Harsh New Laws Punish Victims of Violence

Children need to be protected from violent perpetrators and so do their mothers. Mothers who are the victims of domestic violence risk losing their children upon reporting the abuse under new zero-tolerance child protection laws, such as those outlined in the 2013 Child Protection Legislation Amendment Bill (Child Protection Amendment Bill (No 33) 2014). With an estimated 80% of all domestic abuse cases going unreported (Vic Health, 2012) such laws will make the direct victims of domestic abuse less inclined to seek help for fear of forced separation from their children. Removing a child from an abused but otherwise loving and capable parent is not in the child’s best interest, nor is it in the best interest of the victim to have them too intimidated and shamed to speak out.

Domestic violence has overtaken paternal mental illness and drug or alcohol addiction as the leading cause of child protection intervention (Butler 2014). The Family Rights Group (2014) states that cuts to domestic abuse and family support services, including strict means-tested welfare reforms, results in further isolation of victims. The inability of a victim to seek sufficient support, in the forms of stable housing and financial aid, increases their dependency on their abuser. Cathy Ashley, the chief executive of the Family Rights Group, states that women who report the crimes committed against them are told by social workers to leave immediately with their children or they (the children) will be taken into care (Butler 2014).

In order to understand the disempowering and dehumanizing demands of such practices, you first must understand the complex issues faced by victims of domestic violence. The zero tolerance laws indicate that even those who experience such cases daily are failing to understand that victims cannot simply pack up and leave. Not only are victims psychologically manipulated by their abusers, and usually dependent upon them through strategic isolation, they are also most at risk of extreme violence once they have left their abuser.

Clementine Ford, journalist for Daily Life, writes:

In June 2013, WA woman Angela Furullo was murdered by her ex-partner, James Bill Payet, at the hairdressing salon where she worked. Her pregnant daughter was injured in the attack. In April 2013, Kara Doyle’s boyfriend shot her in the groin. Doyle had been planning to leave him. She was dumped at a nearby Caltex Station with severe injuries and died in hospital five days later. Her killer, Mehmet Torun, was recently sentenced to eight years in prison with a non-parole period of five years. In February 2014, Victorian woman Kelly Thompson was murdered by her long term partner. Just 19 days before, Thompson had applied for an AVO against Wayne Wood. After murdering Kelly Thompson, Wood killed himself.

These are just a handful of the devastating acts of violence enacted against women and children every week in Australia. Every single one of these women were either in the process of leaving their partners or had already left them. If women are supposed to ‘just leave’ in order to end the cycle of violence, what is it that these women did wrong? The answer is nothing. They did nothing wrong (Ford 2014).

When a social worker tells a victim of family violence to leave immediately with her children, without time to source adequate housing, financial aid or support for safety, they are putting the mother and child/s life in profound danger. Threatening to remove the mother’s children will only add to the psychological trauma of the victim and make her far less likely to report future acts of violence. This advice condemns victims whilst doing nothing to address the real issue.

Domestic violence does impact on children, who, on average, witness 44% of all violence (Vic Health, 2013). Children are often the victims of revenge killings wherein the perpetrator murders his partner’s children to make her suffer further. As discussed above, such incidents usually occur directly after a woman has left her abuser. This illustrates a definite need for intervention but not the intervention that has been proposed.

We ought to be asking ourselves, as domestic violence is as much a crime as assaulting someone in the street (for example, the now famed ‘coward punches’), if child protection services have sufficient evidence and reports to remove children from the home then why can there not be a new legislation introduced where the perpetrator is court ordered to attend men’s behavioural change sessions? Or, why is the perpetrator not formally charged and facing jail time? Why is more not being done to prevent the violence? Why are there cuts to essential support services? Why is more money not being put into women’s refuges? Why have there been such harsh cuts to welfare payments for single parents?

Seventy-eight percent of people in Australia who are homeless due to domestic violence are women (Ford 2014) and it isn’t hard to see why. There seems only three, bleak options available to women experiencing domestic violence; stay with their abuser and not report the crimes against them in order to avoid having their children removed; stay with their abuser and lose their children; or leave, putting their own and their child’s life at risk, and face a life of poverty and, potentially, homelessness.

In a written interview, on the 10^th of June 2013, Susan* illustrates what many women must endure when they make the choice to leave.

It got to the point where I had to seriously consider getting an intervention order against him. His behaviour was erratic and irrational. One moment he would be begging for my forgiveness for what he had done, saying he would love me forever, and at the next he would be calling me a ‘dumb slut’ and saying everything was my fault. I was scared of him, for myself and for my daughter. I had been too afraid to go to court for a formal custody agreement, fearing what he might do if I pushed it that far, so we had our own agreement where he would have her 3 nights a week. Every abused woman with children knows the horror stories that are both real and common. We all fear for our children (Susan* 2013, pers.comm., 10 June)

Brief Book Review: ‘I Am No One You Know’ by Joyce Carol Oates

These stories have impact- when reading I suggest you wear your seat belt.

The only other short story collections I have enjoyed as much as this are those by Edgar Allen Poe and Kim Edwards’ Secrets Of A Fire King. That said, this collection by Joyce Carol Oates is a stand out winner.

The stories are told with an unnerving conviction. Oates effectively writes the muddled memory and confusion surrounding trauma.

 I Am No One You Know contains nineteen startling stories that bear witness to the remarkably varied lives of Americans of our time. In “Fire,” a troubled young wife discovers a rare, radiant happiness in an adulterous relationship. In “Curly Red,” a girl makes a decision to reveal a family secret, and changes her life irrevocably. In “The Girl with the Blackened Eye,” selected for The Best American Mystery Stories 2001, a girl pushed to an even greater extreme of courage and desperation manages to survive her abduction by a serial killer. And in “Three Girls,” two adventuresome NYU undergraduates seal their secret love by following, and protecting, Marilyn Monroe in disguise at Strand Used Books on a snowy evening in 1956.

These vividly rendered portraits of women, men, and children testify to Oates’s compassion for the mysterious and luminous resources of the human spirit.

Oates’ is masterful in building suspense and at leaving her readers yearning for more.  At the end of each story I found myself wanting to yell: “don’t leave me hanging like this!”

The primary theme is “othering”. In all the stories there is some “other, unknowable” person. There is the mentally unstable mother, the sexually threatening uncle, the serial killer, and the borderline man from death row. All these stories are narrated from the POV of a rather bland, normal character and focus on another character that is, in some way or another, taboo.

Recommendation: Everyone must read.

If you haven’t already, you can friend me on Goodreads here and follow the link here to like the Black Ink Quill Facebook page.

Studying With Children

playing at the park.

One of my assignments for this semester at uni, for my Writing Life, Self & Other class, is to write a blog post.

Well, that’s okay… I can do that. I’ve been doing that.

“Choose an area of expertise,” the lecturer instructs us when we ask for more details about the assignment, “and write a post on it.”

Damn. An area of expertise… What am I an expert on?

Nothing? I ask myself kindly. Ok, well let’s narrow it down then. What things do you do? What are you good at?
(Yes, I do really have internal conversations with myself. Well, arguments usually…)

Feeding and bathing and bedtime story telling in under an hour on busy nights. I’m always ridiculously proud of this. Although, I usually end up soaked to the bone from energetic splashing during the bathing part.

I have a four year old daughter and am in my fourth and final year of studying.

I have totally reached the level of Expert Student-Parent.

Two Weeks Ago:

I am sitting at my desk in my office (papers strewn everywhere, books spilling from the shelves, books stacked in shaky towers on the floor, leaky pens scattered around.) and Olivia is playing behind me, singing passionately about fairies turning blue, and setting up a tea party for her toys. I get to work designing the cover for ‘Behind Closed Doors’. After a while I make the mistake of turning around.

Bombsite.

Toys are everywhere, bits of lego looking gleefully up at me, just waiting for a chance to puncture an unsuspecting foot. Focus, I remind myself. I finish the cover and begin an editing project. A few pages in, the computer screen goes blank.

What? I stare at the screen for a moment. Olivia has migrated to sitting beneath the desk, having just switched the computer off at the power point, she looks up and smiles at me.

 Back In The Present:

Maybe I’d better hold off on awarding myself the title of Expert Student-Parent.

Now, what’s my area of expertise…?

Brief Book Review: ‘Tampa’ by Alissa Nutting

Celeste Price is an eighth-grade English teacher in suburban Tampa. She’s undeniably attractive. She drives a red Corvette with tinted windows. Her husband, Ford, is rich, square-jawed, and devoted to her.

But Celeste’s devotion lies elsewhere. She has a singular sexual obsession—fourteen-year-old boys. Celeste pursues her craving with sociopathic meticulousness and forethought; her sole purpose in becoming a teacher is to fulfill her passion and provide her access to her compulsion. As the novel opens, fall semester at Jefferson Jr. High is beginning.

In mere weeks, Celeste has chosen and lured the lusciously naive Jack Patrick into her web. Jack is enthralled and in awe of his teacher, and, most important, willing to accept Celeste’s terms for a secret relationship—car rides after school; rendezvous at Jack’s house while his single father works late; body-slamming encounters in Celeste’s empty classroom between periods.

Ever mindful of the danger—the perpetual risk of exposure, Jack’s father’s own attraction to her, and the ticking clock as Jack leaves innocent boyhood behind—the hyperbolically insatiable Celeste bypasses each hurdle with swift thinking and shameless determination, even when the solutions involve greater misdeeds than the affair itself. In slaking her sexual thirst, Celeste Price is remorseless and deviously free of hesitation, a monstress driven by pure motivation. She deceives everyone, and cares nothing for anyone or anything but her own pleasure.

Whilst I understood the narrative, the themes and the points raised within the text, it nonetheless left me confused. Some reviews described the graphic descriptions in  this book as erotica. I disagree. This book is not in the slightest bit erotic. There is nothing remotely alluring or erotic in Celeste’s sick fantasies or the detailed descriptions of the sex scenes. The desire Celeste has for teenage boys is simply too inconceivable. Positively baffling.

This book has left me feeling conflicted and, I believe, this is what makes it so good. it will leave ypu with doubts and questions. You will be mentally haunted by this book. Perplexed confusion is the strongest emotional reaction I had to this book. This, I think, is due to the media/societal norms/advertising. Like most, I could better understand a lecherous older man’s interest in teenaged girls than the situation in reverse (though both disgust me equally.) How often are younger women viewed as more desirable? How often is it men who are depicted as the dominant ones? It is far more common. This book certainly flips gender roles and stereotypes on their head.

Despite being told in the first person POV by Celeste, you are not treated to any understanding of where her singularly obsessive sexual compulsion comes from, other than the fact she is clearly a sociopath. This, I think, is Nutting’s intention. Celeste is the kind of cold, calculating predator no one believes a woman capable of being. It makes her light sentance, given because she is an attractive woman (and how could sex with an attractive woman be rape?), seem all the more apalling. It’s appalling but it is also very accurate social commentary. How often is violence and sexual assault towards men taken seriously when the abuser is a woman? And how often is it taken seriously is the abuser is an extremely attractive woman?

‘Tampa’ also gives a perplexing view into how statutory rape is complex and different from rape in general. Celeste’s victims do give consent. They want her throughout the book, along with their peers, and they state at her trial they were willing. Which they were, but they were also manipulated, stalked and used to satisfy Celeste’s selfish, obsessive desires. One victim in particular was clearly left confused and destroyed by his involvement with Celeste. It is easy to see why, even with consent, sex with a minor, even if they are a teenager, is illegal. They aren’t mature or in control enough to protect themselves or to understand when they’re being abused. They have only the illusion of being in control or consenting. In reality they have been stalked and carefully selected for their weaknesses (being quieter, shyer, having less involved parents.)

Overall, this is an intriguing read. Do not expect to understand Celeste. Unlike HH in Lolita, and many real-life pedophiles, Celeste does not try to convince herself or the reader at any point that she actually cares for or “loves” her victims.
This book is quite graphic and disturbing, so definitely not recommended for the squeamish.
To purchase an ebook version, follow the link here.

The Blog Hop: Absurdly Honest Answers

I was tagged to answer the following four questions by Mandi.

What are you working on?
I am currently working on putting together a collection of short stories that will be self-published via Smashwords. I am also, privately, working on something else that is outside my usual genre, but this is currently Top Secret. I’m a little timid about sharing the details of it just now.

How does your work differ from others in the genre?
The stories in Behind Closed Doors don’t necessarily link up in terms of genre and theme like many do in anthologies and short story collections. What they have in common is more obscure. The best way of describing it is we all have acquaintances in life, people we smile at and say hello to, but don’t really know. We don’t know what’s going on in their lives, what struggles they might be enduring, what experiences they may have had, what secrets they are keeping. That’s the theme of this collection: the things going on behind closed doors, the unspoken stuff happening in people’s lives.

Why do you write what you write?
If you asked me why I write in general it would be easier to answer. In general, I write because I am compelled to do so. I write because, rather than having to find my writer’s voice, writing is my voice. As Mandi pointed out, I am terribly shy. I am not an excellent talker. Small talk has a way of making my throat close up. But why do I write the things I do? I think it’s because I have something to say, something to share and to show. I enjoy writing non-fiction and short stories mostly. I love non-fiction because I can share people’s stories. I have been doing ghostwriting lately and that is very rewarding. It makes a real difference to people’s lives to tell their stories and, given the subject, it can help others in their own struggles.

How does your writing process work?
I usually just start writing because of something I have seen or heard, or a thought or idea has come to me. Once I have a page or a few pages down then I stop and this is when I start planning. I plot out character maps, themes, the story arc and where I see it going. I do any research that is needed. I try not to make it too specific to allow for natural character growth and room to move the story where I feel it needs to go. Often halfway through writing new developments will crop up and usually I will go with these because they are more natural to the story and the characters development.

Finally, I nominate Jessi Tait (at innerminute) whose writing style I both admire and envy in equal parts.

March in March: A Vote of No Confidence in The Abbott Government

The train, normally so quiet and empty on a Sunday afternoon, is packed. There are families, middle aged women clutching signs, men with beards and waist length dreads, an attractive woman wearing a maxi dress under a cropped denim jacket. Everyone is smiling, chatting, leaning forward to talk to their companions.

In a huge surge we exit at Melbourne Central. I have never seen it like this; not late on a Friday or Saturday night, not at peak hour on a weekday, never. We are slowly shuffled forward, unable to resist the flow of the crowd. We make our way through the twists and turns of the station and exit onto Latrobe St, directly across from the Melbourne State Library where thousands have already gathered for the March in March protest- a vote of no confidence in the current government and Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

The signs are eye catching, bearing slogans such as “We need an Abbott-Proof fence” and “Welcome Refugees. Deport Abbott.” Every now and then chants arise, led by speakers and groups within the crowds, cries of “Shame, Abbott, shame” and “People, not profits.”

The vibe of the crowd is good; strong and purposeful. It is hard not to marvel at the diversity of protestors. This is not just one group. Here are not just hard-leftists. There are grandparents, elderly wheelchair-bound individuals, mums pushing babies in prams, dad’s with toddlers high atop their shoulders, men and women with dread locked hair and bare feet, groups carrying tin drums, youthful university students, individuals wearing Anonymous masks, and many, many people carrying cameras.

One speaker calls for everyone in the crowd to pull out their phones, take a picture, and upload on all social media sites with the hash tag MarchinMarch. The crowd complies. They want this to be huge. They want to be heard. This protest was not organized by the usual activist’s groups- they attended but they weren’t running it. It arose through social media, through a nationwide discontent with the Abbott government. Afterwards, we would learn the hash tag MarchinMarch had been trending at no.4 since 10AM that morning; a success. The media would indeed report on the marches but the coverage would be minimal and mildly dismissive. It would comment more on the size of the crowds and the unpreparedness of the police, than the purpose of the march and the changes Australians need to see being made. The media would, however and to their credit, report with honesty that the crowd was benign and respectful. 

Many marching were doing so with the knowledge that as of September 1st in Victoria such political protests will be illegal, a law passed at 1pm on Friday 15th, dictates. This was added to the long list of things to infuriate the people of Melbourne.

The signs clearly proclaimed what many were marching for. Like me, they were marching for:

1.            Australia’s National Parks and Tasmania’s old growth Forests.

2.            Asylum Seekers on Manus Inland and the violation of their human rights.

3.            Women’s Rights (and against Abbott appointing himself Minister for Women and against the new Paid Parental leave scheme, which will make employer’s less inclined to hire women.)

4.            Climate change and the Carbon tax.

5.            The Great Barrier Reef.

And much, much more. The list is endless.

As a small van trundles past to lead, blaring up-beat music and encouraging chants, the march as it begins. We all begin to creep forward, signs and banners raised, ready to show Abbott just what we think. Many people walking by or eating at café’s whip out their phones to record us as we march by. Others stare in complete confusion.

One man has a little boy atop his shoulders. The boy, no more than four or five, is pumping a chubby fist in the air and shouting in a soft, rounded child’s voice “People, not profit! People, not profit!” Other marchers turn to look and take pictures. The boy’s dad joins his son, his voice deeper, louder.

“People, not profit! People, not profit!” My friend and I join in as do dozens of others marching alongside us.  I’m sure plenty will wonder what difference it will makes and perhaps it will make none, but the purpose is to express a vote of no confidence and when 30,000 people turn out in one city to march, that expression has to be heard. It’s not just Melbourne either. Thousands upon thousands of people in city after city are marching with the same purpose.

After all this, one would think Abbott would wake up and start listening. As one sign claimed, “The power of the people is greater than the people in power.”

Things Observed

Observation one:

It is not a good idea to press the buttons on a toaster with wet hands.

Observation number two:

“Look, man, I’m telling you just leave her,” a man says into his mobile. He rubs his hand across his forehead. “You’ve got to just get out of that situation.”

He pauses and I can hear the faint whine of another voice through the phone. His friend? His brother? Maybe it’s his boyfriend.

“Go and stay with Karla,” he is saying. This advice is followed by more muffled noise. I wonder who Karla is.

“Well, what’s going to change then?” He is shouting now, gesturing wildly around him. “She’s just gonna keep using you.”

The train pulls into my station. I stand and make my way to the doors. Usually when people complain about relationships, they just want someone to listen. As I step off I hear the phone-guy sighing. He must have figured it out.

Observation number three:

I stand at the counter; Olivia balanced on one hip with her arms wrapped around my neck. She smiles, showing off a dimple. The aroma of coffee is tantalising.

“Will there be marshmallows?” Olivia asks. I nod.

“Will it have chocolate?” she asks the woman making the drinks.

“Yes,” she answers her, smiling.

“Thank you,” Olivia says. The conversation done, I lower her to the floor to stand next to me.

A woman with white hair pulled into a bun gestures her dark, wrinkled hands toward Olivia who, shyly, grabs my hand. The woman catches my eye and smiles.

“Isn’t she cute?” The blonde sitting next to her says.

“She is, she is cute,” another agrees.

I smile back. Then, turning, I tune back into Olivia; she’s happily chatting about the curved, silver fan above us. It is, apparently, a magic fan.

Parasomnia: Sleepwalking and Other Fun Activities

I am bone-numbingly, skip-dinner and collapse into bed tired. This is the result of a particularly bad few weeks of sleep.

I have parasomnia. Now, I’ve had insomnia (or as I think of it “real insomnia”) before. It’s draining, exhausting, and more than a little weird. It’s different to parasomnia.

Parasomnia isn’t defined by a lack of sleep. Oh no, you sleep alright. The problem is sleep-walking and sleep-talking or, in my case, sleep-screaming. By this I don’t mean the story everyone can tell of that one time they went sleep walking or the time they mumbled that hilariously random thing in their sleep. This doesn’t happen once or twice a year, not even once or twice a month. Instead, it’s multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a night.

It must be eerie to wake up to someone, eyes wide and vacant, opening your door and silently crossing the room to stand at your bedroom window.

It’s also inexplicably bizarre to discover that during the night you have retrieved a brown texta (from where? You don’t own any textas. In fact, you live in a house positively bereft of textas) and drawn all over the bed with it; long, thin scribbled lines on the pale green sheets.

I can’t speak for the people unfortunate enough to share a home with a parasomniac, but I imagine it’s downright creepy. Whilst Miss Parasomnia is thrashing about in her sleep, screaming her head off at whatever horror she’s witnessing in dreamland, her poor housemates are sitting bolt upright in bed, heart pounding, wondering when the deranged murderer who has clearly broken into the house is coming for them.
Not that Miss Parasomnia gets to sleep through the screaming. No, she also sits bolt upright, heart pounding, trying to sort out the mess of vivid awfulness that was her dream as it lingers, still fresh in her mind.

This happens again and again and again and again and again and… Until you all awake to the nasty chirping of alarms, warily facing off over morning coffees. There’s no need to ask how the other slept when it can be clearly seen in the purple, lined bags beneath their eyes.

Yours
Zzzzzzzzz

Code of Silence

“Congratulations!”  Your best friend leaps at you, wrapping you up in a hug. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

You are six weeks along; both excited and nervous at the changes taking place.

“I think I’m having a miscarriage,” you whisper into the phone.

Silence from your best friend as you start to cry.

“Firstly, was my blood test positive?” You ask your doctor.

“Yes,” he smiles. “Your tests indicate you’re almost seven weeks. You’ll be able to see us for the duration of your pregnancy, if you’re planning on going ahead with it.”

“Yes. Yes, I am but I started bleeding last night.”

“It could be nothing,” he assures you.

“But it’s most likely a miscarriage, right?” You ask calmly. You’ve been crying all morning. You can manage a controlled calm now as you sit in this small, white office facing a doctor who isn’t willing to say the words.

“This happens pretty commonly. It could be fine.” He repeats. He prints off a referral for an ultrasound and you thank him. Walking from the clinic you glance down at the doctor’s notes on the mustard-yellow sheet in your hand. “Inevitable miscarriage” the words glare up at you. Inevitable miscarriage? Inevitable.

“The doctor wrote I’m having an inevitable miscarriage.” You tell the person this affects the most, second only to you.

“Are you ok?” he asks.

“No,” why should you lie? “Will you come to the ultrasound with me?”

“No. I’ve got to work.”

Silence.

You go away to visit with family for a few days.

“Ella is pregnant, and so is Rita,” your dad announces during dinner.

“How far along are they?” You ask but what you really mean is; are they safe yet? Are they safe? You feel like screaming.

You go to the ultrasound. As you lie down on the bed the technician performing the scan turns the big screen off. They’ve never done that before. Obviously, you’re not supposed to see this scan.

“So, you took a pregnancy test?” The technician asks.

“I was pregnant,” you answer. “I had a positive blood test.”

She begins performing the scan, muttering something under her breath.

“You’ll need to go to your doctor to have it confirmed but it looks as your doctor said.” She tells you quietly.

You go to the doctor.

“Your results were normal,” he stammers. You can’t help but stare. Normal?

“What did you have the scan for? You got a period?”

Who has a scan because they got a period?

“No. I was pregnant. I had a miscarriage.”

“Yes, uh, they, uh, the results show no foetal matter so…” He trails off.

Silence.

Madness is here!

Madness is free and available for download! Please read and review. Hope to have the cover altered for premium version soon!

18-year-old Lisa has nothing going for her. No friends, no ambition, and no love life. Nothing. So when Jessie and Ant step into her world bringing the promise of a new life Lisa is hooked; line, and sinker. They pull Lisa into a sex-laden, drug-fuelled world of chaos and fun. As Lisa’s life spirals out of control she has to choose between being best friends for life, or life itself?

Adult-content rating: This book contains content considered unsuitable for young readers 17 and under, and which may be offensive to some readers of all ages.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/354158