Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    
    Wisdom and courage -
    May we all have it,
    May we all share it.
    
    Carol
    

    
    
    MaggieT -
    
    That was beautiful - we should have fairy tales written by women
    about what happens to us to share with each other.  It can help
    to ease the pain - because the feeling that "I alone feel this
    way" gets exposed as another way we are battered.
    
    Together in sisterhood we can help women build a life that is free
    from the orges of reality.
    
    _peggy
    		(-)
    		 |	May the Goddess
    			fill you life and inspire
    			your tale.
     

    
    
    This is a personal opinion only,
    
    
    I would request that the male members of this conference be
    VERY sensitive to this topic and stay out.
    
    I for one do not want to here them whine about how they suffer.
    
    I, speaking for my self only, do not need or want to here their
    side of this story - I have heard all my life and don't need it
    right now.
    
    This is WOMEN's business - we need to heal ourselves before we
    can face the world.  Any male that is supportive of us will understand
    any male who wishes to be supportive is advised to LISTEN with
    their ears/eyes open and their mouths/fingers closed.
    
    _peggy
    		(-)
    		 |	Do not wake the sleeping one
    			there is great power under the
    			mountain that will be released
    			uncontrolled.
    

    Re .3, I agree with Peggy.  I would prefer that the male members
    stay out of this topic also.
    
    Lorna
    

    As nearly as I can recall, we don't actually have a formal policy on
    limiting responses.  In general, it is the part of courtesy to respect
    the wishes of basenote writers in that regard, but since MaggieT hasn't
    expressed any such wish, I conclude at the moment that there is no bar
    to responses by men. 
    
    I would urge that any man deciding to respond do so only after
    considerable reflection on the core issue.
    
    						=maggie

    I cannot BELIEVE that some are suggesting that men not
    respond to this!  Is it being suggested that men are
    not capable of understanding, comprehending, feeling
    compassion, anger and sympathy for the subject??
    
    If abuse is a problem we need to make all PEOPLE sensitive
    to the issue, not just one segment of the population!  If
    'men' are abusing 'women', then educate MEN, heighten their
    awareness!  
    
                       Deb
    
    

     Basically I am a patient person. As a moderator I feel it
    is important to listen to other people's stories and to let
    them express their pain.....
    
    how ever there comes  time when I really feel I must speak from
    my in most self....
    
    when I first started reading MS magazine... I went home and got
    angry at my husband and picked fights with him...untill he gave
    me a very good answer.....he said to me....Bonnie, it wasn't me.....!
    
    
    and he was right
    
    and I really think that those of us in womannotes who take things
    out on the men who write here are doing the same thing that I did..
    
    we are attacking the converted, we are attacking our allies....
    
    
    and I think that this is not reasonable...
    
    there are two topics in Soapbox (Bethe::soap) on the separate
    issues of abortion and of the roles of males and females in our
    society....
    
    if we really wish to argue these kinds of issues....then let us
    go to soapbox....and I haven't noticed any influx of womannoters
    there....
    
    let us stop beating up the men who support and love us and
    go and speak out to the rest of the world if we truely need
    to argue....
    
    Bonnie

    	Discussions about domestic violence can be controversial
    	and difficult.
    
    	I'd like to make a special request that we all try especially
    	hard to keep the flames down (from all sides) out of respect
    	for the readers of this conference who have personally
    	experienced physical abuse from a lover/spouse/SO (of either
    	sex) and who may still be *involved* in an abusive relationship.
    
    	If the statistics we've seen here are anywhere close, we most
    	likely have more victims reading these notes than we might
    	imagine.
    
    	Let's try to keep things calm, ok?

                     -< I encourage men to respond. >
    
         ->Grieve the hearts endurance, mourn the soul that cries<-
    
    With all my heart, I have to disagree with .3.  For one, I am not
    here to whine.  I can't see reason for any man to enter this topic
    to whine and subvert opinion toward male sympathy.
    
    While stationed in West Berlin from '79 to '82, I had never come
    across so many instances of wife beating, and girlfriend beating
    in my entire life up until then.  I am pretty sure in the case of
    Germany at least, they have a higher rate of abuse towards women
    than we have.  This may be a misconception, but I never witnessed
    it so much in public and in the privacy of homes than over there.
    
    Once in a german cafe, a friend and I were were having a light lunch.
    Seated at a table next to us was a german couple in their late
    twenties, maybe early thirties.  Somewhere around the middle of
    our lunch, the husband swings with all of his might and punches
    his wife square on the side of her mouth, completely knocking her
    and her chair over onto the floor.  Prior to this act of violence,
    there was no indication of an argument taking place.  Everything
    was pretty quiet up to that moment.  He proceeds to get up out of
    his chair, screaming invectives at her and kicks her in the thigh.
    This happened in a space of maybe 6 seconds.  A waiter tackled the
    husband to the floor, where he immediately became sedate.  The
    wife was helped up, sat down, and attended to.  She refused to allow
    management to call the police.  The management (My german wasn't
    that good yet so I missed most of what was said) proceeded to yell
    at the husband, who only sat and nodded his head.
    
    The wife then went off by herself into the restroom.  After about
    five minutes, the husband, who was still being watched warily by
    the restaurant faculty (and us for that matter), then stood up,
    telling a waiter who was keeping a "real" close eye on him, that
    he wanted to go apologize to his wife and see if she was okay. 
    Next thing we know we hear her screaming.  My friend and
    I rushed off to the bathroom (too late) only to find the wife on
    the ground again, being kicked repeatedly by her husband.  Her face
    was completely bloodied.  The floor was was sprayed with blood.
    We would later learn, he smashed her nose.  When we grabbed for
    the husband, he did not turn complacent like he had the last time
    and this may be due to the fact that we were wearing Air Force Blue,
    which sometimes brought out undisguised anti-American sentiment
    among some German citizens.  He decided to fight.  Before the
    restaurant personnel were able to stop the fight, we thoroughly
    gave him reason to regret the decision.  Possibly it took him
    longer to recover from damages than his wife.
    
    The police were called this time, along with ambulances.  I was
    pretty shaken up by the whole affair.  We were taken away by the
    German Polizei because of the assault on the husband and turned
    over to military authorities, where the whole thing was hem-hawed
    over for a month (investigated) and we finally were relieved of
    duty for 30 days and put on detail.  It basically amounted to
    a slap on the hand, it still made me mad as hell.  It was decided
    the action we took was unwarranted.  They felt the violence to
    the German citizen could have been avoided.  They weren't there.
    
    I met a german girl who I would see for the next three years.  Three
    months into our relationship we had our first argument.  I was
    completely flabbergasted when she ran for the opposite side of the
    room and begged me not to hit her.  ????  I never made a threatening
    move, we were just arguing with voices raised in volume.  I told
    her I would never in all my life even let the thought cross my mind!
    It took about another year and several more arguments before she
    genuinely believed me.  Her last boyfriend used to hit her all the
    time.  They saw each other for 5 years.  She took this for 5 years.
    
    I was glad to illustrate to her, that there are men in this world
    that a woman need not fear, that there are men out there they need
    not fear disagreeing with, that there are men out there who would
    stand in front of them in the face of any male threatening an act
    of violence.  I for one, can't understand, without deep physcological
    analysis, where, in a mans life, this sickness would originate.
    
    I do know one thing.  Of all my encounters in Berlin with males
    publicly beating their wifes or girlfriends (it doesn't just happen
    in the privacy of the home over there), I came to know one thing.
    In the times, when I was close enough to be involved, and the
    sheer act of what was happening caused me to redline, I discovered
    that these men were cowards whenever I would offer myself as a target
    of their beatings, instead of their wives or girlfriends.  They
    would either cease or run from their ensuing hospital bill.  There
    were times of course, when I was on the losing end, but by then
    help usually came by the numbers or by the authorities.
    
    You see, it isn't a "man" who hits, beats and abuses women.  Men
    would steadfastly declassify this type of male from the designation.
    They are cowards.  They are sick.  
    
    I sympathize and grieve for the pain and degredation endured by
    women who suffer this abuse.  I am in your corner.       
    
    
    Sherman_::AIKALA
   

    re .9
    
    Stories like yours [and personal experiences] make me wonder about
    the satistics we see that say that abusing women - beating and raping
    them - is much more common in the US than there in Europe.  While
    I'm sure some of those stats are valid, I wonder what they would
    be like if it were feminists being abused.. I wouldn't be suprised
    to see that the problem is more serious than "they" [the amorphous,
    everpresent, allknowing, omnipotent "they"] think due to
    under-reporting.
    
    Lee

    From Europe:
    
    I haven't seen many statistics, but would tend to think that the
    violence "level" could be quite different from one European country
    to the other. The cultures are very different, the education is
    completely different, the level of alcohol intake greatly varies
    (alcohol, or any sort of drug, is - I believe - the primary catalyzer
    to the sort of violence we are discussing here).
    
    Germans also have a tradition of violence, and also a very macho
    image of man (which is what nazism was about). In the case mentioned
    in the previous note, this was also right after the war (I think)
    and the taste of defeat may have made the men want to take it out
    on women (obviously not an excuse, just an attempt at explanation).
    
    Statistics about violence in general show that the US and Japan
    come out way above Europe, but maybe those statistics were compiled
    by Europeans !
               
    I strongly doubt that 50% of Swiss, Swedish or Danish women are
    beaten by their partners. Obviously, it does happen, witness the
    fact that we have an organization "Femmes Battues" (Beaten Women).
    But, as any type of violence is lower, this particular sort of vio-
    lence would also be lower.
    
    Joana
    

    I grew up in a nice, upper-middle class family where battering was
    a way of life.  (My father called it "spanking" me and "knocking
    some sense into" my mother).
    
    It included all over body beatings with fists and open palms and
    chasing whichever of us was handy all over the house while beating
    on us.  My mother lost her hearing in one ear once.   They didn't
    divorce until I was out of the house, though.
    
    The above is really just a preamble to a comment on men's participation
    versus non-participation in this note.
    
    If I were talking about this with a friend, I might say (and have
    said) "Please just listen.  I don't want or need you to respond.
    Just listen for now."
    
    Once in a women's group I talked about this and said "Please just
    listen.  I don't want you to respond."  I turned to the group leader
    and said "It feels ok if you respond when I'm done talking".
    And that was all I could handle at the time.  The people in the
    group understood.
                                                             
    That is how I saw the above request for men to listen and not respond
    to this note.  I support that request.  It's important to point out
    that the request does not preclude a response from men at another time
    (in person) or in another note (in notes). 
    
    I think it is very important for women to *occasionally* be able to
    say "Please...only women respond in this note".  And I think it
    is entirely appropriate for men who have something to say to start
    a new base note on the subject.  I almost always would read them,
    but just as in real life I would not want an immediate response
    in time, in notes I would not want an adjacent response in the string.
    
    It is very important for every person to be able to express herself or
    himself on sensitive subjects in a way that is manageable for that
    person.   It does not necessarily imply a devaluation of any other
    person's ability to respond empathetically. 
         
    My opinion.
    
    Holly
    

    I wrote the basenote in a woman's voice to other women.  There is
    a commonality of experience here.  The issue is domestic violence
    specifically 'wife beating'.  It was hard for me to hear the stories
    of other women's experience with respect to wife beating.  I sometimes
    get over powered by memories.  My hope is that other women can share
    experinces, and resources for healing and get over the issues I
    as a woman address here.  In the womannotes file I have comeout a a sexual
    survivor, rape victim, victim of domestic violence.  I've come out
    as a lesbian, as a comic...as a woman who proudly speaks in her
    own voice...I speak to other women....I try to say to myself and
    others that we are strong...we can survive we can care and share resources
    and experiences...we are women.
    
    My voice is generally directed to women...unless I address my comments
    to men specifically.  I cannot share experiences I have not had
    in life...I have struggled and survived and loved to some purpose.
    I matter...I just want other women to know that despite abuse,
    emotional, physical, societal we can get past it...we can use our
    stregnth to survive and help others and keep loving.  That's the
    point of my being here.  It would be very easy to not address these
    painful issues and to keep silent...I will not do that.....I need to
    speak to other women who may be in a place I have come from and
    say you will live past it.  It validates my experience and I hope
    helps others. This is a place for me to hear other women, and to
    see their experiences about being a woman and share information.
    
    
    There are some supportive men in this file that realize this is
    a woman's place.  They add their voices to this file with determination
    to hear what we are saying.  I only speak for myself....I ask to
    be heard only as one woman...I am not all women.  My experiences
    are mine alone.
    
    MaggieT