ABUSE AND WOMEN

In the last few months I have been meeting a ton of people, most of them divorced, separated, etc. Many of these people are women and I have heard stories that I thought were only on TV, or things of the past.

Seems that spousal abuse (whether the women are married, co-habitating or just dating) is common and rampant. It seems that it doesn't matter if the people involved are white, asian, hispanic, educated or not, wealthy or not. It's like, if you are in a relationship where the guy doesn't hit you...you are lucky!!! Well, I NEVER had to deal with that kind of issues, but it really breaks my heart to know that it does exist. In fact, on Friday's newspaper, the headline was: "A-G calls for fight against "cancer' of spousal abuse".

The article talks about a fourm organized by a Surrey based radio station called Radio India, as an emergency community response to the brutal murders of 3 women in the last 3 weeks. About 2,000 women - Indo-Canadian - one by one they stood up to tell tales of being beaten, slapped and thretened with knives and guns, etc. For some of us that might seem like extreme cases by stupid, fucking macho religious fundamentalists that hide behind religion to abuse women. But that 'cancer' is not only in the indo-canadian culture.

I know of plenty of women that are or have been the victims of abuse: physical, mental, emotional and/or financial. One does not have to be beaten to be abused. Cheating is abuse, emotional unavailability is abuse, financial control is abuse. When I hear guys constantly telling their wives, girlfriends or even daughters: you are fat, you are stupid, you are ugly, you are a bad mother, you don't know anything; ect, etc, that is abuse. The effects of abuse on women and children are immense and under studied. There is a lot of data on physical abuse, but how is emotional abused measured: I mean, you can't go to the police and say: my husband calls me fat all the time, can you please arrest him?

Now, of course there are plenty of women abusers, however, female being abused by males is more prevalent.

Do you know anyone being abused? do you care? What are we, as a society supposed to do about it? At the end of the day, the only ones that have the power to stop the abuse are the victims, however, they are the ones that have the least power to do so. The fear, the absolut lack of self-esteem and the little sympahty and support out there makes it incredibly difficult for these women to leave those relationships. I myself have thought many times: well, if she stays, she must like it! but really, that is a very judgemental assesment of the situation as nobody likes to be abused. Thought we have all those sayings like "aunque me pegue, lo quero".

HOw is it that truck loads of intelligent, beautiful and educated women end up in abusive relationships? I think the justice system should be HARD on those men. I think in Canada now the women don't have to press charges if they are beaten, anybody can do it for them. But that will only help the cases of physical abuse. How about emotional abuse? Who are those men anyway? I think mothers have a BIG part of it. I see so many moms spoiling their precious little boys and not teaching them how to be good men, not the intention, but definately the outcome. I've heard mothers telling their daughters: if you were nicer, thinner, not so demanding, etc, etc...: he wouldn't get so angry; he wouldn't drink that much; he would be better with the kids....FOR 2&^%%^^ sakes!! what message does that send to women???

All this came up for 2 reasons: first, a woman had been missing for a while, she was pregnant. They just found her charred remains along some truck route. This woman was a teacher, a wife, a mother, a sister. How can a woman (she was 4 months pregnant) be burned to death in this day of age? Apparently the husband and the brother in law are in custody. second: yesterday BB and I went to a movie (marie antoinette, i didn't like it that much, i really don't like sophia coppola's style), anyway, on the way out, you have to validate the parking ticket at the cashier. I've been going to that theatre for years, that's the system. The guy at the cashier first ignored me for about 5 minutes, then told me something that I didn't hear, and then he yelled at me and told me to bring the car. I go and get the car, get off and go again so he validates my ticket so I can get out. He dismissed me with a hand gesture and told me to go around....i was pissed off (pardon my french!). So I go around, and then I see a Hummer (obviously a guy driving) and he let them out, then another car with 2 guys returned to that till and he let them out, so I got even angrier and went back to that till (there was a loooong line up to get out the other way). The cashier again dismissed me like if I was invisible, or worse, like if I was a nuance of sorts. So I told him, YOU VALIDATE THIS NOW OR ELSE, he looked at me with rage, and ignored me. I started yelling him, and told him I had a pregnatn woman in the car and was trying to get out for over 20 minutes now. He tood the damn ticket and magnetized it and then threw it at me....I yelled at him again and left. The guy was east indian, damn fucking chauvinist bastard. I am PMSing which doesn't help, but if I could I would have just jumped him and given him a good beating....argghhh!! the total disrespect, it's unbelievable. He was letting men out, but he was making me stand in line for almost 25 minutes (AND there are 2 exits, it's 2 different parking lots, so it's not like I was trying to jump the cue).

Learning about the burnt woman made me sick, it made me sad, and it made me wonder how each one of us, as members of the human race living together on this planet can contribute to stop this??? And having to deal with such a bastard at the theatre's exit enraged me. And it is this big feeling of being powerless. All the parking garages in VAncouver are attended by east indians, so, who do I complain to. East Indian women are made by their families to not report domestic abuse "to save face". Gross, gross and disgusting.

by caring, by raising boys and girls with healthy self-esteem, by not blaming the victim, by demanding our governments to really punish these men (and women when necessary), what else.