Drama free Christmas is a luxury

Today I had a lovely yet depressing chat with my really lovely step-mum; for her safety let's call her Sue.

Sue, is looking forward to what she hopes will be a lovely xmas, her wishes for the day and boxing day are simple and devastatingly complex for someone living with my Father (lets call him smeghead) for Sue's safety), who is an abuser who thrives on drama and other peoples pain and misery. She also has an adult child who is also an abuser, and ironically my father and Sue's child (let's say Jo) loathe each other. They loathe each other because each is battling the other for control of Sue, and whilst Sue is still with smeghead Jo can't have 100% control and while Sue still maintains contact with Jo and Sue's grandchildren smeghead can't have 100% control. So between them they keep Sue in a permanent state of mental fatigue and cripplingly low self esteem. Sue feels so worthless she feels smeghead is a good man for still being with her.....

I know how hard it is to have a drama free xmas day living with smeghead, because he loves an xmas day argument - it doesn't matter how much you try to do all you think he wants, how you try to get it all perfect for him, he manufactures something, something entirely made up, to kick off about. And you, you spend the entire day walking on eggshells waiting to see if he'll explode, knowing he will but not over what or when .... or when he does explode what form his kicking off will take. Will it be verbally violent, will it be quiet, sinister and menacing, will it be physical violence, sexual violence, all of the above? You are petrified for the safety of others, I spent my xmas days scared for my brother, our dogs and until she finally was able to escape my amazing Mum ....

Ironically however my worst memories of this time of year are for smeghead and drama are new years eve - I hate new years eve with a passion, and try each year not to raise my head above the parapet. At work I will volunteer for xmas shifts and ask for new years eve off, not to celebrate, though I sometimes try, but to simply hide in safety and if any memories and depressions are triggered I am at least able to just go through them without worrying.

Any time of year with an abuser is horrendous, but at this time of year there are more excuses they can give others for their behaviours to convince bystanders that the abusers narrative if just and reality, or that the victim of their abuse should know not to do, say, wear, that if the abuser has had a drink. In smegheads case this is especially true of whisky.

It took me over a decade to be able to be around any male who was drinking whisky with any degree of equanimity. If my ex did nothing else for me it was to show me that not all men are monsters on whisky and smeghead being especially nasty on whisky was 100% his own deal, real or constructed or both.


I dearly hope Sue gets her drama free xmas, but I know from bitter experience if she does, she will pay for it over the days to follow, especially new year.

I have tried to have this conversation with Sue, now and then, she has listened, and I think she knows, she's even accepted we will support her if she ever leaves smeghead. However, she is simply too convinced it is her fault.

Her first husband was an abuser too, he nearly killed her on a number of occasions. So to her, smeghead rescued her, to her he is a knight in shiny armour .... although that armour is a little tarnished now. sue feels she owes him her loyalty, and he is of course pushing that narrative down her throat.

Xmas and new year is a dangerous time for anyone, of any age, race, gender etc living in an abusive situation, please if anyone tells you about their abuse, support them, BELIEVE them, listen to them. That's the greatest gift you can give them.

Below are some organisations who are available to offer support, help and advice to people in an abuse situations ...

http://www.nationaldomesticviolencehelpline.org.uk

http://www.brokenrainbow.org.uk

http://www.mensaid.com


Never forget that the main time a victim is in danger is when they begin breaking control, most deaths occur in male to female DV when the victim is leaving or has left ... pushing someone to leave maynot be the right thing to do at that time. Leaving often has to be pre-planned, with safety measures taken first ...

be safe and I hope all of you victims and survivors out there have a blessedly drama free season - I enjoy mine, it is hard won and a luxury I cherish all the more because I know the horrors the smiles and jolliness the holiday masks can hide.

my love to you all and I hope and wish blessing and safety on you all
bxxxxxxxxxxxx

*Trigger warning* Judge blames victims for low conviction rates

Yesterdays (27/0814) headline in the Mirror

Woman judge says rape conviction rate will not improve until women stop drinking heavily

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-judge-says-rape-conviction-4108960#ixzz3BgDc5MKy


This particular judge has a habit of screwing over victims of sex offences, including child victims of sex offences, letting off scot free a man who had over 7,000 child pornographic images on his PC including of as nine year old girl. However the ramifications of this continued focus on the responsibility of victims of rape to somehow prevent their rape - to essentially make women stop living lives and spend all of their energies in rape prevention, even though over 85% of rape in England and Wales are by partners, ex partners or family members.

On yesterday's Today programme on Radio 4 presenter John Humphrey's asked one of the female victims, a victim of child sex abuse remember, whether she could have done anything differently to save herself from the perpetrators. Not only are we blaming adult female victims for our rapes but more and more often we do so to female victims of child rape.

This piece discusses some high profile cases in the UK and US where this has happened, Link.

Here is another case from the UK in 2007 where a female victim of child sex abuse, 10 years old at the time of her rape, is blamed by the judge for her rape. TEN!

No amount of anti-rape nail polish or anti rape panties or pointing to victims telling them not to drink, dress nicely will prevent rape, the ONLY thing that will begin to tackle the problem of rape is to change how we socialise boys and young men, on consent. And teach all our kids from an early age that everyone gets respect and that consent to any act is imperative no matter what someone is wearing, whether they've had a drink or 10, whether you're in a relationship with them, whether you think they 'owe' you - CONSENT is vital and if you don't act within consent boundaries then YOU not your victim is to be held accountable.

The ONLY way to increase rape convictions is to stop blaming victims, stop pointing at them and saying "why did you drink/you're dressed like a slut/well you're a sex worker what did you expect/you were promiscuous/you enjoy sex so couldn't have said no really/ you were wet when raped? you must have enjoyed it/you weren't wearing anti-rape panties so you wanted it really/well she wasn't wearing anti-rape nail polish so she didn't care if you got raped or not....." and start pointing to the RAPISTS and holding them to account "why did you rape this unconscious woman? Wouldn't the lawful and moral act have been to get her help?/surely you were aware your victim was a child at the time of your attack?/why did you drug your victims drink in order to rape her?/why are you a rapist?/just because she left you doesn't give you the right to rape her/ and so on .... once we as society and the justice system starts holding the perpetrators to account instead of the victims THEN conviction rates will improve significantly and not before.


Just to illustrate the world we as women live in, and the power of male privilege this happened to a woman at this years Notting hill carnival, Link she was being groped, asked him to stop, he continued, she pushed him away he hit her hard on her face, she spent 9 hours in A&E (ER). Too many commentators have said of this incident that she shouldn't have made an issue of it. She should in effect have allowed this man to touch her, to sexually assault her (yes groping IS sexual assault according to legislation) and do nothing. Again it is her fault not his - BOLLOCKS!!

Out of curiosity I have done an internet search on male victims of rape blamed for rape - no hits on the first page of google other than two academic papers. The same search re female victims of rape blamed for rape produces more than I wished to read on the first page alone.

Even giving implicit support to any "what women could do to prevent rape" products, precautions etc is the thin end of the victim blaming wedge and we all need to stand up against victim blaming and be very explicit when doing so. 

*trigger rape* The Joggers Song by Roger McGough

Rape is a CHOICE by the RAPIST - end of discussion!

The Jogger’s Song by Roger McGough

Well, she was asking for it.
Lyin there, cryin out,
Dyin for it. Pissed of course.
Of course, nice girls don’t.
Don’t know who she was,
Where from, didn’t care.
Nor did she. Slut. Slut.


Now I look after myself. Fit.
Keep myself fit. Got
A good body. Good body. Slim.
Go to the gym. Keep in trim.
Girls like a man wiv a good body.
Strong arms, tight arse. Right
Tart she was. Slut. Pissed.


Now I don’t drink. No fear.
Like to keep a clear
Head. Keep ahead. Like
I said, like to know what I’m dooin
Who I’m screwin (excuse language).
Not like her. Baggage. Half-
Dressed, couldn’t-care-less. Pissed.


Crawlin round beggin for it.
Lyin there, dyin for it.
Cryin. Cryin. Nice girls don’t.
Right one she was. A raver.
At night, after dark,
On her own, in the park?
Well, do me a favour.


And tell me this:
If she didn’t enjoy it,
Why didn’t she scream?

(After leaving the Harp nightclub in Deptford, a 35 year old woman was raped and assaulted by two men in Fordham Park. Left in a shocked and dishevelled state she appealed for help to a man in a light-coloured tracksuit who was out jogging. Instead of rescuing her, he also raped her.)

The problem with 'rape preventatives' from a survivors perspective. *trigger warning*

So we had the anti rape pants Link now we have anti rape nail polish Link. Great, one more thing women can be asked if they were wearing, doing or not when on trail to prove they were raped and did everything to prevent being raped, because we all know it is up to women to stop ourselves being raped.

I can hear it now "well she wasn't wearing her anti rape nail polish or anti rape pants so clearly she was asking for her rapist to rape her." "If she hadn't wanted to be raped she would have had anti rape pants on and her anti rape nail varnish".

It is astounding to me that in 2014 we STILL have to argue against rape myths. So let's begin with the reality of living life as a woman in this world. We learn young that women can't go through life without the threat of predation by sexual deviants, usually male. At the same time we learn this we learn we have to alter how we live our lives in the hopes we will somehow prevent someone else from deciding to rape or otherwise sexually harm us. The sheer impossibility of this, just adds to the stupidity of 'rape prevention' culture and 'tools' or 'products'. If nuns dressed in full habits can be raped when cloistered in a nunnery by their priests then it is pretty fucking clear whatever women do or don't do does NOT prevent or fail to prevent rape.

So what SINGLE thing is it that every rape survivor and victim I haver spoken with and read about had in common? Yup that's right - they ALL had a RAPIST!! END OF LIST!.

Don't mistake me, taking realistic precautions doesn't necessarily hurt. I am a big advocate of anyone and everyone taking good self defence classes (speak to your local police station they will have details of ones local to you) for example. I walk home after dark with my keys in my hand and know how to dislocate a knee and hit someones nose into their brain, not to mention how to blind someone and knee their balls so far up them they will not drop again, but none of that means I can 'prevent' an assault or rape or mugging. It means one thing only I have the ability to defend myself to a point if it is safe to do so i.e. if I am lucky enough not to have an attacker who is a martial arts expert, who has high pain tolerance etc and so forth.

See that's the thing with thinking you can 'prevent' rape, it isn't like trying to prevent catching a sexually transmitted disease, you can control whether you do or do not use a condom when having consensual sex. The whole point with rape is that 'prevention' is NEVER in the hands of the victim, the point of rape is it requires the rapist to decide if they will rape you or not. You may get lucky and fight them off, or use your anti rape nail polish to detect a drug but you can not prevent your rape because you have no control.

Case in point where the intended victim  did get lucky - her rapist forced her to do oral on him, he didn't use a gun, he used violence, she was able to rip his penis off with her mouth run away and hand it in at the nearest precinct. Had he had a gun to her head her ripping off his penis would likely have got her shot.

Is it worse to be dead or to be raped but alive? Speaking as the latter I'd go with alive thanks.

As would Nancy V Raine, who wrote the simply wonderful book "After the Silence; Rape and my journey back" where she was a victim of a serial rapist, who also killed his victims but with her he didn't. She got lucky because her fear response was freeze, she was unable to fight back, to move, to speak, to scream - she was frozen. And that response was out of her control, it saved her life because her rapist needed that response to get his juices, both sexual and murder, going. He couldn't so he left her raped but alive.


Those two cases are examples of stranger rape. Yet the majority of rape is intimate partner violence, incest i.e. relative, friend or trusted family member. And in those situations using 'anti - rape pants' not only won't help but places you in very immediate danger of being killed or of you r children or pets being killed or otherwise harmed.

You put any kind of onus on the victim to 'prevent their rape' then you are basically saying to the rapist "well you shouldn't rape but well you r victim didn't help themselves did they. So it wasn't really your fault."

End of the day you have to ask yourselves this question "If I walked into a room and their was a woman naked, drunk or drugged or otherwise unconscious what would I do?" - because according to the logic of 'rape prevention' products etc you'd be hard pressed not to leap on her and rape her in a fit of uncontrolled lust. Yet my brother, step dad, granddad and my ex all would cover her up and call for ambulance and police. Because they are not rapists.

By pointing to women and telling us we need to do this or that to 'keep ourselves safe' you are telling us to stop living our lives. You are telling me that I can't get to and from work on the bus because the stop is a little secluded, just in case a rapist decides to target me. You are saying to every single female rape victim that she didn't do enough to 'prevent' her rape because you are saying loud and clear it is for women to 'prevent' rape.

There is an old rape myth that crops us every so often even today "you can't sheath a sword in a leaping scabbard" meaning is a woman is fighting you can't rape her .... therefore if a woman was raped well she wasn't fighting hard enough ergo she didn't really want to stop it. Todays version of that myth are anti rape pants and this nail polish.

Your choice is whether to be a victim blaming rapist apologist who believes rape myths past and present (i.e. an idiotic ignorant moron) or to stand with each rape survivor and in memory of each victim and say the only person who can actually prevent rape is a rapist.

Another true account, or a poem inspired by an actual rape Roger McGough's The Joggers Song. Link

At the end of the day, yes we can choose to take realistic precautions IF we have the choice and ability to do so, but at the end of the day it must never be forgotten or ignored that ... the only people accountable for rape are rapists. 

Rape and Rape 'humour' *trigger warning to all survivors*

                                This post greeted me today on facebook, from a page called Godzilla Memes. Hardly a                                  page you'd expect this post to appear on

So let me be clear as to what rape means, it means someone seeking to take power and control from another person forces sexual acts upon them. They do this by violence of physical force, violence of emotional manipulation, violence of threat to a loved one or loved pet, by beating down the idea that the victim has any right to their own body. Rape is not about sex. Let that be understood.
Sex is about mutual fun between two or more consenting parties. Rape is about power and control of the rapist, the rapist taking all dignity, all respect, all consent away from the victim.

What post such as this one, and all rape humour, do is they reinforce the rapists version of rape, that as their right to take all and more from their victims. The adult victims and child victims of rape deserve better from all of us. They deserve for posts such as this to be reviled to be held up for the sickening rape excuses they are. Anyone who supports such posts or who does as fb user 'Mathew Tully' says "Calm Down" to anyone who speaks against this ignorant, dangerous, rape apologist rubbish, is supporting every rapist there has ever been and ever will be, yes this includes rapists of children.

For rape survivors when this type of humour is about it tells us that our rapist was right, it reinforces the message that we did something to deserve it, that in truth our rape was just fun, that we are just being emotional and unreasonable ... Until you have been raped you have no right to do anything other than support rape victims and survivors. End of discussion! 

More thoughts on Trans rights

Why is it that seemingly reasonable people wish to marginalise trans-women and trans-men?

Part of the problem is a seemingly legitimate fear of the male invading the 'safe' spaces of the female. There are some cases which seem to legitimise this fear, those of Christopher Hambrook, Robert Kosilek and David E. Megarry Jr. All of whom have committed crimes against cis women either whilst being trans gender or have begun the process of trans gender transformation after the crimes whilst in jail. 
Yes, it is undeniable that these cases are concerning. However, they are concerning because abusers and rapists attacked vulnerable people and may be in a position to do so using transgender safe rules and laws to do so.

Instead of calling trans women 'he' and focusing so much on whether they have been able or willing to go through the full gender surgery, there are many risks in re-assigning a penis, for example, to a vagina such as damaging the urinary process, lack of any sensation, incontinence, infection. All feminists need to listen and empathise with each other. Women, be we cis or trans, attacking and harming other women does nothing to keep any of us safe.

We must stop abusing each other, and learn to listen to each other and find a way to create safe places for all of us.

I will say it again you can NEVER gain rights for one oppressed group by removing them from another group, and granting trans women rights of safety and gender identity removes nothing from me as a cis woman. Not even bathroom safety as I've been threatened in bathrooms by outright cis men and outright cis women, not trans women - so my bathroom safety is dependent on the nature of the other people in the bathroom, NOT whether that person is trans or not.

We need to speak together about creating safe places for ALL women, not just cis women - THAT is what my feminism is about. Safe places for ALL, NOT a select few!

"Feminism is not an equality movement"? The danger of anti trans 'Feminism'

A group on facebook (at least one) that is run by a notorious anti trans 'feminist' C Brennan.

Their main position is that gender disassociation isn't real, you can't be trans because gender is purely biological and if you're born male or female then that is what you are. They generously allow that you can be a butch female or an effeminate male, you can indeed be heterosexual, homosexual or lesbian, you may be bi-sexual but they tend not to really accept that either, but you may NEVER be allowed to be trans. If you happen to read the site Gender identity watch re-loaded ~ link you will notice that the sheer violence of the language used against trans women is frankly scary. It is scary to me as a cis heterosexual woman, it leaves me feeling unsafe. If I feel unsafe then how must this violent oppression makes trans women and trans men feel?

As a cis heterosexual woman I am simply an ally, as an abuse and rape survivor I do understand the need for safe spaces for women, however I choose to feel this means all women irrespective of whether or not a woman is cis or 'trans'.

This blog The cotton ceiling ~ link is a simply wonderful response to the attitudes of transphobia as spouted by these radical 'feminist' groups ...

I would like to add that this focus this brand of transphobic feminism has on the idea that cis women created gendered bathrooms as safe places for cis women is utter rubbish. The idea of separate bathrooms was to protect men from the provocation of women without those women having the protection of their designated male protector/owner i.e. father, husband, brother, other male protector/owner. The entire idea of maintaining essentialist gender norms is protecting patriarchal systems NOT women. Please STOP using your transphobia as a reason to speak for all cis women and indeed all cis lesbians. You d not speak for all of us, you speak for yourselves out of ignorance, fear and hatred. Please just step back and empathise, listen to trans women and trans men with empathy NOT judgement. To do otherwise is simply NOT feminism.

I will say it again you can NEVER gain rights for one oppressed group by removing them from another group, and granting trans women rights of safety and gender identity removes nothing from me as a cis woman. Not even bathroom safety as I've been threatened in bathrooms by outright cis men and outright cis women, not trans women - so my bathroom safety is dependent on the nature of the other people in the bathroom, NOT whether that person is trans or not.

We need to speak together about creating safe places for ALL women, not just cis women - THAT is what my feminism is about. Safe places for ALL, NOT a select few!

Survivors and Victims are important

I have read alot of survivor and victim accounts overall but particularly recently. It is so important that all of us see both the statistics and the people. We need to see beyond number to the real people being maimed, raped and murdered by husbands, partners, fathers, brothers...

If you are lucky enough to survive, the mental and emotional scars don't really leave you. Even when you are years into recovery and living a balanced and positive life, triggers are just lurking. They can be very innocuous - this Saturday I was gardening with my lovely family, in the undergrowth I was clearing lay the head of a garden fork. Not the same one that had once been held at my throat by my father many years ago, (that one had been thrown away years ago). Nevertheless, this normal occurrence in safe company was very triggering. Even I said nothing at the time to anyone other than my brother. Why? Because I was embarrassed, ashamed of my reaction. Essentially ashamed that this abuse had even occurred to me, let alone that it still affected me all these years after in safe company.

If a stranger had come up to me in my garden and held a weapon at my throat would I have felt the same levels of guilt and shame? Unlikely. Yet because what occurred was 'family' even I, who know academically the theory and the practice of abuse, and am vehement about survivors being able to speak out, still carry not only a shame but a shamed silence about much of what happened. Including to safe people who know what happened.

We as society and as individuals must stop seeing domestic abuse as somehow only a 'family' affair, it IS a crime, theft, stalking, verbal assault, physical assault, sexual assault, rape, murder - ALL criminal acts in UK laws.

We as survivors and victims must also STOP blaming ourselves. And you guys out there NEED to STOP blaming us too. There is NO excuse for abusing another person. NONE! We do NOTHING to deserve what those abusers do to us.

There is a wonderful, though moving and triggering, piece in the Independent newspaper covering the urgent need for humanising victims and survivors of DV and seeing beyond the 'domestic' aspect to the abuse and related crimes.

My friend the murder statistic ~ article link

Normalised violence against women

So Earlier today a friend shared this picture on facebook. Without saying anything I showed it to my brother, who straight away pulled a face and said "that's bad", "how?" I asked, "It's clealry showing it is not only okay to hit women, but it is necessary to hit a woman who is motivated and has a plan".

It was good to know this wasn't just my thoughts and feelings.

I have seen this meme where the 'internet' was represented as a computer or some cartoon monster, but this is simply misogyny at best, at worst it is actively promoting direct violence against women. (cis and trans women are included in 'women' on my blog unless specifically stated otherwise).

When intelligent, aware, male and female allies can share images like this without seeing the hidden, or not so hidden, message of violence against women it is proof positive that those of us who do see it have a responsibility to highlight the problems and share that widely.

Some unknown effects of being a survivor

Recently I have been subject to a fairly common problem for survivors online.

That 'discussion' during which strangers think they get to tell you what you think and what you are saying. Rather than actually reading and responding to what you're saying. A bad enough occurrence, worse is the assumption that your zero tolerance for this entitled attitude means you're incapable of having a rational discussion or accept people who disagree with you.


Two of the nastiest things you can do to anyone let alone a survivor are a) speak for another person in words other than their own if they can speak for themselves and have done so; - we fight hard to gain our voices as survivors as our abusers work so diligently to remove our voices our words our power. So imagine then if in order to 'win' some internet conversation that is what you assume a right to do so someone? b) not listening to what a person is saying. Agree or disagree as is everyone's right, but to not listen and deride that person based on your inability to listen is exactly what an abuser done. These are bad enough to do to anyone but to someone who has identified as a survivor to you? These are just outright abuse.

This is why I take a zero tolerance to these tactics being used against me or on any forum I run.

Inappropriate Jokes about Oscar Pistorias ... or rather Reeva Steenkamp

Okay I know this piece may well get labeled "humourless feminazi" ... but tough.

I was disgusted to see this image on facebook earlier, shared by someone I hadn't expected to do so.

Let's bring this away from the abuser for a moment to the murder victim, his abuse victim.

She didn't go to the toilet, she hadn't locked herself in the loo for a bit of privacy while she peed. She ran into the bathroom in fear of her life. Knowing that the person she loved, the person she was now fleeing from had it in his power to kill her.

This fear is NOT a joke, it is no more funny than a rape joke. It is very real.

According to Women's Aid UK 2 women a week are killed by a current or former partner as a direct result of an abusive relationship.

Each time they physically and sexually abuse you, that fear is there in the back of your throat. But you're conditioned to believe it is your fault, either you're overreacting or you caused the abuser to act as they did, or you're imagining things. That is how the abuse becomes more intense, however it is as you begin to see the reality, to break free of the abusers constructed reality that you are in the most danger. This is what happened with Reeva Steenkamp. She was beginning to question his reality, she told him his behaviour scared her.

With me the way my abuser (who also happened to be my father) reinforced his control was by out of the blue holding a garden fork to my throat. No preceding argument, no negativity, just a pleasant summers evening gardening, we'd had a bonfire of garden waste and had been extinguishing it for the evening. The sun had almost gone down, there was just the embers from the fire. I will never forget the glow from them on his face as I turned around and he held that fork at my throat. His face was contorted into a dark grin, his eyes told me he could kill me or not and barely care. I knew he would have simply concocted some story as he had done before that I'd lost my temper and went for him, and in my rage hadn't seen the fork ... worse is knowing how few people would have questioned that version of events. Standing there, just knowing there was no fighting back, as the fork was right against my throat so to do so would, in his eyes, have made the decision for him.

I understand the fear that Reeva Steenkamp felt, I understand the sheer mind numbing, horror and the incomprehension of the situation even as it's happening.

So no this is NOT something to joke about this is happening to someone right NOW - as I write this, as you read this, somewhere there is someone fleeing or fighting for their life, exactly as Reeva Steenkamp did. And it is possible, even probable, that their abuser will succeed and kill them, or succeed and rape them.

It isn't funny, it isn't clever, it isn't witty, it is taking away from what this woman faced at the end of her life, the very real fear that, that son of a bitch put her through when he murdered her. The very real fear every abusive bastard (and bitch) put their victims through. And each time they murder their victims or push their victims to suicide that fear is simply indescribable.

I would hope that each and every person who sees this 'joke' and any like it posts this blog or one like it and brings the reality of just why these 'jokes' are NOT jokes and are NOT funny.

That woman deserves better - keep it about Reeva NOT that disgusting excuse for a person her abuser. And NEVER about making her end of life fear into a fucking internet meme 'joke' ...

The reality about Domestic Violence

It is often a fact that victims and survivors and their allies have little choice but to accept, ignorance about DV (domestic violence) is legion.

This fact is proven unwittingly by the Birmingham Mail 'journalist' Maureen Messent in her 'article' in the paper published on 4th April 2014. The article is entitled "Our 'holy cows' are own worst enemies", the 'holy cows' are abuse victims and survivors.

The premise of this 'article' is introduced succinctly in the sub-heading "The women who allow themselves to be used as punch bags are often their own worst enemies." The 'article' then goes on to argue that "battered women" are Britain's "holy cows"never to be held accountable for staying with the men who batter them.

The article doesn't improve from there, it goes onto to use tired outdated arguments such as these women let the police down not the other way around by not pressing charges while the police do all the work.

First rebuttal, current legislation means that law enforcement in England and Wales can use legal means to 'force' a victim to testify against their abuser if law enforcement believe this is the best course to protect the victim and any dependents including but not limited to children.

Second rebuttal, victims of domestic abuse ARE held to account, whatever their choices. If you are a victim of domestic violence you are significantly more likely to have involvement with social services if you have children. You are more likely to have your children removed if you do not leave once domestic abuse is evident to social services and law enforcement.

Third rebuttal, you are more likely to be killed or seriously injured in the period just before you leave and anytime after you have left your abuser. Your children are more likely to be killed or seriously injured just before and anytime after you leave your abuser. Your children are more likely to be abducted by your abuser just before or anytime after you leave your abuser.

In the same newspaper there is a story about a man being sent to prison for a knife attack on  his former girlfriend and her current partner (follow this link to the story). Even after she'd left him and has been in a relationship with someone else, she is STILL being held to account by her abuser.

There is a prevalent misconception that the physical battery begins soon into a relationship, that somehow the victim has made a conscious choice to be with a batterer. Not so. In very, very rare cases the abusers nature is evident right from the start to anyone, but in most it is a far more sinister and manipulative story.

They begin with charm, often with a tale of woe, an evil ex, a torrid childhood, abusive parents, quite often these tales are entirely fantasy or are true to a point but will more often than not be exaggerated or they will reverse the roles so they are the victim not the abuser. They will play emotional games, they will fuck with your head, they will begin isolating you from your family. The games they play are subtle and very plausible. When they tell you "there's no point telling anyone. no-one will believe you" you believe them. Usually this is because they have manipulated people involved to believe their edited, fictionalised account of events.

Case in point; my father is an abuser, he is a dangerous bastard, but he is charming, he can seem funny, and he can be very, very convincing. As an older teenager he and I used to argue, alot, until reasonably recently (the mid 2000's) I firmly believed this was my fault, entirely and completely. I believed this because others believed it, because he'd manipulated the situation so it was believable.

On these occasions I had begun to try to just sit and to speak calmly, rationally and not to get involved in the tit for tat he would drag people into. I sat calmly on the sofa and said "let's just sit down and talk about this like rational adults" - his reaction was to run across the room, shake me hard and yell "stop it, stop it, you're getting like a monster". His version of this series of events was so extreme, it had me attacking him and he, being the poor victim of the piece, having to physically restrain his insane daughter from physically hurting him. I have never asked for the details from Mum and Thom (my brother) as to just what exactly he accused me of doing, I've never wanted to know, though I am told it was horrendous and his wishes for me somewhat scary. Fortunately there was a witness to this series of events, my brother Thom, and he was able to persuade Mum of the truth.

These people are very, very dangerous. Pieces like this garbage do one thing and one thing only; they grant power to the abuser. They reinforce to the victim the abusers reality. They reinforce to the citizenry the abusers version of events.

It is ignorance and victim blaming. It is deeply wrong and isn't based on facts or knowledge.

I have responded by sharing this article on the birmingham mail facebook page. Please go and share your responses to this victim blaming trash on their facebook page. Let's challenge the ignorance Birmingham Mail facebook page - link


Sources for this blog posts are: -

Women's Aid - for women in abusive relationships
Men's Aid - for men in domestic abuse situations
Broken Rainbow - for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (and anyone else who doesn't fit a gender binary or straight sexuality label)
and abuse experience
and experience of formerly running a forum for abuse survivors and listening to their stories ...

anyone who is experiencing abuse please go to one of these organisations and contact the relevant domestic abuse helpline ...