Liz - wheel ( was Re: I need some help (LONG)

[Guest guest]

Liz, I really like your wheel.

One thing I notice among AS folks is that generally we are an egalitarian lot

with a keen sense of justice and we notice unfairness and imbalance and I have

always felt that the guys get a bum rap when it comes to the issue of domestic

abuse. Well, the fact notwithstanding that both you and I have experienced

severe abuse at the hands of our male ex's. I have shared some of the story of

my alcoholic abusive ex who I fled when I was 21. But much of the abuse

perpetrated by the female family member goes unreported. It may be less

" spectacular " but can sometimes be even more damaging. It's not blatant, there

will be no naming the abuse and its victim won't be validated as they would if,

say, dad took to child with a belt. Not saying that's better, I'm saying all

kinds of abuse are bad, but some remain unacknowledged because heavens we don't

want to go against the bias that moms are always the better parent.

As a person who is in the age bracket that I would not get to ride the wave of

feminism or see all of its benefits (many activities and careers will still

barred to girls when I was young) nonetheless I was always bothered by some of

the more rigid credos of extreme feminism. I sometimes felt that some of them

wanted not to balance the scales but tip them the other way, in favour of the

female sex, for like another 4,000 years, LOL and that isn't right either. There

are those that still believe that if women ran the world we'd have less

violence, war, etc. I could devote a lot of bandwidth to debunking that notion.

It takes *everyone* (male & female, AS & NS, every race and culture) working

*together* to bring about peace and understanding. No one group is superior to

another. Well that's my mini-rant, all this to say, thanks for this revised

wheel Liz, I love it.

- Helen

> > For instance, I was in class a few weeks ago and we were discussing domestic

violence in families. The professor handed out the standard wheel. The reality

is there are many wheels for every culture. The core of violence is the same,

but it looks different in every culture. Meyer was the first to write

about domestic violence in the AS community. It never meant that AS adults are

violent, but it did mean they are not exempt for all the same reason any other

human being goes down this road and this is what it looks like in our community.

>

> I don't have anything much to add to this paragraph except a big Been There,

Done That. I have far more anecdotes about AS abuse and anger from the 20 years

I lived with my angry AS ex.

>

> I learned about the wheel when I was researching my own abuse. [i thought it

couldn't be abuse because he never touched me in anger and never screamed direct

insults at me. I was wrong.] The original wheel is a product of fairly radical

feminists, and intentionally biased against men.

>

> I developed my own wheel, that fit my experiences better. It focuses on abuse

during the divorce process, but can apply to any relationship.

>

http://polymathsolution.com/blog/2012/03/14/power-and-control-wheel-for-divorce/

> My ex didn't do everything in my wheel, but he did enough.

>

> [Feel free to share the wheel. If you do, add a comment on the blog telling

how you are sharing.]

>

> --Liz

>