How the Media Covers Domestic Violence Disputes: Celebrities Versus Ordinary People

Lately, how the media covers the culture of battered spouses and partners from a he-said, she-said viewpoint. And numerous domestic violence encounters are based on custody disputes over who gets visitation rights or who gets custody of any children or even pets. The paperback book available at Amazon.com, Why We Never Give Up Our Need for a Perfect Mother, explains domestic violence and its roots in an ethnic setting, written by a Sacramento author. How do the local media--broadcast or print--cover or take sides in domestic violence disputes or ugly divorces of celebrities versus ordinary people?

UC Davis is reasearching domestic violence. See the March 3, 2010 news release, "UC Davis study finds reproductive coercion often is accompanied by physical or sexual violence." According to that news release, young women and teenage girls often face efforts by male partners to sabotage birth control or coerce pregnancy - including damaging condoms and destroying contraceptives - and these efforts, defined as "reproductive coercion," frequently are associated with physical or sexual violence, a study by a team of researchers led by UC Davis has found.

Published online in the January 2010 issue of the journal Contraception, the study, "Pregnancy Coercion, Intimate Partner Violence and Unintended Pregnancy," also found that among women who experienced both reproductive coercion and partner violence, the risk of unintended pregnancy doubled. The study is the first quantitative examination of the relationship between intimate partner violence, reproductive coercion and unintended pregnancy, the authors say.

"This study highlights an under-recognized phenomenon where male partners actively attempt to promote pregnancy against the will of their female partners," said lead study author Elizabeth Miller, an assistant professor of pediatrics in the UC Davis School of Medicine and a practitioner at UC Davis Children's Hospital. "Not only is reproductive coercion associated with violence from male partners, but when women report experiencing both reproductive coercion and partner violence, the risk for unintended pregnancy increases significantly."

Conducted between August 2008 and March 2009 at five reproductive health clinics in Northern California, the study involved approximately 1,300 English- and Spanish-speaking 16- to 29-year-old women who agreed to respond to a computerized survey about their experiences with relationships and pregnancy.

Study participants were asked questions about birth-control sabotage, pregnancy coercion and intimate partner violence to assess their experience of pregnancy coercion and birth control sabotage.

Approximately 1 in 5 young women said they experienced pregnancy coercion and 15 percent said they experienced birth control sabotage. Over half the respondents - 53 percent - said they had experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner. More than a third of the women who reported partner violence - 35 percent - also reported either pregnancy coercion or birth control sabotage.

Questions included:

• "Has someone you were dating or going out with ever told you not to use any birth control" or "... said he would leave you if you would not get pregnant?"
• "Has someone you were dating or going out with ever taken off the condom while you were having sex so that you would get pregnant?"

"We have known about the association between partner violence and unintended pregnancy for many years," said Jay Silverman, the study's senior author and an associate professor of society, human development and health in the Harvard School of Public Health. "What this study shows is that reproductive coercion likely explains why unintended pregnancies are far more common among abused women and teens."

The study authors said the research underscores the importance of educating women seeking care about reproductive coercion, and ensuring that women who are seeking reproductive health services are offered counseling on ways to prevent pregnancy that are less vulnerable to partner interference, as well as connected to domestic violence-related services. The study also highlights the importance of working with young men to prevent both violence against female partners and coercion around pregnancy."This study confirms that women experiencing partner violence are more likely to have greater need for sexual and reproductive health services," Miller said. "Thus, clinical settings that offer reproductive health services likely offer the greatest opportunity to identify women experiencing partner violence and to ensure that women receive the counseling and support they may need."

Comprehensive assessment in clinical settings for pregnancy coercion, birth control sabotage and intimate partner violence should be considered a priority in the context of family planning services. Moreover, public health efforts to reduce unintended pregnancy should ensure that discussions of reproductive coercion are included in pregnancy prevention programs, she said, according to the UC Davis news release.

Media images of domestic violence with which local children grow up

Children in Sacramento often grow up with recorded audio or video of one parent putting down another parent to build himself or herself up. That media image on video or audio stays with children for a lifetime as one of the few memories the child has of a noncustodial parent.

You have a lot of media publicity on the Mel Gibson case, because he is a celebrity. The videos on uTube or Radar online broadcast a recorded phone conversation, but it's illegal in California to record someone without written permission. See the CBS video on Gibson. With the Gibson case, the media took opposite sides. Many males, especially some radio talk show hosts, and female friends of Gibson took his side. On the opposite side, formerly battered wives took the side of the mother of his child. What's prominent in the released tapes, whether they were altered, set up, or real, outstanding in the eyes of the media, is Gibson's phrase, "I don't love you."

Are you skeptical of tapes? Check out this Young Turks broadcast on whether or not she was hit and her teeth knocked out. The evidence will come out in court. Of course, the dentist is supposed to report domestic violence incidents. But will anyone believe a woman going up against a movie star and producer? The issue is similar to what happens in Sacramento domestic violence cases, for example, the familiar "You're living in my house" rant.

You have so many cases of violence covered in the Sacramento media where a battered girlfriend or wife lives in a house or apartment belonging to the violent partner, man or even same sex partner. If the woman moves out of the house owned by the violent partner, domestic violence is less likely than if the person is financially dependent upon the person being allegedly beaten.

It's less likely if an ex-partner moves out and has his or her own job that the person will be beaten or killed or even threatened when that person poses no financial risk to the ex-spouse or partner. Then again, the exception is the person with mental issues. How the media covers the issue of domestic violence as part of culture usually takes sides--either with the man or woman, the person who threatens to get control and custody, and the person who only wants to leave with any children resulting from the relationship.

At risk in Sacramento cases are older women being beaten by partners with combative dementia issues. For younger parents, child custody is an issue that often may cause violence in domestic disputes. Sacramento has only a few battered spouses safe houses or shelters, mostly for women, and most of the time the safe houses are full. That's why there's a need for more ethnically-oriented safe houses in Sacramento.

The problem here, is when the child in the custody question grows up and hears that recording of "I don't love you. I don't want you," will the child transfer that rant onto herself--of also being unloved, unwanted by a parent that didn't commit to marriage? You have to fast-forward the collection of media oddities such as recordings of rage that the child will be listening to, perhaps as a grown-up, as a memory imprinted in the child's mind, broadcast by the media.

His ex-girlfriend is trying to get custody of her 8-month old daughter. That's a similar scenario to what most of the domestic violence disputes are about in Sacramento, a woman with a young child trying to get custody of that child. An issue for the media to cover is to whom does a child belong, to the mother or father when neither are married to one another?

Another issue is when the mother is in her forties, the chances of having more children are slim due to fertility biological clocks declining. But a man in his fifties can find a younger woman easily and have another child. In Mel Gibson's case, he already has seven children with his ex-wife. The media covers the question of who gets custody, but actually it's a legal problem to be solved in court, not with rage. No parent wants to lose visitation rights of a child.

Yet in Sacramento the numerous daily domestic disputes on file with various police departments and hospitals may involve a similar scenario of one parent insisting on custody of a child or pet, and willing to batter and battle the other partner physically instead of suing in court for custody. Sometimes it's a case of frustration. Another time, people run out of words.

When violence happens, the media covers the culture as if the ethnicity of the batterer or the battered has something to do with the event. One example, is the increasing number of mail-order brides from third-world countries living in Sacramento in need of a safe house when problems or violence arises in their marriage or divorce.

In Sacramento, there's a need for more ethnic-oriented safe houses for battered spouses--male or female, although most people seeking shelters are female, and many have small children. A few are seniors, women or men who are 'victims' of combative behavior of spouses with dementia issues.

There's a need for safe houses that understand the needs of women from a variety of diverse ethnic and religious groups in the USA. What's the most frequent reason women get battered on New Year's Day? It's fights about food and nutrition first, money second, and children third. Most of the fights are about control: the soup's too cold, hair in the food, dinner not on time, food is burned, or children are eating food not recommended by the more controlling spouse.

Where do the guys go when the frying pan comes flying? There's a need for safe houses that understand the needs of women and men from a variety of diverse ethnic and religious groups in the USA.

When men are abused and have no money, where do they go? And either way, why are so many New Year's day batterings of partners and spouses over food and food quality? Is it related to the bigger picture--money control? Jobless and foreclosure woes? Or custody issues?

The nutrition and food fights occur most often on holidays--New Year's day, coinciding with football games, food served during the games, and on Christmas, fights over what the kids should eat at the ex-spouses house party and who's there.

What's the most frequent day wives get battered and turn to shelters, which usually are full in the USA? It's New Years Day (when the games are on TV), Christmas, and Thanksgiving. And what's the food served most frequently at battered spouse's shelters? It's comfort foods, even when men are suing to be admitted as battered spouses to safe houses also.

Some of the comfort foods include soups, macaroni and cheese, potatoes, franks, and burgers--usually with salad on the side and an apple or orange. Ethnic shelters serve more ethnic foods such as Pan-Asian, South Asian, Islamic-Halal, or orthodox Jewish kosher. If the shelter is diverse, the food also is diverse and mostly what's affordable or donated. African American and Latino-ethnic food also are served at the multi-cultural shelters. In a temporary safe house, where women and children are in hiding, comfort food is welcome.

Next most frequent day most likely for spouses to get battered arrives on birthdays and anniversaries, when one or both spouses don't meet expectations based on whether one spouse is supposed to take care of the other spouse, but one or both of the spouses are not able to take care of themselves. There's added stress when children are in the home and when they leave, making the parent's empty nesters.

Third most frequent day a wife gets beaten is when she tells her husband or boyfriend that she's pregnant. He tells her to have an abortion and she refuses or vice versa. And the next most frequent day a wife gets hit is a day or two before she delivers the baby, when the husband frequently says, "If you weren't pregnant, I'd put my fist through your belly button. How dare you spend so much money on food?"

This cliche frequently is heard when the husband is an immigrant and the wife is an American. Both are of different ethnicities and religions. They have little in common, and the husband feels the wife has put a burden on him. He wants to be free to date other women. The baby is coming in a few days, and he's gotten cold feet, while she's gotten indigestion.

Domestic violence is not related to any religious or ethnic group. It cuts across economic, ethnic, and religious lines. You have wealthy celebrities beating their celebrity wives just as you have people in poverty hitting each other over problems with money, crowding, or control.

New battered women's shelters for Islamic, Asian, and Jewish women are on the increase due to a growing need for immigrant women with no money, just the clothes on their backs, no relatives or friends in the USA, and perhaps newly learning or limited English language knowledge. If you are a battered woman of any particular ethnic or religious group, where do you go to be with people who understand your needs, customs, and prayer spaces?

With the growing number of Islamic women moving to battered women's shelters, even if they have to leave children with male relatives of their father because of laws they follow from the old country, may not be aware that in the USA, a woman doesn't have to give up her children to her husband in a divorce as she may have been told when in the old country. But when she has no money for a lawyer, where can she turn?

That's why battered women's shelters are being started up by nurses, social workers, and others that understand the specific needs of either the immigrant battered wife or the abused woman of a particular ethnic group who observes specific food-related customs.

Here is a resource of links for the battered wife from an Islamic family, Jewish family, or Asian family. Often she has no family in the USA. In some cases, her husband brings her as a young bride to the USA, where the beatings start. When she tries to escape, she's told that she has to give up her children to her husband or his male relatives as was the custom or law in the old country. But it's not the law in the USA, where a woman has a right to ask for the custody of her children, especially in a household from which she has been beaten either physically and/or psychologically.

Traditionally Latino women and African American women have utilized the battered women's shelters in the USA made up of diverse ethnic groups. The more recent immigrants from Asia, the Middle East, and various nations in Africa now see an increase in battered women's shelters open to them. There also has been a recent lawsuit by men to open the abused spouses shelters to men or build battered husband's shelters, and this would cover all ethnic and religious groups. See the site, "Lawsuit seeks to open battered women's shelters to men."

Jewish Women International brought its National Library Initiative to two domestic violence shelters in Chicago. Through the National Library Initiative, JWI has made a commitment to establish 100 libraries in shelters across the country in the next five years, putting thousands of books in the hands of children who have fled abusive homes with little more than the clothes on their backs.

Numerous battered women's (and some men's) shelters or safe houses are increasing, and more of them are focusing on the needs of specific ethnic and/or religious groups, including the needs of recent immigrants. One of the big issues is serving ethnic food to an increasingly diverse population seeking services.

Resources WEAVE: Women Escaping a Violent Environment St. John's Shelter Program for Women and Children Emergency Shelters, Sacramento Family Violence Law Center : Domestic Violence Agency : Alameda

Sacramento County Shelters‎ Domestic Violence Shelters, Sacramento CA Help: Emergency Shelters in Sacramento for Families Women Men State Resources, Violence Against Women Womenshealth.gov Women's Shelters, California - Addresses and Information Homeless shelters Web Exclusive: Governor eliminates funding for domestic violence. Women's Emergency Shelter Help For Battered Women

Islamic Battered Womens' Shelters

Muslim Women's Shelter Provides Refuge, Support : NPR

Accounts of Domestic Violence in Muslim Homes, and Shelters

Muslim Women's Shelter Provides Refuge, Support « Doctor Bulldog ...

Wife Abuse in Islamic Communities: Radical Muslims Faithfully ...

An Imam's Guide to deal with domestic violence

Abused Muslim Women in U.S. Gain Advocat

Worldchanging: Bright Green: Reaching Out to Muslim Victims of ...

Abuse of U.S. Muslim Women Is Greater Than Reported, Advocacy ...

Asian and South Asian Battered Womens' Shelters in the USA

DAYA, Serving South Asian Women in Crisis

Battered Asian Women

South Asian Domestic Violence Organizations in the USA

Battered Asian Women's Center-24 hr Hotline, Many Languages, Get Help.

SAWNET: Domestic Violence

NYAWCDOMESTIC VIOLENCE PROGRAM - AACI

Domestic Violence Notepad: A listing of resources for victimsHPP USA: domestic violence information

Asian Women's Shelter - NarikaHerstory of Domestic Violence: A Timeline of the Battered Women's ...

Texas Department of Human Services, Texas Shelter & Nonresident ...

AbusedWomen.org: Resources for Abused Women, Domestic Violence ...

Jewish Battered Womens' Shelters

Jewish Women InternationalHome - Hebrew Shelter Home - for the Cleveland Jewish Homeless and ...

LAWSUIT SEEKS TO OPEN BATTERED WOMEN'S SHELTERS TO MEN. - Free ...

Web Exclusive: Governor eliminates funding for domestic violence ...

JCF Funding Opportunity: Woman To Woman - Jerusalem Shelter ...

Woman Shelter NYDomestic Violence in Jewish Homes (Marital Rape)

Bibliography of Sexual and Domestic Violence in the Jewish ...

Domestic Abuse in the Jewish CommunityA Place to Hide, A Place to Heal: A Battered Women's Shelter ...Women's Shelter

NT Will Match Battered-Women's Shelters With Law -

Domestic Violence Shelters for Baltimore County, MD

Billboards Focus on Jewish Domestic Violence - Forward.com

While recent events have catapulted ICJW -

International Council of Jewish Women

Mother's Day Gift That Matters: Jewish Women International's ...

Jewish Women International - JustGive :: GuideStar Organization ...

The Issues: Domestic Violence in the Jewish Community

Guidelines on Domestic ViolenceHelping women escape their abusive partners | Middlesex News |

NJJNJCADA: Hotlines / SheltersAbusedWomen.org:

Resources for Abused Women, Domestic Violence ...

Agency info a-kJewish CommunityDomestic Abuse in the Jewish Community:

JWI Brings Libraries to ...

Ohio Domestic Violence SheltersFactors that Influence Life Satisfaction Among Battered Women

Pursuing Truth, Justice, and Righteousness: A Call to Action

Links to Shelters - Multi-Ethnic

Links to shelters

Domestic Violence Services, Advocacy, & Training Directory