Unknown Speaker 00:01 I'm selling. Unknown Speaker 00:03 And we we are very interested in being as participatory a workshop as possible. So we're going to talk some and then stop and then open it up for questions, leaving some of our other prepared remarks to see whether we started a conversation or we want to go into some of the other sort of presentation we have. So we'll see, please don't be shy, ask whatever you want to ask. And we'll try to address it. I'm going to start by giving you a kind of introduction to the work that Sally and I have done over the years, we've worked together for many years. Specifically with abuse women and their children in a variety of different ways. All New York City. I actually cut my teeth in, in working in the women's movement here at Barnard College in a Affiliated Organization called the Women's counseling project. In 19. I started in 1978, James rule to sitting over there was the head of the Women's Center at Barnard College at that time, and we had a very close relationship with the college, although we were an independent organization. And we worked a lot with women who were in crisis, which included victims of domestic violence and a fair number of victims of sexual assault. And I and some of the other women that I worked with, were instrumental in helping St Luke's Hospital start the rape intervention program. So that was a long time ago. And that program has, is thriving in many different ways and in fact, works with victims of domestic violence now, as well as survivors of sexual assault. I was also the founder of a what is now a fairly large domestic violence program in New York City called sanctuary for families, which I started in 1983. And I ran it until 1991, when I left to pursue some interests that I had, that I was unable to pursue, because I was now running a large agency. And it didn't allow me to do much of anything, but raise money and sort of do management. And the issue that I was interested in pursuing more was something that I had heard women that came to this program, say to me over and over and over again when talking to them about their lives. And that was that they were in the conversation where you would find out why they had stayed in an abusive relationship for as long as they had, they would say that they stayed in order to protect their children. And then in conversation, when you would ask them what eventually convinced them to leave the abusive relationship. They said it was in order to protect their children. So I found that the repetition of this story over and over and over again to be very interesting and also posed for me a real problem. Well, how do you go from believing that stay is the right thing to do to protect your children to understanding that leaving is the right thing to do to protect your children and with a variety of cases that received a lot of public attention, in particular, the Lisa Steinberg, Lisa sunbirds murder, it became very clear that if you didn't solve that dilemma soon enough, you could die or your child could die. And so it was a very, I felt that it was a very important question to look into more. Unknown Speaker 04:00 When I left sanctuary, which is still doing very well, as an agency, I started what first I thought of as a study, I was going to do a social science study with victims of domestic violence, who were mothers to try to understand through the use of more typical social science techniques, ie questionnaires, how that sort of process happens to them. I quickly realized after trying to get myself a quick education on social science research techniques that was not going to fit what I personally had in mind for this kind of project. And I began to meet people who did like histories or oral histories and I quickly realized that that suited me quite well and I thought suited the women that I was going to be working with quite well, because it didn't box them in into any little checkoff questions, it really allowed them to talk about their life and express their dilemmas and hopes and fears in a much more storytelling kind of way. So I started a small project called voices of women, which several people helped me work on, including Sally who also worked with family. And we did and we did a life history project where we interviewed a little over 40 women about these issues, how their lives had progressed, how the battering had entered their lives, how children had affected their understanding of the violence and how they finally escaped from the violence, that oral history project, then, the intention of that project was always to use the information that we, we gathered to do policy reform and political action and program development. It was never a research project. In a pure sense, we called it something that we learned from an Oral History Program at Hunter College, we called it action research, where we were doing the kind of research but it was in order to inform social action. So we, I became, in I became interested in using some of the information that we were getting from the women to develop public policy. And through a lot of things that were personal and political, I guess you could say. I was able to convince with messenger, to appoint me to head an admission in New York City, which would look at the confluence of child abuse and women abuse as New York City governmental agencies impacted on that. So for example, how did the child welfare system the most obvious one, look at the overlap between child abuse and abuse? How did the police department dress it? How did hospitals address it and on and on, we dealt with eight different New York City systems. And we prepared a document called behind closed doors, which uses parts of oral histories to lead off each chapter. Which one chapter deals with the police one deals with homelessness one deals with the hospital. So we use a real life story of a real life women live battered women with hurt us children, too, in a way, expound on what the or ground, I guess really ground the policy issues that we were going to try to address in this policy for. fortune would have it that there was a mayoral election going on at that time. And both then Mayor Dinkins and now, Mayor, but then candidate Rudolph Giuliani decided that domestic violence was an interesting platform to use in their mayoral campaign to win women's votes. And this book became quite hot in both campaigns. Mayor Giuliani has, in some ways, advertised himself as the domestic violence mayor. And many, many of the reforms that have been mentioned in this book has there have been attempts made at implementing them. We can get into that later, if you're interested, some have been more successful than others, some have been complete failures, some have only been given lip service and others have been ignored completely. So, the and then eventually, I also started another small organization, which is called the Family Violence Project, which works under an umbrella organization called the Urban Justice Center, if any of you are just in the welfare, Unknown Speaker 09:14 family, families and welfare, the attack on welfare, whatever, I mean, the Abramowitz this workshop, the woman that is doing the web organizing is also a member of the Urban Justice Center, she runs another project there. So we all operate under this organization. And the Family Violence Project has two primary commitments in general, our work is to try to make as many of the policy reform and programmatic designs that were listed in this report a reality. But we do focus on two basic areas we focus on reforming the child welfare system and reform in the police and criminal justice system. So the two areas that we focus On. And if you need to hear or know anything about those two systems, you know that it's almost impossible to make anything change. But that's what we do. And we worked very hard on it. And now I'm going to hand it over to Sally who has some stories from the trenches. Unknown Speaker 10:24 I work mostly on the Child Welfare part of the Family Violence Project, now, I do, I have had the privilege and in the hard work of doing a lot of education, particularly to people who work in the child welfare system. And it's quite amazing. How many of the things that we talked about today, although both Alyssa and I were talking about how it was pretty amazing that violence against women did not come up. Well, I didn't hear it in any of the plenaries at all. And then it just came up in the Seidel and Boyd and Abramo, with some panel and then if you notice that Mimi Abramovitz, called domestic Bad's the dirty little secret of welfare, which was, I mean, it just was an interesting that it's still such a denied reality, even though it's it tends to be more in the public eye these days than it was, say five years ago. But when I do these trainings, I am amazed by their I call it having an encounter with a beast of male supremacy, because attitudes, these are mostly two days from nine to five. And we, it's we go over a lot of the most conflicting issues for a child welfare worker. And that gets back to something else that was has had come up in the workshop before this was, which was the, the conflict of keeping women safe and protecting children for many years, you know, they worked Child Protective people and people interested in children worked on a very separate track of investing violence, and now they come together, as explained, but you see, the blaming of women, not is it only deeply embedded in the structure, it's like every child welfare case is under a woman's name, it doesn't matter if she's dead father's alive, it's under her name. So basically, mothers and poor mothers in this case, you know, carry the weight of everything basically, on their back. So you so it's not only in the structures and the rules, but it the consciousness of, of many of the workers that I that I work with in these trainings, is just incredibly, deeply patriarchal, and people, that it's not just men, it's men and women in different ways. And it's also it's also true that there are people there who, who resist this, who have a different way of looking at things and who are struggling inside a very conflicted and difficult job because they see the worst things that you can imagine. And so it's I sometimes in the beginning, I used to be like, Oh, child welfare workers. And I had a little bit of an attitude about it. Because you know, this thing of ripping children out of families, and it is happening more and more, but there are people I just want to say here, people in the do this work that are there because they care about families and children. And we find in our work, that there's a tremendous hunger to learn about how can we deal with the coexistence of these two things that in fact, it cannot protect children without empowering their mothers. However, there's also I mean, people this is the kinds of things that people have said, well, sexism really works in my culture very well. No, patriarchy works. Unknown Speaker 14:07 This one man who's a suit, these are supervisors, they may they may manage 100 cases a month, or you know, they carry 100 100 cases and they supervise five people with 25 Meet probably more than that, in most cases. There's an enormous amount of work number one that's ridiculous but so they have power over family lives. I mean, they could they can take children right, you know, these can split up families left and right. And they and they they have these Well, this this man who ran an entire preventive program, which is different than protective, but works with families to keep the children from going to class for him and his, his steer him and he seriously believed that control was the essence of life and that you had to end he meant controlling his family he had to control his wife and his children or chaos would erupt. So, I've just been. I mean, I guess we were talking a little bit here and there about things that we should do. I mean, I, I still, I've come back to the point of view, that consciousness raising is just as serious as it has ever been for women who are worried about women and children and, and everybody in the world and that we have to continue to deconstruct all these, you know, patriarchy, the old fashioned word patriarchy, and as another professor of mine called demon archy, with swords, which does include, you know, white racism and patriarchy, and white women's complicity with that. So do patriarchy and demon archy. And we just had to keep talking about this. I wanted to mention one thing, too, that when I was lucky enough to do the oral history project, or the list that we had eight women, some multiracial group, we each interviewed for women's two or three, you know, for a lot, two or three times it for two hours at a time, basically, some sometimes longer. And earlier on the panel this morning, there was all this discussion about marriage. And one of the things that we found in that study was in in these interviews that 50% of the women, and that was true of my for women, I think was that fair to say 50% 50% of women were hit on their wedding night. And it's one and this is that sort of a symbol, not just a symbol. I mean, it's a reality of what marriage means in people's minds. And, and, and also, yeah, just a symbol, you know, to reality that, that, and these in in these in these tellings of stories, you know, you would hear the whole courtship very often very, this long romantic courtship. And then one thing on the wedding night, so I think that, you know, marriage and violence are some ways that we still have to, you know, that conversation was going on this morning. So I think we should maybe I just Unknown Speaker 17:15 wanted to give a few. Our basic premise, I think about ending family violence is that it's, it's a, it's a total community affair. Women are part of the community, men are part of the community, we're all part of the community. And I guess I'm in community on on at least two different levels here. One is that we need to, we need to work on changing community values, so that violence of all kinds of things, we're talking about family violence, your family violence is no longer an acceptable means of resolving conflict or, you know, relating to people within a family that is a message which is barely talked about. And in fact, in the new move towards family values, what was talked about this morning was this sort of re going back to a much more traditional patriarchal family structure where the man is in power and the children and a woman are is serfs basically are unhappy trolls property, we see this. We see this disgust overtly and covertly every day, with the systems that we work with the systems that are the control our lives in a more public sense of community, the police, the doctors, mental health professionals, child welfare professionals, the courts, also, they believe those patriarchal values to these child welfare workers believe that it's okay for the case to be in the woman's name. They believe it's okay to charge a woman with failing to protect her children when in fact, it's the battery man who has beaten the child, but instead of charging him with criminal with with a criminal case of child abuse, it's easier to charge the woman with failing to protect the children. The courts believe that it's better to keep a woman with a battering man because he can support her the entire way our systems are constructed are completely based on an identification with those patriarchal values. And so ending family violence means not only helping women to understand that this is not something that they have to accept, which of course isn't an important message to get out there. But that's all people want to focus on. Why didn't She leaves. Okay, she didn't leave because every person she talked to in the whole world, from maybe her mother, to the cop, to the doctor, to the therapist, to the minister to the, to the, to the judge, all told her the same thing, which was, aren't you better off there than someplace else? Didn't you do something to deserve. And so that it with that message constantly being reinforced, it's really difficult to fight that by just working with the woman to tell her that it's really not her fault, she really can't get out of this. So it's really important in our point of view, that ending family violence be something done, you know, very personally with individual people who are experiencing the problem as an all the way up the ladder with the systems that really collude to keep that kind of structure intact. Unknown Speaker 21:05 I just wanted to tell you, one concrete example of that is a woman going to court to get an order of protection. She says to the judge, you know, I'd like my daughter's to be on that order protection, because I think they're getting sexually abused. And he says, Why didn't When did you find that out? She said, Well, I just I've done out of I just realized that about a month ago. And he so he took the children away from her, she had to go to a shelter and the man was in the apartment. And, you know, one of one of one of the things that we've found in some in our action research with the, with different agencies inside of the child welfare system, is that they're in there, they're other studies that bear this out that 50 to 70% of the time, there's, we say that already that 50 to 70% of the time when there's spouse abuse or partner abuse, there's also child abuse. In fact, really, you know, the context for child abuse is really abuse between the parents. And I mean, it's all very mixed up together. And this is true, it's true, that it's something that we have I don't the analysis of the causes of domestic violence and what to do didn't start it out to be very woman centered in the beginning. And now it's become much more common. To know, are there questions Unknown Speaker 22:37 to indicate that I provide legal information for people who are coming in and a lot of questions coming in. And I've seen situations where the kids get taken away from her. And that, to me, seems very violent. Like, just really come to your house, knock on your door and take the kids away. Have no idea what's going on, right. And I'm wondering what, I don't know whether it sounds like you're alluding to this, but maybe burn? Like, is there anything that we can do, I guess to like, help these families stay together? Or like upkeep along with the kids? Unknown Speaker 23:18 Well, that's what we're doing. Yeah, that's our whole odds are Unknown Speaker 23:23 we sort of focused it on the child welfare system, because that's often where, like someone calls the state central registry, and a report is made on the family. And that's often although not always, it's sometimes happens. Like you guys are both saying just by the woman going through the family court. But we're we're trying to make the point within the child welfare system, that the best way to, to protect children is to help protect the mother. Now, there are situations and everyone always likes to talk about them where you can't do that. I mean, the mother is not willing to do what needs to be done to protect herself. Okay, well, you know, you can't win them all. And you know, maybe down the line, that woman will change her mind with some support and information. But my experience, and how I started this whole thing, and what I learned from, you know, 15 years of running shelters with battered women is that they do want to protect their kids. But they're not given the means to protect their kids. They're not given the support to protect their kids. And so the response of the child welfare system and the court system is often just the opposite of helping protect your kids. It's yanking her kids away from her, throwing her into sometimes a more dangerous situation. Often we find that women who are battered in families where kids who are battered, the steak comes in, takes the kids away and leaves her right there at Unknown Speaker 24:57 home was the battering less than then she's I better, you know, the state becomes the bad, right? And so Unknown Speaker 25:03 it's the problem is how, how long it takes to change these values and how small the effort is to that, that's out there to really change the values. I mean, it's not a lot of it's not a lot of people doing this kind of work to change those systems. And so it takes an incredibly long time. And the irony is, it's some of the reforms that have recently been put in place to assist battered women. There's a new law that was passed in 1994. In the state of New York, which makes the criminal justice penalties for committing domestic violence much more serious, are, of course, in many cases being used against women. The other like I mentioned, the other half of our program does police and criminal justice intervention. And we are the organization of record in New York City trying to keep track of the number of times that women are arrested along with their perpetrators called dual arrest, because the way the law is written. Sally and I are fighting, she strangling me. I scratch her face in order to get her to leave me alone. The police come, I have bruises all over my neck and a broken nose. And she has a scratch on her face. I say he's was trying to kill me. She says he says we'll make her guy. You know, she scratched me we're both gonna get arrested. And that's those these situations or situations where there this is a bonafide victim of domestic violence. Someone who has been to court maybe has an order of protection has maybe been in shelter has the two boys that come there many times before, because the male has been beating the woman but they will now in many cases, arrest both parties. So you get this, you get this, you know, one step forward two steps back situation constantly, you get a reform that looks like it's going to make things better, which in fact, has this real downside for for women in this case, and then those kids let's say both parents get put in jail where the kids go into the foster care system. Unknown Speaker 27:29 And there is I think the rise in foster care placement is in the Bronx in the first six months of 1996 is 147% I mean children are going to be taken out of homes and with the welfare reform stuff what Yes, it did. But also with the welfare you know, repeal stuff there there are gonna be so many children that just their mothers aren't going to be mothers and fathers aren't gonna be able to feed them I mean, there's just gonna be no way to do it and so they're they're really I mean you can see it moving to orphanages and I mean there's it's almost a setup for it so it's Unknown Speaker 28:13 it's pretty scary Unknown Speaker 28:16 as well in the past okay by election leave this violent situation I can go on well that's that will no longer work with low income women most of them return to care. They repeatedly said I really wish that so well while you're stuck Unknown Speaker 29:11 that's right for passing. I would like to report on a problem and I don't know too much about it but I Unknown Speaker 29:17 read a newspaper Unknown Speaker 29:21 in two other pictures. The Jewish community that's become very very concerned about the dirty secret Unknown Speaker 29:34 exists way that they are trying to do something that they are working initially. So that rather Unknown Speaker 29:46 than working with dices terrible in New Jersey, nice Unknown Speaker 29:58 but child welfare systems but they are working with lots and lots and lots Unknown Speaker 30:06 of therapists. propriate some sketch, sometimes exceeds Unknown Speaker 30:23 organizations Unknown Speaker 30:28 a lot of women get out of bed and relationships purely in what you would call informal meetings, you know, friends, relatives, clergy, and don't get hooked up with these governmental systems. It was interesting, because when we did the oral history project, very few of the women use traditional health sources, most of them and they were very much mixed in terms of their socio economic backgrounds. And only two I think, in fact, use formal either formal domestic violence programs or one or to call the police. But it wasn't, it wasn't the vast Unknown Speaker 31:11 majority. And again, that's in this kind of a climate. That's why education is so important and consciousness, because then, then communities, people and communities can help each other and then, you know, they, you have to make alternative forms and a lot of ways to find help. And it's important, you had your hand in the long time, I wanted to respond to the question. Unknown Speaker 31:47 Certainly hoping to help anything by eliminating, it's really not providing enough not drinking warm. If they love the battery, it's not, it's not drinking enough to sell this. So like, I just feel like it's not really something Unknown Speaker 32:13 a suitable option, but now, it's not really a great option to begin with now that they are presented with Unknown Speaker 32:21 triple I did have a roof over your head Unknown Speaker 32:28 as as a as an alternative to, to living in the same household as Oh, yeah, put your head on. Drugs. Unknown Speaker 32:42 I mean, just say the same. But also what I want to say. Arrested. Were the like the punishment, I work with the punishment of these men like, it's okay, yeah. So you get this woman out. She finally Unknown Speaker 33:09 after 20 years, having been in life, threatening situations, each years, gets out of it. And now what he's going to be jailed for five, six months. Unknown Speaker 33:24 And then where is she? It's a very, it's very, it's very complex, because, in fact, we just came from, well, there have been many conversations about criminal justice interventions. We just came from one yesterday that really was trying to begin to look at issues of the the movement towards criminalizing domestic violence at in terms of race and class issues, because there is a real feeling, which I think to some extent, I share, I think Sally shares too, that there is such a movement in the country to put for men of color behind bars. That he that that communities of color, don't want to see their men thrown in jail, even if those men are beating up women and children. I think that and I think that there needs to be criminal justice punishment. But it has a lot to do with does the woman want that to be you know, there's a lot about does the woman want that to be the option? Is she is she going to cooperate with prostitution or Isn't she going to cooperate with prostitution? Or are there other ways of holding battery batteries accountable besides putting them in jail? No, that has never been explored. Let me tell you, there's no There may be one or two programs in the whole country that really try to create a community, a community response to the domestic violence, which isn't just about putting the guy behind bars, you know, it's really about the church, the job, the community center, the minute, you know, again, all those people we were talking about before that have, in general, such a bad attitude towards domestic violence really need to start helping women and children and holding batters more accountable. If that was happening, then maybe the maybe the people that should go to jail would still go to jail, you know, there'd be there certainly be perpetrators of domestic violence, that would still need to be put behind bars in order to keep anybody safe. But it wouldn't be the kind of knee jerk sort of reaction. You might not have the same kind of resistance in certain communities in the country, and in particular, in its inner cities, to that kind of policy change. Because it just goes right in line. And you can see why Giuliani would be behind domestic violence, it fits into His Law and Order kind of mentality. But that's not all domestic violence is it's not just about it's not just an anti crime, you know, anti crime legislation. And, and more and more gets played out like that. I feel like we're in the art. Really scary out there. Unknown Speaker 36:40 Speaking about child support services, and the criminal justice system exists. upper levels of the meaning levels work is not a question of child support when there are resources. And what then happens to the children when this occurs? Unknown Speaker 37:08 A big part of the abuse, it's been controlled by nature and often get money into it, no, and people don't have access to that methods, but one major women. And another big barrier is stigma, which is also stupid Unknown Speaker 37:32 doesn't exist to any degree, most of the studies come to public attention. Unknown Speaker 37:37 Well, that's the that's the Unknown Speaker 37:39 question. It exists in its trans class gender. Unknown Speaker 37:46 Well, studied the studies that have been done that attempt to show whether there are differences in types of domestic violence or rates of domestic violence by class have shown that there is just as much domestic violence no matter what your social class is. The issue, though, that I think is very difficult to tease out of that, though, is that the lower your socio economic class, the more public view, your family is more open to public views. So you live in the projects hacked in the police know whatever's going on, you're going to end up in family court, you don't see well to do women in family court. Middle, you know, lower middle income is probably the almost the highest income level you see in your typical family court setting. Those women get divorces. If they're if they're going to try to end a marriage, they don't go through the route of family court, where they may never get a divorce because there's no one to do a divorce for a poor woman anymore. They and so you'd have to read through, you have to read through divorce records. When you read through divorce records of middle income and upper income women you find physical cruelty, as an IT as a as the checker, you know, the box that gets checked off for the reason of the divorce and over 50% of the divorce. So you now those women, though, aren't going to public hospitals, they're not showing up in the emergency room documentation. They're not going to public mental health clinics, so you don't get the same kind of scrutiny of of their lives. Then on the other hand, though, I have a colleague who's working on murder, the murder of women in New York City and how many how many of them are victims of domestic violence, and she's finding that by and there's no way to hide a murdered woman, you know, she's murdered, she's dead. There's the body. There's an on top, you know, it's like that you can't really To hide and from public scrutiny and it's clear that many more of those women are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds then not. But then you get these cases, you know, you get the scripts case and you get the you get the nice bounce and you get the bomb Ulo Oh, yeah, Sonny bomb, you get all these cases of very well to do. Women Jean. Jean, how are you get the woman who was married to the guy who was the head of the SEC, the Washington. I forget. But you know, you get these vary in OJ Simpson. I mean, you get these very highly publicized cases of people that come that are from a way, you know, way up there and you realize that they're too they're Unknown Speaker 40:54 gonna sit there there's also power in the in the when you have more money to cover up? I think. Yeah, I mean, there. I mean, if you there was one case of who's that the the death doctor they? Yeah, there was a Kevorkian case where they found out after the woman died that there she had taken had three orders of protection or something. And, you know, who knows? Did he? Who knows how that works? Because that's what where the consciousness comes in. It's sometimes it's, you know, people don't see it, they won't see what's happening right in front of their eyes. And so they go, Well, you know, she was sick. And but where was this at? Nope, working never knew about the orders of protection and nothing is his fault, but the husband knew. So, you know, who knows? Unknown Speaker 41:45 Speaking of consciousness, you did something earlier that I'm sure it wasn't just but when you were a little scenario, you and you said, well, listen, she's a guy. I was able to study spacer and how it worked. And with the center when I was in high school in college, and I had friends who were shelters. And the year after I graduated college, I got a call for this woman to feed me for the next eight years. And I did, because we weren't together because it was a woman because I thought this was different, or whatever. I didn't call it being a better woman or domestic violence until I was sitting in a class learning about battered women's syndrome, seven years after I was out of the relationship. And I almost died in that relationship a few times. I mean, it was it was very serious. And I've had that my consciousness raised and, and so it was not I'm not saying this to. I mean, no, I'm not saying that you get some food, but I'm saying that you don't have to be you don't even have to be lovers with your partner or even with the person that's feeding you. But I think it's also the only thing that I'm kind of hearing. And I think it's partly because of the boys just sort of like, well, the men are these equal batters and women victims. But my understanding is that most of the men could be we're also like a few sometimes I miss there, what happens to them? Is there somebody that's like, trying to be one of the committee responses, I would think that would be effective would be like public humiliation, right? You know, like, feel like the size of the post office. But the idea is like, Have you ever I mean, a woman who was beating me wasn't doing it, because, I mean, she was pretty horrible person. But it was also because she had a really, you know, I assume she's amazing. She didn't have her upbringing. And so, yeah, like, if you're somebody who's like working with these people, and you know, who's like trying to get them to Oh, man, I just don't see that's just not nearly as visible, as, as like bettering yourself. Unknown Speaker 44:02 There are some batterers intervention programs. They're, you know, they're probably 15 years old. And the oldest, you know, like that first one, I think the start in Boston by a program called emerge in New York, Victim Services Agency runs probably the most, most number of batterers intervention groups, there are a couple of other ones that are run by other organizations. The there's not a high success rate yet, you know, from completion of the program, but you know, there are a lot of different things. People saw people are mandated often by court to go to these so the motivation level is confused, you know, it's like not them and wants to go, someone's telling them to go, and then the other group of people that go to those treatment groups are going because they, their motive for going is to maintain their relationship not to stop the battery, you know what I mean? It's kind of like negotiating CIT, stay with me because I'm gonna go to this group and I'll get better. But really, it's stay with me, that's the main thing. And so once they start the group, their motivation decreases. Because there's a pack, the pack has been made, they've done their part of the deal. And so they dropped out of the group. So there are a lot of reasons, I think why these groups still haven't shown themselves to be particularly successful. There's an incredible amount of debate about what's the right way to run one of these groups is some people think it's purely education, you just teach people that battering is a choice that they make, and it's their responsibility to change it, and it's in their power to change it, that's all you do. You leave it up to them. Some people think that it's really very much about biochemistry, you know, and it's like impulse control problems. And you just kind of get overwhelmed by this impulse to do this, partly because of your upbringing, partly because of your own biochemistry. Some people think that, you know, a very psychodynamic approach is the right way to deal with it. But no one has shown any real good results. So no one really knows the course, people who fatter or different to you know, it's not like there's necessarily one way that's going to work for everybody. But let me tell you, if you want to talk about political correctness, there's an incredible amount of political correctness around that whole issue, which is very, very complex, and has a lot to do with the with the women's movement, and has a lot to do with a kind of rigidity, rigidity of a values that may not be shared by all women, either, you know, so it's really complicated. And then there's a lot of problems. I think, I think the studies of batteries have shown that about, like, how about there is there's there's an association between the two, alcohol and drug abuse and domestic violence, but for the most part, it's seen as, as a screen, it's like, people who abuse another person use alcohol or drug abuse as a way to excuse the behavior rather than because it doesn't. It's not believed to cause domestic violence unless it's crack, I truly believe having run a domestic violence shelter in the midst of the crack epidemic. That crack was a drug that caused people who hadn't ever been violent before. Unknown Speaker 48:04 And there are some people who look into this another model as an addiction model also, through the different models that they do. I just, I wanted to just respond to what you said two about the different kinds of battery the battery isn't male, female only and that's true, it's hard. It is hard to know, no. And that's the other thing. There's a whole there's whole there's such a complex range isn't just physical and there's you know, there's psychological sexual, social, everything but what it gets you in a way this question about if people have had abusive childhoods, and if that causes the battery, there's the interplay of the clinical kind of personal issues and the social issues it's still complicated because that's true. I mean, that pain is passed on and on but it's not it's not it's personal pain that's supported by you know, structures and social social work don't don't become Yeah. Or they might get with it they don't become a with a group that I mentioned already many of them is there any programs Well, there's there's the yeah, there is there's a center for immigrant rights and there there's domestic violence programs for there's there are two groups that do it specifically Diana Unknown Speaker 49:48 and right now you're new American. Unknown Speaker 49:54 Something. Does anyone know what the New Unknown Speaker 49:56 York, NY a vision for New Americans, Unknown Speaker 50:03 they have a domestic violence program that works with with new immigrant families. And then the Center for immigrants rights also has a domestic violence program. There are also some small, ethnically based better women's programs, one that works with South Asian women called soft T, one that works with more mainland Asians called the Asian Women's Center, one that works with Latinas of the violence intervention project, and a few new programs that are very small working with patient families. Another new one working with Orthodox Jewish women. So there are it's becoming more. And that this is I think, the kind of movement that we're part of where we're interested in seeing domestic violence, awareness and expertise, be moved into the general population, you know, so that family court people, teachers, people that work with new immigrants, etc, know about it and know what to do about it. But clearly, again, tying this back in with from welfare reform, the whole welfare reform agenda is to completely entrap for families and the poor and immigrant families legal or not legal. And the it is true that many women either will not leave or will return to abusive relationships, because they have no means of support. And as a means of support, however paltry they are taken away, the more tracks they will be. Unknown Speaker 52:03 So it's very much a hostage situation for immigrant women very often, they'll come from, you know, where they're coming from, to meet the husband, and then he won't, you know, he will keep them so isolated. So they don't learn to speak English, and they can't get the green card and no friends. And it's just, it's just off. And there are there are some preventive agencies also, there's something called the Puerto Rican Family Institute, that is in Manhattan in Brooklyn, and they work with families, and they're very, they have domestic violence support groups that are and parenting groups that are Spanish speaking. And they have a good, they're very clear about it. Unknown Speaker 52:45 The other stuff so people know, there are waivers in the present welfare bill, even as it's written now for victims of domestic violence, just as there are waivers for undocumented women who are battered to disentangle their legalization process from their sponsor, usually husband, so that if you are a battered, undocumented woman who is dependent on your spouse for sponsorship, and you're and you are being battered, you can make that case to ins and you can disentangle your cases. And not always but theoretically, go through the process of of citizenship on your own. And then with the welfare reform bill, there is a federal waiver where states have the option of taking this waiver, which will allow victims of domestic violence to be exempted from some of the provisions of the welfare reform. It's It's uncertain whether New York State is going to be applying for that waiver or not. And there is going to be a lot of political action in the next couple of months to compel the governor to take that option. But we don't know. Unknown Speaker 54:09 One thing that a specific thing that came up around Workfare, there's something called an interagency task force or domestic violence and which meets monthly and has people from different parts of the system coming together. And something came up about Workfare and domestic violence and sexual harassment, but there's no place for women who are being forced to do work fair. And if there's sexual harassment on the job, there's no point there's no place for them to take their case. And if they're, if they're being kept from coming to their job because of domestic violence, because it's dangerous for them, then they're just kicked off. So there's, you know, that's a whole other way that domestic violence weaves in the or the not seeing it as a real thing in women's lives you know has terrible constant Unknown Speaker 55:11 strategy Unknown Speaker 55:25 because I just Unknown Speaker 55:35 experienced so proud to Unknown Speaker 55:45 deliver this conversation Unknown Speaker 55:57 Well I depends on who the mean usually the people that well with men and breaks down by race and how I deal with it for some like the white men do not they don't listen. Generally speaking, the in these these group settings the webinar like this pretty much the whole time and they crack jokes now. And and so you know I there's not really much I can do if they're not gonna listen. But for instance, in one of the three weeks ago this man was cracking jokes like the first joke he said when he came in was like, Hey, Joe to kill your wife, you know, really just, you know, so I just slowly was listening to this. And about halfway through that day, I said, you know, your jokes are really getting to me. flattered me, I think you'd better just watch out. I mean, I didn't say it quite like that. But I, in a nice way, say could you just pay attention to what you're saying. And then later on, a woman was telling a story about a woman who was her client, it was very painful. She was in pain about it. She was confused about how to handle this case with the police and the husband. And this man made a joke at that point, which hurt that specific woman right there. And I said, you know, this is extremely disrespectful. And I got angry at him in a way that I usually don't. And then And then what happened was that I all of a sudden realized that this man was looking like a two year old. I mean, he was just he sort of went like this and he was angry. But then he was sad. And then we had a break. And then the next part of the thing he came the next time we came back to the classroom, he came and sat right, close up to me and was like, teacher and he was like a six year old. I mean, it was real. And then that's the thing that I continually realize that there's so much pain that's going on with some people. Now some now that I've had that one Latino man sit was a man who argued with me a lot. And he said that sexism was really positive in his culture, and he was getting from women in his culture, we're not agreeing with him. But he was attacking, you know, he was trying to fight with me. And I said, Well, you know, racism is very positive in in white culture, too. In my culture, we think racism isn't abusive. So then he had to think about and so sometimes I use I use race, white supremacy and male supremacy, sort of to show that and that that's helpful. But you know, another man another man. This was a white man who worked in Coney Island and Family Preservation trying to keep families together and he was really resistant the first day, really kind of me and he was really obsessed with sadomasochism, because some people come with a lot of clinical ideas, and they just think, you know, women are just sick and masochistic, but the next day he came to me early in the morning said, you know, last night I realized that my father really beat my mother all my life and I just couldn't deal with it. So I don't this is not a very you know, I don't know what the techniques are except for to be very listening myself and try to give people because one of the reasons I think I hear all this stuff that sometimes you don't hear someone out you probably do in the Deep South, maybe you people say things that they just say things that maybe in the they wouldn't say in other places. Yeah. Right and yeah. So that kind of thing. Right Unknown Speaker 1:00:00 Wouldn't it be? Best Unknown Speaker 1:00:18 yeah but it was Unknown Speaker 1:00:27 a real experience Unknown Speaker 1:00:49 films are good, I like films. What did you think that work? Yeah, Unknown Speaker 1:01:09 see, I mean, one of the things we find, and Sally does it more than I do. It's how unbelievably exhausting it is to do these kinds of, in our case, we're doing educational workshops instead of like a whole class. But you have to be so first of all, unshod. Second of all, we where, where the people are, you know where they're at, you have to like, you have to use either humor, or you have to, in New York anyway, in a lot of cases, the analogy that Sally said, between sexism and racism works here, in a lot of cases, because people are, to some extent embarrassed to be racist, but they're not embarrassed to be sexist. And so you try to make those connections between, you know, the non American, so, but it's so unbelievably hard and emotionally getting humiliated. Unknown Speaker 1:02:16 I get angry, but I usually deal with maybe this is like, very stereotypical thing. But what happens is, I get these motherly feelings, like the second day when people start to feel a little bit safe. Just I mean, I think it's really important to make a place where it is somehow safe enough to say stuff. You know, and, and one, like one, one man said, I really feel bad right now I feel bad. And I'm a man, I'm really pissed off. Because you're saying all these No, you're telling us to, and this is a man who actually though has been going into homes and seeing for many years and seeing, I mean, he had to have seen some kind of male hurt fullness going toward a female and, you know, not men not taking care of their children or, you know, so he's seen that when he felt really angry, that he was being judged. And I said, Well, that's great. Because you don't have to be a man like that. You can be a different kind of man. And you just, you know, so I guess. I mean, I don't know if I handle my rage or anger, right, but I tried to not so polarized myself and not get so frustrated and get to that human place. I guess that's the only way Unknown Speaker 1:03:27 one of the things too without getting pornographic. I think that we encourage people to express what they really feel. Because it's there anyway. And the other thing I find anyway, is that there, especially if there are a couple of women in the room, and, and someone says something male or female, that's kind of outrageous, but they're thinking it anyway. You don't have to deal with Unknown Speaker 1:03:53 it, because they will. That's no, that's definitely that's a it's a pod of doing some of this work is that it ends up being like pure training as much as it is. And then sometimes you have to like, kind of separate the parties and kind of the genderized or deconstruct what's going on gender warfare is really strong. And I'll tell you, things do not break down by race, particularly they really break down on gender in these settings because women really start to get angry and there's usually one or two women though, who completely blame women and are totally much harsher. We all know that experience you know are much harsher on Yeah, no, it's just a marginalized impression stuff and Unknown Speaker 1:04:40 I'm interested in the whole idea of which which gender is the way that men relate to men or one of each. Well, Unknown Speaker 1:05:00 The thing we love to do the most is bring John Aponte to a training gun contest someone that worked at the can services for years and is now finishing up a PhD. And he's a very strongly built middle aged Puerto Rican ex cop, I think. Yeah, he's is he he is one of the foremost experts in batterers intervention groups, and he has a very feminist analysis of his violence in relationships. And here's this guy, he gets a very, he gets an amazing response from audiences because of who he is. And we don't get that we Unknown Speaker 1:05:44 there's not that I think, would always be good to have a man and a woman. But there's not that many men that can do it. I've had some I've tried, and I've had some really awful experiences with men who like really have a great rap, you know, they can say, yeah, I really get this. And I know that, and you do a train together. And all of a sudden, they're, they're like, turning into they're just patriarchal behavior to know, telling me to be quiet, or you're doing this the wrong way. Let's do it this way. I don't like your your to hear, you know, or you're letting people talk too much, you're getting too much. So but I always I always say to men look, until you're doing this work alongside of women, it's like nothing's gonna happen. And I really believe that I just think the prevention part. I mean, John Aponte even says about the bit in his batters groups, he's I was just looking through my notes earlier, he tells, he says it basically doesn't work. And he tells the batters to go home and tell their husbands to get their wives to get orders of protection. As soon as they stopped the batterers group. That's what he says to them, because he just that's his experience, although he continues to do it. And, and it comes to this question of, can people change one of our favorite topics? Like, can people change? Can people get information? Can they? Can they decide to be a different kind of person and? Unknown Speaker 1:07:19 Witness for them? What's what's interesting? What's, like, what are the risk factors? Why Why would some are the protective factors? Why would some people do experiences not go on to, to live in situations later? So obviously, there's a big contentious aspect of it, but you're talking about exploring other alternatives to the traditional betters programs. For instance, my experience of victim services in particular, the minute that the victim services started looking at other models, that it's currently all their state funding was. So just looking at them not even switching. But what other students are? Well, Unknown Speaker 1:08:22 I really think, you know, like I was saying before, there has to be a much more like horizontal community approach to it. You know, there's a program that we know a little bit about, that has mentoring, where the it's like an, I don't, it's not exactly an AAA model is not about it doesn't use that 12 Step kind of principles, but the batteries are in groups that deal with the abuse, the each batter has a mentor, which is someone from the community who is non violent, who is supposed to, outside of the group sort of talk help them deal with situations, other community leaders that are are in volved in that person's life are supposed to be educated about what to say what to do, what limits to set, in terms of the domestic violence, the woman or the victim in the relationship is in a group as well for both empowerment and information so that she knows what to do, who to turn to. When, if and when the violence erupts again. So children are in good shape. So and then there's the possibility that that person might go to jail. But that's not like the first. It's not the first thing and it's not the only sanction, you know, it involves humiliation, you know, there's a kind of community shame involved and there's a kind of, you know, there's Very theological, you know, it's like repentance and, you know, version version, you know, it's like all about that kind of. Now, I don't know if they're any more successful than anybody else tell you the truth. But there's something to me that's a little bit more appealing about that. And just, Unknown Speaker 1:10:16 it's more comprehensive, and also more. But we have to be set again, there's been so few programs. I mean, that's the only program is that, that does that kind of thing. And they're just so few bachelors programs in the whole country. There's a, there's a couple of good ones for teenage boys now around dating violence, because it's a really big problem with teenagers, big, big, Dallas. Unknown Speaker 1:10:45 There's, there's one here, go ahead Unknown Speaker 1:10:51 about using public shaming, as a judge used as a means of punishment, and one of the areas was spousal abuse. And this man had to get up in the public square and walk around and say, I abused my wife, I apologize, I am going to go home. Now. Tolerable and civil liberties groups protested, but it didn't work. And not just Sprockets were used for any any crime or anybody. Unknown Speaker 1:11:26 Were well, it's not Unknown Speaker 1:11:28 a one of the I don't remember the stick. But I have another question. Which is very dramatic. And I can think of sexual abuse, mental anguish, of abuse of Unknown Speaker 1:11:45 these notions. Are there any other and also just one person? Most people most affordances? Unknown Speaker 1:11:57 Well, there's terroristic threats, which, you know, for example, if you leave me, I'm going to hunt you down and kill you. Unknown Speaker 1:12:07 Or I'm gonna call CWA I'm gonna call the child welfare, and they're gonna take the kids away, if you don't do what, there's a lot of threat. Yeah, and there's a lot of economic stuff, you know, and then the forms of emotional sexual abuse are there, a lot of them and there, I think you could say that whenever, usually, there's all those things are working at the same time, usually, you may not have the physical email, you'll have to hit somebody wants, or they only have to be really sure that you're going to need to may not ever have to put your hands up. So I think they're pretty, you would say that there are multiple abuses, Unknown Speaker 1:12:45 and abuse. Unknown Speaker 1:12:50 Threats, is not going to get much attention. Unknown Speaker 1:12:53 Certainly not from any criminal justice. But almost almost every person that gets physically abused, there's a fairly long history of the pre physical abuse stuff. So there's usually social isolation, there's a lot of shame and embarrassment, there are threats there's, and so that often leads up to the Unknown Speaker 1:13:29 marriage has it'll build up there. Well, they're well should there. Yeah, and that's one thing that like a dream of utility word Utopia was mentioned before, but like utopian dream would be to be able to go into all the schools and talk about this. And one thing would be to talk with young women about the signs of someone. I mean, I, you know, since I've done this for such a long time, I have a 17 year old daughter, and you know, a few times she's brought a young man home, and I'm saying three or four or five years, that kid is gonna have order protection. He doesn't want you to go anywhere, he wants you to wear these kinds of clothes, want you to act like a girl. And you know, there are certain things even though there are many kinds of abuse, and there's not one kind of bad or there are certain things that are really predictive of someone, particularly when they have rigid stereotypes about what women should be like and men to be like, those are the people that are gonna probably hit you on the wedding night because they really take that seriously that they're their protector and you're there to serve them. And you know, it's really old. It's really discouraging almost to talk about because I feel like I've been talking about this for 35 years. And it's kind of the same, but it's, it's powerful, deep stuff. behavior. I have to say. She said she didn't Unknown Speaker 1:14:55 detect them. After they were married. He did not get this device. When she said she Unknown Speaker 1:15:09 really even now that she knows Unknown Speaker 1:15:16 a lot of worlds Unknown Speaker 1:15:21 a lot of minutes under the control thing and alignment might be originally like in the recording stage. Guys. I can't be jealous of you because I love you and, you know, in there a lot of privacy or Federer's follow women that go through their pocketbooks. If you're a young woman, she said was that the mother, the mother made that we have issues Unknown Speaker 1:15:50 where they're all different. Unknown Speaker 1:15:55 They all have their unique we could come in Unknown Speaker 1:16:03 when we have a hotline, Family Violence Project for women who have problems with the police, you know, they call the police to come and the police do they say there's a dual arrest or they don't take go through some of the procedures. So if the card so if you have any known anybody who needs help with something, we can help out with that. And we also do, you know, workshops on the rights of women with the police in different community places and we'll do any kind of workshop really on domestic violence. But we do have like a nice short when you get here what the new laws are, here's what you can expect from the police come, here's what they have to do. Here's what they can't tell you. They can't do stuff like that. We do a lot of education in communities and for professionals and Unknown Speaker 1:17:01 when people close to the table, I mean, they're coming into family court. And they haven't been deployed the petition and sort of go through the process, when do we send them there? When did we send them to like sanctuaries for families? And then and I guess we don't send them to you that Unknown Speaker 1:17:20 well, I mean, sanctuary do you mean if you want them to be sheltered by they have non residential so I wrote this, Unknown Speaker 1:17:37 and I'm sure they would, they could add a woman to take with you. We do more like a problem. Because I do mostly Child Welfare stuff. So what I mean if there's if for instance, if the more like if someone