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Doctors, social workers and psychiatrists have frequently been even less helpful than the police. Evan Stark, research associate at Yale's Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and his wife, Dr. Anne Flitcraft, in a study of family violence, concluded that the medical profession and social agencies "are an essential part of the battered syndrome." Says Stark: "They treat the women like they are crazy." Doctors fail to note signs of abuse, label battered women psychotic or hypochondriacal, prescribe tranquilizers and tell them to go home, and "make a woman doubt her own sanity" by sending her to a family therapist.
The first shelter for battered women opened in a private home in Pasadena, Calif., in 1964. There are now approximately 800 in the country. All of them have waiting lists, and the demand is staggering. The Y.W.C.A. alone has 210 shelter or service programs such as hot lines, safe-home networks and counseling programs in 30 states. From 1978 through 1980, the Y.W.C.A. sheltered 46,100 women and children and gave counseling to 50,000 women. But they estimate they cannot accommodate 80% of those who need assistance. In a new and ironic effort to provide more services, at least 14 states earmark funds for domestic-violence programs by imposing a surcharge on marriage licenses.
MOTHER IS A GOOD PERSON. MOTHER IS A HAPPY PERSON. MOTHER IS A NICE PERSON. MOTHER IS VERY, VERY PRETTY. Those kind words were painted on a poster by a child whose mother had found refuge at Crescent House, the first battered-women's shelter in New Orleans. Crescent House serves more than 500 clients a year, housing 25 women and children at a time. Like all such shelters, it is initially a place for battered women to hide. It also offers help in deciphering the demoralizing puzzle of welfare offices and court procedures, and in aiding victims to imagine an alternative future. Almost as important, a shelter is a place where a woman will be believed and listened to. In 13% of wife-abuse cases, children have also been assaulted, and shelters provide a refuge for them, too. In keeping with their efforts to break the cycle of violence, almost all shelters have firm rules against spanking.
What kind of man would hit a woman? Not only hit her, but blacken her eyes, break the bones in her face, beat her breasts, kick her abdomen and menace her with a gun? There is a very good chance that he was beaten as a child. Perhaps because of his early trauma, he is often emotionally stunted. Michael Groetsch, director of probation for the New Orleans Municipal Court, sees scores of accused wife abusers every week. "There is a very interesting analogy between a male batterer and a two-or three-year-old child," Groetsch says. "His tantrums are very similar to those of a two-year-old. Like a narcissistic child, the batterer bites when he's throwing a tantrum. I have seen many women come in with teeth marks all over their arms and legs."
The wife beater probably drinks, although, as Groetsch points out, "he drinks to beat, he doesn't beat because he drinks." Unemployment does not cause battering, but hard times make it worse. In Youngstown, Ohio, for example, where the unemployment rate in 1982 reached 21%, domestic violence increased a staggering 404% over 1979.