Domestic Violence is endemic in the United States, enough to have caused the label “pre-existing condition” to be placed on it by the insurance industries operating in some states.

Society, more specifically American Society, has been slow to recognize domestic violence as an ubiquitous societal problem. Viewing domestic violence as a personal problem makes this ribbon an unlikely cash cow, leaving the ribbon unsought by corporate giants, the cause largely ignored by the coorporate world. We still view Domestic Violence much in the same way we used to see AIDS (often still view AIDS), as a lifestyle issue, something that can’t happen to anyone. Breast cancer we view as something that can happen to anyone, even to people who make stellar lifestyle choices.

Domestic Violence can happen to anyone.

Domestic Violence occurs across all demographic groups. Official (reported) rates of nonlethal, intimate violence are highest among women aged sixteen to twenty-four, women in households in the lowest income categories, and women residing in urban areas. However, the current information is insufficient to determine, but significant enough to suggest that’s because middle and upper class women have more access to care, an easier road to moving on and out, or are less likely to report the violence, than women who are less educated and less financially secure.

The aforementioned attitude is the reason the purple ribbon is not nearly as popular on Yogurt, mid-level to upscale department store logos, high end cosmetics, or blogs. And this despite the estimated 4 to 5 million women, in the United States alone, affected by this societal scourge every year.

Some would propose — including Oate’s main protagonist Skyler, (channeling Geertz), in her less than lauded My Sister my Love — that human nature, but for human culture, is virtually non-existent. As a society we must begrudgingly, with sadness, and with feigned disbelief if necessary, admit this to be the case. It is not the nature of the beast causing continued violence, it is not a lifestyle issue, it is the culture, the social construction, that allowed it to begin, and permits it’s to continue. We have no choice but that of changing the culture.

Take some time this month to educate yourself on the domestic violence endemic in your country.

Links:

Sources: National Domestic Violence Hotline, National Center for Victims of Crime, and WomensLaw.org.

The Domestic Violence Awareness Project

United States Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women

National Domestic Violence Hotline

NRCDV

NCADV

WOMEN LAW.ORG

Women’s Health Dot Gov – State Resources

Recent News:
Democrats vow to ban domestic violence as ‘pre-existing condition

Books:

No Visible Wounds: Identifying Non-Physical Abuse of Women by Their Men

The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize it and How to Respond

Domestic Violence at the Margins: Readings on Race, Class, Gender, and Culture

Peace

From the Independent:

“But in March 1977, Polanski, then aged 44, made the fateful mistake that hangs on him to this day. He had been commissioned by Vogue Hommes to take a series of photographs of adolescent girls: he wanted to show them, he says in Roman, as “sexy, pert, and thoroughly human”. Polanski was introduced to a 13-year-old named Samantha Gailey, and they met to shoot some photos outdoors . They met again on 10 March for some indoor shots, and ended up at the Mulholland Drive house of Polanski’s friend Jack Nicholson, who was away”

Champagne was drunk, though accounts vary as to how much; Gailey claimed that Polanski gave her a Quaalude, the modish prescription drug of the time; they both ended up undressed in the Jacuzzi. Sex followed, but exactly under what circumstances only the two of them know for sure. Polanski expressed it tersely in his book: “She wasn’t unresponsive.”

You’ve got to be kidding. She was 13 years old.

A man who obviously has never actually understood that what he did was wrong.

I mean he only drugged a 13 year old, raped her, then got a sweet plea deal, dismissing all but the lesser charge. Some silly judge messed up by not holding to the plea deal. Polanski fled to Europe, where he graduated to 15 year olds.

This ought to be good.

A comments off brain fart.

Up to a couple of hundred thousand blogs are started every day, so suing bloggers, especially if they own homes and have large bank accounts, big gossipy mouths, and not an ounce of common sense, could be quite lucrative. You can goggle Internet Defamation and see it’s a growing niche, the blogger version of ambulance chasers. There are also internet sites selling bloggers insurance, capitalizing on the fear of being sued niche. Media Bloggers is one to those. Thanks to our advancing technology we have a whole new niche, ripe for exploitation, and it involves lawyers and insurance. Go figure. If common sense would only prevail we’d have none of this, but somewhere along the line someone decided that freedom of speech meant something other that what it really means, and others have spent years making money from the confusion. It’s only going to get worse.

When people start yammering all over the internet they might want to delay reading about how to blog, how to get readers, how to get comments, how to get links and fame, and how make money. Instead, after reading a few simple books on basic writing, go directly to What is defamation, yes Virginia you can in some cases be sued for your opinion.

One thing I did find at Media Bloggers was a link to this mini course, Online Media Law, a joint project of “Media Bloggers Association; Citizen Media Law Project, which is jointly affiliated with Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Citizen Media; City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and Baruch College; and Media/Professional Insurance”, at News University. You have to sign up for News University, but it only takes two seconds, and after doing so you can enroll in the course at the bottom of the page. You can read through the course quickly. You can also take an assessment quiz before or after reading through it.

The assessment is common sense, if you don’t do well it would benefit you to read the course. I got 1 wrong. Erring on the side of caution, I presumed someone could be sued for calling someone a jerk. Hypothesizing the “what if the name caller had a PhD in jerks”, not the honorable degree in jerks that most of us think we have, but a real one, yeah lets just assume for a minute that there is such a thing. What if the Doctor of Jerks had a personal website, but his about page states his credentials and links to his authoritative research on jerks. Say he calls his neighbor a jerk, or calls someone a jerk in the comments of another blog. Is he more liable because of his expertise, even if he was just ranting in a non professional way on his or someone else’s personal blog?

Gets kind of murky there for me….

Some links:

Top Ten Rules For Limiting Legal Risks
Citizens Media Law Project
Center for Citizens Media
Teaching Copyright

peace