May 3, 2004: Headlines: COS - Brazil: Women's Issues: Battered Women: Milwaukee Freeman Newspapers: As the Vietnam War was winding down and Watergate was cranking up, Claudette McShane and her husband Patrick McShane joined the Peace Corps in 1970, and flew off to contribute their talents and youthful enthusiasm in Brazil.

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Brazil: Peace Corps Brazil: The Peace Corps in Brazil: May 3, 2004: Headlines: COS - Brazil: Women's Issues: Battered Women: Milwaukee Freeman Newspapers: As the Vietnam War was winding down and Watergate was cranking up, Claudette McShane and her husband Patrick McShane joined the Peace Corps in 1970, and flew off to contribute their talents and youthful enthusiasm in Brazil.

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-44-226.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.44.226) on Thursday, May 06, 2004 - 4:55 pm: Edit Post

As the Vietnam War was winding down and Watergate was cranking up, Claudette McShane and her husband Patrick McShane joined the Peace Corps in 1970, and flew off to contribute their talents and youthful enthusiasm in Brazil.

As the Vietnam War was winding down and Watergate was cranking up, Claudette McShane and her husband Patrick McShane joined the Peace Corps in 1970, and flew off to contribute their talents and youthful enthusiasm in Brazil.

As the Vietnam War was winding down and Watergate was cranking up, Claudette McShane and her husband Patrick McShane joined the Peace Corps in 1970, and flew off to contribute their talents and youthful enthusiasm in Brazil.

Eternal optimist
By JUDITH STEININGER

May 3, 2004

Claudette McShane started Sojourner Truth House with several women during the 1970s when nothing was done to protect battered women.

From her sunny southwest corner office at Carroll College in Waukesha, Claudette McShane, Ph.D., is multitasking for the good of humanity. Her director titles include Office of Grant Development, International and Off-Campus Programs, and Hispanic Health and Human Service Minor. You might say all three started with the Peace Corps.

As the Vietnam War was winding down and Watergate was cranking up, McShane and her husband Patrick joined the Peace Corps in 1970, and flew off to contribute their talents and youthful enthusiasm in Brazil.

Eager to use her social work degree from UW-Milwaukee, she met with the mayor of her small town, church officials and anyone who would listen to no avail. What finally worked was the intervention of a Brazilian woman who could explain the value of McShane’s work and open doors for her. Lesson learned - partnering is powerful.

There was no stopping her once she got her foot in the door. Although the door was on a crowded bus that daily jounced over dirt roads taking her back and forth from their small town to the larger city of Sorocaba. "When we got back to the States, I said my bus days are over. I drive a car." The McShanes re-enlisted for another year after the usual two years of Peace Corps duty and she continued her work at special needs schools and two pre-schools, which cared for students ranging from small children to adults.

After the Peace Corps tour, the young couple stayed on two more years independently, working until 1975. She became the first social worker at Hospital Psiciatrica, also in Sorocaba, helping patients find relatives and determining whether or not they indeed required psychiatric care.

Back in Waukesha, McShane returned to the university earning a master’s in social work at UWM and experiencing motherhood as her two sons, Mark and Ryan, were born. The most important lessons McShane learned from the Peace Corps experience was never take no for an answer. If McShane believes in the cause, saying no to her is like waving a red flag at a bull. One cause still has her in its grip, years after it became the subject matter of her Ph.D. thesis. It’s not a pretty one; it has to do with battered women.

"As late as the 1970s, no one even discussed battering except in jokes about men roughing up their wives. Ralph Cramden threatening to send Alice to the moon isn’t very funny when you think about it. My involvement began when a group of friends and I started a hotline in the Waukesha area. We took phone calls in our homes, oftentimes at two o’clock in the morning. You wouldn’t believe the things we listened to. Times have changed. Then there were absolutely no laws about battering and no place for women to escape to."

Something had to be done. McShane and an intrepid band of women decided to create a shelter, the first in the state. That shelter has become one of the best and most recognized of its kind: Sojourner Truth House; McShane became its first executive director. "You can’t imagine how we were treated in the process. We were literally laughed at. They said ‘you’re making that stuff up.’ We would not give in so governmental bodies decided the easiest way to get rid of us was to say go ahead, but then imposed tremendous contingencies including zoning and insurance costs. We did it anyway."

McShane served as executive director from 1978 to 1984, and remains an ethics consultant to the organization. In her ideal world where wrongs can be righted, society would evolve to

a place where shelters were no longer needed. As she puts it, "At least now nobody can say they’ve never heard about this or didn’t know any better or didn’t know it was wrong. Consciousness has been raised." Therefore, another part of her life has been to work toward prevention not treatment of symptoms. Ahead of her time, she wrote the book "Warning! Dating may be Hazardous to your Health!" published by Mother Courage Press in 1988. "Now, date rape is commonly recognized and, unfortunately, we know it is still too common." By 1994, she had earned a Ph.D. in Social Welfare from Case Western Reserve University.

She has also been active in the group Batterers Anonymous, which seeks to help men understand themselves and then stop battering their wives.

When she’s not out slaying dragons, McShane writes, reviews and administers grants for Carroll College. Knowing first hand the lifelong impact of living and working in another country, she also oversees the college’s exchange programs and other academic year abroad studies. She created and monitors the Hispanic Health and Human Service Minor because she realized the correlation of Hispanic immigrants’ health to social services delivery.

How does she persevere? She could think about the numerous honors and grants awarded like the Teaching Excellence one or the Soroptimist International Women Helping Women Award, but she’s on to the next challenge. "Lucky for me, I’m an eternal optimist and I have courage in abundance."




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Story Source: Milwaukee Freeman Newspapers

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Brazil; Women's Issues; Battered Women

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By Eric Scott (cpe-69-23-198-171.wi.rr.com - 69.23.198.171) on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 5:37 pm: Edit Post

That is just so wonderful


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