Teen Age Violence

“Domestic violence does not only happen to adults. Forty percent of girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend, and approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner.”

– Dianne Feinstein--

One in four teens said they have been exposed to verbal, physical or sexual assault each year.

95% of the time, it is the boyfriend that abuses the girlfriend.

80% of girls who have been physically abused in their intimate relationships continue to see their abuser.

50% of you reporting both dating violence and rape also reported attempting suicide.

One in three women who are killed in the US are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends.

25% of female homicide victims are between the ages of 14-24 years.

A rape occurs every 2 minutes in the United States and 44% of victims are under the age of eighteen!

Obsessive Ex Syndrome

There is a client in my woman's group who was sharing about how she and her new boyfriend were walking down the street when her ex jumped from an alley and grabbed her by the throat, pinning her up against the wall, all the while screaming that if he couldn't have her no one will. Luckily for her, her new boyfriend was there to save the day. It is unfortunate, but I foresee this episode happening again, perhaps next time with the new boyfriend for this women will only go out with what she calls bad boys. Mental illness is a must. Now, don't get me wrong. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with dating a man who has mental illness. The problem in this case is that she leads them on and pulls at their heart strings...and once she knows she has hooked them, she tosses them aside and moves onto the next man. I fear for her safety. I wish she would realize that dangerous game she is playing, but so far, she has refused to see.


Now not all cases are as clearcut as hers and unfortunately women all across the country are falling victim to an obsessive ex.  Obsessive Ex Syndrome has become rampant.  For reasons you decide to move on (date other people). The person who you thought was nice now begins to creep you out.  At first it seems like nothing more than a difficult breakup, but soon it begins to feel more like stalking.  Your ex-husband or ex-boyfriend, finding it mentally impossible to let go, keeps calling you and leaving messages, emailing you, visiting, arguing, and pleading with you to reconcile.  

Next they may  following, stalking or threatening you.   It may soon escalate into personal violence, vandalizing your belongings.  When left unchecked, this syndrome may eventually come to the point where the ex resorts to kidnapping, murder, or suicide.  In fact, many reported cases of

husband murders wife are actually Obsessive Ex Syndrome.   Therefore, it is important to recognize this syndrome in its early stages and take preventive steps. The longer the obsession persists without interruption or intervention, the more the obsesser will lose contact with reality. Doing  nothing is not the answer.  Obsessive Ex Syndrome must be identified in the early stages, and action be taken against its progression.  

What Are Some Red Flags

Unannounced visits or surprises

Gifts, flowers

Notes on your car or your door
Frequent phone calls

Long emails telling you how much he loves you

Questions you about your whereabouts or who you were with

Propensity for violence

Apologies

Gosh, I have apologies to make to all of you.  I've let this blog go far too long, and it is too important to forget about.  If any of my blogs should be kept going, it should be this one. Every day women are being abused, beaten, slain.  According to recent FBI statistics, 30% of women killed in the United States die at the hands of a husband or boyfriend.  Nearly 2 in 3 female victims of violence were related to or knew their attacker. One study revealed that half of the homicides of female spouses and partners were committed by men after separation from batterers. One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.

I also have to apologize to those who have made comments.  Forgive me for not getting back to you.  The materials here can be so emotionally overwhelming at times.  I know that is no excuse.  I'm reaching out to all of you who follow this blog. Please, help me keep this blog going. I'm inviting all of you to be a part of it.  Tell your story, or the story of someone you know. Tell the story of a woman you admire or share one of your favorite women's quotes.  This blog belongs to all of us, and together we are strong.  Please let me know, and I will add you to the permission list to write for this blog.  You will find my e-mail address to the right under the first picture. 





  

A New Nation is Born

This Saturday, July 9, 2011, after 2 civil wars and 5 decades of conflict, the Republic of South Sudan will declare its independence, and a new nation will be born. For more than 40 years, women have endured the atrocities of civil war, famine and tribal disputes, all as Sudan’s least valued citizens. After suffering sexual and gender-based violence and having their families torn apart for so long, the women of Sudan are desperate for peace....
 

...and things are starting to look up for them. For the first time in Sudan's history, women were able to add their votes and voices to the national debate over the future of their country. Women proudly walked to the polls on voting day, waiting in long lines, crying with tears of joy as they cast their vote. For them, independence represents a symbol of hope for a peaceful future and an opportunity for all Southerners, including women, to define their own destiny

 
Congratulations to the people in South Sudan.

Anne Hutchinson

A woman of haughty fierce carriage, a nimble wit and an active spirit, and has a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man.--John Winthrop on Anne Hutchinson

The story of Anne Hutchinson is difficult of understanding by our generation. We take our religion more lightly—but perhaps not less reverently and lovingly—than the gaunt and stern Puritans who came from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in order that they might have liberty to worship God as they thought fit and power to deny the same liberties to everyone else.  Her revolt was not against the accepted creed; indeed, she was a much a Puritan as the governor who exiled her.  Her only crime was that she wanted to bear an equal share with men in the great affairs of the moment.

Anne Hutchinson was the daughter of a clergyman; she was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1615. A Puritan, Hutchinson emigrated with her husband to America in 1634. She was 43 years old at the time. Hutchinson settled in Massachusetts Bay, where she soon obtained a following as a preacher, but also managed to anger a number of powerful people, specifically the clergy.  Her crime was holding weekly meetings in her home to discuss the scriptures and theology.  At first, her meetings were attended only by women, but later men began to attend the meetings as well. 

Hutchinson began to claim that good conduct could be a sign of salvation and affirmed that the Holy Spirit in the hearts of true believers relieved them of responsibility to obey the laws of God. She also criticized New England ministers for deluding their congregations into the false assumption that good deeds would get them into heaven. A devoted wife and midwife,  Anne dared to speak about the right to live according to conscience and not necessarily the law. She held discussions in her home where visitors felt free to question religious beliefs and to decry racial prejudice, including enslavement of Native Americans. Expressing these beliefs was precisely what led her to be expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 

Recognizing her potential to disrupt the Massachusetts theocracy, in March 1638, Governor John Winthrop brought her to court on charges of heresy and lewd and lascivious conduct for having men and women in her house at the same time during her meetings.  She was 46 years old, the mother of 12 living children, a grandmother, and pregnant with her 15th child when she was brought to trial, and she stood this trial alone, with no lawyer to defend her.  She faced a panel of 49 powerful men, and if convicted, she faced banishment from the colony.  Of course she was convicted, and sentence of banishment was pronounced upon her. "I desire to know wherefore I am banished?" she asked and Winthrop replied, "Woman, say no more; the court knows wherefore and is satisfied."

The Hutchinsons and their supporters went to live in Newport, Rhode Island. After the death of her husband 1642, Hutchinson and 14 of her children moved to the New Netherlands.  A year later, the Siwanoy Indians burned down their house and scalped Anne and six of her children.  Only one daughter survived. 

Anne Hutchinson was a true American visionary, a  true pioneer.  Her only  crime had been  expressing religious beliefs that were different from the colony's rulers, and in the year 1637, in Massachusetts Bay Colony, that was against the law--especially for a woman. Long before the Constitution guaranteed free speech, Anne was defending hers, and although she had not succeeded in changing the laws of her time. But her courageous actions helped set the stage for an America in which religious freedom was a reality. 

*Note:  In 1987, Governor Michael Dukakis pardoned Anne, 350 years after John Winthrop had banished her for being a woman not fit for our society.

The Hutchinson River and  the Hutchinson River Parkway in the eastern parts of Bronx and of Westchester County, New York, are her most prominent namesakes.

Women's Quote of the Day

The spirit of the valley never dies.  It is called the subtle and profound female.  The gate of the subtle and profound female is the root of Heaven and Earth.  It is continuous, and seems to be always existing.  Use it and you will never wear out.

                         --Lao-tzu--
                         (The Way of Lao-tzu)

Quote of the Day

Had there been a man behind each brilliant woman, there would have been women of achievement in history equal to the numbers of men in achievement.--Gerda Lerner from The Creation of Feminist Consciousness