Mother Murdered while Children Were Present

A Boston tragedy shows us once again that the effects of domestic violence are not confined to adults. Police found Melissa Santiago, 29, laying face down on her kitchen floor on Sunday. She had been stabbed multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Hours later, Santiago's boyfriend, Jose Torres, 26, was arrested for her murder. Police said the murder seems to be "the result of domestic violence."

According to Santiago's neighbors, the children were all at home during the slaying. The police were called after the children ran outside saying that their mother had been killed. Neighbors report that Santiago's eldest child is five years old.

On a positive note, neighbors on scene were very vocal about the need for law enforcement to take domestic violence seriously. One woman stated:

They've got to crack down more on these people who are killing their spouses and stuff, because they're not doing enough for domestic violence, I think. Otherwise, you wouldn't be finding dead bodies like this.

This call for reform is supported by statistics from the Boston-based domestic violence organization Jane Doe Inc., who said the number of domestic violence related homicides have risen nearly 300 percent since 2005.

For more information the effect domestic violence has on children, click here.

Media Coverage and DV

From the publication that brought you Ike "Beats" Tina to Death, comes this charming and poignant piece, Miss-Leading: The truth about gal's serial fibbing.

Now, strictly speaking, this is not an article, it's a sub-par book review. However, The Post presents the findings in this book as factual news rather than the results of an extremely small and flawed study.

Deceit, thy name is woman. Most females lie "more cleverly and successfully than men" about everything from infidelity and facelifts to barhopping and shopping binges, according to a new book.

Susan Shapiro Barash, author of "Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Why Women Lie," claims to have done a study encompassing 500 women nationwide. However, The Post discloses that Barash obtained the subjects of her study through an ad on Craigslist where she solicited women who wanted to confess fibs they had told in the past. She put out an ad asking for liars, and claims the fact that liars have lied is scientific proof that women lie more than men. In addition to the flawed method of gathering subjects, there was no male control group for comparison.

The mainstream media portrayal of women as inherently stupid, or inherently deceitful is not only offensive, it's dangerous. These stereotypes are often used by batterers in domestic violence situations to justify on-going abuse, or are used as a vehicle to deny to the public that abuse ever took place by making the victim look dishonest. This type of thinking leads to disclosures of violence not being taken seriously by friends, family, clergy, law enforcement, etc. If you're doubtful that these portrayals are in line with mainstream attitudes about women, just ask yourself how a piece this offensive and deeply flawed got through an editorial board, into a newspaper, and remained there with little public protest, or how a book based on this premise was deemed shelf-worthy.

Murder-Suicide Leaves 4-year-old Trapped

6News in Indiana reported yesterday that a four year-old girl in Elwood Indiana was trapped in her home after her stepfather killed her mother and then himself. According to the article, Robert Lamberson shot Kristina Lamberson on Sunday, just one day after Robert was arrested for violating the Protective Order Kristina held against him.

The girl, unable to leave the home because she couldn't undo the front door's lock, called her aunt for help. The aunt called 911, and officers broke into the home and found the dead couple, police said.

6News reported that Elwood Police Chief Jack Miller said it was hard knowing that the Lamberson's daughter was in the home at the time. Relatives tell 6News that the girl has talked repeatedly about her mother's death, and they are angry that Kristina was not told that Robert had been released from jail.

This tragic situation carries two important lessons. The first is that there needs to be a better system for keeping victims informed when someone who poses a known threat, like Robert Lamberson, is roaming free. The second comes from the statement of a family friend: "He liked to run his mouth a lot and I don't think anybody took him serious...." Domestic violence is a serious and often hidden problem. When someone "runs their mouth" about harming another human being, it should always be taken seriously.

Update: 6News has posted a follow up story under the headline Mom Defends Son Police Say Killed Wife, Himself. There are several problems with this new story, starting with the headline. The fact that this man murdered his wife is not contested and this headline waters down the blame. The second problem with the way this story is framed is the insinuation that, because Kristina had been in contact with Robert, she did not consider him a threat and was partially to blame for what happened. Many people in domestic violence situations are not sure of the proper conduct, particularly when there are children involved. It is important to remember that these relationships did not begin this way. These women simultaneously care about their abusers and are afraid of them. Either as a result of concern for their abuser's future or out of fear that engaging the legal system will enrage their abuser further, many women feel that it is better to deal with the situation on their own, rather than go through the legal system. This does not mean that they deserve to be shot or are to blame when violence takes place.

Should you rape a woman?

The Australian Football League is making an interactive DVD as part of their efforts to improve players' respect for women. Respect and responsibility program co-ordinator Melanie Heenan says it's purpose is to "prompt confident decision-making in situations that can be quite complex".

We are always thrilled when a professional athletics organization takes a step to deal with violence against women. However, we are disappointed that the type of training being implemented by the AFL is actually necessary. Melinda Tankard Reist says it best:

We have so failed in the very basics of civilised human interaction that the Australian Football League has been forced to hire a swag of actors and a film crew to make an interactive DVD to help players understand that perhaps it's not a good idea to pretend to be your best mate so you can have sex with his girlfriend.

As sarcastic is it sounds, Reist's chosen scenario is drawn from an actual draft question from the training DVD's script. Among the drafts released to the public are the complicated moral dilemmas of whether or not to trick a woman into having sex with you, take of advantage of a woman who is very intoxicated, or watch people have sex without their permission. In respect to these questions, blogger Melissa McEwan comments,

That these are considered complex ethical questions is just completely insane to me. It's like being asked: "You see your friend Todd walking down the street toward you. Do you: (a) say hello or (b) hit him in the head with a shovel?"

In her column, Ms. Reist goes on to say that it does not seem that the DVD will address the seriousness of sexual assault and that it is playing on negative stereotypes of women. She also believes that the actions of the AFL are a reflection of a larger culture of contempt for women as exemplified by an Australian made t-shirt that reads "It's not rape, it's surprise sex."

Growing Advocacy for Muslim Women

Via The New York Times. Domestic violence in Muslim culture in the Unites States has been a difficult problem to address due to a lack of understanding of the culture on the part of outsiders, or a hesitancy to interfere in what is considered traditional religious gender roles. Thankfully, organizations founded by Muslim American women are fostering a movement to publicly define domestic violence as an unacceptable cultural practice. While domestic violence occurs in the Muslim American community at the same rate as most other groups, approaching the topic has been difficult because it is seen by many involved in the faith as an attack.

“The Muslim community is under a lot of scrutiny, so they are reluctant to look within to face their problems because it will substantiate the arguments demonizing them,” said Rafia Zakaria, a political science graduate student at Indiana University who is starting a legal defense fund for Muslim women. “It puts Muslim women in a difficult position because if they acknowledge their rights, they are seen as being in some kind of collusion with all those who are attacking Muslim men. So the question is how to speak out without adding to the stereotype that Muslim men are barbaric, oppressive, terrible people.”

Ms. Zakaria, and other women like her, believe that the best way to refute Muslim stereotypes is to show the public that Muslim women are addressing the problem of domestic violence. And while many organizers have been expelled from mosques and other Muslim activities for attempting to discuss the problem of domestic violence, recent attempts to find allies within the church are gaining ground.

Apart from self-empowerment and fighting stereotypes, there are other important reasons for Muslim women to be pro-active in tackling domestic violence.

First, many Muslim women who have sought help for domestic violence report that cultural misunderstandings often hinder their recovery. Take this story from the New York Times of a young Yemeni-American woman who went to a local shelter after suffering for seven years at the hands of her husband.

The shelter brought in a hairdresser, whose services she accepted without any misgivings. But once her hair was styled, administrators urged her to throw off her veil, saying it symbolized the male oppression native to Islam that she wanted to escape.

While these women probably had good intentions, they failed to recognize that this woman was fleeing her abusive husband and not her religion. Someone with an understanding of the Muslim culture and religion would have been able to highlight the ways in which this woman could find support and strength within her beliefs rather than fostering the harmful misconception that leaving an abusive relationship means giving up or betraying Islam.

Another reason for Muslim American women to get involved in the movement is that those Muslim women who are sheltered and who may not speak English run a higher risk of being victimized due to the difficulty of accessing accurate information concerning domestic violence and a woman's legal rights. Consider the story of the same Yemeni-American woman's first efforts to escape her husband by reaching out to her family.

The clerics offered marriage counseling, but only if the husband came too, a condition she knew doomed the idea. Her sister suggested she lose weight and be more obedient. Her father encouraged obedience, too, while her husband hit her through three pregnancies. After she filed for divorce, she said, her father hauled her home and hit her too, for shaming him.

Hamdard Center for Health and Human Services in Chicago is an advocacy group for Muslim American women, and they have developed several interesting solutions to this problem. Hamdard briefs area grocery store owners and hairdressers that cater to Muslims, which has produced numerous referrals. It also organizes mosque seminars about breast cancer, then inserts a small segment about domestic violence.

It is important to reiterate that the Koran does not condone domestic violence. There is one Koran verse that is cited by some as support for abusive behavior, but mainstream clerics, such as Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, the outreach director for Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia, are currently lobbying to make the official interpretation of this verse that women must be obedient to God.