Terry O’Neill, a domestic violence survivor, was elected NOW’s new president. According to NOW’s press release, Ms. O’Neill was instrumental in establishing Maryland’s first Family Justice Center for survivors of domestic violence.
My radar always goes up when a politician says domestic violence is “an intolerable and horrible crime,” but votes against funding for a domestic violence center. Blair was investigated for beating up a former girlfriend in 1984.
Since I started this site just over four months ago, I have struggled with how we can establish a community of people committed to the same vision. The folks at Barbados Free Press showed me how. I am ever so grateful to them.
So, I’m going to ask all you shy flowers who tend to visit without commenting to get some interaction going on. We’ll start with a poll. A Mom’s Random Mind asked this week why bloggers aren’t doing more to demand change. We are, but I think we’d be more effective if we had a community or forum or platform where we could gather and exchange ideas and information.
My concern is for my readers for whom Father’s Day is painful. Sadly, too many of us had fathers who were absent or abusive or molestors. How do we celebrate them? Should we?
Some have suggested that the third wave of feminism is international. There are times when I stridently believe that we need to get our own house in order before we start going out into the world.
Yet, I am humbled when I read about the horrendous abuse women experience in other countries ~ especially in war zones. A military weapon more powerful than any bomb is to rape a woman in front of her family.
The person most in the forefront, of course, is Eve Ensler. Her current efforts are focused on the Congo.
Alice Miller was born in 1923. She received her PhD from the University of Basle and worked as a psychotherapist in Zurich, Switzerland for 20 years. Since 1980, she has been the intellectual warrior leader for abused children around the world.
Her initial motivation was to understand Adolph Hitler. She believes there is a direct link between child abuse/domestic violence and world peace. To this end, enlightened/helping witnesses are the key.
Instinctively, we react to threats to our safety with a fight or flight response. It ramps up our adrenaline and sends us into a temporary high.
It can, at times, help us to literally move mountains to remove ourselves and those we love from peril.
For those of us who have experienced abuse, it can also ruin our health (see 4/29/09 post). We can end up with health concerns like complex PTSD (C-PTSD), auto-immune disorders, and cardio-vascular problems.
We all need “protection circles” ~ to be surrounded by people who are there for us ~ to celebrate the good times and to weather stormy seas. Yet, by definition, […]
After four days of deliberation, the jury found Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (“Clark Rockefeller”) guilty of custodial kidnapping and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon charge. As I write this blog, I am listening live to the sentencing hearing at WCVB’s web page. I am grateful to them for their coverage of this trial as well as the abundant resources they have provided during the pendancy of this trial on their web site.
Citing “Rockefeller’s” disregard for his daughter’s welfare when he kidnapped her, Judge Frank M. Gaziano sentenced him to five years for custodial kidnapping and three years for assault and battery with the sentences to be served concurrently (at the same time).
Heather and I agree that there’s safety in the spotlight. Her friends have posted billboards letting her ex-husband know she’s surrounded by a circle of protection. She is on a media blitz because:
I think the reason that domestic violence is the silent killer is because women tend to stay silent, and that’s exactly what the abusers want.
Anne Caroline Drake 