Letters to the Editor April 2019

Responsibility for taking gender out belongs to men

Dear Editor:

I’m writing this letter in response to one published in the February Messenger.

Mr. Mark Brandt wrote, in response to your article “It should never have happened,“ to suggest a “slight rewrite” to a sentence on page 2, column 3: “Like many men, he didn’t really start showing his abusive side until...”.

Mr. Brandt suggested “Like many eventual abusers...”, claiming that “would take the gender out of it,” as he felt the sentence you wrote “was a little unfair to my gender.”

I suggest the responsibility for taking the gender out of domestic violence belongs to the 71% of abusers who are men. They are the only ones who can do this, by stopping their abuse of women, children, and other men.

There are, of course, two genders involved. The gender of the victims is mostly female, except for half of the children.

Reading about domestic violence often elicits automatic reactions from women (“If my partner ever raised a hand to me, I’d be out of there immediately.”) and men (“But what about women who abuse men?”).

Please, before shutting off what you’re reading with an automatic response, listen to the end of the story. Then look for more information about domestic violence. These excellent articles include a lot of information. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is another good resource.

Helen Hunter

St Paul

Thanks for sharing story on overlooked dark side

Dear Editor:

I wanted to thank you and Leigh Ann Block for her bravely coming forward to share her story about her daughter Mikayla Olson Tester.

It is such a sad story and of course Leigh had to relive it all over again. How brave of her!!

Thank you, Tesha, for reporting carefully and eloquently an often overlooked dark side of our society.

Corinne S. Rockstad