This is my correspondance with a Kate Orman who runs a feminist website, and is an activist for women's issues. When I wrote to her, I fabricated a story of my own battery by my 'wife' and my refusal at a DV shelter, just to see what she'd say. Her reply is what follows, and I find it very moderate. Also, there is a link there to her website so you can read the essay she refers to below.
> Dear Mrs Orman,
>
> I read on your website an essay on how women are more often and more brutally
> the vicitms of domestic violence. I found it enlightening.
>
> But how is it that a Domestic Violence Shelter should turn away certain
> people just because they are male, or identify with the male gender? If
> women are the majority of the victims, then the few males who come looking
> for help should be a relatively small burden.
My understanding is that battered women's shelters exclude men so as to prevent
batterers finding their victims, and also so that women who have been brutalised
by men are not made afraid. My belief is that a women-only shelter should always
be able to refer a man in trouble to other accommodation and help.
> I also wondered how Domestic Violence Shelters deal with battered
> hermaphrodites. As these are people who may readily identify with either sex
> or neither sex, how does a system that only accepts females account for this
> special circumstance?
That's an interesting question; I don't know the answer. Do you mean true
hermaphrodites, or intersex and transgender people generally? Again, my belief
is that a women-only shelter should be able to refer such a person to
appropriate help if they're not able or willing to accomodate them. Shelters are
often badly stretched for resources, but being able to at least offer some phone
numbers shouldn't be a tremendous additional burden.
> A philosophical point, just because men are less often and less brutally
> victimized does not mean they should be less entitled to recieve help.
I agree, and my essay makes that very point.
> I'd truly like a response to this email if you get the chance, because I
> considered myself to be a male feminist, until my wife beat me, and took my
> children away from me, which is not my aversion to feminism, but the fact
> that I was turned away at shelter after shelter for victims of domestic
> violence.
I'm very sorry to hear of your experience. Were you referred to other
accommodation and assistance by those shelters?
Yours,
Kate Orman |
http://www.zip.com.au/~korman/"I have no idea what that meant." - Dot Warner