” What does all that pain really gain? And for whom??
~ ~ ~
Sometimes, you don’t even have to be near a court, there are trawlers [1] [2] out for the vulnerable, the needy, the hapless, and those who forgot their South Bronx Common sense — and WHAM! No access to your son, your daughter — for not leaving an abusive situation, or even poverty, the “right” way, or staying, I suppose, within your socially allotted caste (by working hard/smart/ and occasionally receiving a service from the government . . .
[1] Merriam-Webster Definition:
-
: to catch fish with a large net (called a trawl)
-
: to search through (something) in order to find someone or something
[2] from On-line Etymology Dictionary, we can see the root meaning is from “to drag.” The net seeking a catch is dragged through an area where fish are expected, I supposed including the bottom:
- trawl (v.)
1560s, from Dutch tragelen, from Middle Dutch traghelen “to drag,” from traghel “dragnet,” probably from Latin tragula “dragnet.” Related: Trawled; trawling.
Some groups, I believe the phrase was being circulated, “trawling for trauma” — some groups are trawling for traumatized mothers, in particular, and net (‘ensnare’) them on-line and through personal communications into a coordinated framework which lays the cause of “custody of children going to batterers” on “judges just don’t understand,” i.e., lack of domestic violence experts on-hand in the family court system. Along with this belief system is the corollary that FIXING it would be to “enhance” the family court system through additional training of judges, lawyers, custody evaluators (and just about anyone else), that is to say, for certain professionals to have opportunity to become consultants to government officials.
This is from “Poor Magazine.” They’re experts on being poor, not from the School of What To Do WIth Poverty but from the experiential angle. Notice the Honesty, the details.
“One low-income mother’s story..
~ ~ ~This story speaks to me: I was going through, thinking there was justice inside the halls of justice, and that some mature adult would see through these clear lies about my children, myself, and so forth. . . . . . ~ ~ ~
Virginia Velez/Special to PNN
Tuesday, March 25, 2003;
Before welfare de-form, I did all the right things to get out of poverty as a single mom. Luckily, I only have one child, a very rebellious, independent child. Anyway, I went to college when he was eight. It was the 80’s and I worked part-time in the very university I was attending 22 hours a week so I could get health benefits for my child and I. It was a while before the financial aid folks noticed, then they forced me to give up my nice job on campus to take work-study for much less pay and no medical benefits, or I would lose my grants. Luckily, another single mom told me I could get AFDC, at least for Medicaid and food stamps, and I did. I did so well in that Washington state university that I got a fellowship to go to the most elite school in California.. . .
So far so good.
Then . . . .
“…Dummy me called them to ask for a social worker or someone to help me get my son home and work things out. Yup, obviously Stanford had affected my good-South-Bronx-ghetto-child sense.. . .
She’d paid her dues, she asked for help for a situation…
“The police, CPS, social workers, all did absolutely nothing. . . that never before had anything been held against me in my caring for my child, alone, for 13 years. They did not care I was sad and depressed from finances, and from having to be around the most selfish, ego-centric, richest and most messed up people in the world, while I worked my butt off in my studies and part-time work. “
“…Never, ever ask for help from any agency. It’s completely pitiful for the moms and kids, but there is absolutely no institution you can trust for any help raising or just keeping your child. “
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
Does IPV, DV talk stop it? 2 Australians Talk about this.
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Actually, “speak” would be more accurate than”talk.” I have put together two links on this topic. The 2nd was a referral, the 1st inspired today’s blog to which I, a U.S. Citizen, respond.
“Shining a light into the murky depths of partner violence”
An update on IPV in Australia that came to my attention. The article is posted in full below.
My next blog is my viewpoint on the migration of ideas from afar, also pointing out that foggy vocabulary can be intentional, or careless, but either way, transmigration of bad ideas “happens.”
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Katie Dunlop [credits below article] talks like me, which is why I posted her whole article here. With feedback interspersed. I do not share her optimism in the general public’s will to do something about it, if only they realized what IPV really was, if only the media would get it straight.
BUT She notices the discrepancy between what “IPV” represents, visually, in real-time injuries and deaths. She is THINKING about the topic with a view to addressing it.
When “IPV” (yes, that’s a euphemism) becomes “IV” (intravenously injected into your life, either directly or vicariously association) there are only two options: ACTING or NOT ACTING. The only way I can guess how people choose NOT ACT is that they have become adept at NOT THINKING, possibly as a survival skill.
Commentary:
When a known batterer not only has, but has been given, one’s children (case in point) (was I “gender-neutral enough” in that statement?) this not thinking about it is somewhat harder. I have also watched my family figure out (with apparent grace & ease) how to “not think about it.” They refuse to interact with me (probably because in most contacts, I focus on some version of “where are my daughters?” or “Why are you continuing to support someone who refuses to comply with any court order, give any account of seeking work, let alone who used to smack me around in front of them?“). These are not pleasant topics for any of us, naturally, and I feel that polite small talk is inappropriate for what are to me heinous (and insulting) crimes. In my family circle, any interaction using the words properly (legally) identifying the situation are tabu. This was how I determined my particular family of origin’s religion (if its secret, whatever belief sustains this practice of “we won’t talk about it.”), by tabulating the tabus, and taking note of who was sacrificed for what cause. Like many other religions, the sacrificees include women, elderly, and small children.
Another analogy that came to my mind in this matter, and in these societies, are simple packs of dogs. Once pecking order** is established, fighting and posturing are reduced. And face it, laws against domestic violence (IPV), or “hitting [primarily women] in the home” challenged the pecking order (**YES, I realize I have mixed-animal metaphors here; like any good bird dog, I cast about for words that smell right).
I have all along had irreconciliable differences with being hit in my home, and since then, irreconciliable differences with historical revisionism on the same. It’s also occurred to me that batterer fathers sometimes snatch the kids partly in order just to retain an stray female in the extended circle of influence, which certainly must be gratifying to the ego, I suppose. She’s not going to run TOO far if he has her kids.
Transcontinental Evolution of Ideas?
I feel for Ms. Dunlop, a certain innocence in thinking that the process of reporting and assuming that all parties, or the majority of the populace WANTS it to stop. Perhaps Australia has not yet gone through the shut-up or lose-your-kids process as thoroughly as here in the USA, where it is a war for proprietary use of the words Parent, Family, Child, and Abuse. I know the process happens, I have been reading.
This post on talking about IPV seems an appropriate time to reference “offourbacks.org,” and its classic “The Grammar of Male Violence.” Grammatic preference for indefinite concept nouns over actual actors shifts the focus from what happened to the theoretical air. For example:
“Domestic dispute costs 5 lives, again.”
Oh, really? No it didn’t. “Domestic dispute” is a word-label, and words do not directly shoot, stab, kill, behead its 3rd wife, or drop a 4 year old (female) child off a bridge to her death. A dispute doesn’t stalk. A dispute doesn’t cause one parent to adhere to court orders and another to break them. Or to issue orders that ignore safety issues. As hate-talk can incite violence, generic-noun descriptors for awful, graphically bloody or emotionally devastating, cash-flow-freezing, household switching, community-disrupting, taxpayer funds wasting events.
Generic nouns are the crime scene cleanup crew, on air. Now, a lot of us use words carelessly, but I DOUBT this is the case with either politicians, major news media [many of which are monopolies in the U.S.], or policymakers — i.e., anyone who has something that must sell.
So, Let’s Get Honest: Do not get caught with your pants down depersonalizing domestic violence or shielding an offence with the language of mutuality, at least when conversing with me, or within range of my blogs.
Thank you Ms. Dunlop, for speaking up, though.
[My comments inside brackets]
“Shining a light into the murky depths of partner violence”
Katie Dunlop
March 20, 2009
NEXT TOPIC: When there are kids:
Anonymums
The issue of IPV naturally entails the obvious fact that “intimacy” (a.k.a. sex) sometimes leads to pregnancy sometimes leads to children. The links below, also from Australia, addresses the “mums” aspect of trying to LEAVE domestic violence, or worse (worse?), protect one’s children from it, or from (worse, although it overlaps), child sexual abuse. Darn, another “tabu.” Well, folks . . . . .
In the U.S. this can be cause for imprisonment. Committing the acts which occasioned her to seek protection may or may NOT be cause for imprisonment. Again, enforcement is a gendered issue when it comes to child-stealing. If you don’t believe me, post a comment, and I’ll respond. Here’s the “background” to the article. The link (above) has a link to more background
Summary/Opinion:
USA’s bad policies go worldwide FAST. Those who can fly abroad to run conferences on how to run families (back to the abusers they left, which can be into the ground, either literally or financially). Women attempting to keep a low profile (not antagonize abuser), or flee violence, are not present en masse in these conferences: Either we are not asked, we can’t afford to attend, or they are membership-only, closed-corporation processes (see “AFCC” for one) and intended NOT to have our input.
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
March 25, 2009 at 5:34 AM
Posted in "Til Death Do Us Part" (literally), After She Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, Lethality Indicators - in News, Vocabulary Lessons
Tagged with "We had no idea!", domestic violence, family law, Intimate partner violence, IPV, obfuscation, social commentary, women's rights