I am certainly glad there are shelters for battered women but what recourse is there for men that are in an abusive marriage? They just have to take it, don’t they?
No, there are resources available, just fewer of them. It looks like a lot of those shelters are not gender-specific.
Some of these have been mentioned by others, but I think collecting them isn’t a bad idea. Cities and Counties do not typically run shelters for battered women the way they run animal shelters because:
Battered women do not get loose from their yards, roam the neighborhood, form packs, and attack chickens, small children, and postal workers.
If a battered woman tries to flee, a control officer cannot lasso her with a loop of rope on the end of a metal rod.
Battered women can not be housed with 3 other women in a 10’ x 25’ fenced cage with a concrete floor that can be hosed off twice a day.
Control officers do not receive daily calls to pick up the bodies of battered women who have wandered into streets and been run over.
It is not legal to put a battered woman up for adoption ten days after pickup.
It is not legal to euthanize a battered woman who has been up for adoption for more that thirty days, or whose age, health, appearance, or habits make it unlikely that she will be adopted.
If a battered woman is taken into a shelter with her children, it is not legal to adopt the children out separately. It is also not legal to neuter the woman or her children.
Animal shelters do not provide councelling, emotional support, or job training. They do not encourage animals to become self supporting.
Animal shelters do attract donations and volunteer hours from animal lovers, but their primary purpose is public health. This is the same motive that attaches storm drains to streets. The local municipality is not kicking in tax dollars to aid animals, they’re doing it to protect the public from animals. Many provide a drop off bin for dead pets, also to protect public health.
Do we have a concensus on what a Women’s Shelter should provide? Is there a concensus on who qualifies for shelter? Because animal shelters are pretty standardized. If I donated to one, I’d have a pretty good idea of where the money was going and what the benefit would be. I have no idea how to guess what would make a women’s shelter successful, let alone any way to know if any given shelter is providing those things.
I think another aspect to the disparity in resources is visibility. By which I mean, people are more likely to donate money when they can see the results of their donations.
I know where my local ASPCA is. I drive past it frequently. I’ve been inside several times. And I know lots of dogs and cats that have come from that shelter, including my own. By contrast, to my knowledge, I’ve never seen a women’s shelter. I don’t know where any women’s shelters are located, and that knowledge is deliberately kept from me due to security concerns. I’ve certainly never been inside one. And, to my knowledge, I’ve never met a women who’s been in a shelter.
While I certainly believe that women’s shelters are vastly more important than animal shelters, if I had some extra money that I was looking to donate, the animal shelter is going to come to mind first, because I have way more direct experience with the shelter.
- Is our care for animals greater than our care for battered women
or
- Do we care for more animals than battered women
But funnier because of the juxtaposition of the ‘more’ and ‘for’ changing the meaning of the sentence so dramatically.
Well, I thought it was funny anyway.
Yup. Last I heard, somewhere between 2-5 million dogs and cats are euthanized in the US every year due to lack of space. The number of battered women who are euthanized each year is far smaller. I don’t think we’ve got an apples-to-apples comparison here.
This is a good point. You see ads asking you to donate to Animal Shelters, usually showing you animals in cages waiting to be adopted. You don’t see ads asking you to donate to women’s shelters.
I used to see ads for one particular women’s shelter all the time. I don’t see them anymore, ever. They have a website, though.
Agreed.
Now part of that is because, for obvious reasons, battered women’s shelters don’t want to advertise where they are lest angry boyfriends/husbands show up.
I don’t agree. I have yet to meet a fundraiser in *any *not-for-profit industry who didn’t think they could/should be raising more funds than they are. Comes with the territory. What I see in those articles are women’s shelter fundraisers saying they need more money. I’m 98.5% certain that if you asked the fundraisers in the area raising funds for animal shelters, they’d tell you they need more money. Everyone needs more money - if not to keep going, then to expand.
I ask because I’ve never had to call a second shelter when looking for a bed - there’s always room. But I’m in an urban area, so we’re blessed with a lot of shelters and a lot of beds. I’m sure there are other areas which are not so lucky.
We also have a lot of animal shelters, including many no-kill shelters (which I don’t support, for reasons beyond the scope of this thread.) But I have had shelters tell me they’re unable to take any more animals at this time.
This would indicate to me that, in my area, the answer is no, we care enough for battered women (if our rubric is number of beds available in shelters; frankly I think that’s a lousy rubric) and not enough for animals.
But I also think the answer will vary a lot by location and population.
How many women are euthanized each day because the women’s shelters are full? Can we get a cite?
“Very occasionally”???
Sorry, happens a lot more than people like you want to admit. And there are virtually no support resources for those men.
Why? Because people like you who claim it doesn’t exist or that it happens too infrequently to care.
Just scanned quickly so forgive me if this has already been brought up:
Is it possible that there are more animal shelters than battered women shelters because battered women aren’t born in litters of 8 or 10?
Battered animals belong in the deep-fryer.
Where do buttered women belong?
Binders.