This summer I read a fabulous book, Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life by Evan Stark. It is a well written academic discussion of the topic of coercive control that also provides a history of domestic violence awareness in America. Although I highly recommend the book to anyone who advocates for victims, I do not agree with the premise that coercive control is about female victimization. I have known too may male victims to believe that this is a male —female issue.
The challenge then is to come up with a theory about intimate partner victimization that accounts for, rather than rejects the very cogent arguments put forward by clinician-researchers like Dr. Stark. Although there isn’t space here to detail all the theory I am considering, the cornerstone of it is that psychopathic individuals (sociopaths) male and female will take advantage of every societal institution that exists as they work to gain control of the people in their lives. The end result of this theory aligns me with Dr. Stark and other dv advocates, in that I also see the need to change society in order to help victims of coercive control.
A read of the stories posted on this site by victims reveals that psychopathic sons and daughters exploit their parents using parental obligations and threats of reports to child protective services. Psychopathic female partners use child support (the male role of husband as provider), and threats of loss of access to children to control their male partners. Psychopathic male partners use notions of male dominance and feminine submission as well as the family courts to control their women. Also, psychopathic mothers and fathers use their “parental rights” to abuse and control rather than to parent their children.
If we are going to set about to help victims then we have a whole list of societal institutions to take on. The first one is the family court system because that is the most used and blatantly dysfunctional institution we have. One shocking example of the dysfunction appeared in the news this week in the wake of political arguments about rape and abortion. It seems that in 31 states a rapist can assert parental rights. There are countless studies revealing that rapists possess psychopathic personality traits and that aberrant motivation to control a victim underlies the crime. Such individuals are likely unfit or marginally fit to parent a child legitimately conceived forget the child of a victim; so much for the “best interests of the child” doctrine that the family court purports to pay homage to.
Thankfully, there is one victim who is speaking out and fighting to change the system and I think we should support her in any way we can. “Shauna R. Prewitt is a lawyer in Chicago. She is the author of “Giving Birth to a ‘Rapist’s Child’: A Discussion and Analysis of the Limited Legal Protections Afforded to Women Who Become Mothers Through Rape,” written for the Georgetown Law Journal.” To read her story visit CNN. There you can also download her paper if you want to read an academic discussion. Also help spread the word, rapists and others who perpetrate coercive control should not have the same parental rights as healthy loving parents. Children deserve the best upbringing the healthy parent can give them.
Liane, what a fantastic article and very timely, as always.
For whatever it’s worth, I’m in. I don’t have a network of contacts or any political experience to offer, but I’m in – in whatever capacity I can be of use to “do something.”
The idiot that you were referring to about abortion v. rape caused me to nearly drive off of the road (yes, I finally have transportation) when I heard it on NPR the other day. “Legitimate rape?” REALLY?!?! What kind of jackass would even entertain using such a term? Then, he had further audacity to suggest that a female’s body has the ability to “deal with” spontaneously preventing a pregnancy as a result of rape!
It is a statistical fact that children who are raised in abusive environments either develop into abusers or into victims, and there is no exception on this. Children who are dragged through endless custody battles and battles for “parental rights” are thoroughly damaged, often beyond repair. Children born of rape suffer the stigma for the rest of their lives. How difficult is it for anyone to “get this?”
Coercive control. An ominous term, to be sure.
Thank you, again, Liane. Superb.
Thruthspeak,
Are you talking about Todd Akin? He made international news with his remarks about rapes to result unlikely in pregnancies because the female’s body has the ability to deal with it spontaneously.
That guy seriously needs to retake HS biology curriculum.
In any case it’s another faux argument to blame women once again: well you must have wanted it, because you got pregnant. If you didn’t want this man, then you wouldn’t have become pregnant. Reminds me of the witch trial arguments: if she floats and survives, she’s a witch; if she drowns she wasn’t a witch… in any case her property is ours now anyway. Hooray!
Liane, the second link of the CNN story doesn’t work.
Darwinsmom, yes, that’s the moron. He just needs to be prevented from reproducing more like himself, that’s all. What a dope – I mean, an absolute dope! And, now he’s running damage control in advertisements asking for “forgiveness” for his poorly chosen words. LMAO!
Oh, dear lordy, I really did yell at the radio when I heard the report and the words that were recorded coming out of his mouth. Right. Every time the first exspath committed sousal rape, my body immediately performed a spontaneous abortion to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. Yes. This happened, I’m certain. Thank you, Dr. Akin.
Every woman’s group on this planet is probably on a testicular hunt, at this point. What an absolute dope!
Apparently he sit on the House Committee for Science, Space and Technology! So this folklore politician makes decisions about science: school science curriculum, research, etc…
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/23/opinion/martonosi-akin-science/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
Someone needs to figure a way to weed out these morons and there should be an immediate removal of his seat on that committee.
It’s frightening knowing this ignorance is still alive and well but I am happy when their own arrogance outs them.
Eralyn
Eralyn,
nothing is that simple. THERE ARE MANY SPATHS IN CONGRESS AND IN POWER. Why would they want to weed out one of their own? True, he did screw up with his “legitimate rape” quote. (spaths can be SO stupid), but they count on us to go into cognitive dissonance, and throw that comment into a WTF? bucket.
That means, that we will be mad for a while and then forget about it because it doesn’t mean that much. When people don’t know about spaths and EXACTLY WHAT SPATHS ARE: EVIL, LUCIFER, ETC…, then they just sort of “get over it”, and continue with their banal lives.
Skylar/Eralyn,
Yes, and you know it is getting harder and harder for me (with the deeper and deeper I go into the spath “research”) to converse with most people about this topic.
(“this topic”: bad things that people do; stupid things that our politicians say; what we can and ought to do about it!; coercive control in general, as it permeates EVERYTHING about our lives, like the air we breathe; does evil exist?; the oxymoron of “legitimate” rape)
I would say “oh, don’t even get me started” except I don’t even know where or how to start anymore. It seems to depend so much on the level of understanding and experience of the person I’m contemplating talking to.
I know that sounds obnoxious. I really do not mean it that way. I guess this is just another phase or stage I’m in. I certainly do not claim to know everything, but this must be the stage of exasperation or impatience that comes from wanting to help wake people up, though KNOWING that I can’t and it’s not my job.
And at the same time, realizing that quite probably I have a lot of waking up to do, still, myself.
I am surrounded by family members who do not get it, some of whom are elderly and just are not interested in questioning their lifelong-held beliefs about the inherent goodness of people. To them, our politicians are misguided, ignorant, but not willfully corrupt or sociopathic. They do not believe in corrupt systems; only a few “bad apples” who are just misguided fools.
I have to keep my mouth shut so I don’t appear to be a nutcase around most of the people I know.
So thank goodness for all of you. 🙂
Articles like this scare me. Like many of you, I used to be naive to the level of dangerous pathology amongst those who take such a big part in our justice system.
Lately, after what I have been through, I don’t feel protected and I don’t feel safe.
When I first heard that stupid politician (whose name I won’t even repeat here) make those comments about “legitimate rape” I didn’t know whether to scream or cry or both. I hate how our country has turned into a place where it is so common to blame the victim and uphold the “rights” of a monster terrorist.
Yes, I do believe that many people who seeks these sorts of positions of power are sociopaths themselves. I remember my ex telling me once that he believed everyone wanted to be a celebrity. I tried to explain to him that not everyone needed that sort of attention. He couldn’t understand this because, to him, power and attention were the two most important things. Given this…it should not be surprising to us that police, judges, lawyers, politicians, etc are full of sociopaths.
at the risk of being horribly misunderstood….
we have allowed ourselves to be placed under coercive control. I don’t mean “blame” when I use the word “allow.” Instead, I mean something like this:
It is indeed COERCIVE control, and by this (great word choice BTW though I have not read this book) I mean, it is a DUPING method of FORCING us under their control. We are told it is something that it isn’t. Or that it isn’t something that it is. It is a lie told, little by little, mixed in with truth, to deliberately deceive and confuse us.
We are deceived and confused: we are blameless.
However, if we can start to wake up, then we can take RESPONSIBILITY for the place we find ourselves in, and take steps to get ourselves out of it, and to prevent its happening again. We are more aware. We get our power back.
There is another type of coercion that has to do with brute force (more in your face, not hiding the fact you are being forced, as in that “legitimate rape,” I suppose). (I was being snarky, there)
OK. Insofar as birth control, fertility, conception, abortion, etc. goes, we have allowed ourselves to be placed under this coercive control by not realizing that from the beginning of human civilization, there have been methods of birth control and fertility enhancement. Women have had this knowledge and used it. And now, we have allowed ourselves to place all of this power in the hands of people who are licensed and elected to decide for us. We have to go to doctors to get prescriptions, it is expensive, sometimes it fails or we are raped or whatever, and we find ourselves helplessly pregnant.
It really does NOT have to be this way.
There is also some truth (here I may be very unpopular if I am misunderstood) to the idea that our minds and intentions are very powerful things, and actually can influence our fertility. This is not the same thing as saying a woman can be blamed for becoming pregnant if her rape is not legitimate enough. It is only to say that there is a lot more to our fertility than we are allowed to know these days… but the truth IS out there. Discover it for yourself, and regain your power.
20years,
I am going to have to respectfully disagree. I was a victim of rape and I don’t think that there is anything I could have been thinking in that situation besides sheer fear. While the stress of the situation could certainly impact a woman’s changes of losing the baby…..this doesn’t always happen.
I was under a tremendous amount of stress when I was pregnant with my son (due to the chaos Luc was constantly inflicting) and this didn’t change the fact that I was able to have a beautiful and healthy little baby boy.
Rape is rape. Not all rape happens when men jump out of bushes with a mask on. The sooner we all realize that there are several forms of rape…the sooner we will put an end to it by locking these men up.
Luc should be in jail and the man who raped me should be as well. They are not, however, because all too often people like this are protected and the victim is blamed.