Congress to Vote on Renewing Anti-Male Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which was first passed in 1994, expires on September 30, and legislation was recently introduced to renew it. While on the surface VAWA sounds good--after all, everyone opposes violence against women--there are many serious problems with it.

VAWA-funded shelters and domestic violence organizations ignore and often refuse to provide services to male victims of domestic violence. Domestic violence organizations funded by VAWA refuse to acknowledge the mountains of research which show that men compromise a significant percentage of domestic violence victims.

In addition, domestic violence organizations funded by VAWA often throw their weight and perceived credibility behind legislation which serves to drive fathers out of their children's lives. For example, dozens of domestic violence organizations signed on to amicus briefs filed for the move-away mom in the LaMusga move-away case in the California Supreme Court. In April, DV organizations testified against AB 1307, the California Shared Parenting bill.

VAWA funding and VAWA-generated domestic violence hysteria has also helped enable unscrupulous women to use restraining orders, the police, and the legal system as tools against men.

Dr. Donald G. Dutton, author of The Abusive Personality: Violence and Control in Intimate Relationships, asserts that research shows that women are as likely to attack their male intimate partners as vice versa, and that most domestic violence stems from personality disorders found equally in males and females. Dutton, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, is a well-known critic of VAWA and suggests that VAWA be replaced with VIRA--The Violence in Intimate Relations Act.

Dutton joined Glenn on His Side with Glenn Sacks on July 3, 2005.

To learn more, see:

• Safe Homes for Children and Families Coalition (SHCFC) call for action on VAWA--click here.

• Congress Should Kill Discriminatory Domestic Violence Act by Wendy McElroy

• Dutton's Patriarchy and Wife Assault: The ecological fallacy

• Dutton's The Batterer: A Psychological Profile

• Dutton's The Abusive Personality: Violence and Control in Intimate Relationships
  Dutton's PERPETRATOR PERSONALITY EFFECTS ON POST-SEPARATION VICTIM REACTIONS IN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS

• Opposition View: Solutions to Domestic Violence Remain Elusive (Mother Jones, July/August, 2005)

• Opposition View: Michael Kimmel's Male Victims of Domestic Violence: A Substantive and Methodological Research Review

• Glenn's column Domestic Violence Series Substitutes Emotion for Facts (San Francisco Chronicle, 4/8/05)

• VAWA Con Dios, Biden from the blog Silly Seattle

• Glenn's column Baseball Player's Domestic Violence Arrest Demonstrates How Men are Presumed Guilty in Domestic Disputes (Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal, 8/8/02)

• John Brumbaugh's story: After years of appeals, a technicality clears ex-police officer's name (Daily Breeze,  3/8/05) John, who appeared on His Side on 4/13/03, is a former Torrance police officer who successfully fought for over seven years to clear his name and get his life back after being falsely accused of domestic violence.

• Stephen Baskerville's No Restraint on Restraining Orders (Human Events, 8/5/02)

• Glenn's column New Report on Maternal Homicide Crisis: Myth-Making and Manbashing (Lexington Herald-Leader, 1/3/05)

• Glenn's column 'Fatal Fathers' Myth Promoted in Wake of Peterson, Hacking Cases (Daily Breeze [Los Angeles], 9/17/04)

• His Side: Police Officers Unite to Defend Their Livelihoods Against False DV Allegations (4/10/05)

• His Side: Restraining Orders: Saviors of Abused Women or Child Custody Tactic? (2/27/05)

• His Side: Father Spends 3 Months in Jail for Returning Phone Call (9/7/03)

• His Side: Liz Taylor's Son-in-Law Says Taylor, Daughter Kidnapped His Two Year-Old Son (4/11/04)

• His Side: Seattle Press Brands Cops as Batterers (8/3/03)

• A comprehensive discussion of the both the politics and practical aspects of dealing with false allegations of domestic violence can be found in The Father's Emergency Guide to Divorce-Custody Battle by Robert Seidenberg and William Dawes, Esq.