La La Land

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Whatever happened to Joseph all those months ago in California, it wasn't domestic violence.

His wife had tried to explain it to him. She had told him it wasn't her fault from the start. She was just trying to get him to listen. Truth to tell, he had made her do it. “Something” had "gotten into" her: but she certainly wasn't to blame.

Today, Joseph has the consolation of knowing that his wife was right after all. Because in California, a man cannot be a victim of Domestic Violence, by definition.

California has just redefined the legal definition of Domestic Violence as, “...the infliction or threat of physical harm against...female intimate partners." The bill, which was proposed by Assembly Member Rebecca Cohn and passed this week without too much opposition by the Californian legislature, (AB 2051, for those who like to know details), defines victims of domestic violence as "battered women." And following on from this logic: - because domestic violence doesn’t happen to men (thank goodness!), any male who claims to have been beaten up by his intimate (female) partner is not entitled to any state-funded (domestic violence) services such as shelter, hotel arrangements, counselling or legal aid (and neither are his children).

But this leaves Joseph with a problem. He is (of course) relieved to learn that he has never been (and never will be) a victim of domestic violence. But what is he now to call those “incidents” that occurred during his marriage: those events that left him so traumatised? They certainly occurred at his Californian home: so technically something “domestic” happened. His bruises and scratches, bite marks, slap marks, and dislodged hair (none of which he wanted or asked for) all give testimony to the fact that some kind of "violence" also took place. But it couldn’t have been domestic violence, (at least, not against him, because he is a man). There was even blood from a knife-wound to his leg, but then again his wife assured him it wasn’t too serious.

So Joseph is still wondering what actually happened to him all those months ago, and how he could have acted differently. Should he have just taken his beatings “like a man” and not complained (and not attempted to leave the house to escape the violence)? Should he have fought back? Maybe (who knows) he should have been proud to be the recipient of the white-hot heat of a passionate woman’s love (if that’s what it was). Joseph has few answers.

But how much simpler everything would have been if he had just listened to his spouse from the beginning. There wouldn’t have been any need to sleep alone in the garage, or wander the streets in a distressed state in the small hours of the morning. What Joseph didn’t know at that time, however, (and what he knows now) was that he couldn’t possibly have been the victim of any kind of domestic violence. By definition (at least in California), a man cannot be a victim of domestic violence. The legislature of the richest and (supposedly) most enlightened community in the world has just said so (and enshrined it in law). And how can he argue with them?

Ryszard Antolak



Rebecca Cohn
(proposer of the Bill)