Let's Blame Men by Jenna Brooke, M.A.
Let's Blame Men by Jenna Brooke, M.A.Reproduced with permission of the author
| EJF Home | Find Help | Help the EJF | Comments? | Get EJF newsletter | Newsletters |
| Domestic Violence Book | DV Site Map | Data tables | DV bibliography | DV index |
| Chapter 1 — The Human Problem Of Domestic Violence |
| Next — It's Feminist Slander That Men Are Inherently Violent by David Warren |
| Back — Abused Women Have Choices by Wendy McElroy |
Many of the women fighting slavery before the Civil War did not believe blacks were equal to whites. By the turn of the last century, the racism and ethnocentrism (and often classism) of the major women's rights organizations were strikingly obvious.
Before I was 12, my first stepmother physically and emotionally abused my younger brother and me each time my father went on a business trip. She threatened it would be worse the next time if we told anyone.
At my southern high school, the sweet, intelligent, white female classmate I was walking with suddenly turned to me and stated vehemently, “Ah jest hate nigguhs.” I was stunned.
My second stepmother viciously dragged me, a teenager, by the hair and shoved me out the front door, locking it behind me, for an infraction of family “law.”
The mother of a close female friend of mine sexually abused her as a child.
A recent news story reported the plight of a 10-year-old girl who finally reached out to neighbors for help after her mother left her to fend for herself four months before.
I have received more emotional and verbal abuse from women I have known throughout my life than from men.
Representatives from the local YWCA battered women's programs have told my classes that women are more likely than men to physically abuse their children, and that lesbian domestic violence is a very real (and well hidden) problem.
By the way, The Advocates for Abused and Battered Lesbians (AABL) in Seattle and other similar organizations are attempting to break the silence around woman vs. woman violence and offer help and support to victims.
Carolyn Myss in Why People Don't Heal talks about how people who see themselves as victims gain intimacy with other self-labeled victims through their common language of victimology. And if some women can't or won't move past their victimhood to establish healthier forms of intimacy???
Even though I have had some of the worst interpersonal experiences of my life with other women, I am no more inclined to blame or condemn the female gender as a whole than I am to blame or condemn the entire male gender for the bad experiences I've had with men. In fact, I don't “do” blaming, period.
The reality is that men don't hold the exclusive rights to any of the following “human” failings: greed, prejudice, selfishness, racism, sexism, classism, ethnocentrism, ageism, ignorance, mental and emotional dysfunction, vindictiveness, disregard for others' human rights, or closed minds and closed hearts, just to name a few.
How sad that women who don't tow the male-blaming party line are subject to such disrespectful verbal abuse from other women.
SRJC Instructor, “The History of Women and Social Change in the U.S.”
Certified Personal and Professional Coach
SRJC Social Science Department
| EJF Home | Find Help | Help the EJF | Comments? | Get EJF newsletter | Newsletters |
| Domestic Violence Book | DV Site Map | Data tables | DV bibliography | DV index |
| Chapter 1 — The Human Problem Of Domestic Violence |
| Next — It's Feminist Slander That Men Are Inherently Violent by David Warren |
| Back — Abused Women Have Choices by Wendy McElroy |
This site is supported and maintained by the Equal Justice Foundation.