Men's code of silence is infinitely harder to break. My own husband is a formerly battered husband. His ex-wife hit him in front of his own parents for everything from eating out of the ice cream carton to not doing the dishes when she told him too. And she was emotionally far more abusive. Yet even today, he believes the marriage ended because of things he did.

-- Madeline Vann

C. Mann really has been knocked senseless if she's going to spend time and energy crafting her writing style, congratulating herself for being among "those who endure" and analyzing her situation rather than acting to change it. Does she honestly think her children aren't going to be affected by the violence and hostility she's allowing them to be exposed to? Does she really believe that sitting down and writing an essay is a reasonable response to her husband hitting her?

Some will say I'm blaming the victim. But after the first episode of domestic violence, you're not a victim, you're a volunteer. Mann is educated, is employed and has resources. Instead of examining under a microscope the exact sequence of events that occur when her husband hits her, she ought to be examining why she puts up with this and why she lets her children grow up thinking it's OK for dad to hit mom. No, I'm wrong. She should be getting the hell out, and then she can have leisure to look at the reasons she stayed. But first, get out.

This essay sends a terrible message to people in a battering relationship: that it's somehow worthwhile to wax lyrical about it all, to polish your sentences just so. It would have been a lot better for Mann and her kids if she'd put down the keyboard and picked up her keys.

-- Stephanie Dobler

Jesus H. Christ. That is the most intense, realistic and harsh piece of literature I have ever read. It was really, really -- I hesitate to say good, but I just wanted to commend Mann on her article.

-- Ariel Amundsen

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