Printer-friendly version
PDF version![[filefield-description]](http://www.standard.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/max_800/20 dv.jpg "[filefield-description]")
![[filefield-description]](http://www.standard.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/max_800/21 Domestic violence copy.jpg "[filefield-description]")
The complexities surrounding domestic violence are being complicated by a new factor: The prevalence and easy access to pornography.
More women requesting help are reporting that their abuser views pornography, according to officials who work with abused women.
"Five years ago pornography wasn't something we talked about," said Kay Card, director of Safe Harbor, a women's shelter in Davis County.
The pornography is a "cancer," she said.
"Women can't compete with the Internet," Card said.
They report their abuse starts with put-downs, progresses to physical abuse, sexual insults, sexual abuse and rape.
"They appear to be living normal lives, but you don't know what people are doing on the Internet in the middle of the night," Card said.
Utah's Domestic Violence Coalition wants to get the message out, that it is not OK to physically, psychologically, emotionally or financially abuse another person, whether it is wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend or a child.
Judy Kasten-Bell, executive director of the Domestic Violence Coalition council, said, since there have been 11 deaths in Utah so far this year related to domestic violence.
The first this year was the murder of Brittany Nichols, 23, in North Ogden on Jan. 4. Her killer, Johnny Maurice Bell, was sentenced recently to 16 years to life in the Utah State Prison.
"There is no room in our community for domestic violence," Kasten-Bell said.
The struggling economy is also complicating efforts to help abuse victims. Jobs are the key to helping women get away from their abuser and back on their feet.
Top of Utah women escaping domestic violence are spending more time in shelters than a year ago due to the poor economy.
When the economy plummets, abuse cases of all types, tend to increase, said Jason Wild, interim director for the Family Connection Center in Layton.
But women are more reluctant to report abuse because they are financially dependent on their partner and are afraid they will not be able to make it on their own, he said.
"We're not seeing a massive increase in numbers (of women reporting abuse)," said Raquel Lee, assistant director of Your Community Connection in Ogden.
"What is happening, it is taking longer to get on their feet," Lee said about the women who do leave a violent relationship.
Many of the women who come to the shelters for help are unemployed, which makes it almost impossible for them to find a place to live, said Card.
Annette MacFarlane, director of Your Community in Unity, in Brigham City, agrees.
"The reason many women go back to their abuser is because they do not have a job or a place to live," said MacFarlane.
One in four women have experienced or are in a violent domestic relationship, she said.
From July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009, her agency took 3,845 phone calls from victims, as well as friends and family members seeking help on behalf of another.
So a recent $250,733 award from the Department of Justice was welcome news, MacFarlane said. The funds will be used for several programs, including transitional housing and to help women who are getting out of abusive relationships.
Currently, the agency provides funding for one year of rent, but with the added funds, the agency will be able to provide rent assistance for 18 months.
Card said her agency is feeling the economic pinch in another way: For the first time there is a drop in private donations, which are used to help pay for (doctor) co-pays, bus fares, dental work for children, and prescriptions.
In addition, Card's shelter is seeing a decrease in donations of items like paper towels, toilet paper and reams of copy paper.
Women seeking help do not fit society's stereotypes, MacFarlane said.
"She doesn't live in a trailer court with a husband wearing a 'wife beater' undershirt," MacFarlane said. "The reality is they represent the demographics of our community."
Definitely stay in school.
Definitely stay in school. One of the things our mother pushed was to learn something to be able to support yourself. What she hadn't done. We all did that. Don't enter into a serious relationship until you are at least 21...A real woman is a smart woman.The explanation to flatlander about competing with the internet, is with the pictures. Most women will never be able to compete with Playboy, etc. and there are those out there that will say, "But it say here that you can do this...." AUGHHH! Maybe somebody could but that doesn't mean you would.
Not Rocket Science
Porn is an objectification of human beings (most often women and children), a reduction of a person down to their sexual parts. It is not hard to see that once a man begins to think of women as sexual objects, he is more likely to abuse them. Porn is extremely exploitive, and its demand is responsible for a large share of the human slave trade. So yes, it would make sense that there is a direct link between it and abuse.http://humantrafficking.change.org/
You got that right.
I have to agree totally with you on that comment you hit that one spot on, good job!
To Laytonian
To Latonian: Not to mention that educated, well-informed and independent women are just far more interesting to be with, and far more fun too. At least that's been my experience. [PS: sorry I'm replying by a new main post. The "reply" function isn't working for me. Won't let me enter text into the box. Don't know why.]
Jala made one good point....
Laytonian: Jala made one good point. This: "As a woman I would encourage other women to protect themselves." Couldn't agree more on the general point. But one of the most important ways that can be achieved is for women --- and girls --- to understand how important it is that they have skills and the resources those skills generate to rely on if their relationships --- marriage or otherwise --- go bad. And about half of the first time marriages in the US today end in divorce. To protect themselves, women should first and foremost stay in school. Graduate from high school. Go to college or some other school or apprentice program if you can to acquire some employable skill with which, should you need to, you can support yourself and your children. In a marriage or relationship, be careful to acquire some assets, some resources, of your own --- bank account, job, work skills, whatever --- so that if you have to flee for your own safety or that of your children, you'll have some place to go, some resources to rely on. If you've so arranged things that you are wholly reliant on him --- have no job yourself, no money, no resources and no marketable skills --- and the worst happens, he begins to enjoy abusing you, you will have no place to go besides an emergency shelter which may not be able to take you in. Or your children either. So, by all means, protect yourself. Become skilled at something. Become financially self-reliant. Become educated. Just in case if for no other reason. It may never happen that you need to get out to surive. But as today's article makes clear --- and Laytonian is right that a couple's appearning to be "nice" is no guaratnee that serious abuse isn't happening, regularly --- it can happen. It does happen. It is happening. Here. And step one for girls wanting to leave school to be with Mr. Wonderful who "would never ever do anything bad to me" [abuse at one end, simply walking away from you and your child, if you get one, at the other] is stay in school. Finish your education and try if at all possible to arrange for more. Those who've seen the heartache and wreckage not doing so can create would, I think, add one word to that. This one: Please.
Flatlander, you said it better than I did.
It is sad to have to support children on minimum wage to $12 an hour jobs and never feel like you can take care of them let alone yourself. Life doesnt give one time off to go to school and you cant be at home being a mother and at work or school at the same time. It also makes women more dependent and willing to subject themselves and their children to a dangerous situation with an abusive father or boyfriends. I worked several jobs and 7 days a week just to pay for the basics. At least they were old enough that I didnt need a sitter. I cant even begin to say how tired and discouraged I was. Planning one's life instead of just getting married and hoping things work out is a better way to live a life. You made this point much better than I did.
Protection is important.....
....but if a girl gets involved with the wrong crowd, it's all downhill. I firmly believe that "the wrong crowd" will exist as long as the parents live in that neighborhood and the girl(s) attend the same school. Moving away, may be an option. Don't write to missionaries while you're under 21. Don't get involved with anyone, seriously, until you've completed college or have your skills in place and have a good job. Do NOT plan to stay home and raise the kids, because you'll be ill-prepared if something goes wrong (death of husband, abandonment, divorce, abuse). I think we're saying the same thing. There's the FLDS view that JAPA is promoting, and the real-world view that means a strong, educated woman must be able to take care of herself....in all ways, before she attempts to take care of anyone else.
Well Laytonian,
Women who appreciate themselves, the life they have been given, and the opportunities that are available are less likely to become the kind of person who attracts trouble and rather recognizes it when it does present itself. I'm older, but dignity, propriety, modesty, education, compassionate service, responsibility, you know, the good stuff, is something worth fighting for. Our sleezy society norms of today are not. I for one am tired of women who fight, swear, and act trashy. Im sorry that is over your head. Society has turned to a path of open rebellion against decency. And those who stand up for it will be severly trounced, Im sure. Laytonian, I think you are silly.
And just because I get tired of adding apostrophes doesnt mean I am uneducated...it only means Im tired of typing apostrophes. I rarely use them in informal correspondence. :-)
It was good start anyway.
I am just going to have to go along with the idea that this story in no way supports the topic in the head line other than it is just an personal view point on porn. The story was well written and a good read but without a defined outline of what porn is, the topic is left wide open to question. In other words it was off to a good start but never got anywhere in the end.
Dear JALA
What does "pretty and healthy" have to do with a man not beating you up? In my career, I had three "pretty and healthy" women call in sick and then later tell me that they'd been in a fight with their husband, when I asked about the bruises. You'd find it odd that the two women who came to work in flashy clothing (what you'd call "'sexy") had no problem handling men.....and had the longest marriages among the entire group. Whenever a woman calls out the "they deserved it because they dressed sexy instead of pretty and healthy" card, they lose whatever respect they may have had. Do you think the stay-at-home, homeschooling wife is safer from abuse than any other woman. Hah. Those long skirts hide a lot. You, JALA, sound like a man in your "blame it on the woman" post.You recommend to women "Educate yourself", in a posting that has NO apostrophes. I'll be charitable and blame that on a broken keyboard. I have extra keyboards available, if you'd like one for free. Just email me and I'll send it to you. For free. Then, you can start using the apostrophe.
An odd story...
An odd story, which I suspect reflects the beliefs/preferences of Ms. Card or Ms. Park in its lead paragraphs. The overwhelming majority of the story is about physical abuse of women in Davis County and northern Utah generally, and from about line 12 on, it's a damn good story on a very important topic, particularly now as shelters are jam packed and incidents are rising because of the bad economy and unemployment levels. But the headline doesn't focus on that. It focuses on porn as a cause of abuse. Odd, because the story doesn't, for the most part, reflect the headline. I started reading expecting to read about a study or studies relating porn to abuse. Not there. What's there is Ms. Card's belief that there is a connection. Period. And even that disappears from the story early on. And all Ms. Card actually reports is that abused women say the men who abused them watched porn. That's a long way from saying the porn caused the abuse. Seems just as reasonable to me to conclude that the kind of knuckle-dragging moronic bastard who would beat up a woman is precisely the kind of knuckle-dragging moronic bastard we might expect to find sadistic porn exciting. The oddest statement from Ms. Card is this: "Women can't compete with the Internet," Card said." She cannot possibly have meant what that sentence seems to mean. Is it possible that porn-watching when it becomes an obsession can lead to violence against women, or to an increase in the level of violence among men who already find some kind of sick pleasure in hurting the women in their lives? Certainly is. I'm willing to be convinced by evidence that it's so. Evidence. Some credible and well done study, for example. It's a good article about the abuse of women, the scope of the problem locally, and some of the causes of the recent spike [decline in the economy, for example.] But this otherwise important article is not strengthend, but made weaker by leading with Ms. Card's speculations --- and that's what they are --- about the relationship between porn-watching and violence against women. That is not what the story was in fact about.
Post Hoc Fallacy
A near-textbook example of the "post hoc fallacy":http://www.skepdic.com/posthoc.htmlBy the same token, I bet you could "prove" all abusers have eaten at McDonald's, and thereby "prove" that eating at McDonald's leads to abuse.Violence against women is unacceptable. Period. However, the S-E owes its readers a thoughtful analysis of the issue.
So, SE reporters
Observers believe there to be a correlation between pornography and domestic abuse; is there, factually, a connection? It would be valuable, indeed even journalistic, to look for such information before making it the headline of an article.And to JALA: Hey, what a great solution. If women are proper, "pretty and healthy instead of sexy," then they won't get beat up. Super!
Hit me once shame on you. Hit me twice...shame on me!
One doesnt have to invite trouble....just because I COULD get hit by a car doesnt mean I dont have a choice not to intentionally step in front of a moving vehicle. One doesnt have to invite trouble. And it always amazes me how many people will fight a good suggestion and plead helplessness. Victims are thriving in Ogden. Poor helpless people of Ogden. We need to throw a big pity party for everyone. Heaven help us if we made wiser choices, threw out the trash, and started doing things that make a difference. Americans are so spoiled. They cause most of their own problems and marinate in them.
A Sick Society
Give a guy a computer and some time alone and he'll be looking at pornography. I call it the Peeping Tom syndrome. It's also the #1 computer abuse at the workplace. And that goes for teenage sons, too. And the girls these days arent much better. The people in this country have demanded their freedom to the extent that we no longer value language or education or benevolent, compassionate service. People seem to be obsessed with themselves, pleasing themselves, using others, and being as vulgar as possible. Tattooing, sticking ornaments all over the face and body, and exposing oneself as much as possible seems to be the statement of the times. There is no refinement anymore; just - LOOK AT ME and how crude I can be. It isnt a youthful stage either; it is now a way of life.The price is respect. And men dont respect vulgar classless women. And women dont appreciate men that cant be trusted and dont value others. Women have forgotten that they are supposed to be mothers and the nurturing example for their children, and that they are the civilizing factor in society. Men have forgotten they are supposed to be fathers and the example for their children, the ones who protect and provide. Husbands and wives have forgotten to be loving supportive best friends and lovers to each other. Adults are supposed to be ADULTS. It is no wonder there are so many messed up people when they come from homes of selfish, self obsessed parents. Abusiveness is simply a symptom of this selfishness, of demanding the world revolve around only one's self. We dont have civilization in this country anymore. Just noisy look at me...look at me...look at me...creatures, desperate for attention at any cost. And so we report that porn causes abusivesness. Well, duh. but if so many females and males werent willing to be Internet whores then there wouldnt be anything to look at, would there. As long as vulgar is cool then there isnt any hope for things ever being different. As a woman I would encourage other women to protect themselves. Learn to be a lady. Strive for pretty and healthy instead of sexy. Keep your body for your husband. Educate yourself. Learn to stand on your own two feet. Learn the work ethic. Get rid of helplessness. Value your life. Remember that you are someone's mother, whether you have had a child yet or not. Stop breeding so you can trap a man into marrying you and taking care of you. Make sure you really know a man before you marry him and dont expect to change anyone. Men dont change. Be responsible for your life instead of a victim.