What Is Domestic Violence?

Most people think of domestic violence as the sad or tragic cases of men beating up women. Assault and battery are obviously crimes that should be prosecuted and punished. But domestic violence doesn’t just mean criminal conduct. The feminists have expanded the definition of domestic violence to include an endless variety of perfectly legal actions that are made punishable because of who commits them.

VAWA’s gender-specific title is pejorative and sex-discriminatory: the Violence Against Women Act. VAWA means violence by men against women. VAWA does not include violence by women against women. VAWA’s funds are routinely denied to male victims of domestic violence. For example, the Texas VAWA grant application makes its sexist goal specific: “Grant funds may not be used for the following: Services for programs that focus on children and/or men.”

Professor Martin Fiebert of California State University at Long Beach compiled a bibliography of 170 scholarly investigations, 134 empirical studies and 36 analyses which demonstrate that women are almost as physically abusive toward their partners as men. Studies by the leading domestic violence researchers found that half of all couple violence is mutual, and when only one partner is physically abusive, it is as likely  to be initiated by the woman as the man.

The term domestic violence has morphed into domestic abuse, a far  broader term. Domestic abuse doesn’t have to be violent  it doesn’t even  have to be physical. The feminists’ mantra is, “You don’t have to be  beaten to be abused.”

A 1979 book called The Battered Woman by Lenore Walker is credited with establishing feminist theory on domestic violence and in originating what is called the “Battered Woman Syndrome.” This book is all hearsay without credible statistical data. She admitted that her “research” and generalizations were based on “a self-volunteered sample” of women who contacted her after hearing her speeches or interviews. Walker mentions the large study of domestic violence undertaken by the National  Institute of Mental Health-financed survey of Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz,  but fails to tell her readers that its final conclusion is that women  initiate violence in intimate relationships at least as often as men do.
 
Nevertheless, Walker’s unscientific book had a big impact in spreading  the propaganda that the “battered” are always women, that “batterers”  are always men, that “battering” is not necessarily a violent or even a  physical act. She admitted that “Most of the women in this project  describe incidents involving psychological humiliation and verbal  harassment as their worst battering experiences, whether or not they had been  physically abused.” While psychological abuses can be hurtful, they are  completely subjective, and it is absurd to pretend that verbal abuse is  done only by men against women and not vice versa.

As an example of “battering,” Walker defended the woman who admitted  she “began to assault Paul physically, before he assaulted her,” but  “Paul had been battering her by ignoring her and by working late, in order  to move up the corporate ladder.” So, trying to do a better job of  supporting his family was construed as domestic abuse. Like many feminists,  Walker is not trying to improve marriage but rather to destroy it. She  urged that “psychotherapists must encourage breaking the family  apart.”

Domestic violence has become whatever the woman wants to allege, with  or without evidence. Examples of claims of domestic abuse include: name-calling, constant criticizing, insulting, belittling the victim, blaming the victim for everything, ignoring or ridiculing the victim’s needs,  jealousy and possessiveness, insults, put-downs, gestures, facial  expressions, looking in a certain way, body postures, and controlling the  money. A Justice Department-funded document published by the National  Victim Assistance Academy stated a widely accepted definition of  “violence” that includes such non-criminal acts as “degradation and  humiliation” and “name-calling and constant criticizing.” The acts need not be  illegal, physical, violent, or threatening.

The domestic violence checklist typically provided by family courts to  women seeking divorce and/or sole child custody asks them “if the other  parent has ever done or threatened to do any of the following”:
 “blaming all problems on you,” “following you,” “embarrassing, putting you  down,” “interrupting your eating or sleeping.”
Such actions are not illegal or criminal; no one has a right not to be  insulted. But in the weird world of the domestic-violence industry, acts that are not criminal between strangers become crimes between members  of a household, and such actions can be punished by depriving a man of his father’s rights, putting him under a restraining order, and even  jailing him. Family courts mete out punishment based on gender and  relationships rather than on acts.

Creating a special category of domestic-violence offenses is very much  like legislating against hate crimes. Both create a new level of crimes for which punishment is based on who you are rather than what acts you  commit, and the “who” in the view of VAWA and the domestic-violence  lobby is always the husband and father.

VAWA: Feminist Weapon Against Men
When a woman appeals to a VAWA-funded shelter, she is immediately told  she must file for divorce and accuse her husband/boy friend of domestic  violence so that a restraining order can be issued against him. That  would be rational if we were talking about life-or-limb endangerment.
 But it makes no sense if abuse involves merely run-of-the-mill  disagreements for which mediation and reconciliation could be better for all,  especially the children. No VAWA programs teach women how to deal with  family disputes without resorting to divorce. No VAWA programs promote  intact families or better male-female relationships. VAWA has no provision  for addressing problems within the context of marriage.

What VAWA does is to promote divorce and provide women with weapons, such as the restraining order and free legal assistance, to get sole  custody of their children.

The Illinois Bar Journal (June 2005) explained how women use  court-issued restraining orders as a tool for the mother to get sole child  custody and to bar the father from visitation. In big type, the magazine  proclaimed: “Orders of protection are designed to prevent domestic  violence, but they can also become part of the gamesmanship of divorce.” The  “game” is that mothers can assert falsehoods or trivial complaints  against the father, and get a restraining order based on the presumption that  men are abusers of women.

The Final Report of the Child Custody and Visitation Focus Group of the  National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges admitted that  “usually judges are not required to make a finding of domestic violence in  civil protection order cases.” In other words, judges saddle fathers with restraining orders on the wife’s say-so without investigation as to  whether her claim is true or false, and without accountability if it  is false. If a hearing is held, the woman merely needs to prove her  claim by a “preponderance of the evidence.” That means she doesn’t have to  prove the abuse happened, only that it is more likely than not that it  happened.

Elaine Epstein, former president of the Massachusetts Women’s Bar  Association, admitted in 1993: “Everyone knows that restraining orders and  orders to vacate are granted to virtually all who apply . . . In many [divorce] cases, allegations of abuse are now used for tactical  advantage.”

The consequences of the issuance of restraining orders are profound:
 the mother gets a sole-custody order, and the father can be forbidden all  contact with his children, excluded from the family residence, and  have his assets and future income put under control of the family court. A  vast array of legal behavior is suddenly criminalized with harsh  penalties.