Anchorage is suffering a crisis of domestic abuse.

For about six months now, the number of women fleeing abusive boyfriends and husbands has been swelling Anchorage's only shelter for battered women beyond its capacity.

Since the problem surfaced months ago, the overcrowding is still overwhelming staff at the Abused Women's Aid in Crisis, or AWAIC, shelter.

Shelter workers don't have an answer on how to relieve the problem and are looking to others in Anchorage for answers. But with no solution in sight, the crisis is deepening.

On Sunday, the shelter was 65 percent over capacity, with beds for 52 people but 86 sleeping there. The fire marshal has told staff they can't go past 90. Seven women and their children seeking refuge from abusers were on the waiting list.

Not since it began tracking in 1978 has the downtown shelter seen such high numbers, said executive director Judy Cordell. The numbers have remained steadily high since January, she said.

No one knows for sure why so many women are showing up asking for help. They come with broken bones. They come with infants in their bruised arms. Some come to the shelter before they go to the hospital -- because their abuser can't follow them past the building's rigid security of double locked doors and razor-wire fence.

Violence against women in Alaska is an old and sad fact of life in the last frontier.

We have more rapes per capita than any other place in the United States. Our domestic violence statistics are through the roof, and alcoholism is rampant. Is it any wonder that for most of my life up here the men have outnumbered the women almost two to one?

I have been in a position of working with young males for much of my life, and I make damn sure that the idea of bigger hurting smaller, or male hurting female, is something that they would consider repugnant.

Being a man means protecting those who cannot protect themselves, not causing them harm.

Being a man means controlling your emotions and not inflicting your anger on those who you love.

Being a man means refusing to use substances that make you a danger to yourself and to others.

I have been in more than my share of bad relationships, but never once has my partner ever felt afraid of me. Not once has she worried that I might lose control and lash out. And if that had ever been the case I would have been devastated.

In my opinion before these women EVER consider returning to the men who sent them fleeing into the night, they should insist that they attend anger management courses and couple therapy. Especially if they have children involved.

Young boys who witness their mothers being abused become abuseres themselves, and the young girls in these situations often seek out abusers of their own. It is an endless cycle that can be stopped by early intervention and a desire to change your circumstance.

This current crisis may soon ease, but the underlying problem will last until men stop using aggression to demonstate their masculinity and instead learn to treat their mates as equals deserving of respect and not just a piece of property to do with as they please.