Re-worked VAWA? Let's not celebrate just yet.

I got an e-mail from Dave Burroughs, who is thrilled that the re-worked VAWA included some of his language. (copy below)

How thrilled should we all be?

I’m encouraged to see that some egalitarian interests are included in this new legislation. In a lot of ways it reminds me, though, of people selling a house who glue newspaper over holes in walls, then add paint to match over the whole mess, in hopes nobody will notice the real problem.

Women’s shelter programs have operated outside and maybe in actual defiance of the law for many years. Who’s to say that this verbiage will make them address the issue as it is, rather than the way they believe it is—or want it to be?

When you deal with the shelter culture, you have to realize that you enter a world where none of the ordinary rules of logic or fairness apply. I have dealt with these people, one-on-one, in person and online for six years now. I’ve had a girl with a PhD who administers state DV programs use magazine polls as basis for her argument that all men are abusers who deserve to be jailed, and a partially-literate assistant of a local charity present to a funding agency the premise that 3 equals 120, just because she said it does.

The 120 figure represents the length in days of a domestic violence shelter program offered to unemployed women without male children over the age of 12. This is a residential program featuring round the clock security, access to counseling and group activities, divorce assistance, and some rudimentary job training assistance.

The 3 represents the program they offer to everybody else – three days in a fleabag motel, and maybe some meal vouchers. Some off-site counseling may or may not be provided. And that’s it.

“Everybody else” includes the overwhelming majority of those likely to seek assistance – women with jobs, women with boys, and men. Most of those men are heterosexual, and also are married with children, who may well be girls.

For some bizarre reason, this concept of  “3 equals 120 because we say it does” successfully operates in communities all over the country. Literally billions of dollars are given to these programs each year, and hardly anyone ever asks any questions. Those who do are either ignored, or accused of not wanting to help these poor, helpless women they serve.

Then when you dig a little deeper, you may find that  existing programs only have a participation rate of about 10%. Hardly anyone ever completes their programs and goes on to rebuild their lives, free of domestic violence. While there may be one or two women featured in local media during fundraising campaigns, these may well be the only women who completed the program that year.

There has been no study I’m aware of that goes beyond the shelter, to discover if these programs actually help. If logic and common sense were allowed to come into play in this case, it would follow that these programs have little or no effect on the larger issue, since shelters only provide the option of running away from the problem, in a variety of ways. No women’s program suggests that any woman should consider her part of the abuse dynamic, and sadly, many women (as well as men) are suffering from this politically and economically motivated ignorance.

Thousands of people across the US now have their livelihoods staked on the success of VAWA. Their houses and cars are threatened if VAWA goes under. That’s because they   have had 30 years of training in an unsupportable “science,” and they cannot do anything else.

In September, I was invited to speak at Phyllis Schlafly’s annual Eagle Forum Council in St. Louis. Even there, I was heckled by feminists and later ambushed by a couple of girls who felt they had all the answers. Well, sure. Their jobs were “in the field.” They were stupid enough to hand me their business cards, which illustrated their economic dependence on the status quo.

Until 1986, I lived in what is now called the “inner city” of Detroit. In the last years, race issues were totally upside down, and white families were clearly not welcome. One day I was walking my son home from school when an 11-year-old girl stopped us, and threatened to kill us. I knew that what I saw in her eyes that day was the glitter of hate.

I saw it again in St. Louis.

Those girls who claimed to be all about helping women were doing nothing but spreading hate.

If it was a rational exercise, wouldn’t there be somebody willing to at least have a discussion?  There isn’t.  Here is the mindset:

As long as we as a culture accept the principle and privilege of male dominance, men will continue to be abusive. As long as we as a culture accept and tolerate violence against women, men will continue to be abusive.

All men benefit from the violence of batterers. There is no man who has not enjoyed the male privilege resulting from male domination reinforced by the use of physical violence . . . All women suffer as a consequence of men's violence. Battering by individual men keeps all women in line. While not every woman has experienced violence, there is no woman in this society who has not feared it, restricting her activities and her freedom to avoid it. Women are always watchful knowing that they may be the arbitrary victims of male violence.
From the AZCADV website:
http://www.azcadv.org/HTML/usingmaleprivelege.html

Good God, how hateful can we allow ourselves to be in public policy? 

VAWA is not anything helpful; re-writing some language is superficial at best. The policy it promotes and funds is hateful, divisive, and rotten to the core.

A small change in language only allows some opponents to believe they have made progress. Horse hockey, is what I see. The organizations have been insisting to the government and others for decades that they provide equal access and services, when they certainly do nothing of the kind.

THE FINAL CONFERENCE APPROVED LANGUAGE IS BELOW:

SEC. 2000A. CLARIFICATION THAT PROGRAMS RELATING TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ARE GENDER-NEUTRAL.
`In this part, and in any other Act of Congress, unless the context unequivocally requires otherwise, a provision authorizing or requiring the Department of Justice to make grants, or to carry out other activities, for assistance to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, sexual assault, or trafficking in persons, shall be construed to cover grants that provide assistance to female victims, male victims, or both.

SEC. 512. GAO STUDY AND REPORT.
(a) Study Required- The Comptroller General shall conduct a study to establish the extent to which men, women, youth, and children are victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking and the availability to all victims of shelter, counseling, legal representation, and other services commonly provided to victims of domestic violence.
(b) Activities Under Study- In conducting the study, the following shall apply:
(1) CRIME STATISTICS- The Comptroller General shall not rely only on crime statistics, but may also use existing research available, including public health studies and academic studies.
(2) SURVEY- The Comptroller General shall survey the Department of Justice, as well as any recipients of Federal funding for any purpose or an appropriate sampling of recipients, to determine--
(A) what services are provided to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking;
(B) whether those services are made available to youth, child, female, and male victims; and
(C) the number, age, and gender of victims receiving each available service.
(c) Report- Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General shall submit to Congress a report on the activities carried out under this section.