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Abuse Shelters: Havens for Feminist Thought
Reform
Feminists will argue until they’re blue in the
face that women are victims of the Great Satanic
Patriarchy. That tenet is laughable when one
considers women are leading men on almost every
indicator of social welfare.
But give them credit, feminists are a determined
bunch. So in their crusade to spread the gospel of
female victimization, they have established a
network of domestic violence shelters around the
nation. These programs resemble socialist thought
reform experiments more than anything that can be
considered to be professional counseling or crisis
intervention.
To gain admittance to such facilities one must
of course be female – after all, male victims
of domestic violence are unlikely to benefit from a
regimen of patriarchal deprogramming.
Second, the woman must make the ritualistic
claim of being a victim to abuse. Any type of abuse
will suffice: emotional, financial, or anything
else that comes to mind. No police report, no
medical record, no proof of any kind is required.
“Always believe the victim,” goes shelter
managers’ circular logic.
In his classical account of Chinese
brainwashing, Thought Reform and the Psychology of
Totalism, Robert Lifton recounts how newly-arrived
inmates were assigned to a holding cell where they
were subjected to ridicule, abuse, and physical
hazing by the more veteran residents.
Such is the all-too-frequent experience of women
in abuse shelters. One woman, Eileen Pope, spent
months inside the YWCA Hope House in Charleston, W.
Va. “I often felt unsafe. There were several
physical and verbal altercations between the
shelter residents. I had clothing stolen from
me,” she later related: www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/090824
Once they settle into shelter routines, the
women come to realize they have become unwitting
guinea pigs of an ideological bait-and-switch. At
Bethany House in Fairfax, Va., employees would
reportedly “infuriate the woman with
propaganda.” One client at a Massachusetts
shelter found the real message was to “accept
the indoctrination and embrace my victimhood.”
The ladies, many of whom are poor, are ordered
to attend classes featuring repetitive mantras like
“domestic violence is all about power and
control.” The focus of these sessions is the
Power and Control Wheel, a pedagogical device that
recalls V.I. Lenin’s famous dictum, “We
must be engineers of the human soul.”
Social isolation being requisite for proper
consciousness-raising, the women must also agree to
cut off communications with their abuser.
Safehorizon in New York City goes one step further,
requiring its residents to “sever
relationships with family and friends,”
according to the organization’s website.
Such policies call to mind Robert Lifton’s
account of the experience of one concentration camp
survivor: “Our souls were entirely open. It
was complete confidence. We could trust the
government.”
Ritual denunciations were an important feature
of Chinese brainwashing camps, with inmates called
upon to censure their fathers for horrendous yet
vague crimes. Abuse shelters likewise demand their
residents denounce patriarchy and its putative
evils.
A quarter to one-half of women in abuse shelters
are currently abusing alcohol or drugs: www.radarsvcs.org/docs/RADARreport-Are-Abuse-Shelters-Helping-True-Victims.pdf
. But don’t expect to find any substance abuse
treatment programs on site. That would be much too
bourgeoisie.
Shelter residents enjoy no right to privacy. I
have heard from women about confidences shared with
shelter workers that were later passed on to Child
Protective Services and other shelter residents.
One woman revealed, “Nothing was confidential
and what I discussed with staff was being discussed
with clients.”
Complaints are verboten because they betray
reactionary resistance. The miscreants may be
summarily exited from the facility. At Womencare in
Bellingham, Wash., a blind woman had who been
forced to assume a new name to escape her abuser
had her identity outed when she filed a complaint
about lax safety procedures: www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/080715
Not surprisingly, shelter managers do everything
in their power to keep law enforcement officers at
bay. At Another Way in Lake City, Fla., a former
employee wrote, “I, on numerous occasions
reported illegal drug use that I had witnessed take
place on Shelter property and often my complaints
were ignored. We always knew not to call the law
unless you were prepared to be
unemployed.”
Given these experiences, it’s no surprise
that women opt to return to their abuser rather
than continue to subject themselves to this
grandiose government-financed brainwashing
experiment.
* * *
Carey
Roberts probes and lampoons political correctness.
His work has been published frequently in the
Washington Times, Townhall.com, LewRockwell.com,
ifeminists.net, Intellectual Conservative, and
elsewhere. He is a staff reporter for the New Media
Network. You can contact him at E-Mail
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