DADvocate

DrHelen wrote a short blurb on domestic violence with a link to this article by Erin Pizzey. Erin Pizzey has studied and written about these issues for a long time. I first came across her when searching for information to explain the actions of my ex-wife. I came across this excerptfrom one of her books.

An excerpt from the excerpt:

To the family terrorist, there is only one wronged, one sufferer, only one person in pain, and this person is the terrorist herself. The terrorist has no empathy and feels only her own pain. In this manner, the terrorist's capacity for feeling is narcissistic, solipsistic, and in fact pathological.

Does this sound familiar to you? It sure did to me.

Ever know anyone who did this?

telephoning all mutual friends and business associates of the spouse in an effort to ruin the spouse's reputation

or this

vandalising the spouse's property

After over 8 years of separation and 7 years of divorce, my ex finally gave me my suits and sport coats. She still has some of my stuff, including toys and tools my parents gave me when I was 9 or 10 years old. My ex seems to be motivated to return my belongings because she has finally developed a relationship with another man.

I guess she can now begin to cease the negative emotional stuff towards me. I am very curious to see how her relationship with this new man turns out. I also feel sorry and apprehensive for the guy. He seems to be a nice guy. Maybe it's just me, but that's part of the emotional terrorist trap. We'll see how it goes.

Abortion

BTW - Cathy Young writes about abortion and men's rights (none). Instapundit has some interesting related comments here. Most of it:

in many states her spouse -- even if he's not the father of the child -- would still be on the hook for child support. Likewise, if he didn't want children, but she disagreed, lied to him about birth control, and got pregnant. And he certainly couldn't force her to have an abortion if she did so, even if his desire not to have children was powerful, and explicitly expressed at the outset. (The usual response -- "he made his choice when he had sex without a condom" -- never comes up in discussions of women and abortion.)

So where's the husband's procreational autonomy? Did he give it up by getting married? And, if he did, is it unthinkable that when they get married women might give some of their autonomy up, too?

The problem here is that you can say "my body, my choice" -- but when you say, "my body, my choice but our responsibility," well, it loses some of its punch.

One of my thoughts on this issue is that since women can have abortion upon demand then men should be able to declare "non-parenthood" of a child before it is born if they wish. As I've pointed out before, some now believe legitimate sperm donors should pay child support. The only way this issue could become more one sided is for a woman to be able to demand a man's sperm and then force him to pay child support.