----- Original Message ----- From: "Jan Coffey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 3:26 PM Subject: Re: Most Dangerous States
> You don't know me, or my friends, my experiences, or obviously my sympathies > to those who have endured this type of crulty and evil. Its not that I suspected that you don't have sympathy for victims. Its that your apparent attitude that there are just a few criminal types from the wrong side of the track who perpetrate this that feeds the shame of victims. People tend to hide problems in the family due to shame. If it is generally accepted that this happens even in good families, and the fact that the victims have no responsibility, and that there is no family shame associated with it, then victims are more likely to speak about the problem. But, if it is evidence that the victim comes from the wrong type of family, then the victim feels shame for being part of a bad family. (Shame is different from guilt, BTW. Speaking roughly, shame is feeling bad about who you are; while guilt is feeling bad about what you've done.) > I seem to have struck an emotional chord with you and I appologize if that > has made you angry at me, or hurt. I appreciate your apology, but the problem is not so much that you struck an emotional cord as that you repeated dangerous myths that I've seen damage families for 20+ years. Unfortunately, after dealing with sexual abuse, one develops a radar for it. I'll give one example. A young friend of my daughter was sexually abused by an uncle. She would sit on his lap and he'd rub against her. It was subtle enough so he could do it in front of people and only the two of them would know. We have a feeling that something was amiss, but didn't say anything. Finally, when Teri was discussing unacceptable behavior...her job with Parents Annomous dealt with that kind of stuff and my roll as a Brownie leader gave us "permission" to talk about safety issures for kids, the girl said "well, execpt if its a family member, then its OK." We got her premission to talk to her parents, who were very uptight about it. They didn't get help, because of the shame they all felt about this type of thing happening in their family. We lost contact when we moved, but when we regained contact, we found out that the now teenage girl was "boy crazy" and out of control. Its well known that eating disorders, sexual disfunction, etc. are tied to abuse. > I do realize that there are many who are abused and attacked. I am not > suggesting otherwise. I am, however, suggesting that the stats are scued to > make the situation (as far as male perpitrators) seem more widespread than it > is. I understand that. Unfortunately, this belief helps perpetuate the problem. I went to the web to look up sites, and in the hit or miss fashion of the web, I found more information of studies of abuse of males. Its at www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/familyviolence/pdfs/invisib.pdf The surveys are pretty straightforward in theory, but not necessarily in practice. Phone surveys tend to have the lowest number of reported cases, annonomous surveys that people just fill in have the medium, and interviews have the most. One of the difficulties is that one needs to make reporting abuse safe for the victim. Given that, its easy to see why phone interviews are the lowest. Face to face interviews may tend to have a biased sample. But, as you see here, there are samplings that appear to be fairly random...like college students. > Not that it is not a problem mind you. > > There is also a distinct lack of data in these numbers about what part of > society the perpitrators come from. One of the myths is that the perps. come from a distinct criminal element or from poor families. Reported cases to CPS of abuse are biased towards lower income groups, mostly because they have fewer resources to hide the problem. Yet, when surveys are done for past histories, the same bias towards lower income groups is not found. I'd argue that its akin to the fact that illegal drug use cuts across all ecconomic, race, and social boundaries, but people serving sentences tend to be black and Hispanic and tend to be lower income. I know that drug use is rampant among the kids in the upper middle class community I live in, but their families can keep them out of jail if they do get caught. As an interesting aside, even when one logically expects ecconomic status to play a major role in decision making, the evidence for that does not exist. My wife did her master's thesis on the relationship between ecconomic status and battered wives returning to their abuser. She had a fair sample size, 190, and fully expected to see a relationship. She didn't. > Besides, if the numbers are so greate, wouldn't it seem wise for possible > victems to carry a leathal weapon? The problem is that it would usually require a 5 year old or a 10 year old or a 15 year old to shoot to kill a family member or family friend. Since they are ashamed to even speak out immediately, suggesting that they kill their uncle, their father, etc. doesn't really seem like a good idea. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
