Why is this an issue, I don't get it? I agree comments are unnecessary about her personal life. I'd like to hear what she has to say. I do think Travis was more of a candidate for DV than Jodie was. She kept him on a short lease by way of sex. You can see he liked what they were doing and was very unlikely to turn her away if she showed up at the door.
Can she diagnose Jodi? And again all the information will be coming from Jodi unless ALV spoke with the Travis' family and friends.
One thing I did pick up on was ALV mentioned her children twice in reference to her having to work and JM had to object. If she has the experience she claims to have testifying in court she knew not to mention them a second time but did it anyway. That leads me to believe it was deliberate and not a mere accident on her part or slipup. jmo
bbm - I didn't know it was an issue - I was just responding to commspecialist's post hoping that homophobia wouldn't rear it's ugly head here...
Oddly enough, I saw the comment right after ALV mentioned expanding the program to include same-sex couples - so that's what I thought it was about.
I didn't (until reading more) realize this was about ALV herself - and her sexuality never occurred to me, just as it hasn't for any other witness...
I will say that I am pretty sensitive about anti-gay sentiment. My dad was gay (he tried to fight it - was married, never divorced had girlfriends all through college before marriage, had children - thanks, Dad!... a long life of pretending, loving my mum but... and I helped him through and watched him slowly and horribly be destroyed by AIDS. I do not tolerate bashing whatsoever - EVER.
I do understand simple well-meaning curiosity, and that usually either gets answered fairly quickly or gets irrelevant even quicker.
At least we as a society seem to be headed to a time when this aspect of a person will be as significant as their eye color and I hope that comes sooner rather than later.
Per ALV, I appreciate her work with abuse victims and abusers, too. I can respect that and still have a big cloud of skepticism about how honest she will be regarding THIS case because it doesn't fall within statistical norms... and general attributes/behaviours of male batterers (with exceptions, of course) are not the same as those in female batterers (with exceptions, of course).
I think the DT chose ALV specifically because of her focus on female victims (which is not, in itself a *bad* thing - it just seems misplaced in this instance. Which is what the DT wants because they absoLUTEly do not want to acknowledge any abusive behaviour perpetrated BY JA on Travis... so they get a very well-established expert that deals primarily/specifically with female victims. It's obvious and transparent).
I found it interesting that ALV mentioned expanding the program to include same-sex couples, but no mention of male victims of female batterers.
I don't think it's as rare as one might assume... but a male victim is probably even LESS likely to seek help or be believed, and a female abuser may be far harder to recognize - or believed.
Who cares about ALVs personal life??? Not me! Unless she has an awesome dog - I'd be interested to know that.
As far as how much she is getting paid - my guess is a good deal more than Samuels. But that's all it is my guess.
Good post LambChop. Thank you.