A heroine emerges in the fight against domestic violence

Along with millions of other readers, I have been entranced by the novels of Stieg Larsson. He is the Swedish author who wrote the three novels starting with “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.� Larsson tragically died right after he delivered the manuscripts. He was 50 years old.

The novels took off like wildfire and have been best sellers in Europe, Asia and the United States. First of all the plots are complicated, brilliant and heart-stopping. But the heart of the novels is the heroine. Lisbeth Salander is four feet ten and weighs 90 pounds and can beat up any man or group of men who threaten her.

As a child she sees her mother beaten senseless by her brutal father. Placed in a psychiatric facility at the age of 12, she is repeatedly raped and tortured by her psychiatrist and guardian. She is also brilliant, has a photographic memory and is a computer genius who can hack into any computer in the world.

Those of us who think of Sweden at all will think of a flourishing social democracy tinged by memories of Ingmar Bergman’s dense incomprehensible films. Here we learn that 46-percent of women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man. Thirteen-percent of women in Sweden have been subjected to aggravated sexual assault; 92-percent of these women have not reported it to the police.

In the early years of women’s liberation in the United States, the emphasis was on legal issues: why couldn’t a married woman get a credit card in her own name? Why didi a married woman need her husband’s signature for a car loan or a mortgage? Then in the early 70’s, Susan Brownmiller wrote “Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape.� This was the first definitive study of rape. Until then rape had been almost a joke- “she was asking for it� or “why was she out so late dressed like that.� Brownmiller pointed out that most rapes occurred in or near the home, the victims often knew their attackers who could be friends or relatives; women rarely reported it; the age of the victims varied from six years old to eighty-eight years old.

At about the same time Ms. magazine reviewed a book by Erin Pizzey who had just opened the first refuge for battered women in London. A group of us in Boston became interested in raising consciousness about the issue. Everyone had heard of battered children, but battered women?

By 1976 it became clear we needed a shelter and, after holding a huge rally at Boston’s City Hall (when Marge Piercy read her poignant poem “For Refuge and Beyond�), we were able to open a house in the fall of 1976. The house filled almost immediately. One of our first clients was the wife of a neurosurgeon who, every time she threatened to leave him, said he would kill himself if she left. She finally said “Do it� and left.

That was almost 40 years ago. A lot has changed since then. There are refuges all over the country (although they are still unpublicized and underfunded). There are refuges in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Africa and Asia. the Hartford Courant over the last year has done a superb series of articles about what we now call “domestic violence.� The Courant reports that at this time of year there have been over 2,000 reports of violence or threatened violence. Restraining orders are often a joke or ignored.

Across the country and in Connecticut women are still being killed. So despite the real increase in services for women, the incidence of violent crimes against women has not changed in those 40 years. We are horrified by reports of rape in Africa. We forget there is a reported rape every 10 minutes in this country. Just in the last two years it was reported that thousands of rape evidence kits had remained unopened in police departments all over the country.

So how do the Larsson novels reflect on all this? He describes all kinds of violence against women: the trafficking of 13- to 20-year-old girls to brothels in western Europe and what happens to them when they are not compliant; the daily battering of women; the corruption endemic in the very institution created to protect girls and women. Lisbeth Salander is a female superhero. She is not perfect but is fiercely committed to protecting women; her moral compass is precise and assured. Reading about her must match the thrill boys had in reading Superman comics. She’s stronger and smarter than her male opponents. She allows a male ally, but she keeps him at a distance. For readers she presents a warm sense of women fighting off their oppressors with style and grace.

Lisbeth Salander has declared war on men who hate women.

Gabrielle Bernard is a resident of Winchester.