Straight Talk, Little Mercy in Class for Abusive Mates

At a batterers’ class in Van Nuys based on the feminist model, leader Joseph Tillman recently made frequent use of a large power-and-control poster, cutting his charges no slack. Early in the class, he turned his unforgiving gaze on a skinny 23-year-old who, like most clients at the Center for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, had been arrested for spouse abuse and was attending under court order at his own expense.

“How are you treating your new girlfriend?” Tillman asked.

“I don’t threaten to hit her,” the man answered sheepishly. “I let her go out.”

“ ‘I let her,’ ” Tillman mimicked. “I guess we’re gonna have to do the wheel. Read the isolation section, please.”

The man rolled his eyes as he stepped up before the poster and recited: “Isolation. Controlling what she does, who she sees and talks to, what she reads, where she goes. Limiting her outside involvement. Using jealousy to justify actions.”

Tillman: “Still do that?”

Student: “Not no more.”

“What are you going to say if she says she’s going out?” asked another man in the group.

“Fine with me,” the first replied unconvincingly.

“It’s Saturday night and she’s dressed to kill and says she’s going out,” the other man said, challenging the first man as classmates are urged to do.

“Fine with me.”

“Who believes that?” Tillman asked.

The entire class burst into self-conscious laughter.