January 11, 2001 My name is Martha Crow and I live in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. For years, I was beaten, burned, raped and sodomized. I was in hell and I could not get help or get out. This is because I had no where to go, nowhere to turn. My mother and sister knew of my suffering, but they would not offer help or shelter. They just pretended my torture did not exist. An educated and professional person, I had to look cool and confident to the world. This is because I desperately needed work with a liveable wage so I could get out of my situation. I suffered in silence. I knew if anyone knew of the things that happened to me that I would never get a professional job, let alone a semi- or para-professional job. That is the way it is in this society. You have to be perceived as a ‘good’ person to get a good job. It is rape when someone uses their power to force someone to engage in sexual intercourse that they don’t want to participate in. He never put a knife to my throat. Instead, he threatened me. He threatened to take away my shelter, my food and my medicine that I need to control my diabetes. I stopped the rapes two years ago. I was depressed and almost hung myself, but caught what I was doing when I was tearing up the garage looking for rope. A battered woman is five times more likely to commit suicide than a non-battered woman. One in four suicide attempts by women are preceded by abuse. Afterwards, I sat on the garage floor and wept for hours until the tears froze on my face and I was so cold I had to go inside. Then and there, I decided I would never let him rape me again. I knew I was sick from all those years of abuse and I decided to get well. I got well, too. For several years, I had researched and written scholarly books. When I had chosen to be well, I began to write novels. Strong, feminist, progressive and theological novels that honestly portrayed the plight of abused women in America. Through this writing, I was able to manifest my outrage and horror about the plight of women like me. Rape and abuse in marriage or relationships is rampant and unstoppable in this country. Writing about it made me well. For months, I have been planning my escape. I have been secretly shipping my books and my other intellectual things to Europe where I have friends who love me. I want to move to Europe because I don’t feel safe on this side of the world. My friends have offered to help me even though they know I will probably arrive penniless. I had wanted to leave in March when I had my third novel and my web pages completed (I am putting my novels on them for free). But because the harassment was escalating at an alarming rate, I decided to leave in February when my frequent flyer miles were accredited to my account. If I had enough miles right now, I would be somewhere else. Yesterday, could not take the harassment anymore. My husband stayed home from work to “punish” me. He was angry with me because when he turned the heat off, I just added more clothing and blankets. He was angry with me because when he stopped buying food, I went to the Salvation Army to eat. He was angry because I asked my adult son to move in because I wanted someone there to call 911 if he tried to hurt me. With him home, the harassment got so bad, I reached a point where I couldn’t take it anymore and I wanted him thrown out of the house. Against my better judgement, I called for help. I called 911. I say “against my better judgement” because I had sought help before. The restraining order did not stop him from breaking my nose. He went to jail and had to take anger management classes. Now he is angrier than ever. Yesterday, instead of help, the police officer would not let me speak and he sympathized with my rapist, thereby validating my abuse. I became outraged because of this and told the police officer off. The police officer tried to make me go to the hospital because he said I had a ‘victim’ mentality. He said I must have emotional problems or some other major character defect because my inability to find good work so I could have the ability to get away from my abuse. I was afraid to tell the police officer much of my plans to leave because I was afraid that if my husband knew (he was in the same room), he would try to stop me. I asked for the police officer’s name and card several times and refused to give it to me. I told him this was against the law and I went outside and looked at the number on the police car. It was 22. I was so outraged by the treatment of the unnamed police officer, I went to the women’s shelter to tell my colleague, Maxine Barnette, what the police officer had said and done. She is the director of the women’s shelter and I had lunch with her about two months ago. She has known about my situation for years. Max wasn’t there, but I was asked to tell two advocates what had happened. The advocates said the officer had acted inappropriately. Then they wanted me to stay there. I asked them, “Why? I would just be trading one form of violence for another.” When they asked what I meant, I told them the truth: I am only allowed to stay at the shelter 30 days and then I end up living on the street. That is because my I can not get enough hours as a substitute teacher to pay rent, let alone buy food or medicine for diabetes. I explained to them that I am lucky if I work one or two days a week because there are 249 substitute teachers in the main school district I work for and about 14 openings a day. These women knew I spoke the truth, but they did like not hearing the truth of many women’s economic realities in this nation. I also told them I would not stay at the shelter because I needed to write and work on my web pages. It is too noisy and emotional there, plus sometimes, things get stolen. These two female “advocates” asked me if I wanted the police officer to come down to the shelter and “apologize” to me. I said that wasn’t necessary. I just wanted them to tell Max my story and see to it that the police were better trained to understand what the Pink Ghetto is and how many women, particularly educated women, are locked out of the work force. They insisted the unnamed police officer be told this that day and they would call the police station and have him sent down to the shelter. It sounded reasonable to me. I thought it might save a woman’s life someday. Several minutes later, a police sergeant arrived with another officer. I asked him why he was there and he told me that the women’s shelter had told him I had complained of being improperly treated by one of his men. He told me that he had “spoken” with this officer and he “understood” the situation. He told me if I wanted to make a complaint that I would have to go to the station and write out a report. Then he said that he was “worried” about me and “this was for my own good.” I looked at him and asked him, “What are you talking about?” He said I was going to have to come to the hospital with him. “For what?” I asked. He said he thought I was mentally ill and that I needed to be put in the hospital. I had never been emotional, hysterical or anything like that. The only emotion I had expressed during this whole time was outrage because the nameless, ignorant police officer (who had come to my house) had blamed me for my years of abuse. My good friend and colleague Deb Fuller-Johnson works at the shelter and I had talked with her a few minutes before the sergeant had arrived. She is also the Director of the Saint Cloud American Indian Center (I founded and incorporated this organization in 1985). She is my witness that I was rational, but outraged. The sergeant said I was “suicidal” and I told him that I had never spoken of that, nor had I ever implied that I was self-destructive to anyone. I him I was healthy mentally and that he was doing this to harass me because I had complained against the officer. One of those “advocates” walked in and I told her the police was trying to take me against my will to the hospital. Her eyes looked away and I instantly knew she and the other advocate had collaborated in my detention. I told her, “You are putting me great jeopardy by doing this. An emergency room visit costs about $500 . This bill is going to make my husband angry and he will take it out on me. I am sure the shelter or the police are not going to pay for this. This is also unnecessary because I am not sick.” I asked the sergeant what law was I being detained under? He told me I was being detained under his “judgement.” I asked where was my ticket or paper saying he could do this to me and he told me that I would get one. I still am waiting for this paper. The sergeant and the other police officer jumped up and grabbed each side of me. I told them, “Taking your fucking hands off me.” There was no way I was going to let a man touch me in a bad way ever again. Then they pulled out handcuffs. The sergeant said I could walk out of there with “dignity” or they would handcuff me and drag me out. I told them with authority, “Get your fucking hands of me. Not only do I have to be abused in my own home, you are abusing me as well. You are punishing me because I complained about that officer.” They took their hands of me and walked me to the police car, where I was forced to sit in the backseat. I was forced against my will to go to the hospital. All this time I rationally protested against the loss of my freedom and power. I was put in a containment room at the hospital. Instead of it being paneled in rubber, it was paneled in carpet. I was forced to undress and wear pajamas. They took away my skirt, my shirt, my shoes and purse. A female hospital security guard searched me and my possessions. The police left us alone and I told her what was happening. I also told the security guard that I suspected that they had cooperated in my imprisonment because I had refused to stay at the shelter. I told her that the police were punishing me because I had complained about one of their own. I asked her to watch my back so they didn’t try anything else ugly like try to put drugs on me. I told her I did not trust them if they could do something like this to me. I tried to call my friend who is a lawyer. She, like many other female professional women I know, is either under- or un- employed. She wasn’t home. So I called my daughter and also called my son at work. They couldn’t believe what had happened to me and they raced to the hospital to be my witnesses if I needed any. I had to see two doctors. The first one was a physician. I had to wait for the second one, who I was told, was a psychiatrist. God was watching after me because the psychiatrist was a woman. I told the psychiatrist everything. I told her about all those years of abuse and about not being able to get out of that house because I could not get enough work to support myself. I told her that even though I had four university degrees in diverse fields, I could not get a job no matter how hard I tried. She said she understood what I was talking about. I told the doctor about how my husband had tried to get the police officer to believe that I was crazy because I had seen a sky full of angels when I was a child. She told me, “Once you have seen angels, they never leave you.” I told her about what the policeman had said in my house. I told her of my outrage about this and told her about what had happened at the women’s shelter. She got tears in her eyes and asked me if she could hug me. She hugged me for a long time and I began to cry because it was the first kindness I had been shown all day. She told me, “I will go get your clothes.” I was released from the hospital. My daughter drove me back to the shelter to get my vehicle. It was blocked in, so I rang the doorbell and told them someone needed to move their vehicle. I saw Maxine through the window and asked to talk to her. She would not come out, but instead talked to me through the intercom. I told her, “Now you see why most professional women won’t come here. Instead, they chose to suffer rape, sodomy and physical abuse.” It is very hard to write this, but I am afraid I will not make it out of this country alive. I am afraid the police are going to harass me or that my husband will murder me. Fifty years ago, women who refused to “conform” to the dictates of a patriarchal society and accept male authority were institutionalized. This is what the police tried to do to me. I know a woman in Saint Cloud whose aunt was imprisoned in a mental institution for over a decade because she would not obey her husband. One hundred years ago in this country, women who were not submissive and obedient were murdered by the males in their households. Either by a father, husband, brother or uncle. They were usually smothered or locked away in the basement. Read the literature. It is true. Last year, 40 women were murdered in Minnesota by their husbands or boyfriends. It was a record year. I remember hearing about one murder on the television news and the anchor wanted to know why they stayed. I knew why they stayed because I knew why I stayed. No work or not enough work. No social safety nets if a woman did not have a dependent child in her household. For the love of God, please send this letter to everyone you know. Please post it on every women’s justice and social justice news list you know of. Please send it to all corners of the earth so if I am murdered or shut away, the world will know what happened to me. So the world will know how many women are really treated in this country---a country that wants to evangelize the “American way” and “democracy” to the rest of the world. I wrote a dear friend in Europe an e-mail Monday, January 8, 2001. At the end of this letter, I said, “Just think, if I had not suffered like I had, I would not know the Truth. If they had let me be a 'token' and given me a fairly decent job, I would not be who I am now. I have been baptized by all kinds of human evil fires and I survived (BIG SMILE!!) ... ....the best part of all, I am healthy :-) It took me a long time to get there, but I got there all the same. It is because of my health that I am willing to radically change my life at a time when most people plan for old age. And around me, there has always been the hands of angels helping me, plus the kindnesses of others helping me as well. No one gets anywhere in this world without those two things. I have a busy day so I will close here. Be well :-) Thank you for being my friend :-) Herman, I am writing some real powerful stuff in my novel. I am going to leave my mark on the world in many ways, including this way :-) My writing is going to touch many people's lives. Martha” Martha Rose Crow 1210-34th Avenue North Saint Cloud, MN 56303 320-252-4190 [EMAIL PROTECTED] GothicNovel.com (my pages will be published in two months if I am not silenced by murder or police repression)
January 11, 2001 My name is Martha Crow and I live in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. For years, I was beaten, burned, raped and sodomized. I was in hell and I could not get help or get out. This is because I had no where to go, nowhere to turn. My mother and sister knew of my suffering, but they would not offer help or shelter. They just pretended my torture did not exist. An educated and professional person, I had to look cool and confident to the world. This is because I desperately needed work with a liveable wage so I could get out of my situation. I suffered in silence. I knew if anyone knew of the things that happened to me that I would never get a professional job, let alone a semi- or para-professional job. That is the way it is in this society. You have to be perceived as a ‘good’ person to get a good job. It is rape when someone uses their power to force someone to engage in sexual intercourse that they don’t want to participate in. He never put a knife to my throat. Instead, he threatened me. He threatened to take away my shelter, my food and my medicine that I need to control my diabetes. I stopped the rapes two years ago. I was depressed and almost hung myself, but caught what I was doing when I was tearing up the garage looking for rope. A battered woman is five times more likely to commit suicide than a non-battered woman. One in four suicide attempts by women are preceded by abuse. Afterwards, I sat on the garage floor and wept for hours until the tears froze on my face and I was so cold I had to go inside. Then and there, I decided I would never let him rape me again. I knew I was sick from all those years of abuse and I decided to get well. I got well, too. For several years, I had researched and written scholarly books. When I had chosen to be well, I began to write novels. Strong, feminist, progressive and theological novels that honestly portrayed the plight of abused women in America. Through this writing, I was able to manifest my outrage and horror about the plight of women like me. Rape and abuse in marriage or relationships is rampant and unstoppable in this country. Writing about it made me well. For months, I have been planning my escape. I have been secretly shipping my books and my other intellectual things to Europe where I have friends who love me. I want to move to Europe because I don’t feel safe on this side of the world. My friends have offered to help me even though they know I will probably arrive penniless. I had wanted to leave in March when I had my third novel and my web pages completed (I am putting my novels on them for free). But because the harassment was escalating at an alarming rate, I decided to leave in February when my frequent flyer miles were accredited to my account. If I had enough miles right now, I would be somewhere else. Yesterday, could not take the harassment anymore. My husband stayed home from work to “punish” me. He was angry with me because when he turned the heat off, I just added more clothing and blankets. He was angry with me because when he stopped buying food, I went to the Salvation Army to eat. He was angry because I asked my adult son to move in because I wanted someone there to call 911 if he tried to hurt me. With him home, the harassment got so bad, I reached a point where I couldn’t take it anymore and I wanted him thrown out of the house. Against my better judgement, I called for help. I called 911. I say “against my better judgement” because I had sought help before. The restraining order did not stop him from breaking my nose. He went to jail and had to take anger management classes. Now he is angrier than ever. Yesterday, instead of help, the police officer would not let me speak and he sympathized with my rapist, thereby validating my abuse. I became outraged because of this and told the police officer off. The police officer tried to make me go to the hospital because he said I had a ‘victim’ mentality. He said I must have emotional problems or some other major character defect because my inability to find good work so I could have the ability to get away from my abuse. I was afraid to tell the police officer much of my plans to leave because I was afraid that if my husband knew (he was in the same room), he would try to stop me. I asked for the police officer’s name and card several times and refused to give it to me. I told him this was against the law and I went outside and looked at the number on the police car. It was 22. I was so outraged by the treatment of the unnamed police officer, I went to the women’s shelter to tell my colleague, Maxine Barnette, what the police officer had said and done. She is the director of the women’s shelter and I had lunch with her about two months ago. She has known about my situation for years. Max wasn’t there, but I was asked to tell two advocates what had happened. The advocates said the officer had acted inappropriately. Then they wanted me to stay there. I asked them, “Why? I would just be trading one form of violence for another.” When they asked what I meant, I told them the truth: I am only allowed to stay at the shelter 30 days and then I end up living on the street. That is because my I can not get enough hours as a substitute teacher to pay rent, let alone buy food or medicine for diabetes. I explained to them that I am lucky if I work one or two days a week because there are 249 substitute teachers in the main school district I work for and about 14 openings a day. These women knew I spoke the truth, but they did like not hearing the truth of many women’s economic realities in this nation. I also told them I would not stay at the shelter because I needed to write and work on my web pages. It is too noisy and emotional there, plus sometimes, things get stolen. These two female “advocates” asked me if I wanted the police officer to come down to the shelter and “apologize” to me. I said that wasn’t necessary. I just wanted them to tell Max my story and see to it that the police were better trained to understand what the Pink Ghetto is and how many women, particularly educated women, are locked out of the work force. They insisted the unnamed police officer be told this that day and they would call the police station and have him sent down to the shelter. It sounded reasonable to me. I thought it might save a woman’s life someday. Several minutes later, a police sergeant arrived with another officer. I asked him why he was there and he told me that the women’s shelter had told him I had complained of being improperly treated by one of his men. He told me that he had “spoken” with this officer and he “understood” the situation. He told me if I wanted to make a complaint that I would have to go to the station and write out a report. Then he said that he was “worried” about me and “this was for my own good.” I looked at him and asked him, “What are you talking about?” He said I was going to have to come to the hospital with him. “For what?” I asked. He said he thought I was mentally ill and that I needed to be put in the hospital. I had never been emotional, hysterical or anything like that. The only emotion I had expressed during this whole time was outrage because the nameless, ignorant police officer (who had come to my house) had blamed me for my years of abuse. My good friend and colleague Deb Fuller-Johnson works at the shelter and I had talked with her a few minutes before the sergeant had arrived. She is also the Director of the Saint Cloud American Indian Center (I founded and incorporated this organization in 1985). She is my witness that I was rational, but outraged. The sergeant said I was “suicidal” and I told him that I had never spoken of that, nor had I ever implied that I was self-destructive to anyone. I him I was healthy mentally and that he was doing this to harass me because I had complained against the officer. One of those “advocates” walked in and I told her the police was trying to take me against my will to the hospital. Her eyes looked away and I instantly knew she and the other advocate had collaborated in my detention. I told her, “You are putting me great jeopardy by doing this. An emergency room visit costs about $500 . This bill is going to make my husband angry and he will take it out on me. I am sure the shelter or the police are not going to pay for this. This is also unnecessary because I am not sick.” I asked the sergeant what law was I being detained under? He told me I was being detained under his “judgement.” I asked where was my ticket or paper saying he could do this to me and he told me that I would get one. I still am waiting for this paper. The sergeant and the other police officer jumped up and grabbed each side of me. I told them, “Taking your fucking hands off me.” There was no way I was going to let a man touch me in a bad way ever again. Then they pulled out handcuffs. The sergeant said I could walk out of there with “dignity” or they would handcuff me and drag me out. I told them with authority, “Get your fucking hands of me. Not only do I have to be abused in my own home, you are abusing me as well. You are punishing me because I complained about that officer.” They took their hands of me and walked me to the police car, where I was forced to sit in the backseat. I was forced against my will to go to the hospital. All this time I rationally protested against the loss of my freedom and power. I was put in a containment room at the hospital. Instead of it being paneled in rubber, it was paneled in carpet. I was forced to undress and wear pajamas. They took away my skirt, my shirt, my shoes and purse. A female hospital security guard searched me and my possessions. The police left us alone and I told her what was happening. I also told the security guard that I suspected that they had cooperated in my imprisonment because I had refused to stay at the shelter. I told her that the police were punishing me because I had complained about one of their own. I asked her to watch my back so they didn’t try anything else ugly like try to put drugs on me. I told her I did not trust them if they could do something like this to me. I tried to call my friend who is a lawyer. She, like many other female professional women I know, is either under- or un- employed. She wasn’t home. So I called my daughter and also called my son at work. They couldn’t believe what had happened to me and they raced to the hospital to be my witnesses if I needed any. I had to see two doctors. The first one was a physician. I had to wait for the second one, who I was told, was a psychiatrist. God was watching after me because the psychiatrist was a woman. I told the psychiatrist everything. I told her about all those years of abuse and about not being able to get out of that house because I could not get enough work to support myself. I told her that even though I had four university degrees in diverse fields, I could not get a job no matter how hard I tried. She said she understood what I was talking about. I told the doctor about how my husband had tried to get the police officer to believe that I was crazy because I had seen a sky full of angels when I was a child. She told me, “Once you have seen angels, they never leave you.” I told her about what the policeman had said in my house. I told her of my outrage about this and told her about what had happened at the women’s shelter. She got tears in her eyes and asked me if she could hug me. She hugged me for a long time and I began to cry because it was the first kindness I had been shown all day. She told me, “I will go get your clothes.” I was released from the hospital. My daughter drove me back to the shelter to get my vehicle. It was blocked in, so I rang the doorbell and told them someone needed to move their vehicle. I saw Maxine through the window and asked to talk to her. She would not come out, but instead talked to me through the intercom. I told her, “Now you see why most professional women won’t come here. Instead, they chose to suffer rape, sodomy and physical abuse.” It is very hard to write this, but I am afraid I will not make it out of this country alive. I am afraid the police are going to harass me or that my husband will murder me. Fifty years ago, women who refused to “conform” to the dictates of a patriarchal society and accept male authority were institutionalized. This is what the police tried to do to me. I know a woman in Saint Cloud whose aunt was imprisoned in a mental institution for over a decade because she would not obey her husband. One hundred years ago in this country, women who were not submissive and obedient were murdered by the males in their households. Either by a father, husband, brother or uncle. They were usually smothered or locked away in the basement. Read the literature. It is true. Last year, 40 women were murdered in Minnesota by their husbands or boyfriends. It was a record year. I remember hearing about one murder on the television news and the anchor wanted to know why they stayed. I knew why they stayed because I knew why I stayed. No work or not enough work. No social safety nets if a woman did not have a dependent child in her household. For the love of God, please send this letter to everyone you know. Please post it on every women’s justice and social justice news list you know of. Please send it to all corners of the earth so if I am murdered or shut away, the world will know what happened to me. So the world will know how many women are really treated in this country---a country that wants to evangelize the “American way” and “democracy” to the rest of the world. I wrote a dear friend in Europe an e-mail Monday, January 8, 2001. At the end of this letter, I said, “Just think, if I had not suffered like I had, I would not know the Truth. If they had let me be a 'token' and given me a fairly decent job, I would not be who I am now. I have been baptized by all kinds of human evil fires and I survived (BIG SMILE!!) ... ....the best part of all, I am healthy :-) It took me a long time to get there, but I got there all the same. It is because of my health that I am willing to radically change my life at a time when most people plan for old age. And around me, there has always been the hands of angels helping me, plus the kindnesses of others helping me as well. No one gets anywhere in this world without those two things. I have a busy day so I will close here. Be well :-) Thank you for being my friend :-) Herman, I am writing some real powerful stuff in my novel. I am going to leave my mark on the world in many ways, including this way :-) My writing is going to touch many people's lives. Martha” Martha Rose Crow 1210-34th Avenue North Saint Cloud, MN 56303 320-252-4190 [EMAIL PROTECTED] GothicNovel.com (my pages will be published in two months if I am not silenced by murder or police repression)
