California Domestic Violence Lawsuit
Will Help
Secure Services for All Abuse Victims
By Marc Angelucci and
Glenn Sacks
© 2005
At the age of 11, Maegan
Woods tried to stop a domestic dispute between her parents. She soon
found herself staring down the barrel of her father's shotgun. She
watched helplessly as the trigger was pulled. She is only alive
today because the gun didn't fire--the safety was on.
Maegan was abused and
witnessed domestic violence in her home for most of her childhood.
By age seven there had been knife attacks, punches, kicks, and more.
It was hard to leave--the abuser was the one who earned the money,
and the victim was unable to work because of a disability. On
numerous occasions they looked for help to escape the abuse but were
refused. Why?
Because in Maegan's
family, the abused spouse was her father, and the battering and
child abuse were perpetrated by her mother.
The California Battered
Women Protection Act of 1994, codified in Health & Safety Codes
Section 124250, et. seq., created funding for domestic violence
shelter-based services. However, by defining domestic violence as
something only experienced by women, the statutes exclude male
victims from receiving state-funded domestic violence services,
including shelter, hotel arrangements, counseling and legal
services.
Meagan, now 21, and her
father, David Woods, are the lead plaintiffs in a new lawsuit
against the State of California and numerous state agencies and
state-funded domestic violence service providers. Beginning in the
mid-1980s, David was violently attacked on numerous occasions by his
wife Ruth, who suffers from a bi-polar disorder which, in her case,
creates a propensity toward violence.
On several occasions
David decided that he and Maegan should get out of the house to
escape Ruth's violence. However, with his disabling condition and
inability to work, David had no money to provide for himself and his
daughter. Numerous times he contacted a Sacramento domestic violence
agency he had heard of in the media, WEAVE, but they always told him
"we don't help men," and never offered him a referral to another
facility. David tried churches and various programs, but all they
could offer for men were homeless shelters with waiting lists. He
found nothing for abused men and their children. David gave up and
sank into a heavy depression.
By February 2003, Maegan
began telling her father to find a place of safety from Ruth's
violence. He again called WEAVE and again was told "we don't help
men." Maegan, then 18, became so frustrated watching David being
abused that she called WEAVE herself and insisted they help her
father. According to Maegan, WEAVE said they do not help men, and
that men are the perpetrators of domestic violence, not the victims.
That year Ruth finally
began to seek professional help for her problems. David, loyal and a
firm believer in his marriage vows, stuck by her. In January 2004,
the two appeared together on the NBC's John Walsh Show and
discussed Ruth's violence.
Domestic violence
policies based on the woman good/man bad model kept David trapped in
his violent marriage in a number of ways. The biggest reason David
didn't leave Ruth was Maegan. She was frequently the target of
Ruth's attacks, particularly when David wasn't around to protect her
and take Ruth's blows. Domestic violence researcher Richard Gelles,
whose groundbreaking work on domestic violence in the late 1970s was
instrumental in bringing the issue to public consciousness, explains
that current policies often trap abused fathers like David. They
can't leave their wives because this would leave their children
unprotected in the hands of an abuser. If they simply take their
children, they can be arrested for kidnapping. Moreover, they would
probably lose custody of their children in the divorce anyway, again
leaving their children in harm's way.
These cases often have
tragic results. In the highly-publicized Socorro Caro murder case,
Socorro often abused her husband Xavier, a prominent Northridge,
California rheumatologist, and once assaulted him so badly he had to
have surgery to regain his sight in one eye. Trapped and not knowing
what to do or where to go, Xavier endured the abuse, once telling
his wife "one day you are going to do something that cannot be
undone." A short time later Socorro shot and killed three of their
four children. Their baby survived only because Socorro ran out of
bullets. She was later convicted and sentenced to death for the
murders.
While police
intervention often works for abused women, abused men understandably
fear that once the police are involved, their wives will accuse them
of being the abuser and it is they who will be believed. Draconian
arrest policies often direct police to make an arrest, and police
are often pressured to arrest the man.
The anti-male bias of
police policies was evident in the Woods case. During the 1995
shotgun incident, Ruth called the police after David wrestled the
shotgun away from her. Maegan yelled to her mom, "Tell the truth!"
and Ruth told the police she wanted them to come because she wanted
to kill her husband.
Nevertheless, when the
police arrived and David opened the door to let them in, the
officers immediately grabbed him by the wrist, wrestled him to the
ground, and handcuffed him. They only uncuffed him after Maegan told
them that it was her mother who had the gun.
What's needed are
domestic violence policies tailored to the needs of all victims of
abuse, regardless of gender. Decades of research shows that
heterosexual males make up a significant part of the population of
domestic violence victims. According to the most
recent fact sheet released by the Centers for Disease Control,
men comprise over 35% of all domestic violence victims. In a
meta-analytic review of 552 domestic violence studies published in
the November, 2000 issue of the Psychological Bulletin, psychology
professor John Archer found that 38% of the physical injuries in
heterosexual domestic assaults were suffered by men.
The National Institute
of Mental Health funded and oversaw two of the largest studies of
domestic violence ever done, both of which found similar rates of
abuse between husbands and wives. California State Long Beach
University professor Martin Fiebert maintains an online bibliography
summarizing 174 scholarly investigations, with an aggregate sample
size exceeding 160,000, which conclude "women are as physically
aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with
their spouses or male partners."
Further, a number of
these studies contradict the common claim that women usually hit in
self-defense, and demonstrate that abusive women use weapons and the
element of surprise to compensate for their smaller size, often with
devastating results.
Even the domestic
violence shelters admit that almost 10% of those requesting domestic
violence services at shelters are men, according to the California
Research Bureau's November, 2002 report The Prevalence of
Domestic Violence in California. This is despite the fact that
these men are generally doubtful that they will be served, and there
is no community outreach for or public acknowledgement of male
victims.
Fortunately, the
domestic violence industry is not a monolith, and there are many
within it who see and acknowledge the need to take a
gender-inclusive approach to domestic violence. Patricia Overberg,
the former director of the Valley Oasis shelter in Lancaster, opened
up her shelter to male victims in the early 80s, with positive
results, and current director Carol Ensign has followed suit. Other
domestic violence insiders who have criticized male exclusionary
policies include: Gay Kennedy, formerly the domestic violence
adviser on the LAPD Harbor Division advisory board; Irene Navero,
executive director of the Queens Women's Network in New York City;
Linda Mills, author of Insult to Injury: Rethinking our Responses
to Intimate Abuse; and numerous others.
Besides Maegan and
David, there are three other plaintiffs in the lawsuit. One of them,
Gregory Bowman of Northridge, California, is physically disabled and
wheelchair bound. He cannot drive, has trouble lifting his arms, and
cannot defend himself. Beginning in November 2004, Bowman's
emotionally disturbed girlfriend, with whom he cohabitated,
repeatedly assaulted and physically abused him. Bowman ended the
relationship after a violent incident in April 2005, but she has
continued to harass him and has threatened his life on several
occasions.
In late 2005, Bowman was
refused services from King Drew Medical Center, who in June 2005,
had announced that their Women's Center of Excellence offers, among
other things, "domestic violence counseling and treatment." He was
also turned down by other Los Angeles agencies because he is male.
Such conduct is
indefensible, and is antithetical to the good work that many
domestic violence advocates have done for abused women over the past
three decades. Had Ruth Woods been the victim of violence by David,
help would have been available. She would have been able to move
with her daughter to a shelter. Using the legal services of the
shelter, she would have filed a restraining order against her
violent husband, and filed for divorce. By getting custody and
eliminating her abusive husband's visitation rights, she would have
been able to protect her daughter.
Did Maegan and David
Woods deserve any less?
This column was originally
published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal
and San Francisco Daily Journal
(12/28/05).
Marc E. Angelucci is an attorney who represents
Maegan Black and the other plaintiffs pro bono in the class action
lawsuit described in this column, and is the president of the Los
Angeles Chapter of the National Coalition of Free Men.
Glenn Sacks is a men's and fathers' issues columnist and a
nationally-syndicated radio talk show host. His columns have
appeared in dozens of America's largest newspapers.
Glenn can be reached via his website at
www.GlennSacks.com or via
email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
Copyright 2005 Glenn
Sacks, all rights reserved
