Men Who Batter Women are Terrorists

Men Who Batter Women are Terrorists by Elaine Charkowski

The FBI's definition of terrorism is, "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce the government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives."

Men who batter women use force and violence to "intimidate or coerce" in furtherance of their "social objective" - male supremacy. Since women are a "segment" of "the civilian population," men who batter them are legally terrorists.

Male-supremacist power institutions like religion and government have developed in every culture. Carol Christ who wrote Why Women Need the Goddess said, "In order to change society, the changes would have to be in the best interests of the people controlling the power institutions. If their interests are not served, the changes are repressed."

Scripture is a collection of statements attributed to "god" and written by men to grant themselves power over women. All the world's major religions are male-supremacist, their respective gods "granting" men the right to be the family dictator.

Men's gods are also terrorists. Like mortal male terrorists, these male "gods" use force and coercion, threatening punishment, hell and torture if women dare to disobey.

Presently, men control religion and government. Thus, issues which particularly interest and affect women such as male violence, the environment, housing, child care, job training, education, family planning, and health care are chronically underfunded - if they're funded at all.

If "a mans home is his castle", who is the king—and who are the servants.?

In Webster's Dictionary, "family" comes from the root word meaning "group of servants." A "husband" is the "male head of the household." "Husband" is also a verb meaning, "to use and employ to good purpose and best advantage," as in animal husbandry. "Father" means "owner" or "master" (mister)."Wife" comes from the root word for "veiled" and also means "the female of a pair of mated animals."

Bill McCartney, founder of the right-wing men's group Promise Keepers, tells men to "tenderly and gently" take their "god-given" position as "head" of the family. But what happens when women don't placidly submit to being gently "husbanded" like livestock?

Wife-beating is a "traditional family value." The "Rule of Thumb" was a law allowing Englishmen to beat their wives with a stick "no thicker than a man's thumb" to make them obey. According to the U.S. surgeon general, battering by men is the number one "health" problem of women in America.

Since families are the building blocks of society and most families are male-supremacist dictatorships, it follows that societies and governments reflect the "traditional" family's dictatorial credo of "Might makes Right."

In her book The Demon Lover, Robin Morgan said, "The majority of the population in virtually all nation-states is female, and is forced by patriarchy to obey, be silent and acquiesce-which means that "democracy" does not yet exist anywhere!"

Nations are macrocosms of dysfunctional families and war is a macrocosm of domestic violence. The personal is political. All violence is connected. "Our" 90 % male government hands over more than $500 billion (half a trillion) dollars a year to the military. The "big boys" get to buy all the war toys they want while schools are underfunded, the homeless shiver in the cold and battered women have no place to go.

Much of this shamefully squandered tax money was taken from women. Thus, women are forced to be enablers of dysfunctional nations just as battered women are often forced to be the enablers holding their dysfunctional families together. Many can't leave, since there "isn't enough money" for battered women's shelters and resources. However, women are breaking the silence about male violence.

On October 24th, 1997, women from around the world presented the Women's Peace Petition to the President of the 52nd United Nations General Assembly. The petition circled the globe via mail, fax, Internet and word-of-mouth. It contained more than 90,000 signatures with thousands coming from India, Turkey, Philippines, Mozambique, Canada and Australia and the United States.

The Petition read: "We are horrified at the levels of violence witnessed during this century and that women and children are the primary victims of war and poverty. On behalf of society at large, we, the undersigned women of the world, demand that annually, for the next five years, at least five per cent of national military expenditures be redirected to health, education and employment programs.

"We also demand that war, like slavery, colonialism and apartheid, be delegitimized as an acceptable form of social behavior, and that governments and civil society together develop new institutions that do not resort to violence for the settlement of disputes. Together we commit ourselves, as half of the world's population, to use our power to ensure that these demands, which will promote international peace and security, are met through legislation and action. We resolve that we will inaugurate a new century that rejects warfare and promotes well-being, justice and human rights."

Early feminist union organizers encouraged women to get out of their houses to participate in "social housekeeping" to "sweep away" oppression and "clean up" society. Even though the Peace Petition has already been presented years ago, we should continue to make copies, collect signatures and network to share our ideas. In this way, millions of creative ways to build peace can be shared to end male violence whether it’s in war or at home. As Susan B, Anthony said, "failure is impossible!"

Related articles:

Loving to Survive: All Women in a Patriarchy are Battered & Oppressed

A Tribute to Matilda Joslyn Gage: Women, Church & State - Addressing Our Patriarchal Violence-Accepting Society by Coral Anika Theill

Horror of Family Court, Religion & Burning Witches by Coral Anika Theill

How I Became a Brood Mare & Egg Donor for the Church & State: Judge Albin Norblad Laughs about Rape by Coral Anika Theill

Warning Signs of an Abusive God by Coral Anika Theill

Family Court Corruption Resources by Kimberly Burke Bowers

"Many women grow up in homes in which they were conditioned and groomed to be victims. They marry sociopathic abusers, have children with them, and lose custody and contact of their children when they become stronger and choose safety. Battered women may lose their babies and children, their homes, their friends and their livelihood. Survivors of childhood abuse will often even lose their families. Rarely does society recognize the dimensions and long lasting effects of this reality for the victim. After over a decade of personally seeking assistance from advocacy groups on a local, state and national level, the advocacy system, as is, has offered me nothing.

"The price for my own safety and freedom in 1996 was an imposed, unnatural and unwanted separation from my eight children, including my nursing infant. The injustice committed against me is not just the physical separation from my children, but the willful desecration of the mother-child relationship and bond, a sacred spiritual and emotional entity. (*Read complimentary copy of Coral Anika Theill's 2013 published memoir, BONSHEA Making Light of the Dark)

"Forcibly taking a mother's children, and then controlling her emotionally by withholding contact must be publicly recognized as one of the greatest forms of 'mis-use' of the American justice system and one of the greatest hidden vehicles for wide-spread socially approved physical and emotional abuse and control."- Coral Anika Theill, Bonshea Making Light of the Dark

It has long been known by those who seek power over others, Hitler, the Taliban, Genghis Kahn and many others throughout history, that the way to destroy a population is to destroy their connections to their past. The men who would destroy women are not necessarily destroying only the mothers, their intent is to destroy the child. The mother is but a tool in this quest, a tool that serves as proof of the man's past. He must destroy her to break the connection and reeducate the child into a likeness of himself, or destroy the child trying.

It should be a goal of every court to uncover the past of any man who seeks custody of a child, an unnatural position for a male. Was he himself abused and now seeks to remake his own childhood through his offspring?

What of the people who help him in this endeavor? American society is the least giving of all modern societies, so the motivations of those who would place a child in an unnatural situation must be scrutinized. To seek power over groups of others, as is the case with lawyers, "experts", police and judges, they must have the tendencies of a narcissist, a sociopath or a psychopath as a result of treatment they received as a child. They suffer from Stockholm syndrome, identifying with the abusive person, stemming from the abuse they suffered.

Judith Herman, M.D. maintains that the function of domestic violence is to preserve male supremacy. “Perpetrators understand intuitively that the purpose of their behavior is to put women in their place and that their behavior will be condoned by other men [women] as long as the victim is a legitimate target. Thus, women live with a fear of men which pervades all of life and which convinces women that their weakness is innate and unchangeable. The legal system is designed to protect men from the superior power of the state but not to protect women or children from the superior power of men. It therefore provides strong guarantees for the rights of the accused but essentially no guarantees for the rights of the victim. If one set out by design to devise a system for provoking intrusive post-traumatic symptoms, one could not do better than a court of law."