Here's an interesting personal story by a woman who's just learned a hard fact about life in our brave new world of VAWA (Crosscut, 10/19/09).

The author, Ann Bauer, drove their children from the mid-West to Washington State to join her husband, "J," who'd relocated there for work.  After a bottle of wine one night, she and J decided to take a walk along a fairly busy thoroughfare. 

Bauer was angry at her husband because she'd driven two hours to a furniture store that day with a locked trailer and without the key to unlock it.  (Note that she unhesitatingly blames him for "pocketing the key" and not herself for failing to ensure that she had the key before she left, but that's neither here nor there.)

So, angry, a little tipsy and walking along a busy street, Bauer turned away from her husband into oncoming traffic.  In the nick of time, he grabbed her and threw her onto the grass and fell on top of her in the process.  Thankfully, no one was hurt.  But a concerned motorist stopped and called the police who informed them confidently that this was a domestic violence incident.  Bauer protested that the whole thing was her fault, only to hear the cop tell her that every DV victim says the same thing.

Bauer's husband spent the night in jail.  At the hearing the next day for the issuance of a restraining order against her husband, Bauer told the DA that it had been her fault and that there was no reason for a no-contact order.  The domestic violence counsellor said that she was certain that there was no DV involved, but the judge issued one anyway, for an indefinite period of time.  The DA asked for one lasting two years.

So Bauer, her husband and two children live in an unfamiliar state, with unfamiliar schools, neighborhoods, etc., but are forbidden by law from helping each other deal with their new lives and surroundings. 

Admittedly, this is a first for me.  It's a case in which a restraining order was apparently issued on no evidence whatsoever.  After all, the police officer hadn't seen anything and neither Bauer nor her husband wanted the order issued and in any event gave no evidence in support of it.  The only "evidence" was the hearsay of the officer's report which was riddled with factual errors.

Let's be clear here.  There are valuable constitutional rights at stake.  For example, Bauer and her husband have, under the First Amendment, the right to freedom of speech and free association.  But the court sharply curtailed those rights by issuing an order denying them the ability to speak and associate with each other.  So it must have done so via due process of law, right?  Well, it's a strange breed of due process that allows rights to be violated by the state based on nothing but a report written by a person with no knowledge of the facts of the case.  It's no due process at all.

But apparently the state knows best.  It knows that a man whom his wife describes as "the mildest man I know," is a danger to her.  It knows this because the police officer decreed it to be so.  Here's what he told her:

“Listen. You’ve got to get it through your head, this guy does not love you. He controls you. Even if you were a great homemaker who kept the house spotless, he would hurt you. Even if you were taller and blonder, he wouldn’t stop.”

He's reading from the standard DV script.  He's learned the lines flawlessly.  Men are violent.  Their only thought in marriage is to control the woman.  They do this through a regime of violence that intimidates and terrifies the woman.  The woman is so terrified that Stockholm Syndrome sets in and she denies her abuse.  Therefore, when a woman denies being abused, it's proof she is being abused. 

Andrea Dworkin would agree completely.  Indeed, she could have written the script herself.  Metaphorically, she did write it.

And if that doesn't cause concern for the society we live in, nothing will.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 9:54 am and is filed under Domestic Violence/DV System. You can trackback from your own site.