Domestic Violence for Beginners, Alisa del Tufo, Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc, 1995
One would think that domestic violence is not appropriate for what is almost a comic book, but del Tufo does an incredible job with this book. With 15 years of experience helping battered women in New York City, she asserts that there is plenty of social and historical blame to go around. It ranges from a system that places the burden of proof, and the burden to fix the relationship, on the woman, to the theories of Sigmund Freud which say that women have an innate need to be controlled and dominated to religion's desire to keep the family together, sometimes at all costs (to anyone with access to a Bible, read the Book of Judges Chapter 19).
Did you know that the term "rule of thumb" comes from original English law and said that it was legal for a man to beat his wife with a stick as long as that stick was no thicker than his thumb?
Ask a batterer and it's always her fault-she drove him to beat her.
To say that multiple copies of this book belong in every police station, church, therapist's office, synogague and Department of Family Services in America (and that's only for starters) may be the understatement of the year.
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