To the editors:
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The article focuses on the abusers’ pain and portrays them as victims. There is no discussion about the gains that abusers receive through abuse. Are we to understand that men abuse because they enjoy pain? An abuser uses the same techniques as those used on POWs to terrorize his partner and keep her attention focused on him. That power and control of another person is alluded to only when one of the abusers compares hunting and killing to battering. The eeriness of this comparison only begins to address the fears and anguish of the battered woman and her children. Domestic violence exists to perpetuate men retaining power over women and children, and to ignore this is to accept this order.
One of the abusers talks about how a batterer needs to see how the abuse hurts him in order to change. Treating domestic violence like a crime could impose consequences, including time lost on the job, loss of freedom and fines. As long as our society continues to decriminalize domestic violence, abusers will not have the incentive to change.
Karin Mills
Your letter puzzles me. You accuse me of not exploring why men are violent, and then offer a few explanations for their behavior–each of which my story examined in detail. You chastise me for not demonstrating any understanding of why violent men’s partners might be afraid of them, yet the men in my story were quite articulate about the subtleties of that intimidation. You also complain that they blame women for their violence, apparently seeing that as the point of the article instead of the rationalizing it obviously is.
