Douglas' Company Is Infamous to Fathers

December 2000

The company that David Douglas co-founded, Common Purpose, became famous last year when it, in effect, sent Harry Stewart, a minister, to jail for six months even though he had never done anything wrong.

A judge had ordered Stewart to attend the sessions that the organization conducts for men who have battered their wives or girlfriends even though Stewart had never been violent to his wife.

He was told by Common Purpose that he must sign a confession admitting that he had been physically violent. He refused to sign the document that was required by this private company and, as a result, he was sent to jail.

It is one of many such companies licensed by the Department of Public Health and funded by state dollars as well as fees from clients. It is a non-profit corporation that brings in $600,000 annually. Men in domestic violence disputes and in DSS "Service Plans" are frequently required to attend batterer intervention programs for at least 80 hours of classes.

Although Douglas is no longer reported to be involved with the company, it is unclear when he left.

One father in the program told Massachusetts News, "You have to say that you did [the violence]. If you were accused of it, then you did it, and it doesn't matter what the truth is."

This explains why the programs have been compared by the attendees to the "re-education camps" that were operated in Cambodia and China where the government attempted to control the minds of its citizens. The Fatherhood Coalition describes the programs as "Orwellian," a reference to George Orwell's 1984, where a man is forced to declare that two-plus-two is not four by an overpowering government body.

The batterer intervention programs are only for men, even though the U.S. Department of Justice reports that "similar proportions of men and women admit to engaging in violence against their partner."

Modeled from Feminist Theory
Programs, such as Common Purpose, were started in the 1970's and are based on a feminist model. They claim that our society places value on male control and power and that this power structure makes them batterers. Proponents of this theory contend that batterers are usually not violent in other relationships in their lives, but they are violent with women with whom they are expected to share power - their wives.

In order to stop the domestic violence, the men must be re-educated away from their current understanding of men, women and power. Further, since this patriarchal understanding is ingrained into the minds of men, then any man is guilty and could confess to being a part of the patriarch. The program's insistence on confession, even from the non-violent, comes directly from the theories upon which the program is built.

The feminist model employed by Common Purpose is "The Duluth Curriculum," which has not been shown to be an effective curriculum for making violent men less violent. Nor has it been shown to be an accurate portrait of why men abuse women, even if it could be proven that they are more guilty of abuse than are women. More and more information suggests that a portion of men who are batterers are violent in their other relationships, not simply with women, suggesting that the feminist model may not address the real reason that some men commit domestic violence.

In the domestic violence industry, there are a number of competing theories about the roots of violence. Some suggest that the violence is a function of family dysfunction; others suggest that the violence stems from the batterer's psychological problems. Currently it is the feminist model that dominates, which may explain why any man, regardless of his history, may be considered violent and asked to confess.

In the feminist model, the violence of men towards women is a part of our culture, even though the evidence is pointing to the fact that women are, in fact, more violent. The confession is relevant for any man, because all men are a part of the system of hierarchical relationships between men and women, the very existence of which constitutes abuse towards women, in their view.