CIB 3.5 - Feelings in a Nutshell

These were my thoughts and feelings on the third CIB post. I chose this song because of how not only how my siblings and I felt about Rodger, but also because I am sure plenty of children (and adolescents and adults) have experienced this and feel just as frustrated, and more, than we did.This is also the second song I think about when I think about DV in general (next to Red Jumpsuit's "Face Down").

BREAK ME, SHAKE ME

i never thought i'd change my 

opinion again 

but you moved me in a way that i've 

never known 

you moved me in a way that i've 

never known

but straight away you just moved 

into position again 

you abused me in a way that i've 

never known 

you abused me in a way that i've 

never known

chorus 

so break me shake me hate me 

take me over 

when the madness stops then you 

will be alone 

just break me shake me hate me 

take me over 

when the madness stops then you 

will be alone

so you're the kind who deals with the 

games in the mind 

well you confuse me in a way that 

i've never known 

you confuse me in a way that i've 

never known

chorus

she says i can help you but what 

do you say 

but it's not free baby you'll have 

to pay 

you just keep me contemplating that 

your soul is slowly fading

god don't you know that i live with a ton 

of regret 

'cause i used to move you in a way that 

you've never known 

but then i accused you in a way that 

you've never known 

but you hurt me in a way that i've 

never known

break me shake me hate me take 

me over 

when the madness stops then you 

will be alone 

so won't you break me shake me 

hate me take me over 

when the madness stops then you 

will be alone

listen baby 

you'll be you'll be alone

break me shake me hate me take 

me make me 

fake me break me shake me hate 

me take me 

break me

CIB - #3 : Abusive Partners as Parents

So this CIB post is going to be about Bancroft’s chapter 10: Abusers as Parents.

I choose to write about this topic because I know a lot people who have been abused as children, or witnessed abuse. My brother and two younger sisters had an abusive stepdad for a long time and we’ve all experienced his control and abuse.

This chapter really gave me some more insight their stepdad. I saw how he treated my brother because he viewed him more of an extension of his mother and treated my youngest sister like saint because she was, in his mind, a direct extension of himself (thank goodness she didn’t turn out that way though). Anyways, that’s what I got from this chapter personally. On a social working career level I got reminded of something’s to look for and how abused children could feel and react to abuse in the household.

Also, I had to laugh for a second while reading this chapter. Bancroft contradicts himself from an earlier chapter. He talks about how witnessing child abuse and being abused as a child has strong correlations with future abuse when in the other chapters I read he talked about it as being a myth. So again, while reading ANYTHING, make sure to think critically.

Also, here is my video recapping everything I learned in this chapter:

*Disclaimer: There are two curse words. I apologize.

So for the peer-reviewed journal I found I decided to look into the outcomes of children in the different parenting types: authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful. I choose to look up this article because Bancroft talks about how abusive parents often times have authoritarian tendencies (however, I have covered earlier than neglectful and indulgent parents are can also be abusive).  This article can be located here:Parenting Style Studies

The study had children take a test to see what their parents parenting style was and then were given another test to se their competencies in different areas such as psychological competency, school, etc. It is found that authoritative parents have rear children that are generally high in all competency areas and are low in psychological dysfunction. Neglectful parents are the exact reverse, and authoritarian parents tend to rear children that scored high very conforming and obedient areas. Note that abuse was not a controlled factor in this study.  This is more of a study showing the differencing parenting types and how they affect children. Take this study and apply it to what we already know about abuse.

For the two website requirements:

This site gave a list of child abuse signs. I think it’s a good start for abused children and adults looking for signs of abuse. However, it totally neglected some subtle signs of abuse and didn’t talk about the manipulative attributes abusive parents show (like putting on a positive hat on outside the home). However, it is a generally touch and go to get started on further research. Prevent Child Abuse Inventory

The other site I found was Love is Respect: http://www.loveisrespect.org/

This site is geared for teens (a target group I want to work with in my future).  It has amazing inventories to check if you are being abused (or showing signs of abusing) in a dating relationship. While this site focuses on the aspects of  dating violence, they are consistent with Bancroft’s parent-child abuse signs. Basically, they can be applied to this area of DV. So check it out! It’s a fantastic site!

EXTRA INFO: Two-Spirits and Domestic Violence

So I thought I would do this extra cool blog post since I talked about transgendered violence earlier and we are going to be talking about GLBTQ violence next week. Last week I went to the Native American Film Fest here in Moscow and watched the documentary "Two-Spirits".

For those of you who don't know, Two-Spirits is the english term that encompasses many different tribal beliefs and genders. However, since Two-Spirit beliefs sometimes differ and don't always have english equivalent words tribes from North America, Central, and South America, came together to create this great term to encompass of the gender identities under one umbrella. Two-spirits also fall under the larger umbrella of Transgendered as well.

Anyways, to the point. Two-spirits are generally revered individuals in a tribe that identify as something other than the "Masculine Man" and the "Feminine Woman". In Navajo, which is the tribe the documentary focused on, they had two other genders: the "Masculine Woman" and the "Feminine Man". These individuals usually held a great place of honor in some tribal societies. However, when Europeans arrived with their rigid binary gender system they worked to eliminate Native Two-Spirits because it was "wrong" and "unnatural". How is rigid binary system of gender natural when there is so much more!?!?
Anyways, now today we have lost a respect for everyone from other gender identities and especially those who are Two-Spirit. These prejudices that our society often holds not only affects the self esteem of Two-Spirit individuals, but also affects their relationships with their community, interpersonal relationships, and inevitably, domestic violence.

Dr. LaFortune, a Two-Spirit Scholar, was in the documentary and actually came to the showing to talk to us about Two-Spirit issues. He brought up a fact about how Two-Spirit men and women are often times victims of DV from people who are generally not Native. This of course rang with the inner researcher in me and I had to look up statistics and more info! What I found was this great site: Two-Spirits.com and these Domestic Violence Circles specifically for Two-Spirit Peoples:

(I was hoping to be able to post these as pictures, but they're in PDF form so I can't, so do me a favor and look at them, ok?)

For Two-Spirit Men:
http://www.2spirits.com/DomViolenceFactSheetMen.pdf

and for Two-Spirit Women:
http://www.2spirits.com/DomViolenceFactSheet.pdf


The interesting thing that differs these DV wheels from other wheels is that it has a spiritual DV part. It includes partners that put down your spirituality, your rituals (or prevents you from doing so), and so on and so forth.

Also, on both Two-Spirit fact sheets it shows that over 60% of Two-Spirit men and Women have experienced homophobia/transphobia and have felt judged or unnaccepted in a counseling environment. This is why it is extremely important that we learn about these issues facing all people and particularly Two-Spirit and Transgendered people. How can you, or I, learn to help someone if we are not culturally and personally sensitive to a persons issues?

Dr. LaFortune mentioned that Two-Spirits are barely a footnote in the large Transgendered community. He and I both agree that they should be more than that. That is one reason I am posting this. Also, I want to work the LGBTQ Youth sometime in my future and might come across someone who is Two-Spirit. For those of you who are interested as I am in transgendered issues and Two-Spirit folks I definitely recommend the site listed above and watching the documentary "Two Spirits". You can find it at twospirits.org

As always I would love to hear your questions or comments whether on here or on FB!!

-Alex

Week 9: Dating Violence

This week we obviously talked about dating violence and whenever I think about dating violence anymore I think about Rape Culture.

We were talking in Soc of Gender last year about how women are always told not to drink to much or to watch what they wear and never walk alone at night or else they might get raped. These are really problematic ways of thinking about rape. Why should a woman have to worry about what she wears or how much she drinks among friends? People shouldn't rape. When we back up these methods of protecting oneself from rape we are putting a Band-Aid on a gun wound. We are backing up rape culture. We are basically saying as a society that rape is a normal concurrence and we just have to live with that fact. So instead of asking what a woman (although men are and can be raped as well!) "did wrong to protect herself against rape". We should ask "Why are rapist raping?".


However, I am not saying that we should not give women (and men) the skills to protect themselves now! That is important since this is a perverse social problem, that sadly, won't be eliminated overnight. I am just trying to point out where the cause is and where some of our efforts to elimiate this huge problem should look. 


Also, I had this female student in my class comment on my discussion and how she thought I was wrong to say this, that the US was not a rape culture and that women shouldn't be so "naive" and not drink to much at "frat" parties. However, I responded to her by pointing out she was clearly backing up my argument. Our culture, and other cultures around the world, normalize rape. We think it is a normal, and heaven-forbid, a natural occurance (usually by men) that can't be helped, that it's just a fact we live with. That is what makes a culture a rape culture. We normalize it with our speech and even give it a positive spin when we say something like "Oh, I'd rape that" or "I rapped that, shit" (which I have definitely been guilty of this and am seriously working on not saying that ever again). 


However, I was very happy to find that another gentleman and a lot more students sided with my argument and added some great insights and facts to my initial post. It really makes me hopefully that more people are on the right mind track about preventing rape culture just within themselves and as it sounds like, in other avenues of life. 


I could seriously have discussions about this all day, so if any of you have questions or comments send me a comment or e-mail! Or those of you on my facebook drop me a message or comment there as well!


-Alex

Week 8: Sin By Silence

This week we had two different objectives.
One was to watch the documentary "Sin by Silence" about a group of women in the California Institute for Women who killed their violent intimate partners when they saw no other escape , and write a paper on our reactions, and the second was to look up domestic violence deaths on mydeathspace.com.

"Sin by Silence"

Wow. just wow. I can't even begin to really explain how that documentary made me feel. I was angry, sad, hopeless and hopeful all at the same time. It was so awful to see these women, who had been terrorized and beaten and seeing no other escape, killed their violent intimate partners. Many people think, "well, these women should have found another way". Ok, yeah, that would have been great. However, being a victim of DV and being stuck with a partner who controls you, your money, sometimes your friends, isolates you and makes you believe there is no other escape, can be a real deterrence from seeking forms of help outside of the situation. Also, there are not always great advocates and resources in small communities. What then? If you don't have a car, access to a phone or internet, what is one supposed to do? There are so many factors that play into why these women took the actions they thought were right, it is hard (and in my opinion, not right) to pass judgment on them.

Some interesting facts I found while I was writing this paper that I think you might all want to know about is Intimate Terrorism (IT) and Violent Response (VR). IT is intimate terrorism is a pattern of fear-prodding and controlling behaviors that can be criminal (from assaults and stalking) to non-criminal (monitoring partners friends, activities, public humiliation, etc). These are some of the actions that these women in the documentary suffered and probably contributed to the reason they saw murder as their only means of escape. VR is violent self defense. Often times if a partner fights back it elicits a more aggressive and dangerous actions from the violent partner. This, again, can contribute to these women's reasons for escaping the situation the way they did.

Some of you might be wondering about Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) that is sometimes a defense for women who do kill their partners in self-defense against DV. Some of these women, though, were convicted of murder before BWS began to talked about in the court setting. Also BWS is technically not a defense, but more of a testimony from professionals and the examination of DV as prior evidence. Many of these women were charged on the murder and the jury might not have heard all of the previous violence done to the victim, therefore, condemning these women to life in prison. Even with the "discovery" of BWS in the late 1980's, some of these women who ask for an appeal still were not freed. BWS is also loosing steam in the world today, there are a few problems with it. It's hard to prove for one, and it is also very gender biased. So while BWS might still be used in some contexts, it is not the great shield that some of us think of it as. Still, these women (and all victims of IPV) suffer.

However, there was something really empowering and hopeful about this documentary. One of the women, Brenda, founded CWAA (Convicted Women Against Abuse). In the California Institute for Women, Brenda led groups to help women who killed their partners like she had, understand DV, the causes, warning signs, and ways to protect oneself. She came back from her darkest spot to help these women, who in turn, help more women and so and so forth. Even from the bowls of  this California penitenary, these woman showing great reslience and  are fighting the battle against DV....and doing one hell of a great job!


All in all, this was a seriously impacting documentary I urge you all to watch. I really got me more invested in this research and kind of put more steam into my personal mission of dispelling social myths revolving around DV in my everyday life. 




Mydeathspace.com


So the second part of this week we had to look on this website, mydeathspace.com (a site for obituaries), and look up vicitms of DV. I found a few, very horrifying accounts which I am not going to recite here, you can look them up for yourself. However, it wasn't the articles that disturbed me, but the comments that people had. People would post horrible comments like "that bitch deserved it" or "that's not rape, he was her husband" that made jokes about these serious acts of DV that resulted in death and also backed up rape culture. I was completely horrified. In fact, I don't really remember seeing a lot of positive comments at all. It makes me upset to see this happening....




Anways, that's all I had for this week.


-Ciao
 

Week 7: IPV II

This week we covered chapter 11 on IPV Abusers.

The first thing that I came across that I  want to relate to you all is the “Cycle of Violence”. This is the confusing spiral that traps victims and makes it hard to leave. I’m sure most of you have heard (or even experienced) this cycle, but for everyones purpose it is thus:

 http://www.zeinabarakeh.com/images/CycleOfViolence1.jpg

or incase you need words:

 

 http://www.familycrc.org/images/cycleChart.gif

In case you need it more poignantly said:

 

 http://www.shepherdsrestministries.com/images/dvcycle.jpg

Can you imagine how confusing it is to have all this violence against you and then be with the “person you fell in love with” again? To answer honestly, I would be seriously confused.

The rest of this chapter goes on to talk about risk factors for perpetrators of IPV such as being socialized to believe that some forms of violence is ok or normal, behavioral problems (antisocial behaviors, etc). Which are very important, but not what’s really on my mind right now (so ask later, ok? J) What’s really pressing on my mind is the small lines in the book about military IPV.

To begin, I love our soldiers!!! I support them 100%!! The war….not so much. Regardless, I care for all our people and after having friends in the armed forces and ROTC roommates, there’s no way in hell I couldn’t love our troops. However, members of the armed forces do seem to have added risk factors when it comes to IPV.

The book states that some research shows that there is a small significant difference compared to deployed and non-deployed personnel in that deployed personnel were more likely to be severely violent. The book also shows that reports of IPV among the armed forces has increased over the last few years. The same section goes on to show reports that members of the armed forces show significantly higher rates of sever IPV than civilians. However, I really want to see more studies done in this area. What is really causing this disparity?

The book says that some of the reason could be an community that values hypermasculinity and aggression and traditional sex roles. But maybe there is more than that?

I did do some extra research about specific prevalence rates in the armed forces but the results and reasons greatly varied. Again, I really hope more studies are done in this area.

On promising  note however, the book did show some research on recidivism rates of IPV in military offenders.  The study shows that military offenders have a much lower rate of recidivism (returning to the pattern of abuse) than civilians! This study went further to research what kinds of treatment were best but found that the type of treatment had no significant difference but still 83% of participants did not recitivate. That’s seriously huge!! I wonder what factors account for this as well?

Anyway, that’s what I found interesting in this chapter. Again, if y’all have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear your feedback!

-Alex

CIB 2.5 - Feelings in a Nutshell

This is what I was feeling when I read about the myth between child abuse and future abuse. This video included not only my frustration, but also shows some different forms of child abuse.


Smile Empty Soul - Nowhere Kids by AtlanticRecords

"Nowhere Kids"

in the land of dirt and plaster

lies an army of a thousand nowhere kids

losing ground and falling faster

into a life that no one should have to live

we are the people that you hate

we are the bastards that you created (the fucking bastards that you created)

a generation with no place

a generation of all your sons and daughters

behind the fake family image

behind the smile of a thousand moms and dads

inside the cage that we've been given

i see an image of the future that we don't have

[chorus]

and what did you expect ... a perfect child

raised by tv sets ... abandoned every mile

we never get respect ... never a fair trial

no one gives a shit ... as long as we smile