Women's Rights & Issues
Related: About this forummen who kick down doors-and the war against women
(john stuart mill names what we now call domestic violence "wife torture"
Men Who Kick Down Doors and the War Against Women
Tyrants at Home and Abroad
by Ann Jones
Picture this. A man, armored in tattoos, bursts into a living room not his own. He confronts an enemy. He barks orders. He throws that enemy into a chair. Then against a wall. He plants himself in the middle of the room, feet widespread, fists clenched, muscles straining, face contorted in a scream of rage. The tendons in his neck are taut with the intensity of his terrifying performance. He chases the enemy to the next room, stopping escape with a quick grab and thrust and body block that pins the enemy, bent back, against a counter. He shouts more orders: his enemy can go with him to the basement for a private talk, or be beaten to a pulp right here. Then he wraps his fingers around the neck of his enemy and begins to choke her.A US Marine kicks in a locked door during a search of the village of Khabargho, Afghanistan in this photo from 2004. (Source: Wikimedia commons)
No, that invader isnt an American soldier leading a night raid on an Afghan village, nor is the enemy an anonymous Afghan householder. This combat warrior is just a guy in Ohio named Shane. Hes doing what so many men find exhilarating: disciplining his girlfriend with a heavy dose of the violence we render harmless by calling it domestic.
Its easy to figure out from a few basic facts that Shane is a skilled predator. Why else does a 31-year-old man lavish attention on a pretty 19-year-old with two children (ages four and two, the latter an equally pretty and potentially targeted little female)? And what more vulnerable girlfriend could he find than this one, named Maggie: a neglected young woman, still a teenager, who for two years had been raising her kids on her own while her husband fought a war in Afghanistan? That war had broken the family apart, leaving Maggie with no financial support and more alone than ever.
But the way Shane assaulted Maggie, he might just as well have been a night-raiding soldier terrorizing an Afghan civilian family in pursuit of some dangerous Talib, real or imagined. For all we know, Maggies estranged husband/soldier might have acted in the same way in some Afghan living room and not only been paid but also honored for it. The basic behavior is quite alike: an overwhelming display of superior force. The tactics: shock and awe. The goal: to control the behavior, the very life, of the designated target. The mind set: a sense of entitlement when it comes to determining the fate of a subhuman creature. The dark side: the fear and brutal rage of a scared loser who inflicts his miserable self on others.
. . . . .
Connecting the Dots
It was John Stuart Mill, writing in the nineteenth century, who connected the dots between domestic and international violence. But he didnt use our absurdly gender-neutral, pale gray term domestic violence. He called it wife torture or atrocity, and he recognized that torture and atrocity are much the same, no matter where they take place -- whether today in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Wardak Province, Afghanistan, or a bedroom or basement in Ohio. Arguing in 1869 against the subjection of women, Mill wrote that the Englishmans habit of household tyranny and wife torture established the pattern and practice for his foreign policy. The tyrant at home becomes the tyrant at war. Home is the training ground for the big games played overseas.
. . . . .
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/21-4
alittlelark
(18,886 posts)Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)thanks for posting. I hope that everyone takes time to read the whole piece along with the comments.
sheshe2
(83,354 posts)Incredibly disturbing article. It took me awhile before I could make it through. I have yet to finish reading the sub threads.
I thank you niyad, for posting this OP. As difficult as it is to post, it is a subject that must be read over and over, until something changes.
niyad
(112,435 posts)Helen Reddy
(998 posts)Hope many DU folks will read this. If YOU are not a victim of "wife torture" you know a woman who is.
niyad
(112,435 posts)sadly, the folks who most need to read and understand will, if reading at all, only mock.