Reply #89: Let's view this from a different angle -

[Cerridwen]

Breeze54, thank you for posting this. My reply is in response to the writers of the articles and not to you or your links. I use this opportunity you've (probably unintentionally) provided to make a point about our collective programming around the issue of people who brutalize their partners and how articles such as these can contribute to the the real causes being ignored.


Taking a page from the book by Julia Penelope "Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers' Tongues", let's exchange the subject with the object of these articles and see how they look. George Lakoff calls it re-framing.

Abusers More Likely to Kill Pregnant Partner

Convicted murderer Scott Peterson, ... points to a disturbing phenomenon well known to police, health advocates and experts about abusers: the leading "cause" of murder by abusers is the murderer's reaction to the pregnancy of their partner.

"People think that pregnancy is a joyful, happy time for families. That's not always true," said Phyllis Sharps, an associate professor at The Johns Hopkins University's school of nursing who researches violence by men.

In some cases, the abuser has been beating the woman for years, and becomes more violent during pregnancy. In others, pregnancy itself sparks emotions in the abuser that can lead to murderous rages.

"Violence in intimate relationships is all about power," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "There are fewer times when men feel they have power over a woman than when she's pregnant. They exploit her vulnerability. It's easier for an abusive man to threaten her."

<snip>

In 2000—the most recent yearly statistics available from the U.S. Department of Justice—more than 33 percent of murderers were an intimate partner of the woman they murdered.

And despite all the joy that pregnancy can bring to a relationship, expectant fathers aren't necessarily spared the desire to abuse or kill their partner.

That's something advocates have known for years, Gandy said.

"There are a lot of dynamics that go on in a relationship that involves violence—power and control and the need for the abuser to be primary," she said. "An abuser can feel a sense of possibly losing that primary position."

Nationwide, the maternal mortality rate was just 9.9 percent in 1999, the most recent year for which statistics are available. By comparison, murderers were the fifth-leading cause of death among Maryland women. Using death records and coroner reports, state health department researchers found between 1993 and 1998, 50 murderers were motivated by the pregnancy of their partner to kill the woman.

<snip>

Police records show that murderers comes from all races and classes.

"There is no profile of what these men look like," Sharps said. "Many abusers are educated and appear to be upstanding citizens while beating their partner in the privacy of their own home."

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The whole article needs to be written from a different perspective in order to do justice to the point I make. I'm not up for it this morning but perhaps you'll get the point anyway.

Pregnancy and pregnant women are not the issue - people who murder and their motivations for murdering are the issue. But after having read the article in its original form, I found it focused on and directed the reader's focus to, the pregnant women rather than the murderers who killed them. Have you ever wondered why some woman kept returning to an abusive relationship rather than wondering WTF was wrong with the person doing the violence? Articles and reports which take the perspective of those linked are part of the reason we think in that manner; the focus is diverted from abuser to abused. Homicide is a word used to distance and sanitize the topic at hand by appearing objective and less emotional than using the word murder. Words and word choice mean something.

By focusing on pregnant women rather than the people who murder them, the article above and many like them, hide the target and make it possible to "blame the victim" rather than assigning blame exactly where it belongs; on some sick, twisted fuck who kills or is more likely to kill due to their psychoses about pregnancy or pregnant women.

It's time to focus on the abusers and murderers and their motivations rather than, or at the very least in addition to, why women stay in abusive and deadly relationships.

edit to add: between interruptions and such it took a while for me to complete this post - I see it's spawned the usual responses. To all who are complaining from the "it's not ALL men angle" - did you read "pregnant women" (as used in the articles) as "all" pregnant women, "some" pregnant women, or "a few" pregnant women? Did you make the distinction as concerns the wording "pregnant women" but still couldn't or refused to make the same distinction when the word became "men"? Why?