The official recruitment of cosmetologists as informants (and as intermediaries steering customers to approved “domestic-violence” programs) continues, with programs reported in Florida, Idaho, Oklahoma, Virginia, Ohio and Maine, as well as Nevada and Connecticut (see Mar. 16 and Mar. 29, 2000). It’s not just black eyes or lacerations that the salon employees are supposed to be on the lookout for, either. A customer’s protestation that “he would not like that”, as a reason to turn down a new hairstyle, might be a sign of “controlling behavior” that needs watching. (“Salons join effort to stop violence”, Bangor Daily News, Jun. 15) (via van Bakel).
5 Comments
This is rather disturbing. Who can you trust to go to when everyone is trained to snitch?
As long as it stays informational to the potential abusee and not the STATE, I see no problem with this.
It’s when they start telling the hairstylists to report everything to the police (or CPS or some other state agency) that the problems start.
It says a lot about the current state of the media that this truly freakish initiative gets such breathless, happy-faced, no-dissent reporting. Did whatever journalist penned this piece stop to wonder about its Orwellian implications? Couldn’t find anyone against it? Probe deeper on the whole issue of “domestic violence” (which is susceptible of liberal hate propaganda — I reference you to the “domestic violence rises sharply on Super Bowl Sunday” lie)? Even bother to somehow edge the story with a reflection on the weirdness of having your hair stylist tattle on your husband as a potential beater because he prefers a wedge to a bob?
Alas, no. Probably the (likely white male) journalist who might render such treatment can’t get a job in journalism to begin with. There’s a chance that such writing is an indication of, well, a controlling and violent personality.
Deoxy –
I suggest you’ve never had to worry that someone would report you to social services because your 6 year old daughter managed to break her leg one week then, running around like an idiot with her leg in a cast, manages to knock two of her teeth out.
I couldn’t count the number of times I heard my wife telling someone what had happened to our daughter, and then notice that they kept eyeing me as if they expected me to sprout fangs.
Michael Heinz,
On the contrary, having had a friend have his children TAKEN AWAY by psychotic CPS workers because of hearsay of hearsay (that is, someone overheard talking about something THEY had overheard from someone else) about an alleged event that would already have been beyond the statute of limitations anyway, and having a wife whose mother was reported to CPS when she (my wife) managed to leave a chain-link fence impression on her own face due to the stupidity of youth, AND having a friend who owns a daycare who can’t get a single child (who really is being sexually molested) even CHECKED by CPS (whom sh IS legally obligateed to report to…), I am QUITE aware of the unConstitutional nightmare and outright evil that is Child Protective [sic] Services as we know it today.
Best of intentions, you know.
If you’ll note in my post, I specifically excepted “telling the hairstylists to report everything to … [any] state agency”, as that would be problematic.