Welcome!!! This site is geared to help you share your experiences, painful as they maybe, about date and domestic violence. Your posts are totally anonymous. For those who have successfully overcome this, please share your approach as sometimes as easy as the decision to let go seems, the underlying circumstance of the abuse makes it hard. Date and domestic violence crosses all racial, economic and social line, and most of the victims are young women with a bright future ahead. I can definitely relate to everyone as I used to be a victim. Perhaps the thought in people's head is how can you sit there and take the abuse, but there's much more to it. There's that part of you that wants to leave and there's that part that's scared to leave because of the consequences. The good thing is I woke up from what I call abuse slumber, and I am now a better person. I don't let my past dictate my future nor affect my relationship with friends and loved ones. I'll be sharing my story as well as posting links to various sites with useful information. Please feel free to post any helpful sites too. Should you want to post pictures, please email them to dadvva@gmail.com
Blogspot doesn't have the functionality to allow reviewers to post pictures on their comments. I hope to be able to provide this feature soon be it through a new website or a new version of Blogspot.
Happy reading and posting!!!!
Recent PostsVentura County, California:Domestic violence victim Claudia Valenciana, a former Ventura County, CA Sheriff’s deputy fights to get her job back after being terminated for being a victim of domestic violence. Terminating domestic violence victim Cla...
We have all seen it on TV, in the newspaper; heard it on radio and even heard it being talked about amongst our friends yet we see people make uninformed judgment about DV.The good thing about the media coverage of this case is that it brings domesti...
Message from Alexis Moore to you. Together we can make a differenceWomen’s Legal Resource Foundation which I am a board of director of is sending out a press release in outrage of the domestic violence murder suicide what took place in El Dorado H...
For Immediate Release: March 5, 2009Contact: Brian Namey, 202-543-5566 ext. 124 National Advocates Urge Congress to Reauthorize,Fully Fund Critical Domestic Violence Funding SourceRep. Donna Edwards Honored for her LeadershipWashington, D.C. – Th...
National Network to End Domestic Violence PraisesLandmark Supreme Court DecisionWashington, D.C. – Advocates against domestic violence today applauded the U.S. Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision to uphold the federal Lautenberg Amendment that bans conv...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:Contact: Ryan Lambert, PresidentNew Look Laser Tattoo Removal1770 St. James Place Suite 105Houston TX 77056Houston Clinic: 713.783.2000Ryan’s Cell: 713.292.6836Info@NewLookHouston.comhttp://www.NewLookHouston.com/Tattoo_Rem...
This blog is currently rated a 4.50 out of a possible 5 based on 4 comments.
DADVVAThank you Javetta! Your case is similar in certain scenarios to what most victims have experienced. I am sorry to hear of your circumstance but together we can all help put an end to this. I'll be reposting your comment on the site so that other readers can read and probably help you as DADVVA has a vast audience in different professions. Keep your head up and never give up.
DVMartinEsqThank you for the comments regarding my case, Martin v. Howard Univ. and Alice Gresham Bullock, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-204. I wanted to update your readers on its status and also, to fill them in on some of the details of the case. On December 12, 2008, I filed a Rule 44 Petition for Rehearing in the Supreme Court, asking the Court to reconsider my case. The National Organization for Women (NOW) and the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL), joined by other women's advocacy and anti-violence groups, filed an Amicus Curiae (friend of the Court) Brief supporting my original Petition, but the Court denied the Amici�s motion to late file it, so their arguments were not considered. I have petitioned the Court to consider their arguments and also to reconsider, in light of its pending review of Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, another case similarly alleging sexual harassment and retaliation for reporting sexual harassment. See http://www.dvmartinlaw.com/MartinvHowardU.html.
As a law professor at Howard University, I was stalked by a delusional, homeless, serial stalker of African-American female professors, Leonard Harrison. The stalker was searching for the physical embodiment of his "fantasy," or ideal "wife" --modeled after a fictional female character, Geneva Crenshaw, in a book, And We are not Saved, written by the renowned Professor Derrick Bell. Instead of following its own security procedures to ban the stalker from campus, Howard responded to my requests for protection by refusing to renew my teaching contract. I sued Howard for sexual harassment/hostile work environment and retaliation for reporting sexual harassment, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex/gender, as well as race, color, ethnic origin and religion. Martin v. Howard University is the first to present the issue of "gender profiling" or "working while female" in the employment context. The lower courts held that I had no legal recourse against Howard University for failing to take reasonable steps to end the workplace stalking or for refusing to renew my teaching contract after I asked the Law School administration to use the University�s own Campus Security procedures to protect me � as well as other women -- from a serial campus stalker.
I filed my case under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits harassment that is �sexual in nature� or based on gender. I argued that: 1) since 78% of stalking victims are women, stalking constitutes harassment on the basis of gender; 2) when the stalker uses �gender specific� language and criteria to select his victim, the stalking is harassment based on gender; and 3) where a stalker pursues a woman to make her his �wife,� the harassment is stalking �sexual in nature.� I am asking the Court to apply Title VII to protect women from workplace stalking and from employer retaliation for reporting stalking. Women who are doing nothing more than �working while female� should not have to choose between their jobs and their safety.
In 1999, I set precedent in federal district court, for the D.C. Circuit, in Martin by adopting the EEOC Regulation 29 CFR 1604.11(e), holding that an employer can be held liable for the sexual harassment of an employee, by a non-employee, if the employer knew or should have known of the harassment and failed to take reasonable steps to end it. Martin v. Howard University and Alice Gresham Bullock, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19516, 1999 WL 1295339, 81 FEP Cases 964 (BNA), 15 IER Cases 1587 (D.D.C. 1999). Judge Hogan identified the jury questions as: 1) whether Harrison�s harassment was severe and pervasive enough to constitute a hostile work environment; and 2) whether Howard took reasonable steps to end it. The jury agreed with me that Harrison�s harassment did create a �hostile work environment� for me and that Howard did not take reasonable steps to end it; yet the verdict was for Howard. With insufficient legal instruction from the judge, the confused jurors found that the harassment was not based on sex � and therefore, that my complaints were not �protected activity� under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Many people have asked me how the jury could possibly have concluded that a man who pursued me to be his �wife� did not pursue me based on my gender � after all, he would not have pursued me to be his �wife� � defined as a �married woman� � if I were a male professor at Howard. He also would not have �profiled� me as �Geneva Crenshaw� if I were male, since �Geneva� is a female character. So, this issue was supposed to be the threshold, �no-brainer� that Judge Hogan had already resolved, as a matter of law, based on the undisputed facts, in his 1999 decision. Judge Hogan did not allow us to question the jury after the trial, but I believe that the determining factor was that Howard repeatedly told the jury that my claim must be defeated because I entitled her memos to then Law School Dean Alice Gresham Bullock �Security Problem on Campus� rather than �Sexual Harassment.� The case law specifically holds that a plaintiff does not need to have used the words �sexual harassment� to invoke Title VII. (I actually did initially use that term, but, as I explained at trial, after the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department characterized Harrison as a �stalker,� that is the term that I used to describe him, since the word �stalking� is, by definition, repeated and serious harassment. I asked Judge Hogan to instruct the jury that it is not necessary to use the precise words �sexual harassment� to invoke Title VII protection, using his own words from his 999 decision, but he flatly refused to provide it. Numerous courts have recognized that stalking is one of the most egregious forms of sexual harassment. Judge Hogan also refused to provide the jury with the D.C. stalking statute, which defines �stalking� as repeated harassment. Without the proper legal framework for analyzing harassment based on sex, jurors were confused into accepting Howard University�s argument that the stalker�s harassment was not sexual in nature or based on sex and that my complaints did not constitute �protected activity.�
I believe that the Court should consider my case along with Crawford. Both Ms. Crawford and I lost their jobs shortly after reporting the harassment to our respective employers. Both of us deprived of the opportunity to prove that we lost their jobs due to retaliation for reporting the harassment. In both Crawford and Martin, the respective Circuit Courts held that we did not engage in �protected activity� because of how we reported the sexual harassment to our employers. The Supreme Court�s decision in Crawford would control the outcome of Martin. If Martin is considered as a companion case to Crawford, or supplements Crawford, the Supreme Court would provide lower courts with a more comprehensive definition of �protected activity,� whether the harasser is an employee or a non-employee in the workplace.
January is National Stalking Awareness Month -- so it is particularly appropriate that, on January 9, 2009, the Supreme Court will consider reviewing a workplace stalking case. Coincidentally, it is also during Stalking Awareness Month that Sky Radio will be broadcasting an interview with me about the case on American Airlines, from December 16, 2008 through January 31, 2009, as one of the women highlighted in its series entitled �Salute to Women in Leadership,� featured in Time Magazine. I am also currently featured as one of "American�s Premier Lawyers,� in �The Law Business Insider which includes another radio interview discussing the case.
In an interview with Barbara Walters, Paula Abdul directed public attention to the issue of workplace stalking, as a result of the recent suicide of a woman stalking her. Ms. Abdul alleged that her employer, American Idol, allowed a stalker on the show -- her workplace --for "entertainment value." A videotaped audition shows a contestant singing a song he had written about his desire to "stalk" Ms. Abdul. These incidents also highlight the fact that there is no federal statute that expressly protects stalking victims against employer retaliation for complaining about stalking -- or that obligates employers to take reasonable steps to keep known stalkers out of the workplace.
javettaI was married for 5 years to my exhusband, we got divorced in 2000. before I left him the 7th time which was the last time he tried to kill my children and I that was his children to by wanting and trying to through them over the bridge of water because he didn't want to pay child support.
We have since then been divorce for 8 years now and I have had to move several times to different states because he would find us through public records and follow us. I purchased a trailer home 8 months ago and he found out where we lived and broke in but I scared him away by saying that I have a gun.
Every night he has been back except a few times trying to get in. My friends have screwed the wiondows down and put pipes up against the doors. I have had an alarm system put uup but he stalks us when we are not inside our home and sometimes climbs on the trees in front of our house and climb like spider man on the window to get in.
My case was assigned to a detective but they can't catch him and he has left no residence to wear he lives at because he's scizoprenic and has 5 split personality disoreders I'm not taking any chances since this has been going on for 3 months now.
Because I operate a non-profit and am in school and my children have online classes its hard to move. I feel like I invested in my home for nothing, my children are tired of not being able to rest. When we lived in Cleveland for 6 years he would follow us over there since he couldn't get in our high rise.
Here we go again moving across to the other side of the united states from a fool that just want to harras people.Please try not to give up hope although your situation may seem hopeless.
Dating advice blog
psychologist treating trama and related disorders
Infinite Complacency explores the violence and abuse at the top of Scientology:…
Thank you for providing a place for people to talk about domestic violence.
I have recently noticed, that nearly all my female friends were once a victim. If I were not their close friends, they would never tell.
News from newspaper and websites also remind me of violence most of us chose to forget - because there are too many of them.
I happened to find out some "patterns" of violence committed by people from similar cultural background. I believe that is because people from the same ethnic groups were brought up the same way.
Therefore, I wrote some true stories about what had happened to some Asian women. The stories may cause discomfort. Please be aware. (They are not so violent. It's human's ugliness that may disturb you)
My blog:
http://asiandomesticviolence.blogspot.com/
Posted: August 13th, 2009 | More Reviews From nataliecho | Report This Comment