Last night I had a rather real encounter with domenstic violence. The woman living next door to my fiance has been having problems with an exboyfriend. He turns up under the influence of a number of substances and yels and threatens. Last night I heard someone trying to get in. All the lights were off in the house. He was yelling. She had asked that if we heard anything we would call the police. So we did and they arrived and she promptly lied to the police and said everything was faine. I guess that's what's called battered woman syndrome. We could have been entirely mistaken about what was going on but I don't think so.

It is so sad that this woman doesn't love herself enough and is so frightened that she feels powerless to change the situation. What can we do about men who treat women like this? How can we help boys to enjoy and respect women?

It is such a vicious cycle.