DV Could Be the Pivotal Issue of Our Time  

If family destruction and hence fatherlessness is the most urgent issue of our time, as David Blankenhorn suggests in his book, Fatherless America, and if it is the ultimate goal of radical feminism, then the DV issue is the ultimate weapon in their arsenal.

Why domestic violence?  Because this is one issue which most effectively neutralizes opposition to their agenda.  Throughout the nineties, and particularly after the hypocritical behavior of the N.O.W. in regard to the Clinton sex scandal and their intransigent position on partial-birth abortion, the radical feminists seized upon the one issue that could make them look good:  violence against women.

In the fall of 1998, I attended a DV meeting in Lancaster with a group of men from Lancaster Non-Custodial Parents.  The speakers included two women who had had personal experiences with violence.  One had a violent ex-spouse who killed her child.

We had planned to present our viewpoint that DV is not gender-specific, and that PFAs (restraining orders by which men are evicted from their homes by wives, sometimes with no proof of violence) often lead to violence rather than preventing it.

The Pennsylvania governor=s wife, Michelle Ridge, also spoke.  She said there was a 70% correlation between spousal abuse and child abuse.  She also said, AEvery woman in Pennsylvania is at risk of domestic violence.@

My men had agreed to stand up after the meeting and support our position.  Two of them, however, seemed psychologically overwhelmed by the stories of male-on-female violence, and were incapable of stating our position.

One of the LNCP spokesmen and I managed to go ahead with our plan.

He stood up and pointed out that before the advent of PFA law, there was more domestic tranquility.  He reminded the group that one person a month had died in domestic violence incidents over a period of more than a year after a Acrackdown@ in family courts whereby one judge had declared he would oust any man accused of domestic violence with or without proof.  Our spokesman, who also had a visitation issue, suggested that taking a child from a loving father was like taking a cub from a brown bear.

I came armed with a booklet by the Pennsylvania Department of Welfare.  I said I was saddened by the stories, particularly of the young woman whose child was killed.  I said I understood her feelings having lost a baby myself and had felt betrayed by the state.  Then I cautioned the group to consider domestic violence not as gender-specific but as something people do to each other.  Then I addressed Mrs. Ridge=s 70% correlation between spousal and child abuse, saying that if there is indeed a 70% correlation between child and spousal abuse, then that raises a question.

I held up the booklet on child abuse, opened to a page showing a table with abuses broken down according to gender of perpetrator and read the statistics showing that about 60% of all child abuse was perpetrated by mothers.

I said there must be something seriously wrong with our court system if, according to her statistics, 70% of those female perpetrators were also supposed to be spousal abusers and yet, while 39,000 men a year get served with PFAs, no women get thrown out of their homes on PFAs.  Why the emphasis on men, I asked.

Neither Mrs. Ridge nor anyone else on the panel was able to answer my question.  I am certain I was not only the first person in years to challenge the mainstream point of view, I was probably the first to have done my homework first.

Imagine if people everywhere were to inform themselves and then openly challenge the anti-family position of the establishment.  (And indeed, this brief web site is meant not only to encourage you to inform yourself but also to provide you with some information in defense of fathers and family.)

Later I attended a local breakout meeting with the agenda of finding ways to combat domestic violence.  I brought along some of the same men who had attended the earlier meeting with Mrs. Ridge.

One of the principals at this meeting was the head of the Lancaster Shelter for Women.  I recognized her from a LNCP rally we had held outside the courthouse the previous year.  She and a friend had walked past us peaceful demonstrators and said, AF...ing deadbeat dads.@

Now she glared at us from across the table and started aiming snide remarks at us.

The rest of the attendees were very polite to me, having heard my challenge the week before.  They made it a point to talk about domestic violence in gender-neutral language.  But the women=s shelter head was clear about how she felt public funds should be spent, saying that the shelter is only for women.  Her colleagues were clearly concerned about her reckless behavior and anti-male statements.

I point it out that Pennsylvania has an equal rights amendment which would seem to make such publicly funded institutions available to both sexes.

After about 20 minutes, although the men in our LNCP group were all polite and friendly, this woman=s shelter head suddenly stood up, announced that she had something else to do and stalked out.  Imagine a public servant who is supposedly dedicated to ending violence yet behaves with undisguised hostility toward a group that has only exercised their rights to express themselves in an orderly manner.

Later, an attendee from a church group expressed her hope that clergy members could attend the next public meeting.  One of the women=s advocates, an attorney who to my knowledge was receiving public funding for her work, immediately said, ANo.  No clergy.  They want to keep the families together.@

What a confession:  Thus, not far below the surface in the Lancaster domestic violence community is the feminist agenda of breaking up families.

Perhaps without the links to Erin Pizzey=s page: or my experience with the Harvard Law School=s course, during which the candidly anti-family Andrea Dworkin was invited as an honored guest lecturer, one could overlook the true agenda of the domestic violence community.  One might forgive their hostile behavior supposing these social workers are only showing righteous anger toward men because of the violence that does actually happen in some homes.  But it is only too evident that the real agenda of the domestic violence community has no room for combating violence.