Its all about the money

People are the collateral damage of profits

Such an odd place

Only visited once about 10 years ago -- it was a like a suburb of Calgary planted in the middle of boreal forest. Just highway and tress and then single family homes!

A classmate of mine, now a respected professor, used to spend his Christmas holiday with his tarsands buddies getting blind stinking drunk and buying 2000 rounds of ammo and shooting inanimate objects and running from the cops.

it's about power and control: money is their agent

In a society that places the value of money above the value of social prosperity, the abuse of women and children is not surprising. Neither is the fact that Fort Mac hasn’t kept up with looking after those in need.

Abuse, particularly intimate partner violence, is so common it is presented, viewed and accepted as simply something inherent in “human nature, not a male or female issue, and any discussion is to be kept within the confines of the family.

It wasn’t that long ago Canadians were given a full-on view of just how entrenched this view is; in the early 80s MP Margret Mitchell tried to get MPs to address the problem of wife abuse and she was met with roars of laughter and ridicule.

Since then little has changed. Our political leaders continue to trivialize spousal abuse. Funding, politically or community driven, for this kind of social service is either non-existant or completely indequate.

When you consider that Fort Mac is rolling in gobs of the tar baby’s green stuff, it’s easy to see why Mary-Ellen Proctor is so discouraged.

fasted how?

Would like to know how these women 'fasted'.
Water only fast? Juice only fasts? Fasting from dawn to dusk fasts?
This is important to know.
I fasted for 21 days, water only, 32 years ago. No supplements, no vitamins. Just water. I lost 25 pounds in those 21 days. Fortunately, I had 25 pounds to lose. Any more than that, I would probably have died.
I also suspect that this fast set off my diabetes and thyroid problems, which I've has to deal with for the past 30+ years.
I don't think it's appropriate that a mother of 8 children should be fasting for 21 days
Surely there is a better way than abusing your own body to get a point across.

Where is it better for battered women?

Despite its revolting oil wealth, Alberta cannot be compelled in the blaze of summer even at a five-star hotel charging top dollar to provide air conditioning, so I'm not surprised there's a dearth of services for battered women.

But where is it any better?

I can't imagine things are any better here in B.C. in view of the excesses of Jockfest 2010 and Vancouver's exclusive focus on gay bashing. Somehow spousal abuse isn't as worthy of attention because it doesn't qualify as a hate crime! Go figure.

This story would have been much more useful if it provided a vivid picture of what's really required to help women escape dangerous relationships. I mean, how long does one typically reside in a safe house? How does this work? That's the sort of research that's needed here to make it a worthwhile story.

Frankly, hearsay about four women who were not murdered by their partners but who admittedly drank and drugged themselves to death does not inspire much of anything but contempt.

How about a clear proposal for shelters and services likely to accomplish a certain set of goals for a certain number of women and their children in distress. Do some homework to finish this story.

For the good of us all

Government decisions about energy revenues fopr the good of all-yeah right Alberta

where is it better?

Intimate partner abuse is everywhere, not just Fort Mac. Making comparisons based on where conditions for women might be better (less abuse?) than Fort Mac isn't helpful. It's an approach typical of those that would prefer to avoid dealing with abuse. Abuse is abuse.

Funding for safe/transition houses, most of which are nonprofit, comes from a variety of sources: mostly private donation and from charities. Some for-profit services, like Stroh Health Care, are funded by government. The irony is that Stroh's programs are geared to “the elimination of all forms of violent and abusive behaviour by male offenders against their intimate female partners”. They do not provide transition/safe houses for women.

What is required to help women escape dangerous and abusive relationships? The simple answer is a compassionate, caring society and a great deal of funding. And then we need to expose the abusive behaviour/thinking of folks in power, like Via Rail chairman Jean Pelletier who, in 2004, publicly condemned Myriam Bedard by portraying her as a weak, single mother to be pitied. (Bedard was the Olympian who inserted herself into the Liberal sponsorship ad scandal.)

I am with you...

KWD...and Ms. Proctor. This has to be one of the most charged of all political stories in our political times, but speculating who might be the next liberal leader is apparently of more interest to some...I wonder why one is 'politics' and this is...just another story?

KWD

Thank you so much for pointing out that this issue will go nowhere without seeing the big picture. You wrote the post I felt like writing!

“I wonder why one is 'politics' and this is...just another story

Despite the fact spousal abuse is ubiquitous and it crosses all social strata, and despite the fact abuse, particularly spousal abuse, is the subject of countless studies and much research, the topic has about as much political appeal as the abortion issue or examining the economic tenets that support the growth-is-good philosophy.

Political discussion focusing on spousal abuse is akin to having a male open a second Pandora’s box. It is to be avoided at all costs. It’s extremely threatening. It means yielding power and contol. That’s what patriarchy is all about. Women in some circles are subhuman. John Lennon had it figured out: “Woman is the Nigger of the World”.

As contradictory as it seems, it’s “just another story” because it is socially sanctioned.

socially sanctioned...

Yes, I think you are right KWD. I had to think about that a bit, but those people who say such things as "it will always exist" or some such drivel, are in fact providing the social sanction.And yes, it is difficult to talk about spousal abuse as a political issue, but I think you used a phrase that is key in 'social prosperity'. Wilkinson et al have done a great job of collating the studies (Wilkinson in the "Impact of Inequality" and other books since) that show how much our lack of 'social prosperity' costs us in real dollars. But perhaps more importantly, there is a kind of vague and ill-defined yearning to get to that 'social prosperity' abroad in the land, I think. At the risk of being a tad simplistic, defining and articulating what a healthy society might look like is crucial ...I do not know what impact Ms. Proctor's starvation volunteers, may have, but it seems apt symbolism. We are a culture that is satrved of almost everything except stuff from Wal-Mart.
I can only add this: being previously married to an abuser, I talk about these issues even at cocktail parties. I have never had anyone change the subject.

OK, then -

"..being previously married to an abuser.."

OK, so if you can do it at cocktail parties, you can hopefully do it here. What is an abuser? What is the prognosis? are they beyond redemption in most people's experience? are they 'beasts' or just really regular guys with an extremely poor set of communication skills and anger-management skills?

I am raising these questions, because we only ever hear the story of the abused, how they endure, how they finally escape, how they succeed, or not, in putting their life back together. We never hear about the abusers and what becomes of them, after they have been swept out with the trash. Being the problem people, they are the ones who interest me, for I imagine they are still 'out there' with all their issues unresolved. Do we have to care? I believe we do. If they still walk among us, we must deal with their problems before we can say the job is done and we can sleep easy.

Out of the three out of four who statistically don't suffer abuse, is it possible that there has in fact been some inept slapping around here and there for the reasons cited above, but the ineptitude finds remedies, and things are put on a better track? Is there such a sharp division between the good guys and the bad guys, or is it rather a spectrum of greys? Among all those guys who virtuously and emphatically state that they would 'never hit a woman', is it fair to say, 'really? Never? or do all of us humans have varying thresholds for resorting to violence for lack of real coping mechanisms, when the pressure is great enough? I think these are valid questions and would hope they get taken seriously. I see the solution not in discarding anyone if we can help it, but in providing help in developing skills for living that will enable us all to do that job better.