Judy Davidson’s personal account of her experiences with the “radical lesbian feminist” movement is perhaps one of the most important articles The Interim has ever published. (See elsewhere in this issue.) The conclusion I reached after reading her story is that even such seemingly praiseworthy projects as rape crisis centres or battered women’s shelters are perverted when dominated by feminist ideology.
Is that unduly harsh? Am I denying the need for such centres? Not at all.
Women who are victims of rape and violence need loving and careful attention and counseling to help them rebuild their shattered lives and self-images. They do not need the kind of counseling which may steer them into a complete rejection of mainstream society.
Judy Davidson describes the rage and hostility towards society expressed by the women at the regional conference she attended. Can women who feel so alienated respond appropriately to abused, emotionally vulnerable women? I think not.
Never completely healed
Therapist David Scott’s research into the effects of pornography led him to examine the women who staff the crisis centres. He discovered that many victims of child abuse or sexual assault gravitate towards counseling roles in battered women’s shelters or rape crisis centres. They also become marriage counselors or political or sexual “rights” activists. These people have never been completely healed of their own experiences and for them to take on counseling roles is a kind of “revenge” for what has happened to them. They feel betrayed by their social institutions, he says. “their families, marriages, churches and communities.”
Scott described the process in his study, Pornography and its effect on Family, Community and Culture:
A Women, for example, battered herself as a child, or as a spouse, may take a job as a counselor in a battered women’s shelter, and counsel battered women to leave their husbands, or abandon their families. A woman molested or raped as a child, or as an adult, may take a job in a rape crisis centre, and counsel new rape victims to distrust and blame men, fuelling and locking in the new victim’s traumatic fears, rather than reducing them, undermining their trust and faith in men, rather than painstakingly rebuilding it.
Thousands of anti-family counselors at mental health centres, battered women’s shelters and rape crisis centres, often undistinguishable in the midst of much larger numbers of dedicated helping professions, actively counsel career over family, separation, divorce, single parenting, heterophobic, and even homosexual resolution to family crisis.
Scott does not claim that every counselor in every centre works from the same motivational base and he notes that “his or her motivation may even be unconscious.” Nor should it be assumed that every rape crisis centre and battered women’s shelter is run along rigid radical feminist lines. Nevertheless, a pattern is there and Judy Davidson’s experience shows clearly that adherence to every item on the feminist platform is a prerequisite to working in a feminist-dominated centre.
We have a parallel in the matter of abortion counseling. Those familiar with the kind of counseling given by a pro-abortion agency will easily see the links. Pro-abortion agencies are staffed by those who believe abortion is a viable “option” for the woman with an “unwanted” pregnancy.
Today, the committed counselor in such agencies has either had an abortion herself or she has a close friend or relative who has had one. Her commitment to her belief that abortion is a perfectly acceptable “choice” is complete. She has fixed ideas and it not open to advising her client to look at legitimate alternatives.
Am I suggesting that all feminist-run shelters and centres should be closed immediately? No, I am not. I think we should give praise where praise is due. The feminist groups are the ones responsible for raising the public’s awareness of the problems of raped and battered women, and they’re the ones primarily responsible for starting the centres. I think, though, that we have a legitimate concern over how such centres are organized and operated.
Feminist funds only
Rape crisis centres and battered women’s shelters receive funding from all levels of government – from the municipal level up. When public funds are involved, centres should be free from ideological biases and community boards should be set up to govern them. If feminist-run centres are to continue, then they should be funded privately by those in the community who share feminist objectives.
Churches and community organizations must be lobbied and encouraged to take part in solving the problem. Yes, it is yet another item to add to the growing list of pro-life concerns. Sadly it’s not a problem we can ignore.
