Gladden Schrock DV Letter to Maine Governor King

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Bristol; a writer & teacher; have had longstanding involvement with cultural/analytic perspectives -- through a Comtemporary Hysteria class I teach recurrently at Bennington College; in articles & books published; and speeches given at the Nat'l Press club & major conferences elsewhere, one of which I moderated two years ago in Salem, MA. where we brought together a braintrust of contemporary thinkers grappling with the Hysterical Episodes of False Memory, SRA/MPD suggestive inductions, and the cessing of the cultural fabric out of which these tragic episodes have sprung. Arthur Miller, Fred Crews, Beth Loftus, William Styron, and 300 others joined us for input. That, for context, here.</div> <bR> <div> My concern brought to you now is this: While it is laudable to exhort against Domestic Violence, as you did so passionately in your recent State of the State Of Maine Address, your comments were explicitly framed in a 'man-against-women-and-children' rhetoric that, although perhaps effective as a grandstanding populist technique, wholly misconstrues the issue. And, I fear, it unwittingly puts the State in a seriously vulnerable legal position.</div> <bR> <div> As far back as l977, sound methodological work was being done in the area of Domestic iolence: incidents, statistics, etiology, gender base differentials, etc. And since then dozens --hundreds-- of careful, non-advocacy, methodologically controlled studies have been completed, published, and made available. (See the McNeely el al compilation search in '87, attached, published in SOCIAL WORK.) </div> <bR> <div> Murray Straus, Richard Gelles, Steinmetz, Moffit, Fiebert and many, many others, have by now turned in an enormous body of careful, penetrating work, addressing this distressing topic -- a topic so politically charged that it is often without correct public comprehension. AND THE SUM OF ALL OF THE STUDIES POINTS WITHOUT A SHRED OF DOUBT TO AN ESSENTIALLY EQUAL PERPETRATION OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN. Equal. It is beyond doubt. You have been advised in error.</div> <bR> <div> Women in fact lead substantially in some significant categories of domestic violence. They commit 60-plus per cent of physical child abuse, for instance; and spousal battering is virtually a dead heat between the sexes, in severity and incidence numbers; and in initiation of spousal battery women in fact appear to hold the edge, with a currently growing margin.</div> <bR> <div> No, the body of evidence is enormous and overwhelming. This is NOT a man-against-woman picture (nor is it a woman-against-man picture.) In hearing your S.O.S. address, I was dismayed to think that no advisor surrounding you had given you better information than that ... no better guiding perspective upon which once could build a very legitimate strategy regarding domestic/family Violence (which does indeed exist). The popular & pervasive 'fact sheets'(sic) on D.V., commonly distributed by Shelters, New Hope for Women personnel, hospital waiting rooms, etc. (i.e."95% domestic violence is man against women", and so forth, just as your own unambiguous language declaimed) have long since been discounted and discarded by virtually all non-advocacy intelligence, seen now as little more than the shaky gatherings of select & self-confirming 'factoids'. (This, too, is a readily available and by now longstanding development within the at-large cultural dialogue surrounding the topic; and again, I'm bewildered that you haven't had better council available to you, for it has widely been discussed and reported.)</div> <bR> <div> When one considers the subject of Domestic Violence in its correct light, one also at once can understand the serious legal vulnerability of the State. For to frame the issue as you did (and as it has been likewise framed reflexively within our public schools, State Police Training orkshops, in Family Court & DHS literature, on TV ads, counseling centers, the media, etc.) in a boldly frontal 'Male As Demon Perpetrator' declaration, the injury risks certain eventual discovery: that a gross prejudice against a class of humans, based on gender, has taken place... and much of it done, alas, by the Hands and Voice of the State itself.</div> <bR> <div> Since evidence of this prejudicial gender-based skewing is and has been for some time now openly declared and easily gathered in the public domain, as mentioned above, the situation risks provoking well-nigh inevitable eventual class-action litigation, of perhaps considerable agnitude and embarrassment...instead of --what would better be the case -- all energies (of all concerned) legitimately and honestly being turned towards a true dealing with the problem(s) of family violence, in its correct perspective, absent political hyperbole or gender-bias advocacy. This would quite probably take an official public admission of the error, for the error by now is deeply ingrained in the public mind. Already in New York and New Hampshire arrests of women on DV charges have reached 30+ percent, and are fast growing...as the true & equal nature of the </div> <div> pathology of domesstic violence is (rather painfully, in some quarters) being seen and admitted to.</div> <bR> <div> It takes little imagination to understand how a man-against-woman bias, such as your language explicitly declares, creates presumptive prejudice against a whole gender class ... a virulent presumption that contaminates court actions, civil litigations, educational initiatives, capricious restraining orders, media bias, Family Court adjudications, divorce proceedings, and legislative discourse. </div> <bR> <div> A 'politician' will sometimes leap on board a crescendoing skew such as that, and even ampfy it to his advantage; but a genuine Leader/Statesman understands he/she must at times sidestep populist temptation, and lead a People by example to a more settled and thoughtful bearing. </div> <bR> <div> The Domestic Violence issue has many parallels, in personnel and kind, with the Moral Panics of False Memory, MPD, Satanic Ritual Abuse, and the general abuse hysteria of recent years. Maine's track record is not a good one there, either, I'm afraid.</div> <bR> <div> I've attached a few files offering guidance towards further search & study by your Office, which appears to be indicated. Elizabeth Butler, Richard Thompson, Commissioner Concannon, Michael Westcott, AG Ketterer, and the members of your Commission on Domestic Violence should (I would think) be brought alert to the great volume of perspective and first-rate work on Domestic Violence that is available to them (and to an increasingly astute public). </div> <bR> <div> Furthermore, there is excellent, above-reproach journalistic writing in this area of late: Cathy Young, Patricia Pearson, Phillip Cook, Chris Sommers, Donna Laframboise, Warren Farrell, Erin Pizzey, et al. Corrective information is by now too readily available for the 'Male-as-Demon-Perpetrator' bias to survive any longer with impunity, as an ongoing public mantra.</div> <bR> <div> Allow me to quote a 19 yr-old Equity Feminist student of mine at Bennington College two years ago, in a term paper she elected to write for my "Contemporary Hysteria" class, a document she titled "MISANDRY, AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE STATISTICAL SKEWING":</div> <bR> <div> "OF ALL THE PATRONIZING GESTURES THAT DEMEAN AND INJURE WOMEN, THIS ONE --'PROTECTING' WOMEN AGAINST THEIR OWN ACCOUNTABLE EXISTENCE -- IS THE MOST ODIOUS. IT IS A SHAMEFUL FACT THAT (SOME) WOMEN THEMSELVES, IN THE NAME OF FEMMINIST LIBERATION, HAVE WORKED HARDEST TO PERPETUATE THE ERROR. THEIR VICTIMAL ADVOCACY HAS HAD PERVASIVE CULTURAL EFFECT. BUT THERE ARE LIKEWISE MEN WHO, THINKING THEMSELVES DOING WOMEN A KINDNESS, PICK UP THAT POPULAR MISANDRIC </div> <div> PREJUDICE AS A BANNER-WAVING PUBLIC CAUSE, AND MARCH FORTH LOUDLY IN A VOICE OF CONDESCENDING RIGHTEOUSNESS, AMPLIFYING THE ERROR .... NO, WE SHALL NEVER ACHIEVE TRUE GENDER EQUALITY BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN UNTIL WE AT LAST EMBRACE A TRUE AND EQUAL PRESUMPTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY BETWEEN THE SEXES...REFLEXIVELY SO, DEEP IN OUR COLLECTIVE CULTURAL BONES -- THE CIVIL, LEGAL, AND MORAL ASSUMPTION THAT MEN AND WOMEN HAVE EQUALLY RESPECTED WORTH, AND THAT THEY THEREFORE ALSO CARRY IDENTICAL BURDENS OF SCRUTINY, JUDGEMENT, REDRESS, AND SELF-RESPONSIBILITY."</div> <bR> <div> Family violence does indeed unfortunately exist, and should be addressed constructively. But as a HUMAN issue, sans gender politics and the grandstanding that goes with it.  I hope this serves to move dialogue in that direction. </div> <bR> <div> Sincerely yours,</div> <div> Gladden Schrock</div> <bR> <div> 33 S Road,</div> <div> So. Bristol, ME 04568</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="id64_m.htm" TITLE="Gladden Schrock DV Letter to Maine Gover"><U>Back to Top</U></A></div> </td> </tr></table></body>