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Gender Bias in Domestic Violence
Treatment
The oldest battered women's shelter in New England
(1975) is setting precedent and making many
feminists nervous in the process. www.transitionhouse.org
Transition House (TH) not only launched a
"gender-neutral" search for a new executive
director but also appointed a man as its interim
director. TH explains that it simply wants to hire
the best person for the job and interviewing men
doubles the chance of success.
Feminists of my ilk, who judge individuals on
merit rather than gender, are applauding.
(Admittedly, a muttered "it's about time!" may also
be heard.)
Feminists who believe that gender must be a
deciding factor in who addresses domestic violence
(DV), and how, are appalled. They view the very
prospect of hiring a male director as violating the
'mission' of the shelter movement: to assist
battered women and children.
In short, the "women-only feminists" believe
males should be precluded from major employment and
entry at shelters. Indeed, women's shelters often
deny entry to male children over 12-years-old. (The
legality of doing so at tax-funded shelters is
dubious, to say the least.)
Why should even male teenagers be excluded? In a
protest letter to TH's Board, the feminist
organization About Women www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2421
explained that the shelter must be a space where
"women could feel safe from male intrusion and
could openly unburden themselves of the experiences
of male violence they had undergone without fear of
censure, criticism or inhibition by male
presence."
One interpretation of the foregoing statement
makes sense. Some female DV victims have been so
brutalized by the men in their lives that a mere
male presence may well terrify them. For that
category of DV victim, a women-only shelter may be
the most compassionate and effective option.
(Men-only shelters for similarly devastated male
victims would be equally valid.)
Nevertheless, it is difficult to understand why
a male executive director who may have no direct
interaction with battered women is so
objectionable. To understand this response, it is
necessary enter the realm of ideology.
The argument for a women-only space is rooted in
a belief that DV results from the general societal
oppression of women as a class by men as a class.
www.msu.edu/~cdaadmin/power_&_control_wheel.htm
The "Power and Control Wheel" that is used by every
Domestic Violence (DV) organization I know of
embodies this belief. The wheel explains the
origins of DV through a pie chart; one of the pie
segments is labeled "Male Privilege".
In short, women-only feminists argue that women
are battered not merely by an individual male
abuser but by the entire male gender and, so, they
must be protected from both.
This is similar to claiming that a white person
who has been beaten by a black needs to be in a
black-free environment because they have been
battered not merely by a specific black person but
by an entire race.
To carry the analogy one step farther, it is
similar to demanding that blacks should not be
employed or allowed on the premises of a
whites-only shelter…even if those premises are
tax-funded and, so, prohibited from
discrimination.
The ideological argument for women-only shelters
-- as opposed to the practical argument that,
sometimes, such shelters just make sense -- is
class guilt. The guilty class is "male". Class
guilt does not allow an individual male to
demonstrate his innocence because, simply by being
a member of a class, he is guilty by
definition.
The concept of class guilt never ceases to anger
me. As a victim of DV, I know the fist that legally
blinded my right eye was wielded by a specific man,
not by a class. And I refuse to dilute his
responsibility by extending it to men who've done
me no harm.
It angers me as well because I'm the sort of DV
victim who needed exposure to non-abusive men, not
isolation from all male presence, in order to heal.
I needed to realize that decent caring men still
existed and that I could interact with them in a
positive way. In other words, a specific man was my
problem; men as a whole were part of the
solution.
As I mentioned, there are DV victims who do not
share my reaction. It would be amazing if hundreds
of thousands of people -- from different cultures,
lifestyles and backgrounds -- responded to a
complex experience in exactly the same manner. Just
as there is no one explanation for DV, neither is
there a one-size-fits-all remedy.
But the ideological women-only argument for DV
shelters is inflexible. It denies to female victims
the healing presence of benevolent men with whom
they can re-establish trust.
It denies the very possibility of male and
female victims occupying the same shelter and, so,
coming to an understanding of their differences and
shared realities. Such mingling of the sexes is
common in other forms of therapy and rehabilitation
but it is akin to heresy to even suggest the
prospect for DV.
In short, women-only zealots dismiss the
feminist goal of 'diversity' and insist instead
upon only one explanation for DV and only one
organizational principle for shelters.
Women-only zealots are hurting victims. They are
harming those battered women who would benefit from
learning how to regain their trust and respect for
male. They are harming the significant percentage
of DV victims who are male themselves.
Estimates vary on the prevalence of male DV
victims. Professor Martin Fiebert of California
State University at Long Beach www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
prepared a summary of hundreds of studies and
reports which indicates that men and women are
victimized at much the same rate. A recent BOJ
study found that men constituted 27% of DV victims
between 1998 and 2002.
Whichever figure is correct, a significant
percentage of DV victims are refused admission to
most shelters in North America based solely upon
their gender.
The anti-male prejudice in DV must cease.
Whether it is a 'he' or 'she' is secondary. What
matters most is that the individual will have been
judged upon his or her merits and no longer upon
genitalia.
©2007, Wendy
McElroy
* * *
Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com
and a research fellow for The Independent Institute
in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of
many books and articles, including her latest book,
Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the
21st Century. She lives with her husband in
Canada. E-Mail.
Also, see her daily blog at www.zetetics.com/mac
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