Prominent Hard-line Feminist Shows Some Class, Apologizes for Calling Me a 'Notorious Right Wing Nut Case'
November 15th, 2007 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families
Some of you may recall that earlier this year I mentioned that Evan Stark (pictured), a prominent feminist advocate for domestic violence victims and the author of Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life (Interpersonal Violence) and numerous other DV books, had called me a "notorious right-wing nut case whose lies or half truths about family matters are legion."
Stark was reacting to my co-authored column Domestic Violence Lawsuit Will Help Secure Services for All Abuse Victims (Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal, 12/28/05), which one of my readers had apparently sent him during an email exchange. I thought it was one of my better columns, but apparently Evan didn't agree.
The book jacket of his Coercive Control says:
"In millions of abusive relationships, men use a largely unidentified form of subjugation that more closely resembles kidnapping or indentured servitude than assault. Stark calls this pattern 'coercive control'...Stark shows in terrifying detail how men can use coercive control to extend their dominance over time and through social space in ways that subvert women's autonomy, isolate them, and infiltrate the most intimate corners of their lives. Against this backdrop, Stark analyzes the cases of three women tried for crimes committed in the context of abuse, showing that their reactions are only intelligible when they are reframed as victims of coercive control rather than as 'battered wives.'
"Elevating coercive control from a second-class misdemeanor to a human rights violation, Stark explains why law, policy, and advocacy must shift their focus to emphasize how coercive control jeopardizes women's freedom in everyday life."
Would Stark classify Mary Winkler as a "victim of coercive control"?
[Mary Winkler shot her husband in the back and then refused to aid him or call 911 as he slowly bled to death for 20 minutes. She claimed--with little corroborating evidence--that she was a battered wife who suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome because of her husband's violence towards her. She was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and walked away a free woman in September after serving a farcically brief 'sentence' for her crimes. To learn more, see my co-authored column No child custody for husband-killer Mary Winkler (World Net Daily, 9/14/07), or click here.]
Stark was also a critic of our successful Campaign Against PBS's Father-Bashing Breaking the Silence in 2005. Stark told PBS:
"I am grateful, as a professional who represents battered mothers and their children in the courts, that you aired the breaking the silence film. The entire production ran true and, I must say, though many of the problems shown capture the experience of several million families a year."
Anyway, I was surprised and pleased lately when Stark, completely out of the blue, wrote me with his regrets. Stark wrote:
"Sometimes I get frustrated and respond in anger. I may have called you a 'Right Wing Nut Case,' but also may not have. If I did, I apologize."
OK, Evan, apology accepted. You showed some class by offering it.
Evan also criticized my quoting of DV researcher Richard Gelles' criticisms of Stark. I'm going to look into it when I get a chance, and probably do another blog post at a later point.
[Note: If you or someone you love is being abused, the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women provides crisis intervention and support services to victims of domestic violence and their families.]
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November 15th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Interesting. It seems to me that women are at least as likely to practice "coercive control" on their partners as men are, yet it's still framed as something exclusively done by men to women.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:48 am
As my brother who served amongst many Afro-Americans in a Marine infantry unit toward the very end of the Vietnam War would have said, 'mighty White of him'. As for the right wing part, being made to be 'chivalrous' by traditionalists is almost as deadly as by leftist feminists.
Pardon the name-calling, but I consider those whom exploit and maltreat children as a matter of 'advocacy', politics and/or personal behavior to be CHILD PREDATORS. The term 'predator' I believe refers to exploitation and consumption on its own with nothing sexual implied. The largest clusters of child predators by far can be found around government buildings such as statehouses, Congress, The White House, and especially courthouses during daylight hours on weekdays.
Mike
November 15th, 2007 at 11:50 am
I came to the men's rights movement mostly due to my own personal experiences of being married to a woman with an undiagnosed case of borderline personality disorder (BPD). I came to the movement when I found out that when a woman is emotiionally, verbally and physically abusive to her spouse and children there is nothing the man can do about it.
Lately, I've found great support on an internet site for people like myself who are involved with or have been involved with BPD's. It's been good to deal with these things outside of the politics of it (though, the politics is still valid).
One intensely clarified thought I come away with is how much monstrous damage people like Stark, Fecke, Marcotte, Pappas, Hannah, Childress and Goldstein do to the lives of people they don't even know.
They are in effect, extremely powerful enablers -- to the point of being accomplices -- of legions of severly damaged people. It's astounding really.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:51 am
As for 'coercive control', there is no better evidence than that 495 to 0 vote in Congress you passed on to us in regards to men being responsible for 95% of 'domestic violence'.
Mike
November 15th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Coercive control?
Is that like using the children as a weapon to get a desired result in a relationship?
You know, like the mother who grabs the children and leaves the house over any little spat.
Many women use children as weapons to get whatever they want from the father. Every father knows the mother can yank the children out of his life for little or no reason. If they need a reason, no problem, they just make one up.
Is that coercive control?
November 15th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Rule 1. The female always makes the rules.
Rule 2. The man must obey the rules at all times.
and so on
I'm sure many of you have seen this before, but if you haven't you can find the full set of rules easily enough by googling rule no. 1. OK, it's a joke, but many a true word spoken in jest and it wouldn't be amusing if we didn't recognise the truth in it. This looks as though it fits Stark's definition of "coercive control" - and part of this control comes from the fact that society sees as it as completely normal and acceptable. Most of these issues are small pebble-in-the-shoe issues, but they can easily create a dynamic which determines how major issues are dealt with.
PS I'm sure there are men who act in the way Stark describes and I don't imagine Glenn, or most of the posters here, would attempt to defend their behaviour.
November 15th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
...Desperate/ perverted men like stark who will knowingly and willfully choke the younger generations of men by feeding into false hysteria may one day have to face their accusser!!
...The first to feel the straining/choking effects of Anti-male hysteria is our nations most vulnerable..our youth!!
November 15th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
"Elevating coercive control from a second-class misdemeanor to a human rights violation, Stark explains why law, policy, and advocacy must shift their focus to emphasize how coercive control jeopardizes women's freedom in everyday life."
Feminists want (reproductive) freedom for women (with no loss of child custody or standard of living) and Evan Stark probably believes that he is the hero that can provide it to them.
Yet, it is the threat of no-fault divorce and a father's subsequent loss of child custody and most or all of his discretionary income through wind-fall child support that have become forms of coercive control jeopardizing fathers' mental and physical health.
November 15th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Feminist males remind me of the 'politically correect' 'Jewish Police' in Nazi Jewish Ghettos who gathered up the quotas for Treblinka and other extermination camps.
Mike
November 15th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
"Coercive control" must mean that men are Svengalis, manipulating and controlling their weak-willed sex slaveswho are incapable of resisting men's demands.
In reality, this is just part of the radical feminist agenda to treat women as if they were infants, without free will of their own when it comes to men. Every honest man and woman knows this simply is rubbish. Why do some men hate other men in this manner? No thinking person buys this crap.
November 15th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
"Rule 1. The female always makes the rules.
Rule 2. The man must obey the rules at all times."
This may be representative of a lot of sitcom couples, but that is because of its supposed humor rather than a reflection of reality. It goes along with portraying men as children.
November 16th, 2007 at 4:38 am
Harq al-Ada
And would sitcoms be amusing if people didn't recognise reslity in them?
Malcolm
November 16th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
I often find myself wondering what the home lives of people like Stark must be like. What happens when they get into an argument or, heaven forbid!, a fight with their spouses? I guess they must always resolve them with absolute equity for both, neither one of them seeking to win their point over the other. If not, then it must always be the men that yield. Does one suppose that's what Stark does, automatically cave into whatever his wife wants?
I once met a shrink who claimed never to have argued with his wife of many years. Perhaps it is true, perhaps there are many, many absolutely and completely friction-free marriages out there where everything is just perfect for everyone all of the time. Thus they are truly those who are without sin and can cast the first stone. Perhaps our apparently "real" world of imperfect people is in fact the false one and we are all the perpetrators they, in their perfect world, take us for.
No, I have a much more jaded view. It's all about power. If Stark ever clocked his wife, who would she go to? After all, Stark is a well known and respected authority on this issue among all the people to whom she might have a hope of appealing. What chance would she stand. She must know her place well and truly. Coercive control, anyone?
And Stark's power is established on precisely those conditions expressed most clearly by Upton Sinclair: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” We should consider ourselves grateful that a paragon of domestic virtue and judge of what is proper human behavior actually apologizes for calling Glenn names, even if he does so by qualifying it with a "maybe I did, and maybe I didn't, but if I did, I apologize".
Do you think that would work in court - "Yer honor, she says I hit her. Now I don't remember doing it, but if I did, I'm sorry, is that OK?" Do you think that'll get the goons off his back and leave him in peace with his kids?
November 16th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
"I may have called you a 'Right Wing Nut Case,' but also may not have. "
To what purpose does Mr. Stark add the phrase ",but also may not have."
JD: "Coercive control, anyone?"
I think the guy has control issues.
November 16th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
[Upton Sinclair: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”]
This is precisely why it’s so hard to make fathers understand that they need to stop paying child support. They know the courts are only after the “child support”, and it’s the only reason they are kept away from their children, but their salary depends on paying it.
When will the future of our country be more important than a paycheck?
I know many fathers’ rights people hate my guts for continuing to argue this point, but only the truth will set us free.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:56 am
The comparison to the SS is a bit stong, don't you think?
Stark's position posits that women are incapable of thinking for themselves to the extent of being overpowered by men even in their own conduct. The obvious motive is to maintain the identity of "victim" for woman and to crucify man (it was Jesus hung on the cross and the Mary's at his feet weeping, remember). Not only is Stark predatory towards men in their crucifixion, but particularly the women whom he openly perceives as helpless, retarded, ignorant, weak, defenseless, incapable, pathetic, etc. and seeks to convince women to adopt this identity/defense so that he can rescue them (I'm sorry, who has the power here?) Stark places himself on a pedastol by representing himself as a rescuer, convincing women he will protect and honor them, that without him to defend their actions they will unfairly suffer, that these women need to listen to him, for he knows what's best for them.... THAT'S coercive control.
Stark has made his living "protecting" personality-disordered women who aren't victims of anything other than their own borderline, narcissistic, dependent, and sociopathic self-serving tendencies. The counter-transference is his guiding force.
Stark tells on himself: apology, my arse. That's not even an admission of wrong-doing and he's well aware of it. This tactic is used simply to create confusion for the other person to doubt their own reality about a perceived offense. Which is a very common tactic among manipulators and, oh, people who "abuse." Stark's "apology" is nothing short of grandiose.