GENDER ISSUES FROM A MALE PERSPECTIVE

LIST OF FEMALE SEXUAL PERVERTS

2006-01-23T19:54:00.000-05:00

List begins after pervert Sherry Brians story.

SEXTRA CREDIT
Woman having sex with little boys

A California woman is the latest teacher suspected of raping a student, as 41-year old Sherry Brians is in custody for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 12-year old boy.

Brians, a third-year language-arts instructor at Buttonwillow School in Buttonwillow, Calif., was arrested yesterday and charged with committing a lewd or lascivious act with a child under the age of 14, a felony.

Kern County Sheriffs Sgt. Richard Wood said Brians, who is unmarried and had no previous disciplinary problems, was involved in "some type of romantic relationship" with the victim, and the alleged offense took place on school property.

Authorities began their probe just before Christmas when the boy's mother provided them a letter she found in her son's backpack. Wood said the note from Brians indicated there was a romantic relationship between the teacher and the boy.

"We're just in shock and disbelief," principal James Murphy told the Bakersfield Californian. "This is a heavy (situation) ... It's stunning. (The allegations) came out of the blue."

Murphy stressed the teacher was innocent until proven guilty, but added, "It's very important for our Board of Trustees and teachers that the public know that students are safe and in an orderly environment."

Some students at the middle school are coming to Brians' defense.

Local area residents are already blogging about the issue:

"No more slut teachers in public schools. If it we're my son, they'd be burying that 'woman.' First the apple in Eden. Now molesting innocents. Hang her." (Dallas)

"She was really the best teacher we had and might possibly ever have. When, not if, she is proven innocent, me and my friend will be the first ones to see her." (Alan Lopez, former student of Brians)

Brians was booked on a $100,000 bail, and is slated for a court appearance tomorrow morning at Kern County Superior Court.

She joins a long list of women who have been accused or convicted of having illegal sexual activity with children.

Among the most well-known is the case of Debra Lafave, a 26-year-old reading teacher in Florida accused of having sex with a 14-year-old boy in her classroom, car and at home. Her plea deal sparing her jail time and giving her just house arrest was thrown out last week and her trial is now slated for April 10.

Other cases collected by WND from news reports include:

Adrianne Hockett: Accused of having sex with a 16-year-old special-needs student in a Houston apartment she rented for the get-togethers. The boy has testified the pair would "have sex, drink beer and smoke weed."

Amber Jennings, 31: Initially charged with having sex with a 16-year-old, the counts against the Sturbridge, Mass., woman were reduced to a single charge of disseminating harmful materials to a minor. She reportedly admitted e-mailing naked photos of herself to a former student.

Amber Marshall, 23: Northwest Indiana woman allegedly had sexual contact, including intercourse, with several students, and turned herself into authorities, telling police she knew what she did was illegal.

Amira Sa'Si, 30: Clayton County, Ga., woman remarked she didn't think her relationship was inappropriate based on her Internet research, learning the Peach State's age of consent is 16.

Amy Gail Lilley, 36: Inverness, Fla., woman charged with an alleged relationship with a 15-year-old girl.

Angela Stellwag, 24: Delran, N.J., woman accused of having sex in her apartment with a 14-year-old boy she met in school.

Beth Raymond, 31: Private-school employee from Pownal, Maine, charged with risk of injury to a minor and second-degree sexual assault of a juvenile male.

Bethany Sherrill, 24: Daughter-in-law of school-board president is charged with molesting a middle school student when he was 14.

Carol Flannigan, 50: Boca Raton, Fla., music teacher reportedly slept with 11-year-old former student, and also had a simultaneous sexual relationship with the boy's father.

Celeste Emerick, 32: Police in Huber Heights, Ohio, say she hosted a party where students were shown porn.

Christina Gallagher, 26: Jersey City, N.J., woman ordered to pay more than $1,000 in fines, sentenced to a lifetime registration as a convicted sex offender and ordered to attend therapy for having sex with a 17-year-old student.

Deanna Bobo, 37: Arkansas teacher allegedly had sex twice with a 14-year-old boy in his own bed while his parents were not home.

Donna Carr Galloway, 33: Married mother of two found naked in a car with a 17-year-old student.

Elisa Kawasaki, 25: Officials say ex-biology teacher had sexual relations with a 16-year-old student on up to 20 different occasions.

Elizabeth Miklosovic, 36: Grand Rapids, Mich., woman pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting a 14-year-old female student she "married" in a pagan ritual.

Elizabeth Stow, 26: Woman from Fresno, Calif., area convicted of having sex with three of her students was sentenced to nine years, but the judge suspended that sentence and gave her one year, possibly on house arrest, as well as faces five years probation.

Ellen Garfield, 43: Former student says teacher took him into an empty classroom where she worked, partially disrobed, and coaxed him into having sex with her in 1998. Garfield was acquitted of all charges in September of this year.

Emily Morris, 28: Alabama woman faced a possible 20-year sentence, but received one year in jail for having consensual sex with a 15-year-old student.

Erica Rutters, 29: York, Pa., woman allegedly wrote erotic messages to a 17-year-old student and had sexual intercourse with him four times in her apartment.

Georgianne Harrell, 24: Sylvester, Ga., woman charged with performing oral sex on a 9-year-old boy, allowing students to gaze down her blouse and slashing her wrists with glass in front of her students. She pleaded not guilty.

Gwen Ann Cardozo, 33: Colorado woman charged with having sex with a 17-year-old male student.

Heather Ingram, 30: Mathematics, science and business teacher in British Columbia had sex with a 17-year-old student.

Janelle Marie Bird, 24: Accused of having a two-year affair with a 15-year-old student from East Hill Christian School, in Pensacola, Fla.

Jaymee Wallace, 28: Basketball coach in Tampa, Fla., charged with having an 18-month lesbian relationship with a student.

Joan Marie Sladky, 28: Redwood City, Calif., woman sentenced to six months in county jail for having sex with a 16-year-old student after pleading no contest to four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, oral copulation and penetration with a foreign object.

Katherine Tew, 30: Married English teacher from Greenville, N.C., arrested for having sex with a 17-year-old student.

Kathy White, 39: Charged with having sex with a 17-year-old student in Lumberton, Texas. Victim alleges: "She just started grabbing me and hormones were on and it just happened."

Kelly Lynn Dalecki, 28: Woman from St. Augustine, Fla., pleaded no contest to charges she had sex with a 13-year-old boy.

Kristen Margrif, 27: Michigan woman accused of having sex with a 16-year-old male student in her car or at his summer workplace.

Kristi Dance Oakes, 32: Former Tennessee high-school teacher allegedly had sex with a 16-year-old boy who was in her biology class the previous year.

Lakina Stutts, 40: School-bus driver admitted to cops she had sex with a 14-year-old student in her home and in a car outside the boy's home.

Laura-Anne Brownlee, 26: Former music mistress at a top private school in Belfast, N. Ireland, was sentenced on six charges of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old boy.

Laura Lynn Findlay, 30: Middle-school band teacher in Buena Vista Township, Mich., charged with having sex with at least 5 students, one as young as 14.

Margaret De Barraicua, 30: Sacramento, Calif., area woman arrested after police found her having sex with a 16-year-old male student in her car while the woman's toddler was strapped into a seat in the back.

Maria Saco, 28: Passaic, N.J., woman sentenced to a year in jail for an intimate relationship with a teen student who was 14 when they first met.

Mary Kay Letourneau, 34: Des Moines, Wash., woman did prison time after having an affair with a sixth-grade student, and had two children by him. The couple recently married.

Melissa Michelle Deel, 32: Bristol, Tenn., woman pleaded guilty to crossing the state line into Virginia to have oral sex with a 13-year-old male student.

Michelle Kush, 29: Ohio woman allegedly had sex with a 15-year-old boy several times during summer break.

Nicola Prentice, 22: British woman from Sheffield, England, given a 12-month suspended jail sentence after she seduced a 16-year-old student and began a 19-month affair.

Nicole Andrea Barnhart, 35: Colorado woman reportedly told police she loves the 16-year-old boy with whom she was having sex. She pled guilty to felony sexual assault on a child, resulting in a two-year prison sentence and a minimum of 10 years in a sex-offender probation program.

Nicole Pomerleau, 31: High-school English teacher in Charlotte, N.C., accused of having a sexual relationship with her 16-year-old student.

Pamela Smart, 22: Media-services director at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, N.Y., had convinced her 15-year-old lover to murder her husband. The Nicole Kidman film "To Die For" is based on her story.

Pamela Turner, 27: Former model and beauty-pageant contestant accused of having a three-month sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy.

Rachelle Vantucci, 32: Ex-substitute teacher in western New York admitted having sex with a 16-year-old boy.

Rebecca Boicelli, 33: Redwood City, Calif., woman gave birth to a baby last year and DNA test results gave prosecutors enough evidence to prove the father is Boicelli's former student, who was 16 at the time of conception.

Rhianna Ellis, 24: New York City teacher who allegedly had a 10-month affair with an 18-year-old, and allgedly gave birth to his baby.

Robin Gialanella, 26: Elementary teacher in Toms River, N.J., engaged in kissing, and inappropriate conduct and conversations with two sixth-grade boys, ages 11 and 12. She was sentenced to 364 days in jail.

Robin Winkis, 29: York, Pa., woman allegedly had sex with a 17-year-old boy after giving him alcohol.

Samantha Solomon, 29: Fired after school bosses learned she was having sex with a teenage boy. She denies the charges.

Sandra "Beth" Geisel, 42: Albany, N.Y., woman was fired from her job at an private all-boys school after police in found her in a parked car with a 17-year-old. She pleaded guilty to a single count of rape and was sentenced to six months in jail.

Shelley Allen, 35: East Texas teacher's aide accused of sexual assault and faces a possible 20 years behind bars.

Shelley White, 24: Geography teacher in Britain had been engaged to be married before she kissed a 15-year-old student on at least three occasions. She avoided jail, but received 12 months community service.

Stephanie Burleson: Volleyball coach and teacher at Floresville High School in Texas six years ago, pleaded guilty to all charges for molesting a 16-year-old female student. She was sentenced to 10 years probation, and required to register as a sex offender.

Susan Eble, 35: Former teacher's aide is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy.

Tara Lynn Crisp, 29: Police allege she had sex with a student at least three times beginning when he was 14.

Toni Lynn Woods, 37: The Braxton County, W.Va., woman confessed to having sexual intercourse with three juveniles a total of four times and oral sex with one of those juveniles and another juvenile a total of four times. She resigned.

Posted: January 5, 2006
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

MEN-BASHING ADVERTISEMENTS

2006-01-23T19:41:00.000-05:00

Men vs. misandry

You've seen him in TV commercials. He's the guy who can't open a pickle jar or
take care of his kids, the husband raised by wolves, the balding, portly fellow
who leaps for joy now that a pill has solved his impotence. He's the one
scalded by hot coffee and hit in the crotch with a bowling ball, though he
doesn't seem to mind.

In the powerful dominion of television advertising, this hapless, sloppy,
beer-drinking punch line is the modern American man.

And critics say he's getting more than his fair share of abuse.

"If anything like this was happening to blacks or women or Jews, it would be
considered a moral crime," says Warren Farrell, a California author and men's
rights advocate. "We're being flooded with advertising in which either a male
is being hit by a female, or the man is simply the jerk."

Farrell, author of the 1993 book "The Myth of Male Power," is one of a small
but growing number of men - and a few women - protesting what they consider
sexist, stereotypical and even mean-spirited ads. Male-bashing, they claim, is
the last politically safe perversion.

"At this point in time, if advertisers served up women the same way that guys
are treated, it would be world war," says Steve Feinberg, chief creative
officer at the Seiden Group, a New York ad agency. "Advertising has cycled its
way through that. Right up through the early 1980s, (the message to women) was
'Spend all day obsessing over whether you have the right toilet bowl cleaner,
because that's how you define yourself.' But you can't do that anymore."

Late last year, Richard Smaglick, 40, a New Hampshire engineer and father,
launched the Society for the Prevention of Misandry in the Media - misandry
being the seldom-heard counterpart to misogyny. Among his first efforts was a
boycott of the clients of advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi because of a spot
it produced for Wyeth FluMist.

In the ad, we see Mom laid up in bed, felled by the virus, and Dad in charge of
the household - much to the glee of the kids, who march off to school in a
snowstorm dressed as if for a luau. Alas, poor Dad can't manage his own
children.

Smaglick admits the boycott had little, if any, impact - Saatchi & Saatchi
declined to comment - and he won't say precisely how big his group is. "I don't
want our organization to be assigned its credibility or lack of credibility
based on numbers," he says.

On a Web site for the Men's Activism News Network, readers have compiled a list
of companies to boycott for their allegedly male-bashing ads. The list includes
perhaps the ultimate macho-man vehicle, the Hummer, which aired a spot showing
a woman behind the wheel and a tagline that read: "Threaten men in a whole new
way."

Imagine the fallout, a man said in a posting on MANN's Web site, if the roles
were reversed and men were encouraged to "threaten women in a whole new way."

It's a point well taken, says Matt Campbell, one of the site's administrators.
"To get a sense of why there is a group of men finding the state of affairs so
outrageous, just switch the gender roles for a minute and see if it would still
be funny. Imagine having a laugh track when a woman's genitals are attacked."

Ultimately, whether men and boys take the images to heart, whether it affects
how they feel about themselves, is debatable. But Paul Nathanson and Katherine
Young, authors of "Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in
Popular Culture," say advertising merely holds up a mirror.

"We do see a statistical picture that tells us men are in trouble," Young says.
"Their suicide rates are higher, their alcoholism rates are higher, they die
earlier than women, and boys are dropping out of high school at much higher
rates than girls are. The more negative imaging you get, the more it reinforces
this. Boys can say, 'If this is the way society is going to look at us, we'll
just act that way.'"

By KATE SANTICH
The Orlando Sentinel
Wednesday, Jul. 07 2004

FEMALE SERIAL MURDERERS

2006-01-23T19:26:00.000-05:00

Female Serial Murderers

Egger (1) claims that "there are no known serial killers who are female" (p.348).

This is clearly not accurate. Newton (1993) has compiled an exhaustive accounting of 183 female murderers, finding that 70% meet the definition of a serial killer.

Victim-wise, these female serial killers showed a different profile than males: 45% killed family members, 26% murdered friends or acquaintances, 10% took the lives of those left in their care (wards, charges or patients), 19.5% were "mixed" predators, while only 11% murdered strangers. And while almost all male serial killers fall into the "motiveless" category, 35% of the females killed for profit, 28% due to mental illness (delusions or command hallucinations) and only 8% killed for "sadistic thrills". (About 9% of the documented female serial killers were motivated by drug trafficking, jealousy, mercy or religion, combined.) Method of killing followed the pattern for males outlined above.

From "Nurture-Born Killers: the Motivation and Personality Development of the Serial Killer", by Sean Wolf Hill; Fall 1994.

Female Serial Murderers
Name
Kills
Survivors
Victims
Time Span
Modus

Sara Aldrete
15/24/30/?
cops, drug dealers, college students, peasants
2 years
human sacrifice

Beverly Allitt
4
22
Children in hospital
58 days
Injection Lyda C. Ambrose -->

Susan Atkins
9 (20+)
random strangers
1 year
helter skelter

Kathleen Atkinson
4
patients

Margie Velma Barfield
4 (7)
husband, mother, fiancee
9 years
poison

Erszebet (Countess) Bathory
(650)
?
peasant girls
30 years
torture

Martha Beck
12 (20)
lonely women
2 years
poisoned, drowned, bludgeoned, strangled

Marie Alexandrine Becker
12
husband, lover, friends
4 years
poison

Betty Lou Beets
2
1
husbands
11 years
shot Grete Beier -->
Mary Flora Bell
2
1
playmates
10 weeks
strangled

Kate Bender
(50)
travellers
3 years
hammer

Marie Besnard
13
two husbands, parents, in-laws, cousins, neighbors
22 years
poison

Catherine Birnie
4(8)
1
rape victims
2 months
Strangled, stabbed, axed
Cecile Bombeck
3+

Elfriede Blauensteiner
5+
1+
husbands, lovers, neighbors
10 years
poisoned

Debra Denise Brown
8
1
rape victims
2 months
strangled, bludgeoned, shot
Mary Brunner
9 (20+)
random strangers
1 year
helter skelter

Judias Anna Lou Buenoano
3
1
two husbands and a son
9 years
poison

Carol M. Bundy
6 (50)
rape victims
1 year
shot, stabbed, strangled, decapitated

Susan Carson
3
friends
2 years
shot, stabbed, bludgeoned

Cynthia Coffman
4 (+)
rape/robbery victims
5 weeks
strangled

Mary Ann Cotton
(17+)
husbands, children, stepchildren, mother, sister-in-law
28 years
poison

Theresa Cross
2 (3)
daughters, possibly husband
shot, beaten

Faye Copeland
5
farm hands
3 years
shot

Daisy Louisa C. De Melker
3
two husbands and a son
9 years
poison

Minnie Dean
2 (3+)
?
babies (other women's)
?
smothered
Nannie Hazel Doss
10
children, husbands, sisters, mother
29 years
poison
Marti Enriqueta
6+
1
children (other women's)
?
cannibalism and witchcraft
Ellen Etheridge
4
stepchildren
4 months
poison
Christine Falling
6
infants in babysitting
2 years
smothered
Constance Fisher
6
children (hers)
13 years
drowned
Debbie Fornuto
6
children (hers)
suffocated
Caril Fugate
11
mom, dad, baby sister, strangers
10 days
shot, stabbed, choked
Mrs. Julius Fuzekos/Fazekas
7 (100)
1
husbands (other women's)
30 years
poison
Charlene Gallego
10
rape victims
2 years
shot, bludgeoned, tortured
Ann Gates
Tillie Gbrurek
5
1
four husbands, one neighbor
7 years
poison
Janie Lou Gibbs
5
husband, four children
2 years
poison
Kristen Gilbert
5+
2+
VA patients
injection
Amy Gilligan
9
5 husbands, 4 patients
13 years
poison
Delfina Gonzales
91+
prostitutes and johns
9 years
Maria de Jesus Gonzales
91+
prostitutes and johns
9 years
Gwendolyn Graham
5
5
female nursing home patients
4 months
suffocation
Ann Green
2 (?)
1
children (hers)
15 years
suffocation
Caroline Grills
4
2
family members, friend
poison
Maria Gruber
49 (300)
17+
elderly patients
6 years
injection, drowning
Belle Gunness
16 (49)
husbands, children, employees, suitors
12 years
poison, bludgeoning, decapitation
Anna Marie Hahn
5 (7)
2
elderly men
5 years +
poison
Audrey Marie Hilley
3 (4)
4
husband, daughter, mom-in-law, neighbor child
4 years
poison
Myra Hindley
5 (15)
rape victims
2 years
shot, strangled, stabbed, tortured
Karla Homolka
3 (?)
?
rape victims
2 years
strangled, drugged
Waneta E. Hoyt
5
children (hers)
6 years
suffocation
Helene Jegado
23+
9
sister, aunt, employers, fellow nuns, fellow servants
18 years
poison
Martha Ann Johnson
4
children (hers)
5 years
suffocation
Genene Jones
11 (46)
children (other women's)
4 years
injection
Linda Kesabian
9 (20+)
random strangers
1 year
helter skelter
Claudette Kibble
3
1
children
4 years
suffocation, drowning
Sharon Kinne
3
1
husband, lover's wife, motel pick-up
4 years
shot
Patricia Krenwinkel
9 (20+)
random strangers
1 year
helter skelter
Christa Lehman
4
husband, father-in-law, and at least two neighbors
2 years
poison
Irene Leidolf
49 (300)
17+
elderly patients
6 years
injection, drowning
Juliane Lipka
7 (100)
1
husbands (other women's)
15 years
poison
Diana Lumbrera
6
children (hers)
13 years
strangled and suffocated
Anjette Lyles
4
2 husbands, mother-in-law, daughter
6 years
poison
Sarah Makin
7+
babies
stabbed with knitting needles
Christine Malevre
7 (30)
elderly patients
probably injection
Rhonda Belle Martin
6 (8)
1
mother, 2 husbands, 3 (5) children
lifetime
poison
Stephanija Mayer
49 (300)
17+
elderly patients
6 years
injection, drowning
Carolyn McCrary
11 (22)
robbery/rape victims
10 months
shot
Virginia McGinnis
4
husband, mother, daughter
20 years
"accidents"
Alice Mitchell
(37)
babies (nurse)
starvation, neglect
Blanche Taylor Moore
5
1
2 husbands, father, mother-in-law, lover
23 years
poison
Patricia Moore
3
babies (sitter)
1 year
stranged, suffocated
Judith Ann Neelley
12 (15)
4
robbery/rape victims
1-3 years
shot, injected with drain cleaner
Marie Noe
8
children (hers)
19 years
smothering
Louisa Northcott
?
?
young boys
?
?
Susi Olah
7 (100)
1
husbands (other women's)
15 years
poison
Sandra Pankow
3
children (babysitting)
5 years
smothered
Bonnie Parker
12
?
Law men, robbery victims
2 years
shot Milka Pavlovich -->
Madame Alexe Popova
(300)
husbands (other women's)
29 years
poison
Dorothea Puente
9 (25)
tenants
2 years
poison
Terri Rachals
6 (9)
11
nursing home patients
2 years +
injection
Vera Renczi
35
husbands, lovers, son
?
?
Martha Rendell
3
1
stepchildren
1-2 years
hydrochloric acid
Amelia Sach
?
?
infants, adoption
?
poison
Antoinette Scieri
12 (?)
elderly patients
poison
Lydia Sherman
10(+)
?
3 husbands, 5 children, 2 stepchildren
poison
Mrs. Szabo
7 (100)
1
husbands (other women's)
15 years
poison Gloria Tannenbaum -->
Ginger Taylor [nee McCrary]
11 (22)
robbery/rape victims
10 months
shot
Bobbie Sue Terrell
12+
nursing home patients
2 weeks
injection
Marybeth Tinning
8
children (hers)
13 years
smothered
Jane Toppan
31 (100)
nursing patients
21 years
injection
Lydia Trueblood
6
1
four husbands, son, brother-in-law
4 years
poison
Debra Sue Tuggle
4
children (hers, fiance's)
8 years
suffocated, drowned
Lise Jane Turner
3
2 (6)
children (hers and others)
4 years
smothered
Leslie Van Houten
9 (20+)
random strangers
1 year
helter skelter
Maria Velten
5
two husbands, father, aunt, lover
17 years
poison
Louise Vermilyea
10
2 husbands, 3 children (hers), stepson, friends
18 years
poison Dorothea Waddingham -->
Waltraud Wagner
49 (300)
17+
elderly patients
6 years
injection, drowning
Rachel Wall (pirate)
1+
?
sailors
?
Annie Walters
?
?
infants, adoption
?
poison
Jeanne Weber
10+
children (hers and others)
4 years
strangled
Rosemary West
10 (18)
women, children, rape victims
16 years
Dorothy Williams
3
adult female 97, two elderly men
3 years
strangled, stabbed
Stella Williamson
5
infants, presumably hers
10 years
Martha Hasel Wise
3
(?)
mother, aunt, uncle
months
poison
Catherine May Wood
5
5
female nursing home patients
4 months
suffocation
Martha Woods
7
children (hers and others)
23 years
suffocation
Carol Aileen Wuornos
7+
2+
male strangers
1 year
shot
Lila Gladys Young
(100+)
babies (other women's)
19 years
neglect, starvation
Aida Noureddin Mohammed Abu Zeid
1
29
hospital patients
1 year +
injection
Anna Zwanziger
3+
?
rivals, employers and their families
poison

(1) Egger, Stephen A. (1984). A working definition of serial murder and the reduction of linkage blindness. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 12,3, 348-357.
(2) Newton, Michael. (1990). Hunting Humans: An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers. Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited.
(3) Newton, Michael. (1993). Bad Girls Do It: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers. Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited.

Female Serial Murderers

FEMINISM HAS MADE LIFE WORSE FOR MOST WOMEN

2006-01-23T19:18:00.000-05:00

Women Who Make Things Worse For Other Women

Who is harmed more by the radical feminist creed: men or women? I have long believed that men are more victimized. But after reading Kate O'Beirne's recent book, Women Who Make the World Worse, I'm beginning to reconsider.

As editor of National Review Online, O'Beirne showcases her formidable research and writing skills in exposing how the feminist movement has polarized relations between the sexes and made life worse for most American women.

In my town, billboards feature a newly-engaged woman showing off her sparkling diamond ring, nearly shouting the words, "Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, YES!" Despite the fact that married women are healthier, happier, and more economically-secure than their single sisters, feminists are hell-bent on obliterating this bedrock institution.

Feminists want you to believe that the urge to conceive and nurture children is a patriarchal construction. Can you guess who came up with this gem? "Motherly love ain't everything it has been cracked up to be. To some extent it's a myth that men have created to make women think that they do this job to perfection."

Yep, that comes to us by way Ruth Bader Ginsburg, member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

And shame on all those stay-at-home moms who are shirking their civic responsibility to "contribute as professionals and community activists," according to University of Texas professor Gretchen Ritter. Worse, "Full-time mothering is also bad for children." Why? Ritter explains, "It teaches them that the world is divided by gender."

Child psychologist Sandra Scarr takes the argument farther, claiming a child's desire to be with his mother is actually a psychiatric disorder. Scarr calls it EMA Syndrome -- exclusive maternal attachment syndrome.

Ms. O'Beirne takes on the notion that women should delay childbearing until after their careers are established. She cites research that among women earning more than $100,000, nearly half -- 49% -- are childless. So much for having it all.

But feminists are not satisfied to merely lay a guilt trip on women who are contemplating marriage, motherhood, and child-rearing. They patronize and insult the intelligence of women by making the most ludicrous of claims.

Like the old chestnut about the gender wage gap. Feminists go around cherry-picking wage statistics and then claim that society undervalues women's work.

O'Beirne shows little patience for such loopy logic. "They sell women short. They hold that women aren't smart enough and tough enough to flourish when given an equal chance to compete with men," O'Beirne thunders.

Then there's the bogus statistic that men commit 95% of all domestic violence. As a result, former women's studies professor Daphne Patai notes that "years of exposure to feminist-promoted scare statistics have succeeded in imbuing many young women with a foreboding sense of living under the constant threat of predatory men."

And that's promoting female self-empowerment?

There's retired Air Force brigadier general Wilma Vaught who argued for moving women into direct combat: "There's been an acceptance of the fact that women...are in harms way and they are being killed." The families of the nearly 40 female soldiers killed in Iraq no doubt would find those words consoling.

The NRO editor goes on to quote this nihilistic statement by representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) at last year's March for Women's Lives: "I have to march because my mother could not have an abortion." And Ms. Waters is supposed to be a role model for smart, ambitious women?

And sometimes rad-fems come across as vindictive shrews. A female dean at Vassar College who had this say about men falsely accused of rape: "They have of a lot of pain, but it is not a pain that I would necessarily have spared them. I think it ideally initiates a process of self-exploration."

So after 30-plus years of liberation feminista-style, are American women better off? O'Beirne has serious doubts.

Now, thanks to the Sisterhood's mantra that men are redundant, many of the nation's most eligible bachelors -- 22%, to be exact -- have turned their back on marriage, leaving millions of women desperate to find a good man who's willing to commit.

As a result of affirmative action programs, professional women have been put under suspicion that they owe their position to something other than merit.

And the very fabric of maternal virtue has been indelibly stained by the feminist message that "the only thing a woman can do with a child is abort."

Throughout her 200-page exposé, Kate O'Beirne shows how feminists have used deception, manipulation, intimidation, and old-fashioned propaganda to victimize men and women alike.
Women Who Make the World Worse -- it's the gutsy and shocking must-read of the politically incorrect for 2006.

January 11, 2006 by Carey Roberts

URL: http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2006/0111roberts.html

QUESTIONS TO ASK BATTERED WOMEN'S SHELTERS WORKERS

2006-01-23T18:56:00.000-05:00

Transparency and Accountability

This section will address several questions that need to be asked of shelter services, and never seem to be asked at all.

Often, a spokesperson will make a statement such as: "We served 22000 people last year."

The question that should be asked is, "Does this number represent an unduplicated number of individuals, or is this the number of service units provided?"

If it is a number of service units, then the same people will be counted multiple times unless the agency has some procedure for restricting use of their service to once a year. However, in a shelter, a service unit generally refers to one night in one bed, and it is doubtful that kind of restriction would apply.

It is common practice in even the most open of social service agencies to use their number of service units as "people" for an occasional newpaper story, but when it comes to more-serious matters such as newsletters for their stakeholders, or reporting their activities to various government or funding agencies, the numbers are explained so a true picture of the organization can be seen. These organizations want to be as clear and open as possible.

Domestic violence services seem to think the rules don't apply to them, and so the service unit becomes their usual number of "people" for all except the most critical of functions. I've seen reports issued here in Arizona claiming that a number in the high five figures of women and children were using shelters on any given day, with a like number turned away for lack of beds.

Since there are only four million people in the entire state, it was obvious to me they were using their service unit figure in order to "pump up their numbers." Then they compounded the error by using that figure to apply to everyone. According to this figure, 1 in 7 AZ families were experiencing domestic violence. Those "1 in x" figures are rarely arrived at based on any realistic computation, and are always to be considered suspect.

The other day, I heard a PSA on TV that said, "1 in 5 children are victimized online." Not one in five children who use computers, one in five of all children., which is not realistic to even consider.

Another question would be, "What kinds of services do you have for male victims?" If they are being honest they would admit they don't and never will. Then if you ask what happens if a male victim presents himself, see what kind of answer you get. They may claim there are services elsewhere. In that case, check to see these services exist. In four years of activism for un-served people, I have never found these services that are claimed to be elsewhere. Some agencies go so far as to advertise nonexistent services, secure in the knowledge they can be explained away in any number of ways, should anyone be so unfortunate as to need them.

Sometimes a spokesperson will say their services are "open to anyone," in an attempt to appear unbiased, and offer a tiny number of male victims and female abusers. A good question then can be, "What kind of outreach do you do for individuals other than female victims?" You will most likely find that "open to anyone" does not mean they are prepared to actively pursue any outreach or service expansion.

One question I have always wanted to ask is, "Why is it so important to insist only women are victims, when pure logic and even your own statistics, in some cases, suggest a quite different picture?" Most non-profit organizations are usually quite interested in expanding services and looking at ways to help the un-served and under-served. Yet when it comes to DV programs, they do not want to even consider change.

Here's the final one, and it's a biggie: "What solution other than divorce or moving away has been considered?"

SOURCE: DesertLight Journal

ANTI-FATHER BIAS BY NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF WOMEN

2006-01-23T18:28:00.000-05:00

Fathers Bear the Brunt of Gender Bias inFamily

The National Organization for Women's recently released Family Court Report 2002 claims that family courts are "wrought with gender bias" against women. However, the respondents to the survey upon which the report is based were not chosen at random, but were instead self-selected from among those whom NOW calls its "constituents." If one selects a survey's respondents, one can make the survey show almost anything. For this reason, these types of Self-selected Listener Opinion Polls, commonly known as SLOPs, are viewed as junk social science by serious researchers.

NOW's report sounds the alarm on women's "loss of custody through gender bias" but the vacuity of this claim can be demonstrated by examining how rarely courts grant custody to fathers in contested cases.

For example, a Stanford study of 1,000 divorced couples selected at random found that divorcing mothers were awarded sole custody four times as often as divorcing fathers in contested custody cases. A study of all divorce-custody decrees in Arlington County, Virginia over an 18 month period found that no father was given sole or even joint custody unless the mother agreed to it. According to Frank Bishop, the former director of the Virginia Division of Child Support Enforcement, almost 95% of custody cases in Virginia were won by mothers.

An Ohio study published in Family Advocate found that fathers seeking sole custody obtain it in less than 10% of cases, and a Utah study conducted over 23 years found similar results.

According to the 2000 Census Bureau report, mothers comprise 85% of all custodial parents.

Even the 80% to 95% maternal preference documented by these studies and others understates family court discrimination against fathers by identifying many coerced child custody arrangements as "uncontested." The vast majority of divorces involving children are initiated by women, and women are usually granted temporary custody of the children. Judges are reluctant to switch children from the custody of one parent to another. Fathers, left to fight an uphill battle to gain custody and often out of both money and hope, sometimes give up. Others spend their life's savings trying to obtain joint physical or sole custody so they can remain a part of their children's lives. Devastated financially and with little hope of winning, they often sign consent orders granting custody to mothers. In both of these common scenarios, the child custody arrangement is "uncontested."

NOW has attempted to obscure this anti-father family court bias by claiming "according to several studies, when there is a custody dispute, fathers win custody in the majority of disputed cases." In other words, men don't get custody because they don't want it. Yet NOW's claim, proclaimed in its 1996 National Conference Resolution attacking the fathers' rights movement, and again in Family Court Report 2002, is without merit. All three of the sources NOW cites used survey pools which were either nonrandom or in which contested and uncontested custody cases were lumped together.

Once custody is lost divorced dads are often at the mercy of both custodial mothers and the family courts. Divorced dads' complaints include: blocked visitation and unenforced visitation orders; "move away" spouses who permit or even use geography as a method of driving noncustodial parents out of their children's lives; acceptance by the courts of false and/or uncorroborated accusations as a basis for denying custody or even contact between parent and child; rigid, excessive, and often punitive child support awards; and burdensome legal costs.

The presence (or absence) of a father in a child's life is the largest factor in predicting whether a child will graduate high school, attend college, become involved in crime or drugs, or get pregnant before age 18. The greatest and least recognized force behind America's epidemic of fatherlessness is the way courts allow custodial mothers to drive fathers out of their children's lives.

The solution to the problem is shared parenting, which creates equality between divorcing couples by replacing the option of sole physical custody, which occurs in the vast majority of custody cases, with the presumption of joint legal and physical custody.

If divorcing parents are unable to agree on a shared parenting plan, the courts would order a plan which would afford both parents equal physical time and decision-making power. Children gain from shared parenting because it allows them to retain the ongoing emotional, physical, and financial support of both parents.

The National Organization for Women has lobbied hard against shared parenting legislation and today is the main obstacle to equality in family court. Yet during the 1960s and 1970s many of NOW's leaders, including former president Karen DeCrow, were sympathetic to shared parenting as part of their efforts to erase all gender inequalities. Family Court Report 2002 again reveals just how far NOW has drifted from this admirable goal.

By Dianna Thompson and Glenn Sacks

This column first appeared in Insight magazine (8/19/02, posted 7/29/02).

URL: http://www.glennsacks.com/fathers_bear_the_pf.htm

BOY VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE

2006-01-23T18:12:00.000-05:00

Boys Can Be / And Are Victims of Abuse

Lately, I have been having more men come forward and tell me about being molested as children. These men are from all backgrounds and levels of society. But the common factor is they have never told anyone else about this secret from their past.

I have done some research. Statistics show approximately one out of every four girls will be molested before her 16th birthday. But those same statistics show one out of every six boys will also be sexually abused before their 16th birthday.

Why don't male victims of sexual abuse come forward and tell?

Male survivors have the same feelings of anger, fear, shame, embarrassment, guilt and confusion. Remember, these are children we are talking about who have been abused by a trusted adult.

So what are some of the reasons why most male victims keep quiet?

Society tells us boys are tough. In this day and age, boys are not supposed to express their feelings. If they are hurt, (physically or emotionally) they are not supposed to show it. So if they are sexually assaulted by either a male or a female, no one must know. The victim is ashamed and they can not appear weak to their peers.

Being abused by a man means you will become a homosexual. Even though there has never been any correlation revealed that show sexual experiences at an early age will determine a persons sexual preference, male victims are confused about why it happened to them and what it means about who they attract.

If a female sexually abuses a boy, it must be the boys fault. Many females (mother, step-mother, aunt, older sister, teacher, baby sitter) will coerce or use their position of power to force a boy to have sex with them. To be forced to have sex with someone is rape. It does not matter what the circumstances are. It is never the fault of the child just because the person doing the abusing is a female.

People will think you will become a child molester. Many victims, when they are grown up, believe they will be looked at as a potential molester rather than a victim. This is again caused by the way society reacts to male survivors. But this is NOT TRUE. The vast majority of male survivors do not molest children. They do not become molesters.

What can you do if your son, spouse or any male acquaintance comes forward and confesses to being abused?

*Do not judge the person.
*Give caring support.
*Gently push them towards treatment and help.
*Try to give a sense of "family rallying around the survivor" to give them the confidence to talk about it.

The last point I want to make about men who sexually abuse children is the difference between a homosexual male and a pedophile.

Homosexuality is a sexual preference for someone of the same sex. It is not a preference for children.

A pedophile has a sexual preference for children. It usually does not matter to them if that child is a boy or a girl. They want to have sex with a child. Pedophiles are very dangerous to society.

Men can live healthy lives and survive after being a victim of childhood sexual abuse. I know it can be done because I have met many such men. The road will be difficult just like it is for a female survivor. The same demons are present as well as many additional ones. But with proper help and a strong support system it can happen.

INCEST, SEXUAL ABUSE OR PHYSICAL ABUSE IS NEVER THE CHILD'S FAULT!

URL: http://www.twist-of-fate.com/MaleAbuse.html

VICTIMIZATION OF MALE CHILDREN AND TEENS

2006-01-23T17:51:00.000-05:00

The Invisible Boy:
Revisioning the Victimization of Male Children and Teens

Our mission is to help the people of Canada maintain and improve their health.

Health Canada

Prepared by: Frederick Mathews, Ph.D., C. Psych.

The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of Health Canada.

Également disponible en français sous le titre Le garçon invisible Nouveau regard sur la victimologie au masculin: enfants et adolescents

Contents may not be reproduced for commercial purposes, but any other reproduction, with acknowledgments, is encouraged.

This publication can be made available in/on computer diskette/large print/audio-cassette/braille, upon request.

Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada 1996

Cat. No.: H72-21/143-1996E
ISBN: 0-662-24429-X

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Table of Contents

Introduction: Opening the Door to Male Victims

Why the Need for a Male-Inclusive Perspective?

Why the Need to Re-Vision Male Victimization?

Purpose of The Invisible Boy

Chapter 1. Prevalence: A Many-Sided Story

Sexual Abuse of Boys and Teen Males

Sibling-on-Sibling Sexual Abuse

Sexual Harassment

Male Prison Rape and Sexual Assault

Physical Abuse, Neglect and Emotional Maltreatment

Sibling-on-Sibling Physical Abuse

Corporal Punishment

Community, School and Institution-based Violence

Suicide

Street Youth

Prostitution

Children with Disabilities

Professional Response to Male Victims as a Factor in Determining Prevalence

Media Images of Violence Toward Boys and Young Men

Chapter 2. Perpetrators of Male Victimization

Sexual Abuse

Teen Perpetrators

Strangers vs. Acquaintances

Female Perpetrators

Dynamics of Female-Perpetrated Abuse

Physical Abuse and Neglect

Corporal Punishment

Chapter 3. Effects of Victimization on Males

Sexual Abuse

Physical Abuse, Corporal Punishment and Neglect

The Consequences of "Male Sexual Licence"

Chapter 4. Implications

Implications for Research

Implications for Assessment, Treatment and Program Development

A Repeating Cycle of Violence?

Implications for Staff Development and Program Supervision

The Search for a More Inclusive Framework for Analysis

The Messages We Give to Male Victims

How Would Things Be Different if We Acknowledged Male Victims? .

Beginning with Ourselves as Adults

Resources and Bibliography

Acknowledgments

The Invisible Boy: Revisioning the Victimization of Male Children and Teens was prepared by the Canadian Foster Family Association (CPFA) on behalf of the National Clearinghouse on Family Violence of Health Canada.

The CFFA would particularly like to thank those who assisted in the preparation of the manuscript: Judy Urquhart, Len Kushnier, Veronica Marsman, Philip Quigley; the Family Violence Prevention Unit and the National Clearinghouse on Family Violence of Health Canada for their support to the project; and the project staff, Dr. Fred Mathews and John Meston.

Linda Lelièvre President
Canadian Foster Family Association

Introduction

Opening the Door to Male Victims

"Since we are sometimes compelled against our will by persons of high rank to perform the operation, by compression is thus performed: children, still of a tender age, are placed in a vessel of hot water, and then when the parts are softened in the bath, the testicles are to be squeezed with the fingers until they disappear. "
Paulus Aegineta
1st Century A.D.

This opening quote from Sander Breiner's book, Slaughter of the Innocents: Child Abuse Through the Ages and Today, is a stark reminder that the story of male child abuse is an old one. The passage is an instruction to those who wanted to get around a law passed by the Roman emperor Domitian prohibiting the castration of boys who were subsequently placed in brothels or sold for "buggering." At the turn of the twentieth century, boys were routinely circumcised without anesthetic as a "treatment" for things such as hyperactivity and masturbating (De Mause, 1988). However, anyone who believes that this- inexcusable treatment of male children or youth is a thing of the past should consider the following:

An episode of a comedy television program about summer camp features the sexual abuse of a "canteen boy" by an adult camp counsellor.
A Canadian newspaper advertises a board game, "101 Uses for a Severed Penis."
Another television program portrays mother/son incest in a comedy sketch about phone sex.
A newspaper article about a mother who left her 11-year-old son tied and gagged in a closet quotes a social worker at the trial as saying, the boy had been "very prone to lying, stealing, and manipulating, was disruptive in class, and was generally an unpleasant kid."
What these few examples illustrate are some of the themes that will be explored in the pages of this document; namely, the existence of a double standard in the care and treatment of male victims, and the invisibility and normalization of violence and abuse toward boys and young men in our society.

Despite the fact that over 300 books and articles on male victims have been published in the last 25 to 30 years, boys and teen males remain on the periphery of the discourse on child abuse.

Few workshops about males can be found at most child abuse conferences and there are no specialized training programs for clinicians. Male-centred assessment is all but non-existent and treatment programs are rare. If we are talking about adult males, the problem is even greater. A sad example of this was witnessed recently in Toronto. After a broadcast of The Boys of St. Vincent, a film about the abuse of boys in a church-run orphanage, the Kids' Help Phone received over 1 000 calls from distraught adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It is tragic in a way no words can capture that these men had no place to turn to other than a children's crisis line.

The language we use in the current discourse on violence and abuse masks, minimizes or renders invisible certain realities for male victims. Terms such as "family violence" have become co-terminus with "violence toward women," particularly on the part of husbands, fathers or other adult male figures. Male teens, boys, male seniors, male victims of sibling-on-sibling violence and female abusers disappear in this term.

Canada lags far behind other Western democracies in the study of male victims and their male and female abusers. In fact, among the large and growing number of research studies on male victims only a small number are Canadian. Social policy development, public education, treatment programs and research funding, and the evolution of a more inclusive discourse on interpersonal violence that reflects the male experience are all long overdue.

Why the Need for a Male-Inclusive Perspective?

A "male-inclusive" perspective on violence and victimization must be, of necessity, dynamic and evolutionary, since male victims are only just beginning to speak out about their experiences. As they do, their stories will continue to challenge many of our long-held and status quo assumptions about abuse victims and perpetrators. It is important to keep in mind that male victims are not a homogeneous group, and over time it is likely that a number of perspectives will evolve. Heterosexual, gay and bisexual, Native/Aboriginal, disabled/challenged, and visible and cultural minority males will all add different aspects to the story of male victimization.

There are, however, four basic components to the concept of "male-inclusive." First, the need to articulate a male-centred point, or points, of view, which reflect the diversity of men and boys in the Canadian population. Second, the need for male victims to search for balance as they struggle to heal the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual aspects of their lives. Third, the need to honour and protect female victims' gains and acknowledge the contributions women have made in breaking the silence about violence and abuse. Fourth, the need to evolve a vision of combining both males' and females' stories into a coherent and inclusive perspective that all of us will be able to own and use in the struggle to reduce and eliminate interpersonal violence and abuse in our society. Sadly, as male victims' stories reveal, we are still a long way from realizing any of these goals.

Male victims report great pain, frustration and some anger at not seeing their stories reflected in the public discourse on violence and abuse. Several large-scale Canadian studies about interpersonal violence conducted in the past several years have reported the findings pertaining to only female victims. Many academic papers written about victims of violence purport to be "balanced," yet typically bring only a faint male "voice" to the analysis. From a conceptual standpoint, many also make the mistake of accepting and using, uncritically, a woman-centred-only model of victimization. Male victims also find much of this work dehumanizing and dismissive of their experiences. They feel many writers and thinkers in the field have delineated the boundaries of the discourse on violence and abuse - boundaries that leave males out.

Male victims frequently find that therapists, counsellors or other types of caregivers trained with female-centred models of victimization are unable to help them. Consequently, they are likely to simply abandon therapy, leaving unexplored many of the issues relating to their victimization experience and to their deeper healing.

Male victims, like female victims before them, have encountered their share of critics and detractors, people who refuse to believe them, ignore prevalence statistics, minimize the impact of abuse, appropriate and deny males a voice, or dismiss male victimization as a "red herring." When prevalence statistics are given for male victimization, it is common to hear the response that the vast majority of abusers of males are other males, a belief which is simply not true. This comment is usually intended to frame male victimization as a "male problem." It is also insensitive and perceived by male survivors as being victim-blaming. While challenges and criticisms to concepts and theories are valid, and an important part of the evolution and development of any field, denial, minimization and silencing is harmful, abusive and damaging to any victim.

In many respects, male victims are where female victims were 25 years ago. Most of us forget the enormous opposition the women's movement encountered as women began to organize and claim a voice to speak against violence and name their abusers/offenders. The services and supports that exist presently for women were hard won and yet are still constantly at risk of losing their funding. By comparison, there really is no organized male victims "movement" per se. Males, generally, are not socialized to group together the way women do, to be intimate in communication or to see themselves as caregivers for other males. In short, much of what male victims need to do to organize a "movement" requires them to overcome many common elements of male socialization, all of which work against such a reality ever happening.

Why the Need to Re-Vision Male Victimization?

The subtitle of this work, "Revisioning the Victimization of Male Children and Teens, " extends an invitation to the public and professionals alike, to "look again" and "re-vise" their knowledge and understanding with respect to violence and abuse, and to make it inclusive of a male perspective. On the face of the evidence presented in the pages of this report, the invitation is compelling.

Much of the current thinking and discourse, both public and professional, about abuse and interpersonal violence is based on a woman-centred point of view. This is neither right nor wrong, good nor bad, but rather the result of who has been doing the advocacy. However, as a result of this history, victims have a female face, perpetrators a male face. Because of this image of perpetrators as having a male face, violence in our society has become "masculinized" and is blamed exclusively on "men" and "male socialization." Although there is without question a male gender dimension to many forms of violence, especially sexual violence, simple theories of male socialization are inadequate to explain why the vast majority of males are not violent.

Violence is even blamed on the male hormone testosterone. The irony in this argument is not lost on male victims. While women have been struggling to get out from under the stigma that they are at the mercy of their hormones, males are being accused of being at the mercy of testosterone.

Male victims walk a fine line between wanting to be heard and validated, to be supportive of female victims and to be pro-woman, while challenging assumptions they feel are biased stereotypes. Their challenges to some of these stereotypes are often met with accusations that they are misogynists, part of a "backlash" against feminism, or have a hidden agenda to undermine women's gains. If any of these accusations are true, they must be confronted by all of us. But if they are based only on the fear that recognition of males as victims will threaten women's gains, then that is the issue we should be discussing right up front, not minimizing male victims' experiences in a competition to prove who has been harmed the most. Nonetheless, it is important for all of us to recognize that it may be difficult for many women to listen to male victims' stories until they feel safe in this regard.

Sadly, male victims and their advocates risk a lot to challenge the status quo and experience much pressure to remain silent. It is ironic that the pressure males feel to remain silent replicates, at a social level, the same patterns of silencing, denial and minimization they experienced at the hands of their offenders. If we do not face the fact that we need to heal the "gendered wounds" of both women and men, then we will compromise the search for gender peace.

Finally, and perhaps the most important reason to re-vision our understanding, is because men and teen males are not, in any substantial way, joining women in the struggle to end all forms of interpersonal-violence. Part of the reason for this may be because males do not see their own stories reflected in public discussions about violence and abuse. If one were to rely solely on the media to convey the male experience, few stories would be known beyond the more sensational cases involving several church-run orphanages or provincial training schools. It is not uncommon to hear male students express resentment toward high school anti-violence curricula that presumes them to be abusers, harassers, rapists and sexual assaulters in waiting. Indeed, it is difficult to feel part of a collective social movement against violence when one's own experiences are dismissed, excluded or minimized. It is evident from even a casual review of this material that much of it contains biased stereotypes and unchallenged assumptions about "male anger," "male aggression" and "male sexuality." All too often, these writers take as a starting point a caricature of the worst imaginable elements of "masculinity" and assume it applies to all male persons.

As males begin to tread upon the path broken by women, they are summoning the courage to bring their own voices to the public and professional discourse about violence and abuse. If we want males to engage in true dialogue, then we have to be open to hearing their criticisms, their experiences, their pain.

Purpose of The Invisible Boy

The Invisible Boy is intended for a wide readership. Readers may find some of the issues or research presented in the document new or surprising, maybe even a little controversial.

Others may find no surprises at all, but instead a confirmation of what they have experienced, observed themselves or believed all along. In any case, it is perhaps most important to see the document, not as a definitive statement of the male experience (we are too early in the struggle for that), but rather as a "snapshot in time" of some of the controversies, challenges, knowledge gaps and unexplored issues pertaining to the male experience of victimization. If it spurs the reader to further explore the literature, encourages the therapeutic community to expand its knowledge base about victims and perpetrators, or widens public debate on abuse to make it more inclusive, then it will have achieved its purpose.

Readers would be well advised not to read into the pages of The Invisible Boy any diminishment of women's experience with respect to violence and abuse. Unimaginable numbers of women and girls are harmed by violence every day in Canada. Women's stories need to be heard, believed and respected without denial or minimization. We must resist attempts to place male and female victims into a competition for resources or credibility. We can no longer afford the divisiveness along gender lines that permeates discussions about male and female victims' experiences. If we are to advance the anti-violence movement at all in Canada, we have to move more toward "gender reconciliation" and away from the bullying of one another that passes for advocacy in many public discussions.

Ideally, male and female victims' stories should be told side by side so that we may be better able to observe and understand how inextricably intertwined their experiences are. However, such a task is beyond the scope of the present project. Because their experiences are poorly understood, underreported, largely unacknowledged and outside much of the public and professional discourse, The Invisible Boy will focus primarily on males and bring together in one place many of the strands of male victims' experiences.

Many questions remain unanswered. Why is it that Canada, a country that prides itself on being a compassionate and just society, lags behind other countries in advocacy for male victims? Why has the media refused to give equal coverage to male victimization issues? Why do we consistently fail to support adult male victims? Why do we support a double standard when it comes to the care and treatment of male victims? Perhaps the simplest answer to all the above is the fact that much of what constitutes male victimization is invisible to us all, especially male victims themselves. The Invisible Boy will explore these and other issues in the following pages.

For additional copies, contact:
National Clearinghouse on Family Violence
Public Health Agency of Canada
Health Canada Address Locator: #1907D1
Ottawa, Canada
K1A 1B4

613) 957-2938
Fax: (613) 941-8930 or call toll-free: 1-800-267-1291
FaxLink: (613) 941-7285 or toll-free: 1-888-267-1233
TTY/TDD users, (613) 952-6396 or toll-free: 1-800-561-5643

Read full report at: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/ncfv-cnivf/familyviolence/html/nfntsxinvisible_e.html

WOMEN ARE THE MOST COMMON ABUSERS OF CHILDREN

2006-01-23T16:33:00.000-05:00

Double-Standard Treatment for Child Abusers

Heather Thomas of Fairfax, VA was arrested last week in the shaking death of her 6-day-old granddaughter. On Christmas Day Valerie Kennedy held her son in a tub of scalding water as punishment, causing his death. A few days later Genevieve Silva was arrested in Oklahoma on child rape charges for luring a high school student to run away from home.

Chances are you didn't read about these incidents in your local newspaper. Because when a man commits abuse, it seems the story is splashed all over the front page. But when the perpetrator is a member of the fairer sex, the story is relegated to the bottom of the Police Report on page C9.

Each year the federal Administration for Children and Families surveys child protective service (CPS) agencies around the country to spot the latest trends in child abuse. And according to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, women are the most common abusers of children.

In 2003, females, usually mothers, represented 58% of perpetrators of child abuse and neglect, with men composing the remaining cases. In that same year an estimated 1,500 children died of abuse or neglect. In 31% of those cases, the perpetrator was the mother acting alone, compared to 18% of fathers acting alone.

Then there's the scandal of Dumpster babies. In 1998, 105 newborn infants were discovered abandoned in public places. One-third of those babies were found dead.

In a civilized society that makes adoption services widely-available, that practice should have been condemned as unconscionable and wrong. But instead of prosecuting the abandoners, we accommodated to the societal imperative to provide choices to women no matter the moral consequences. So we passed laws to establish "safe havens."

Under New York law, mothers can now anonymously drop off their infants up to five days old. But if she later has second thoughts, not to worry. She can come back and reclaim the child up to 15 months later.

That satisfaction-guaranteed-or-your-money-back offer might work at a Macy's handbag sale, but that's not how a moral society treats its most vulnerable members.

Patricia Pearson has written a blockbuster book called, When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence. Pearson documents repeated examples of violent women who draw their Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card by claiming PMS, battered woman's syndrome, or postpartum depression.

Remember Andrea Yates who admitted to drowning her five boys in a bathtub? Of course the National Organization for Women rushed to her defense, claiming that postpartum blues justified the serial murder. And two weeks ago Texas 1st Court of Appeals ruled that her conviction should be reversed.

Then there's the problem of women, usually female teachers, who seduce and deflower teenage boys. Look how the media sanitizes the issue. Reporters trivialize the incident using clinical phrases such as "sexual contact," or worse envelope the story in a snickering "didn't-he-get-lucky" tone.

I once knew a teenage boy who was raped by his older sister's girlfriend during a holiday visit to his parent's home. Ten years later, he was still devastated by the incident. Of course he never reported the assault, no one would have taken him seriously.

When these cases go to trial, the double standard persists. As CNN's Nancy Grace plaintively asks, "Why is it when a man rapes a little girl, he goes to jail, but when a woman rapes a boy, she had a breakdown?"

And shame on reporters who use limp clichés to excuse the inexcusable. Like the story about a New Orleans mom who stuffed her 3-month-old son in the clothes dryer and hit the On button. This was the feeble explanation that the Times-Picayune offered in its December 8 edition: "Murder Suspect 'Was Trying her Best.'"

That condescending headline brings to mind the Solomonic words of columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez: "There are mental-health issues in many of these cases, obviously, but regardless, a society can and must say loud and clear: 'That's wrong. That's evil. That can never happen again.'"

To which I say, "Amen."

In radio talk shows and internet bulletin boards around the nation, Americans' ire has reached the boiling point over female child abusers who are treated with reverential deference by the media and our legal system.

As long as we tolerate this gender double-standard, the problem will fester and grow. And our children will continue to be at risk.

January 18, 2006
by Carey Roberts, iFeminists

URL: http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2006/0118roberts.html

LIST OF DEMANDS BY MEN

2006-01-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

A PARTIAL LIST OF DEMANDS BY MEN

Protecting the rights of BOYS

1. Provide DNA testing of every child at birth before a man's name as the father goes onto the certificate of birth. Every child has a right to know his or her parentage. Every man has a right to know his child.

2. Stop the sexual torture and mutilation of baby boys, Male Genital Mutilation, (MGM). Currently over 1,000,000 baby boys are sexually tortured and maimed in the US each year. Boys deserve equal justice under the law. Men have an unalienable right to our whole body. We demand criminal prosecution of sexual child abusers who mutilate little children's sex organs.

3. Summarily dismiss justice system officials who refuse to prosecute child abusers based on the sex of the child being abused. Sexually torturing, maiming, or otherwise abusing a boy is equally bad as abusing a girl, and we demand equal protection for boys under the law. Discrimination against boys by public officials, ignoring the abuse of boys, or failure to prosecute criminal offenses against boys constitutes malfeasance of office and dereliction of duty. Abusing a boy does not excuse violence against a child.

4. End current systematic discrimination against boys in public school enrollment, discipline, and advancement.

5. Make schools safe for boy's natural rambunctiousness. Provide class and educational situations that allow movement, exercise, excitement and other natural boyish behavior. End discriminatory punishment of boys in schools for boyish behavior. End all discriminatory corporal punishment of boys.

6. Provide boys with active games and not passive TV watching, etc., in preschool, in public schools, and after school.

7. End the massive drugging of boys who won't sit still in long boring female structured classes. End the "Ritalin kid" drugging and destruction of a currently estimated 35% of normal boys. Being an active boy does not make a child psychotic, disturbed or "hyperactive."

8. Provide equal number of men teachers in schools for role models and men's guidance. Restructure educational recruiting practices and prejudicial accusations of men who teach to encourage more men to be teachers of our children.

9. Establish apprenticeship and mentor programs for young men for whom trades are more appropriate than college. The current college preparation school curriculum is not appropriate for many boys, and amounts to a prison for many young men.

10. Make public education through the 12th grade available to all who want to be educated regardless of their age. School dropouts who come back and 10th graders who only read at 6th grade level deserve to be enrolled in 6th grade level reading classes regardless of their age or social status.

11. The basic human rights of children include their right of access to both of their parents. All divorce decrees must consider the child's rights as a primary concern. The child's interest can not be heard in "family" court or any other court when the child is not represented by adequate legal counsel. A court decision for custody by either parent violates the child's inalienable human right to the other parent.

12. Recognize and enforce a child's fundamental human right to his or her father. The father is the most beneficial parent in a child's life after age 7. Depriving any child of his father is hurtful to the child. Deliberately depriving a child of his father needs to be legally recognized and prosecuted as criminal child abuse.

Protecting the rights of FATHERS

13. Support and recognize marriage as the age-old union of a man with one (or more in some cultures) women for the creation of children and family. The society has a legitimate purpose in supporting the production and education of the next generation, and marriage of a woman to a man is the way that society encourages and supports children families.

14. Recognize the husband and father's traditional role as head of the household. End all forms of government interference, criticism, review, and police or judicial oversight of a husband's decisions regarding his wife, children and household.

15. End prosecution of fathers for kidnapping of minor children. Fathers have a fundamental human right to their child. It is not possible to kidnap one's own child. Pardon and release all men previously convicted of this faux crime.

16. End government interference with fathers who live other countries and stop government support of the international smuggling of children to take them away from their fathers. Fathers have a fundamental right to live in their own country and to raise their children according to the customs and religion of their homeland.

17. Recognize that a man's responsibility to his child is to support a child by providing food at his dinner table, a place to sleep in his home, clothing, education, and generally for the child's needs. Fathers take responsibility for the child. No man ought to be required by divorce or custody law to do more than to support his child.

18. End the social slavery of men masquerading as the failed feminist social experiment called "absentee child support." It is a form of slavery of men not related to supporting children. Sending money to pay a woman for breaking up a family is not supporting a child.

19. End debtor's prisons and other punitive measures against men for not supporting women.

20. Recognize women's full co-equal right and responsibility for the support of themselves and their children. If a child is not being supported the mother is fully as responsible as the man.

21. Adopt laws that recognize and protect men's equal rights to family planning and all other decisions affecting our future children, including decisions about abortion, abandonment and adoption of our children.

22. Provide constructive and effective Rites of Passage for men. Honor and bless young men coming into manhood. Acknowledge and appreciate older men as they become elders, sages, mentors or wise men.

23. Fully and equally fund research into birth control pills and other options for men. Recognize the co-equal needs of men for family planning options. End the almost total discrimination against men in research and development of family planning options that has persisted over the past century.

Protecting the rights of MEN in health care.

24. Develop and provide health care for men in a manner appropriate for men. The current medical process, waiting rooms, subjugation, etc., has been shown to be psychologically appropriate for women but unsuitable and inappropriate for men. Lack of appropriate medical process and treatment significantly contributes to the shorter lives of men. Men now receive only about 25% of health care in the United States.

25. Ensure that mental health services appropriate for men are widely available. Men now receive only about 5% of all mental health service, none of which is designed for men. The lack of availability of appropriate mental health service greatly contributes to the staggering loss of men's lives by suicide.

26. Eliminate discrimination by government, courts, and other agencies against men who receive emotional or mental health treatment.

27. Address the huge loss of life of young men by suicide by providing appropriate psychological research, counseling, self esteem enhancement, improvement of life options, and other programs.

Protect the rights of HUSBANDS and families.

28. Where domestic violence (DV) shelters remain, provide equally funded domestic violence (DV) shelters and services for battered men, and ensure that men are no more likely to be accused and arrested for DV than women.

29. Provide shelters and programs to protect abused boys funded and staffed proportionally to the significantly greater number of boys currently subjected to abuse in the female headed single parent households.

30. End sexist propaganda about DV. All DV awareness programs must show as many men victims as female victims, and as many female batterers as men batterers. End police or court interference with a husband's legitimate control of his family and household.

31. End the "child protection" services that assume men to be villains if anyone suspects child abuse. A home with a father is statistically the safest place for a child. End government oversight of a father's legitimate administration of his family.

32. Stop the actions of so called Child Protective Services when they attack fathers and separate families without compelling interest such as criminal conviction for child abuse. End punitive administrative decisions against men for administering discipline to unruly children. A father's guidance is almost always better for the children than the badly misandrist decisions now being rendered by badly misandrist CPS officials.

33. End the many financial incentives that reward woman for breaking up families and divorcing husbands. End unearned claims on the husband's property. Stop alimony, child support, and other forms of indentured servitude of men. Stop government programs that benefit and pay divorced women with children. Make all government programs for children equally available to fathers with children. End tax penalties for marriage and government payments for divorce.

34. Stop emotionally rewarding women who destroy families. Establish that a wife who leaves her husband has no right to break up the family and take the children from their home. Require that the parent who leaves a family or breaks it up by filing for divorce must be legally presumed to leave behind the family home and the children.

35. Recognize that when an adulterous wife bears the bastard child of another man she has broken her former marriage and formed another marriage. When a husband finds out through DNA testing or otherwise that his wife's child is not his, he may declare the marriage ended by the wife's adultery. In this event he should retain full custody of his children and ownership of all of the community property including rings, jewelry, or other gifts that she was given as his wife. An adulteress with a bastard child should be able to take only her clothing, toiletries, and her bastard(s).

36. Fully investigate wives and mothers whose husband or child dies of unknown causes such as heart failure, chronic illness, SIDS, or other symptoms which could mask poison or suffocation. Routinely require autopsies that screen for common and uncommon poisons or drug overdoses. Dead men and boys deserve equal protection under the law.

Protect rights of MEN in normal men's sexual behavior.

37. End the criminalization of normal men's sexual behavior. Repeal all laws making men's sexuality, exposure, penetration, etc., into a criminal act unless there is demonstrable physical harm to a victim. Release and pardon all men who have been arrested for "statutory rape," "date rape," "spousal rape," "pornography," "soliciting a prostitute," and other weasel worded versions thereof. A woman's hurt feelings do not turn a man into a criminal.

38. Repeal laws prohibiting men from obtaining commercial sexual services from women who choose of their own free will to work in the sex industry. Such prohibitive laws serve to sexually control men by limiting men's access to sex and preventing open competition with wives' monopoly. Promulgate OSHA guidelines for the health and safety of sex workers.

Protect the Rights of MEN in the government.

39. Pass an Equal Rights Amendment that guarantees equal rights for men in all government laws and programs.

40. Require all government agencies, which now have special departments for women to also have a similar and equally funded department for men.

41. Repeal laws prohibiting men from obtaining recreational drugs and other "controlled substances." These laws create crime for the purpose of fighting it. They make millions of men into criminals and breed widespread disrespect for law and order. The prohibition of drugs supports and makes possible massive crime statistics and is responsible for fully half of all crime in the US. Pardon and release all men currently imprisoned for "drug related" crimes.

Protect the rights of MEN to equal educational opportunity.

42. Eliminate systematic anti-men sexist and anti-white racist bias in college admissions criteria that is now widely prevalent in many state and private colleges and universities.

43. Equally enforce Title IX of the Civil Rights Act wherever men are discriminated against in education. End the half-century of flagrant discrimination against men by the Department of Education.

44. Restore men's colleges and schools that have been systematically eliminated in the name of "equality" while women's colleges and schools are still supported by tax paid budgets, programs, grants or scholarships.

45. Require all tax supported schools, colleges and universities that have departments called "women's studies," "gender studies" or similar euphemisms to also equally fund, staff, and support departments of "Men's Studies." Limit "women studies" and "gender studies" classes to no more than the number of classes and sections offered on "men's studies". Limit "black studies" or "hispanic studies," classes to no more than the number of classes and sections offered on "white studies."

46. Require that English, Philosophy, and other college departments which research, publish or teach "Feminist Theory" or "Gender Theory" also equally fund, research, teach, and publish "Masculinist Theory." Eliminate public funding for academic participation in the Modern Language Association or the College Composition and Communications Conference unless masculinist theories and research is equally supported in seminars and papers presented or published.

47. Require tax-funded libraries, schools, colleges and universities to purchase a number of books on men and men's issues equal to those they purchase on women and women's issues, and to maintain in their collection equal numbers of books on men and men's issues.

48. Eliminate speech codes and "harassment" codes currently used to oppress, subjugate, and silence men, students and professors, on college campuses. Ensure that the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech are not abridged.

49. Eliminate discriminatory college and university programs such as "multicultural centers," "women's centers" and others that do not include men, white men, or straight men as equal recipients of government funded programs.

50. Eliminate ongoing "orientation" programs aimed at forcing college students and employees to adopt racist and sexist beliefs and thoughts prejudicial to men and particularly white men under the guise of "diversity."

51. Ensure that men and particularly white men receive an equal share of scholarships, grants, student loans, and other financial aid that is now disproportionately available and provided on a racist and sexist basis.

Protect the rights of MEN at work.

52. End a half-century of flagrant discrimination against men by the DOL-EEOC and require this agency to show that they support the rights of men, including white men, at work with equal funding and effort.

53. End anti-men discrimination and anti-white men discrimination under so called "Affirmative Action" laws.

54. End the hostile work environments for men created by so-called "sexual harassment" laws. Acknowledge the fundamental rights of free speech and social contacts among adults in work as well as other social situations.

55. Initiate large efforts to reduce the disproportionate number of men killed at work, which now are over 90% of all work-related deaths. Ensure that women also work at the "at-risk" jobs by requiring employers to reassign or rotate workers between safe and more hazardous, harder, or more dirty jobs. Any company or govt. agency reporting to OSHA with a majority of one sex working at normally more risky occupations or reporting occupational injuries mostly to men should pay very large fines to its men workers for sexual discrimination against men.

Protect the rights of MEN in the media.

56. Balance women and men as murder victims, body count, and villains in movies and TV. Current badly disproportional display of men in negative media roles teaches prejudice against men.

57. Balance reporting of crime to eliminate the current over reporting of crimes committed by men and under reporting of crimes committed by women.

58. Allow discrimination lawsuits and punitive settlements for biased media coverage. Numerical unbalance by the media is de facto evidence of discrimination sufficient to prove discrimination and justify punitive class action damage awards.

Protect the rights of MEN to fair and equal justice under the law.

59. Restore equal justice. The current 25-1 discrepancy in prison population is due almost entirely to unfair laws and prosecution that criminalize men and allow women to be free. The real crime of most men in prison is merely being men. Justice tried before a biased court system is not justice at all. No man can get a fair trial in today's biased system. End prosecution of any man for any crime until fair and impartial justice is restored. It is not a crime to be born a man.

60. Reform the police and injustice system to end discrimination against men in police interrogation, citation, arrests, prosecution, plea bargaining, conviction, sentencing, prison time, prison conditions and parole. No man receives a fair trial under today's badly misandrist system. Stop all arrest and prosecution of men under a badly unfair and prejudice system. Pardon and release all men who have been convicted or imprisoned by the sexually biased injustice system.

61. End prosecution entirely for those crimes that are enforced primarily against men, and repeal unfair laws that apply or are applied to men only or primarily.

62. Equally prosecute and sentence both the women and the men where a woman and man perpetrated the crime as partners. End systematic plea bargaining and witness exclusion now used to exempt women who are partners in crime.

63. End special sexist legal defenses that now apply to women but not to men. Examples include the fictitious "battered wife" defense that excuses the murder of men.

64. End so called "rape shield" laws that take away the fundamental and constitutional right of American citizens to confront and question witnesses against them in a court of law.

65. End the so-called "sexual offender" reporting lists, which serve primarily as hate propaganda against men. They constitute cruel and unusual punishment and have no demonstrated value in deterring any future crime. Sex crimes have lower recidivism rates than other crimes. These lists and the life long publication of the names of men are unmitigated misandry.

66. End over prosecution and over punishment of men for minor offenses. Hate motivated accusations of crime made against men with no or minimal showing of physical injury to personas or property shall be no more than misdemeanors. A woman's hurt feelings do not justify the prosecution of a man for a major crime.

67. End current oppression of men by taking away a man's rights as a citizen when a woman maliciously accuses him of DV, child abuse or for other sham charges. Restore the civil rights of men previously accused or convicted in biased courts and of misandrist crimes such as those listed herein. A woman's misandry does not repeal a man's civil and constitutional rights.

68. Recognize that falsely accusing a man of crime is as much of an offense as the crime for which the man is falsely accused. Sentence anyone making a false accusation against a man in a court of law, and who fails to prove their accusation, to the penalty that the accused would have received had he been found guilty of the accusation. Include accusing witnesses and state paid attorneys. A verdict of "not guilty" for the accused is a final "guilty" verdict of "false accusation" for the accuser.

69. End prosecution of men for police accusations of minor infractions of law unless the accuser shows injury or endangerment to a particular person. For example, minor speeding on a vacant highway that endangers nobody is not a crime and should not be prosecuted. If there is no injury there is no crime, and no man ought to be punished. A man talking in the woods with no woman around is not wrong.

70. End the long-standing police practice of letting women go with a warning or ignoring their violations or crimes entirely while arresting or citing men for the same violations. Driving, walking, or living while a man is not a crime.

71. Require periodic published reports giving statistics of actions taken against men compared with police, or criminal prosecutor or court actions taken against women. Dismiss police reports, interrogation, citations and arrests of men in excess of those for women during any reporting period.

72. Summarily dismiss Police Chiefs, Police Commissioners, Judges, Prosecuting Attorneys and other elected and appointed government officials for malfeasance of duty if annual report statistics show a gender unbalance of arrests and/or prosecutions greater than 10%.

Protecting the rights of MEN in life

73. Respect men's privacy and feelings in dressing rooms, locker rooms, and toilet areas where such are provided to women in similar circumstances. Women's choice of restrictive or inconvenient clothing is not an excuse to minimize men's facilities or to allow women to violate men's privacy.

74. Provide adequate plumbing facilities for men in homes. Revise architectural standards and building codes to include men's plumbing needs. Today's standard residential bathtubs, for example, are not large enough to be used by most men. No urinal for men is currently provided in most homes.

75. End laws criminalizing men for public urination on rural roadsides and other suitable places. Normal men's body functions are neither obscene nor offensive.

76. End unequal laws currently allowing female reporters in men's sports team locker rooms but not men reporters in women's sports team locker rooms.

77. End unequal laws, codes and architectural standards requiring more plentiful and better-furnished toilet rooms for women than men in public buildings. Provide public facilities for men equal to those provided for women.

78. Initiate programs and research to improve men's health care, lower stress, reduce hazards, end violence, and all other ways that men are culturally mistreated until men regain equal longevity. The current imbalance in life expectancy of men is a direct reflection of the sum of all the ways that the culture discriminates against men.

79. Lower men's currently disproportional share of Social Security taxes to be proportional with the expected benefits that men receive. Men now pay 80% of social security taxes and receive 20% of benefits.

80. Lower men's currently disproportional share of life insurance, health insurance, retirement insurance, and car insurance charges. Insurance rates must be equalized to reflect fairly on the risks involved for each gender. Men now pay higher premiums for many kinds of insurance disproportionately to the insurance risks and costs involved.

81. Require equal obligation for military service. Women must be equally subject to the draft and military service, including combat, short dehumanizing haircuts, etc. The UCMJ and other regulations must be revised to eliminate rules that unfairly punish men for normal sexuality among men and female soldiers and sailors. Rules must be enacted and revised to eliminate current women's special rights to avoid combat or service by getting pregnant when military medical treatment can prevent pregnancy. Women's combat units can be created with equipment and tactics designed for women's size and strength to prevent women from becoming dependent within men's units.

82. Encourage work or employment situations that rejoin men with our families. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution men have been taken from our homes, farms and shops to work in factories apart from our families. This is an unnatural state that is inherently harmful to most men who lose contact with our children, and harmful to our children who are deprived of the company, guidance and love of their father. We demand that the society recognize and mitigate the grievous harm that industrialization has done to men and children.

83. End sexist law that currently prohibits men-only gyms, stores, clubs, etc., but permits women-only places of those kinds. Men must be permitted free association with other men in clubs, lodges, teams, and all social and fraternal venues. We demand freedoms for men to choose our friends and associates.

SOURCE: Unknown

BOY PROBLEMS

2006-01-23T16:04:00.000-05:00

The Trouble With Boys
They're kinetic, maddening and failing at school. Now educators are trying new ways to help them succeed.

Spend a few minutes on the phone with Danny Frankhuizen and you come away thinking, "What a nice boy." He's thoughtful, articulate, bright. He has a good relationship with his mom, goes to church every Sunday, loves the rock band Phish and spends hours each day practicing his guitar. But once he's inside his large public Salt Lake City high school, everything seems to go wrong. He's 16, but he can't stay organized. He finishes his homework and then can't find it in his backpack. He loses focus in class, and his teachers, with 40 kids to wrangle, aren't much help. "If I miss a concept, they tell me, 'Figure it out yourself'," says Danny. Last year Danny's grades dropped from B's to D's and F's. The sophomore, who once dreamed of Stanford, is pulling his grades up but worries that "I won't even get accepted at community college."

His mother, Susie Malcom, a math teacher who is divorced, says it's been wrenching to watch Danny stumble. "I tell myself he's going to make something good out of himself," she says. "But it's hard to see doors close and opportunities fall away."

What's wrong with Danny? By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind. In elementary school, boys are two times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with learning disabilities and twice as likely to be placed in special-education classes. High-school boys are losing ground to girls on standardized writing tests. The number of boys who said they didn't like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001, according to a University of Michigan study. Nowhere is the shift more evident than on college campuses. Thirty years ago men represented 58 percent of the undergraduate student body. Now they're a minority at 44 percent. This widening achievement gap, says Margaret Spellings, U.S. secretary of Education, "has profound implications for the economy, society, families and democracy."

With millions of parents wringing their hands, educators are searching for new tools to help tackle the problem of boys. Books including Michael Thompson's best seller "Raising Cain" (recently made into a PBS documentary) and Harvard psychologist William Pollack's definitive work "Real Boys" have become must-reads in the teachers' lounge. The Gurian Institute, founded in 1997 by family therapist Michael Gurian to help the people on the front lines help boys, has enrolled 15,000 teachers in its seminars. Even the Gates Foundation, which in the last five years has given away nearly a billion dollars to innovative high schools, is making boys a big priority. "Helping underperforming boys," says Jim Shelton, the foundation's education director, "has become part of our core mission."

The problem won't be solved overnight. In the last two decades, the education system has become obsessed with a quantifiable and narrowly defined kind of academic success, these experts say, and that myopic view is harming boys. Boys are biologically, developmentally and psychologically different from girls—and teachers need to learn how to bring out the best in every one. "Very well-meaning people," says Dr. Bruce Perry, a Houston neurologist who advocates for troubled kids, "have created a biologically disrespectful model of education."

Thirty years ago it was girls, not boys, who were lagging. The 1972 federal law Title IX forced schools to provide equal opportunities for girls in the classroom and on the playing field. Over the next two decades, billions of dollars were funneled into finding new ways to help girls achieve. In 1992, the American Association of University Women issued a report claiming that the work of Title IX was not done—girls still fell behind in math and science; by the mid-1990s, girls had reduced the gap in math and more girls than boys were taking high-school-level biology and chemistry.

Some scholars, notably Christina Hoff Sommers, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, charge that misguided feminism is what's been hurting boys. In the 1990s, she says, girls were making strong, steady progress toward parity in schools, but feminist educators portrayed them as disadvantaged and lavished them with support and attention. Boys, meanwhile, whose rates of achievement had begun to falter, were ignored and their problems allowed to fester (click here for related essay).

Boys have always been boys, but the expectations for how they're supposed to act and learn in school have changed. In the last 10 years, thanks in part to activist parents concerned about their children's success, school performance has been measured in two simple ways: how many students are enrolled in accelerated courses and whether test scores stay high. Standardized assessments have become commonplace for kids as young as 6. Curricula have become more rigid. Instead of allowing teachers to instruct kids in the manner and pace that suit each class, some states now tell teachers what, when and how to teach. At the same time, student-teacher ratios have risen, physical education and sports programs have been cut and recess is a distant memory. These new pressures are undermining the strengths and underscoring the limitations of what psychologists call the "boy brain"—the kinetic, disorganized, maddening and sometimes brilliant behaviors that scientists now believe are not learned but hard-wired.

When Cris Messler of Mountainside, N.J., brought her 3-year-old son Sam to a pediatrician to get him checked for ADHD, she was acknowledging the desperation parents can feel. He's a high-energy kid, and Messler found herself hoping for a positive diagnosis. "If I could get a diagnosis from the doctor, I could get him on medicine," she says. The doctor said Sam is a normal boy. School has been tough, though. Sam's reading teacher said he was hopeless. His first-grade teacher complains he's antsy, and Sam, now 7, has been referring to himself as "stupid." Messler's glad her son doesn't need medication, but what, she wonders, can she do now to help her boy in school?

For many boys, the trouble starts as young as 5, when they bring to kindergarten a set of physical and mental abilities very different from girls'. As almost any parent knows, most 5-year-old girls are more fluent than boys and can sight-read more words. Boys tend to have better hand-eye coordination, but their fine motor skills are less developed, making it a struggle for some to control a pencil or a paintbrush. Boys are more impulsive than girls; even if they can sit still, many prefer not to—at least not for long.

Thirty years ago feminists argued that classic "boy" behaviors were a result of socialization, but these days scientists believe they are an expression of male brain chemistry. Sometime in the first trimester, a boy fetus begins producing male sex hormones that bathe his brain in testosterone for the rest of his gestation. "That exposure wires the male brain differently," says Arthur Arnold, professor of physiological science at UCLA. How? Scientists aren't exactly sure. New studies show that prenatal exposure to male sex hormones directly affects the way children play. Girls whose mothers have high levels of testosterone during pregnancy are more likely to prefer playing with trucks to playing with dolls. There are also clues that hormones influence the way we learn all through life. In a Dutch study published in 1994, doctors found that when males were given female hormones, their spatial skills dropped but their verbal skills improved.

In elementary-school classrooms—where teachers increasingly put an emphasis on language and a premium on sitting quietly and speaking in turn—the mismatch between boys and school can become painfully obvious. "Girl behavior becomes the gold standard," says "Raising Cain" coauthor Thompson. "Boys are treated like defective girls."

Two years ago Kelley King, principal of Douglass Elementary School in Boulder, Colo., looked at the gap between boys and girls and decided to take action. Boys were lagging 10 points behind girls in reading and 14 points in writing. Many more boys than girls were being labeled as learning disabled, too. So King asked her teachers to buy copies of Gurian's book "The Minds of Boys," on boy-friendly classrooms, and in the fall of 2004 she launched a bold experiment. Whenever possible, teachers replaced lecture time with fast-moving lessons that all kids could enjoy. Three weeks ago, instead of discussing the book "The View From Saturday," teacher Pam Unrau divided her third graders into small groups, and one student in each group pretended to be a character from the book. Classes are noisier, Unrau says, but the boys are closing the gap. Last spring, Douglass girls scored an average of 106 on state writing tests, while boys got a respectable 101.

Primatologists have long observed that juvenile male chimps battle each other not just for food and females, but to establish and maintain their place in the hierarchy of the tribe. Primates face off against each other rather than appear weak. That same evolutionary imperative, psychologists say, can make it hard for boys to thrive in middle school—and difficult for boys who are failing to accept the help they need. The transition to middle school is rarely easy, but like the juvenile primates they are, middle-school boys will do almost anything to avoid admitting that they're overwhelmed. "Boys measure everything they do or say by a single yardstick: does this make me look weak?" says Thompson. "And if it does, he isn't going to do it." That's part of the reason that videogames have such a powerful hold on boys: the action is constant, they can calibrate just how hard the challenges will be and, when they lose, the defeat is private.

When Brian Johns hit seventh grade, he never admitted how vulnerable it made him feel. "I got behind and never caught up," says Brian, now 17 and a senior at Grand River Academy, an Ohio boarding school. When his parents tried to help, he rebuffed them. When his mother, Anita, tried to help him organize his assignment book, he grew evasive about when his homework was due. Anita didn't know where to turn. Brian's school had a program for gifted kids, and support for ones with special needs. But what, Anita asked his teachers, do they do about kids like her son who are in the middle and struggling? Those kids, one of Brian's teachers told Anita, "are the ones who fall through the cracks."

It's easy for middle-school boys to feel outgunned. Girls reach sexual maturity two years ahead of boys, but other, less visible differences put boys at a disadvantage, too. The prefrontal cortex is a knobby region of the brain directly behind the forehead that scientists believe helps humans organize complex thoughts, control their impulses and understand the consequences of their own behavior. In the last five years, Dr. Jay Giedd, an expert in brain development at the National Institutes of Health, has used brain scans to show that in girls, it reaches its maximum thickness by the age of 11 and, for the next decade or more, continues to mature. In boys, this process is delayed by 18 months.

Middle-school boys may use their brains less efficiently, too. Using a type of MRI that traces activity in the brain, Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, director of the cognitive neuroimaging laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., tested the activity patterns in the prefrontal cortex of children between the ages of 11 and 18. When shown pictures of fearful faces, adolescent girls registered activity on the right side of the prefrontal cortex, similar to an adult. Adolescent boys used both sides—a less mature pattern of brain activity. Teenage girls can process information faster, too. In a study about to be published in the journal Intelligence, researchers at Vanderbilt University administered timed tests—picking similar objects and matching groups of numbers—to 8,000 boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 18. In kindergarten, boys and girls processed information at about the same speeds. In early adolescence, girls finished faster and got more right. By 18, boys and girls were processing with the same speed and accuracy.

Scientists caution that brain research doesn't tell the whole story: temperament, family background and environment play big roles, too. Some boys are every bit as organized and assertive as the highest-achieving girls. All kids can be scarred by violence, alcohol or drugs in the family. But if your brain hasn't reached maturity yet, says Yurgelun-Todd, "it's not going to be able to do its job optimally."

Across the nation, educators are reviving an old idea: separate the girls from the boys—and at Roncalli Middle School, in Pueblo, Colo., administrators say, it's helping kids of both genders. This past fall, with the blessing of parents, school guidance counselor Mike Horton assigned a random group of 50 sixth graders to single-sex classes in core subjects. These days, when sixth-grade science teacher Pat Farrell assigns an earth-science lab on measuring crystals, the girls collect their materials—a Bunsen burner, a beaker of phenyl salicylate and a spoon. Then they read the directions and follow the sequence from beginning to end. The first things boys do is ask, "Can we eat this?" They're less organized, Farrell notes, but sometimes, "they're willing to go beyond what the lab asks them to do." With this in mind, he hands out written instructions to both classes but now goes over them step by step for the boys. Although it's too soon to declare victory, there are some positive signs: the shyest boys are participating more. This fall, the all-girl class did best in math, English and science, followed by the all-boy class and then coed classes.

One of the most reliable predictors of whether a boy will succeed or fail in high school rests on a single question: does he have a man in his life to look up to? Too often, the answer is no. High rates of divorce and single motherhood have created a generation of fatherless boys. In every kind of neighborhood, rich or poor, an increasing number of boys—now a startling 40 percent—are being raised without their biological dads.

Psychologists say that grandfathers and uncles can help, but emphasize that an adolescent boy without a father figure is like an explorer without a map. And that is especially true for poor boys and boys who are struggling in school. Older males, says Gurian, model self-restraint and solid work habits for younger ones. And whether they're breathing down their necks about grades or admonishing them to show up for school on time, "an older man reminds a boy in a million different ways that school is crucial to their mission in life."

In the past, boys had many opportunities to learn from older men. They might have been paired with a tutor, apprenticed to a master or put to work in the family store. High schools offered boys a rich array of roles in which to exercise leadership skills—class officer, yearbook editor or a place on the debate team. These days, with the exception of sports, more girls than boys are involved in those activities.

In neighborhoods where fathers are most scarce, the high-school dropout rates are shocking: more than half of African-American boys who start high school don't finish. David Banks, principal of the Eagle Academy for Young Men, one of four all-boy public high schools in the New York City system, wants each of his 180 students not only to graduate from high school but to enroll in college. And he's leaving nothing to chance. Almost every Eagle Academy boy has a male mentor—a lawyer, a police officer or an entrepreneur from the school's South Bronx neighborhood. The impact of the mentoring program, says Banks, has been "beyond profound." Tenth grader Rafael Mendez is unequivocal: his mentor "is the best thing that ever happened to me." Before Rafael came to Eagle Academy, he dreamed about playing pro baseball, but his mentor, Bronx Assistant District Attorney Rafael Curbelo, has shown him another way to succeed: Mendez is thinking about attending college in order to study forensic science.

Colleges would welcome more applications from young men like Rafael Mendez. At many state universities the gender balance is already tilting 60-40 toward women. Primary and secondary schools are going to have to make some major changes, says Ange Peterson, president-elect of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, to restore the gender balance. "There's a whole group of men we're losing in education completely," says Peterson.

For Nikolas Arnold, 15, a sophomore at a public high school in Santa Monica, Calif., college is a distant dream. Nikolas is smart: he's got an encyclopedic knowledge of weaponry and war. When he was in first grade, his principal told his mother he was too immature and needed ADHD drugs. His mother balked. "Too immature?" says Diane Arnold, a widow. "He was six and a half!" He's always been an advanced reader, but his grades are erratic. Last semester, when his English teacher assigned two girls' favorites—"Memoirs of a Geisha" and "The Secret Life of Bees" Nikolas got a D. But lately, he has a math teacher he likes and is getting excited about numbers. He's reserved in class sometimes. But now that he's more engaged, his grades are improving slightly and his mother, who's pushing college, is hopeful he will begin to hit his stride. Girls get A's and B's on their report cards, she tells him, but that doesn't mean boys can't do it, too.

By Peg Tyre
With Andrew Murr, Vanessa Juarez, Anne Underwood, Karen Springen and Pat Wingert

January 30, 2006 edition

2006 Newsweek, Inc., 2006 MSNBC.com

URL: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10965522/site/newsweek/

MALIGNING FATHERS

2006-01-23T14:11:00.000-05:00

Last November, I wrote about the controversy about the Public Broadcasting Service documentary, ''Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories," which claimed that male batterers and child abusers frequently gain custody of their children in divorce cases after the mothers' claims of abuse are disbelieved by the courts. The film caused an outcry from fathers' rights groups. In response to these protests, PBS announced a 30-day review to determine whether the film met the editorial guidelines for fairness and accuracy.

Unfortunately, it seems that the review amounted to little more than a whitewash.

On Dec. 21,2005 PBS issued a statement acknowledging that the film ''would have benefited from more in-depth treatment of the complex issues," but also concluded that ''the producers approached the topic with the open-mindedness and commitment to fairness that we require of our journalists" and that the program's claims were supported by ''extensive" research.

Those claims included some highly inflammatory assertions: for instance, that three-quarters of contested custody cases involve a history of domestic violence, and that wife and child abusers who seek child custody after divorce win two-thirds of the time.

Connecticut Public Television, which co-produced ''Breaking the Silence," has supplied me with two detailed reports -- one from producer Dominique Lasseur, the other from Lasseur and George Washington University law professor Joan Meier, the film's lead expert -- on which PBS drew to support its conclusion. To call these reports shoddy and self-serving would be an understatement.

Thus, the reports cite the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's Gender Bias Study of 1989 as proof that fathers who seek custody receive it at least 70 percent of the time -- even though this study does not distinguish custody disputes from cases in which the father got custody by mutual agreement. Other sources used to support the claim of male advantage are even weaker: They include the Battered Mothers' Testimony Project from the Wellesley Center for Women, which used a sample of 40 women with grievances about the family courts. No mention is made of much larger, representative studies of divorcing couples (such as the one reported by Stanford University psychologist Eleanor Maccoby and Harvard law professor Robert Mnookin in the 1992 book ''Dividing the Child") showing that far fewer fathers than mothers get the custodial arrangements they want.

Assertions that abusive men are especially likely to seek custody of children and are likely to prevail in court are backed by similarly slipshod evidence.

Defending the claim made in ''Breaking the Silence" that children are in greater danger of abuse from fathers than from mothers, Lasseur and Meier point to several limited studies that often lump together biological fathers with stepfathers and mothers' boyfriends (who, statistically, pose a far higher risk). Yet even these cherry-picked statistics show that a significant proportion of perpetrators of severe child abuse are mothers -- which makes the film's exclusive focus on abusive fathers difficult to defend.

The producer's account of how he went about researching the film reinforces the impression of bias. Battered women's advocates are presumed to be disinterested champions of victims, even though many of them have an ideological agenda of equating family violence with male oppression of women and children; advocates for divorced fathers or abused men are seen as tainted with ''antiwoman bias." In the same vein, Lasseur's report is supplemented by a letter signed by ''98 professionals" who support the film's conclusions -- but a number of those ''professionals" are feminist activists, including National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy.

Lasseur and Meier profess to be shocked that anyone could see the film as collectively maligning divorced fathers when it focuses only on abusive fathers in contested custody cases. Yet the film clearly suggests that if a divorcing father decides to fight for custody, chances are he's a batterer who's using the custody suit as an abuse tactic -- and that if he's accused of abuse, he's most probably guilty. And that's not prejudicial?

Notably, PBS ombudsman Michael Getler and especially Corporation for Public Broadcasting ombudsman Ken Bode have taken a far more negative view of the film than did the PBS review. On Jan. 4, Bode wrote, ''After close review including discussions and e-mail exchanges with those involved with the program or closely affected by it, I found the program to be so totally unbalanced as to fall outside the boundaries of PBS editorial standards on fairness and balance."

The one silver lining in this mess is that PBS has decided to commission another, more in-depth film on the subject of abuse and child custody. Let's hope that this time, it tackles the subject with real ''open-mindedness and commitment to fairness."

By Cathy Young
The Boston Globe
January 23, 2006
URL: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/23/maligning_fathers?mode=PF

DECLINING STATUS OF BOYS IN LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

2006-01-23T13:47:00.000-05:00

Academic underachievers

First lady Laura Bush and a growing number of physicians, educators and psychologists say Americans need to wake up and see that boys lag far behind girls in school, and then demand that something be done.

Mrs. Bush, mother of two grown daughters, speaks at conferences and in interviews about the declining status of boys in today's learning environment. She has charged that boys are being overlooked.

"I think we need to pay more attention to boys. I think we've paid a lot of attention to girls for the last 30 years ... but we have actually neglected boys," Mrs. Bush told Parade magazine early last year.

William Pollack, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School, agrees.

"Boys are suffering. They are sitting in classrooms where they can't perform at the same level as girls and so cannot compete with girls," he says. "As a result, they have lower self-esteem. The bottom line is that they are suffering both academically and emotionally."

Mr. Pollack, who also serves as director of the Center for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., points out that both upper-class Caucasian boys and minority boys are failing.

"All in all, most schools across the country today are boy-uncentered," he says.

Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens, co-authors of "The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life," back up claims that there is a "crisis in male education" with data from the Department of Education, the State Department and other sources.

They point out that boys:

•Receive the majority of D and F grades given to students in most schools, as high as 70 percent.
•Create 80 percent of classroom discipline problems.
•Account for 80 percent of high school dropouts.
•Represent 70 percent of children diagnosed with learning disabilities and 80 percent of those diagnosed with behavioral disorders.
•Are an average of a year to a year-and-a-half behind girls in reading and writing skills. (Girls are behind boys in math and science, but to a lesser degree.)
•Represent 80 percent of schoolchildren on Ritalin or other medications used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
•Make up less than 44 percent of America's college population.

Reversing the trend

To combat the trend of boys falling behind girls in school, the University of Washington in Seattle turned to a college-preparatory program called the Project Gear-Up.

The federally funded program is offered to disadvantaged high school boys in the summer and on some weekends during the school year. It is designed to show the students that a college education is vital for a successful future.

Project Gear-Up has a "rigorous focus" on mathematics and language arts, says Thomas Calhoun, executive director. The boys get two hours of instruction daily at the university.

Project Gear-Up offers boys weekend workshops in astronomy and other fields. Mr. Calhoun says after-school tutorial sessions will be added as the program grows.

"We think we're doing a good thing," he says. "Academic rigor has been shown to be the most important predictor of college success."

Asked why boys are falling behind girls in classrooms, Mr. Calhoun says: "That is the $24 million question."

He cites "some differences in neurological and developmental patterns" between the sexes as a possible explanation.

"The message does not come across that being smart is ... being cool," Mr. Calhoun says.

For male students, this often translates into poor behavior, poor attendance and poor achievement.

Further aggravating the situation, he says, "public schools tend to send the most ill-equipped teachers to try to reach the most needy students."

In addition, "many schools are not providing a boy-friendly environment, and they don't recognize that they are not boy-friendly," says Mrs. Stevens, director of training at the Gurian Institute in Colorado, which aims to educate teachers, administrators and parents about how learning differs between males and females.

Mrs. Stevens says efforts to enhance learning for boys are moving slowly because some fear that "we'll stop paying attention to girls if we focus more on boys."

Data from the Department of Education show that in 2002, boys scored higher than girls on College Board Advanced Placement examinations in five of six subject areas. Boys outscored girls in social studies, English, calculus, science and computer science, but fell behind in foreign language.

Jacquelynne Eccles, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, says the scores probably reflect "differences in test-taking strategies between girls and boys" more than differences in competency.

"Girls report higher anxiety than boys when they take standardized tests, and they tend to be more cautious in test-taking," Ms. Eccles says.

Scores tell a story

Federal data do show that fourth-, eighth- and 12th-grade girls outscored boys in reading in 1992, and again in 2002 and 2003. Likewise, girls in those grades outscored boys in writing in 1998 and 2002.

And a 2004 report by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), part of the Department of Education, said the "common perception that males consistently outperform females in mathematics" has not been borne out by scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test that measures fourth- and eighth-graders in four subject areas.

"In mathematics, the gap between average scale scores has been quite small and fluctuated only slightly between 1990 and 2003," the report said.

What's more, the data showed that in 2000, female public high school graduates were more likely than males to take high-level mathematics and science courses. The proportion of males was higher only in two courses -- calculus and physics.

Ms. Eccles says no one should be surprised that girls fare better in school today than boys.

"Girls have always gotten better grades than males. That's always been true. On average, girls work harder than boys," she says.

Ms. Eccles says educators and parents raised concerns about this gender differential as far back as the 1950s and '60s. At that time, she says, many argued that schools were "feminizing" male students by requiring that they "sit still" and be quiet all day.

"Back then, boys in the United States used to go to college more than girls, since girls weren't really encouraged to do that. But the opportunities for females have changed dramatically in the past 30 years," Ms. Eccles says.

The science of teaching

Some prominent scholars, such as Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University, disagree that schools favor girls.

"Girls get higher scores in reading, and boys get higher scores in math. It's always been that way. No favoritism is being shown," says Ms. Ravitch, who served as an assistant secretary of education during the administration of the first President Bush.

But Mr. Gurian and Mrs. Stevens contend that a key reason boys are not performing as well as girls is that there are neurobiological differences that are not recognized by most teachers.

"We have an industrial schooling system to educate the greatest number of people, and this system -- with its emphasis on reading, writing and talking -- is set up for the female brain, not the male," Mr. Gurian says. "And this verbally motivated environment will leave out large groups of males, who are not very verbal."

He says boys cannot benefit optimally in an environment where they are under tight control.

"When boys sit down, their brain shuts down," Mr. Gurian says.

Some boys need to be more active in the classroom, and because of this, they are more likely to become discipline problems, he says. Although Mr. Gurian acknowledges that not all boys will be lost in the current system, about five boys in a class of 30 will be left behind.

Mr. Pollack, author of "Real Boys," says it long was thought that boys could take care of their own problems and didn't require special attention.

"Boys can't be sad, so they get angry and act up or act out," upsetting classroom calm, he says.

"I've worked with some schools in California where boys are given chairs on wheels so they can move around more. Some of these schools have a 'brain bank' in the center of the classroom, where boys can work with computers and calculators," he says.

Mr. Pollack, who thinks such reforms are beneficial, says one trend that hurts boys is the emphasis on teaching children to read and write earlier -- in kindergarten rather than in first or second grade.

"Boys, on average, learn to read and write 12 months later than girls to begin with," so forcing these skills on them a year or two earlier makes it harder for them to achieve, Mr. Pollack says.

Separating the sexes

Dr. Leonard Sax, a family physician in Poolesville, says he thinks the solution to helping boys achieve in school is separating them from girls in the classroom.

Dr. Sax, a research psychologist and author of "Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences," says there are "profound" differences between boys and girls in areas such as brain development and circuitry.

Dr. Sax cites these differences:

•In girls, the language areas of the brain develop before the areas used for spatial relations and geometry. In boys, it's the opposite.
•The brains of boys and girls are wired differently. In girls, emotion is processed in the same area of the brain that processes language. But in boys, the regions of the brain involved in talking are separate from those involved in feeling. So it's easier for most girls to talk about their emotions than boys.
•Girls hear better. The typical teenage girl has a sense of hearing seven times more acute than a teenage boy.
•Stress enhances learning in boys, but impairs learning in girls. (As Ms. Eccles notes, this could be a reason why boys do better than girls on College Board Advanced Placement exams.)

Dr. Sax says about 200 public schools nationwide offer separate-sex classrooms.

He cites promising results at Woodward Avenue Elementary School in DeLand, Fla., where fourth-graders last year were randomly assigned to a coeducational class or to an all-boys or all-girls class.

"In the coed class, at the end of the year, 59 percent of girls and 37 percent of boys were proficient in writing," he says. "In the all-girls class, 75 percent of the students were proficient in writing, and, in the all-boys class, 86 percent were proficient in writing."

JoAnne Rodkey, the school's principal, says both girls and boys in single-sex classes also significantly outscored students in coed classes in reading.

"Boys need more activity than girls, so more activity is built into the lessons for boys. Teachers learn what needs to be changed to meet the needs of boys," Mrs. Rodkey says. "As long as interest in and success with [single-sex classes] are there, we'll likely expand these programs."

Heidi Glidden, a researcher for the American Federation of Teachers, says her organization does not endorse the "single-sex classroom*" because research on its outcome is "mixed."

"We're in favor of gender equity, but we support other proven methods" for reaching at-risk students "such as smaller class size," Ms. Glidden says.

Regardless of whether boys and girls are separated in the classroom, Mr. Calhoun says, "All young people need a push. But not enough resources have been directed at boys and men."

•Researchers Amy Basker-ville and John Sopko contributed to this article.

By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 22, 2006
URL: http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20060122-120546-2696r

POLITICS OF FAMILY VIOLENCE

2005-10-28T19:54:00.000-04:00

Beyond a One Dimensional View: The Politics of Family Violence in Canada

Reena Sommer, Ph.D.

(1997) In K. Bonnycastle & G. Rigakos (Eds), Unsettling Truths, Toronto, Ont.: Collective Press: During the past few years, a renewed interest in examining both sides of the spouse abuse question has arisen. This alternative approach to understanding the problem of domestic violence has met with opposition from feminists who believe that spouse abuse is rooted in power imbalances between men and women where “power” is primarily held by men.

In this essay, I examine some of the issues surrounding one dimensional feminist views of family violence. I begin with the premise that the public’s acceptance of the wife victim and husband victimizer dichotomy stems from the inappropriate application of the ‘patriarchal model’ of spouse abuse to all instances of domestic abuse. I argue that in addition to shaping and reinforcing the public perception of spouse abuse as exclusively a women’s issue, the reliance on over extended and flawed conceptual framework limits studies of family violence to the detriment of advancing knowledge and protecting all families members exposed to domestic abuse.

A perusal through feminist literatures reveals rifts within feminist understanding of violence. Nonetheless, the feminist understanding of violence that has come to dominate not only feminist research and critique but government programs and policy responses is a one-dimensional ‘patriarchal model’ of violence. This essay challenges the dominant feminist stance by:

identifying the limitations of the patriarchal model and the flaws in the research based upon it such as incomplete literature reviews, flawed methodologies and overgeneralized interpretations of findings, and by addressing the criticisms of research conducted from a gender neutral perspective.

The essay concludes by looking at the politics of family violence. I tell my own story about university based measures to silence my research which espouses a gender neutral stance on family violence and raises troubling questions about women’s violence.

THE RIFT BETWEEN FEMINIST PATRIARCHAL MODEL AND FAMILY VIOLENCE RESEARCH
Family violence and feminist scholars rarely dispute the seriousness of domestic abuse. Nor do they disagree that socially constructed wall of privacy surrounding families is a major impediment to understanding this form of violence. For family violence researchers, however, the major point of departure centres on resolving whether or not gender should be considered the pivotal variable for identifying victims and perpetrators of family violence. Feminist researchers maintain that women have been and continue to be the victims of domestic abuse perpetrated by men. Feminist advocating patriarchal models of violence claim that male violence is pervasive and normalized; some go as far as to equate violence against women with ‘jungle warfare’ (Yllo 1993). Violence is viewed instrumentally as one of several ways men maintain their dominance (Goldner, Penn, Sheinberg and Walker 1990; Martin 1976) within the context of male entitlement (Dobash, Dobash, Wilson and Day 1992), control, intimidation and isolation (Yllo 1993). Thus, while violence as a manifestation of power and control is understood by feminists to be characteristically within the confines of male behaviour, violence by women on the other hand is viewed as a less frequent event typically occurring in response to male aggression (Saunders 1986).

This feminist argument is based on the belief that women are controlled and disadvantaged systematically by a patriarchal societies (Dobash and Dobash 1979). According to this perspective, men are socialized into violence by multiple social institutions, most notably marriage and family. The Cycle of Violence Theory, borne out of Lenore Walker’s (1979) research on a self selected sample of battered wives is often used to support this position. Walker’s theory explains how a woman’s emotional connections to her partner (e.g., through commitment, love or children), combined with her lack of material resources (e.g., economic and social) in tandem with cyclical fluctuations between periods of abuse and peaceful coexistence lead often to "learned helplessness". This psychological state explains why many battered women never attempt to leave abusive relationships (Walker 1979) even when their lives or their children’s are at risk.

Central to all feminist conceptualization of violence is gender and the insistence that spousal abuse be interpreted as power differentials (Kurz 1993). Based on this approach, all violence tends to be collapsed into the category of ‘male perpetrated’ negating the dynamics of power across different social contexts. This assumption then shapes how spouse abuse is then investigated. For instance, beginning from the premise (that women are victims and men are perpetrators of family violence), ‘patriarchal model’ research typically dichotomizes abuse as being present or absent and characterize violence only in it most severe forms.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The family violence genre of domestic abuse differs from that of feminist research theoretically and methodologically. The most noted study conducted by family violence researchers is the 1975 National Survey on Family Violence (Straus, Gelles and Steinmetz 1980). Considered a landmark study not only because it extended the scope of domestic abuse beyond clinical populations and alerted the world to the pervasiveness of family violence, it also marked a shift in how spousal abuse was to be regarded. For years, domestic abuse was once thought to be a rare event resulting from mental illness or psychopathology (Gelles 1979). This research challenged that belief by demonstrating that spouse abuse is ubiquitous, affecting all levels of society.

Much of the research that followed focused on establishing the prevalence, correlates and social patterns of spouse abuse (Straus et al. 1980). Most recently however, the focus of research has shifted toward incorporating and understanding how the interactions of social forces such as unemployment, stress and past abuse and constitutional factors such as personality, alcohol consumption and a family history of abuse (Bland and Orn1986; Gondolf 1988; Sommer, Barnes and Murray 1992; Sommer 1994) contribute to family violence. Regardless of the approach used, surveys conducted over the past 30 years in the U.S. (Straus et al. 1980; Straus and Gelles 1986; Straus and Kaufman Kantor 1994), Canada (Brinkerhoff and Lupri 1986, Kennedy and Dutton 1989, Sommer 1994) and Britain (Russell and Hudson 1992) consistently suggest that men and women share an equal involvement as perpetrators of domestic abuse.. Therefore, family violence researchers adopt a gender neutral approach in their research recognizing that domestic abuse involves a complex set of interpersonal and social dynamics that stem from maladaptive processes within family systems.

LIMITATIONS OF THE PATRIARCHAL MODEL OF FEMINIST RESEARCH ON SPOUSE ABUSE
Notwithstanding the contributions made by the women’s movement in bringing the issue of wife battering to the forefront, we cannot overlook the existence of theoretical and methodological limitations inherent in the patriarchal model on which these efforts were based.

To begin, it can be argued that the patriarchal argument is limited because it is dated and ignores the realities of the present. I refer reader to the laws sanctioning spouse abuse dating back to the 1700’s which have been consistently used to support the “male oppressor/female victim” position (Sommers 1994). Alternatively, the evidence demonstrating changes in society’s attitude toward women through progress made in the areas of employment equity, affirmative action and child care have instead been ignored (Sommer 1996). Through the selective presentation of evidence supporting men’s power over women , the experiences of present day western women have been falsely characterized as stagnant and oppressive. Yet, when confronted with research which contradicts the systemic subjugation of women, feminists justify excluding it by alleging that the methodology used in that research fails to consider the qualitative aspects of women’s experiences (Straus and Gelles 1990).

Beyond the above limitations, various inconsistencies are also evident within the existing literature. For example, the literature on violence within lesbian relationships reports that the rates of abuse among lesbians is equivalent to those found within heterosexual populations (Marie 1984; Renzetti 1992). This body of research challenges feminist doctrine espousing that violence against women is the result of men's overt attempts to dominate them or that women are inherently nonviolent. Research demonstrating women’s over-represented as perpetrators in incidents of physical child abuse (Coleman and Charles 1990; Star 1983; Straus et al. 1980) further challenges arguments against women’s proclivity toward violence. Research by Simons (1995) reports that one of the risk factors in a woman’s abuse by her husband is her own delinquency as a child and suggests that a history of maladaptive conduct may be an antecedent to later abuse. Finally, for the past ten years, research on child sexual abuse has identified women as well as men as perpetrators (Kendall-Tackett and Simon 1987; McCarty 1986; Schultz and Jones 1983). Research by Kaufman, Wallace, Johnson and Reeder (1995) adds insight into understanding the female offender by reporting that compared to males, they are more likely to exploit their victims.

A number of salient criticisms can also be raised about the methodological limitations of spouse abuse research guided by the patriarchal model of spouse abuse. While the cycle of abuse provides an explanation of spouse abuse that is consistent with the large number of women identified by clinical samples who refuse to press charges against their partners following a domestic abuse incident or who welcome them back following an arrest, it does not describe the experiences of all women in abusive relationships. The population upon which Walker’s (1979) theory was developed raises questions regarding its application as a universal explanation of wife abuse that polarises victims and perpetrators on the basis of gender. Not only has the practice of overgeneralising this theory generated misinformation, it has also been instrumental in shaping public perception and developing programs, policies and legislation that have little applied value in the general population.

In addition to the inappropriate application of theory, limitations related to problems in reporting of findings and flaws in research design are also evident. The following studies have been selected because they are based on Canadian data: the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women report by Linda Macleod (1987), the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women (1993), DeKeseredy and Kelly (1993)’s national dating survey, and the Violence Against Women Survey (Canadian Center for Justice Statistics 1994).

Macleod's (1987) study reported that approximately one million Canadian women (1 in 10) annually. When one considers the source of this estimation (from information drawn from transition houses and inappropriately generalized to the female population at large (Lees 1992), one soon realises that it is nothing more than a falsely grounded guestimation. Similarly, the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women (1993) left the impression that sexual abuse is almost universal when it reported that 98% of a self selected sample of abused women from Metro Toronto had also suffered some form of sexual abuse.

Another set of criticisms relates to the selective analysing and reporting of data, as well as the designing of investigations to generate desired findings. DeKeseredy and Kelly (1993)’s study on dating violence analysed data collected from male and female students who were administered different questionnaires based on their gender. The questionnaires given to the males cast them as the perpetrators while the questionnaires given to the females cast them as the victims. Given this questionnaire structure and a broad definition of abuse used in the study, it is not surprising that 81% of females were reported to have experienced some form of abuse. Although the principal investigators also collected data on females’ use of violence __, these results have yet to be released. This leaves one to ponder whether the researchers’ reluctance to release their findings is because their data on female initiated abuse contradict their theory that males are socialized into violence against women (DeKeseredy and Kelly 1993).

The Violence Against Women Survey (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 1994) which interviewed 12,300 Canadian women on their experiences of violence, reported that 51 percent encountered some form of violence at some point during their lives since the age of sixteen. Estimates of violence experienced across various contexts were also reported. However, missing from the Family Violence in Canada report (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 1994) were the following findings taken from the Public Use Microdata File Documentation and User’s Guide (Statistics Canada, 1994): 1) being "pushed, shoved or grabbed" was the most common form of abuse experienced by women , 2) only 17% of abused women reported ever fearing for their lives , and 3) only 2.35% of abused women ever contacted a women's shelter (Statistics Canada, 1994). In failing to report these findings along with the others, the report distorts toward the negative the experiences of the majority of women in the general population. By selectively reporting their own data, the Family Violence in Canada report fails to provide balance to the feminist position that violence against women is a pervasive and systemic societal problem.

Beyond the problem of selective reporting of findings, a number of other flaws have also been identified. They include: 1) an unrepresentative sample, 2) the use of double-barrelled questions and over-inclusive questions, 3) biased wording, 4) the presentation of the context of abuse as the proportion of multiple relationships, rather than the proportion of responding women, and 5) the selective citing of research literature to support the conceptual frameworks of feminist advocacy (See Sommer and Fekete 1995 for a detailed discussion).

RESEARCH CONDUCTED FROM A GENDER NEUTRAL PERSPECTIVE: CRITICISMS AND REBUTTALS
Criticisms of research conducted from a gender neutral perspective have generally been directed at the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS) (Straus 1979) because it has been alleged to understate the victimization of women and overstate the violence by women (Straus 1990). Of the criticisms waged, the charges that the CTS fails to examine the context, initiation and consequences of abuse_are the most common.

Those who criticize the CTS for not considering these variables clearly lack an understanding of the purpose and the design of this measure. The CTS is a concise instrument that can be used in interview or self administered formats (Straus 1979) and has the capacity to generate data from large samples. It is designed to objectively measure a broad range of conflict resolving behaviours across varying populations. Straus (1990) argued that an examination of the context, initiation and consequences of abuse as part of the CTS would compromise its conciseness and would also assume a relationship between them and the CTS items. Family violence researchers have alternatively assessed these variables apart from the CTS and analysed their interaction effects (See Kaufman Kantor and Straus 1987; Sommer et al. 1992; Stets and Straus 1989).

In spite of the numerous papers criticizing the CTS, it continues to be the mostly widely used measure of family violence even among feminist researchers (DeKeseredy and Kelly 1995; Okun 1986) . Even when other measures have been employed, the overall estimates of abuse are still comparable (Straus 1993). With respect to the latter, when comparing my own findings based on a random sample of adult men and women living in Winnipeg, Manitoba and using the CTS, with those of the Violence Against Women Survey (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 1994) using a modified version of the CTS (e.g., added an item on sexual assault and collapsed “threats” and “the use of a gun or knife” into one item), the overall prevalence of abuse by men was 26.3%.,and 30%, respectively. Even without accounting for variability in abuse rates across the province or differences due to reporting sources, these two findings are nevertheless remarkably similar. Given the similarity in these findings, the question needed to be asked is “why then are the estimates of female perpetrated abuse using the CTS or any other measure deemed less cogent”. Perhaps what is really at issue is the failure of the patriarchal model to explain what it has long espoused.

THE POLITICS OF FAMILY VIOLENCE RESEARCH IN THE ACADEMY
For me, the most troubling aspect of conducting gender neutral research has been coping with personal attacks. While the attack on The Battered Husband Syndrome was documented by media and academics, other examples of this type of intolerance are less well publicized.

In my own academic history, there have been a few occasions where I became convinced that my work was being criticized not on its academic merit, but rather because it did not mesh theoretically with what I have already described as a dominant feminist approach. Indeed, in one particular instance, my research received front page attention in a local newspaper. Soon after, the family violence perspective employed throughout my work, the credibility of my methodology, my understanding of the literature, and my insensitive commentary was the subject of heavy interrogation by fellow academics. Of course, this should not be unexpected in academia since dialogue and criticism are not only anticipated, but preferred. Indeed, early feminists often suffered and continue to endure marginalization and intolerance.

Whomever this type of academic censorship attacks, whether feminist or family violence researcher, the individual toll quite often results in the cultivation of vendettas and continued intolerance - an atmosphere antithetical to serious scholarship. How unfortunate it is when the advancement of ideology takes precedence over the pursuit of knowledge or the welfare of society. The most damaging effect is that instead of accepting the reality of female perpetrated violence, most feminists dismiss any data that do not mesh with a unidimensional patriarchal model. This tendency undermines their ability to cogently speak to woman initiated violence and stunts the progress of scholarship.

CONCLUSIONS
The evidence in this chapter points to researchers’ reluctance to move beyond a one dimensional view of domestic abuse to consider both men’s and women’s relationship to violence. This trepidation, fueled by personal politics or even fear of political and academic reprisal, remains an obstacle to understanding how power and control are negotiated within familial contexts specifically. Because the prevailing view of domestic abuse fails to recognize the interactive and reciprocal relations of violent incidents (and its antecedents), support for the needs of women, men and children living in abusive relationships is limited. Until domestic abuse is seen as a problem stemming from maladaptive family relations embedded within wider maladaptive social conditions, rather than the dysfunctional conduct of one individual, or perhaps one gender, viable solutions to family violence will not be forthcoming.

Notes
This justification for using qualitative methods is selective. The literature on family violence contains numerous examples of feminist research using quantitative research methods (DeKeseredy & Kelly, 1995; Koss, Gidycz & Wisniewski, 1987; Violence Against Women Survey, 1994)

Questions regarding female initiated violence were framed within the context of self defence. This estimate was derived from a composite variable assessing reports of violence across a number of contexts (e.g., current and previous intimate relationships, dating relationships, non intimate relationships, strangers) and included forms of violence ranging from threats to the use of weapons. For the majority of women, the violence reported was an isolated incident occurring at some point in the past. For frequency counts on reports of violence across all contexts, see the Violence Against Women Survey: Public Use Microdata File Documentation and User’s Guide (Statistics Canada, 1994).

Ironically, this is a similar criticism that family violence researchers raise regarding feminist studies on wife abuse.

The estimate of abuse noted is based on Manitoba respondents.

References
Bland R. & Orn H. 1986. Family violence and psychiatric disorder. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 3: 129-37.

Coleman H. and Charles G. 1990. Family violence. Canadian Journal of Home Economic 40 (4): 174-78.

DeKeseredy W. S. and Kelly K. 1993. The incidence and prevalence of woman abuse in Canadian university and college dating relationships. Canadian Journal of Sociology 18 (2): 137-159.

Dobash R. E. and Dobash R. 1979. Violence against Wives: A Case against the Patriarchy. New York: Free Press.

Dobash R..P., Dobash R. E., Wilson M. and Daly, M. 1992. The myth of sexual symmetry in marital violence. Social Problems 39: 71-91.

Gelles R. J. 1979. Battered wives. In J. P. Martin (Ed.), Violence in the Family. London, England: John Wiley & Sons.

Goldner V., Penn P., Sheinberg M. and Walker G. 1990. Love and violence: Gender paradoxes in volatile attachments. Family Process 29: 343-364.

Gondolf E. W. 1988. Who are those guys? Toward a behavioural typology. Violence and Victims 3 (3): 187-203.

Lees D. 1992 The war against men. Toronto Life (December): 45-9, 98-104.

Kantor G. K. and Straus M.A. 1987. “The Drunken Bum Theory of Wife Beating.”Social Problems 34: 213-30.

Kaufman K. L., Wallace A. M., Johnson C. F. and Reeder M. L. 1995. Comparing female and male perpetrators’ modus operandi. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 10 (3): 322-33.

Kendall-Tackett K. A. and Simon A. F. 1987. Perpetrators and their acts: Data from 365 adults molested as children. Child Abuse & Neglect 11: 237-245.

Kennedy L. W. and Dutton D. G. 1989. The incidence of wife assault in Alberta. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 21 (1): 40-54.

Koss M. P., Gidycz C. A. and Wisniewski N. 1987. The scope of rape: Incidence and prevealence of sexual aggression and victimization in a national sample of higher education students. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 55: 162-170.

Kurtz D. 1993. Physical assaults by husbands: A major social problem. In R. J. Gelles and D. R. Loseke (Eds.), Current Controversies on Family Violence. Newbury Park, CA.: Sage

Macleod L. 1987 Battered But Not Beaten: Preventing Wife Battering in Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women.

McCarty L. 1986. Mother-child incest: Characteristics of the offender. Child Welfare, 65: 447-58.

Marie S. 1984. Lesbian battering: An inside view. Victimology 9 (1:, 16-20.

Okun L. 1986. Woman Abuse: Facts Replacing Myths. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.

Martin D. 1976. Battered Wives. New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books

Renzetti C. M. 1992. Violent Betrayal: Partner Abuse in Lesbian Relationships. Newbury Park, Ca.: Sage Publications.

Saunders D. G. 1986. When battered women use violence: Husband-abuse or self defence? Victims and Violence 1 (1): 47-60.

Scultz L. and Jones P. 1983. Sexual abuse of children: Issues for social service and health professionals. Child Welfare 62: 101.

Simons R. L., Johnson C., Beaman J. and Conger, R. D. 1993. Explaining women's double jeopardy: Factors that mediate the association between harsh treatment as a child and violence by a husband. Journal of Marriage and the Family 55: 713-23.

Sommer R., Barnes G. E. and Murray R. P. 1992. Alcohol consumption, alcohol dependence, personality and female perpetrated spousal abuse. Personality and Individual Differences 13 (12): 1315-23.

Sommer R. 1994. Male and Female Perpetrated Partner Abuse: Testing a Diathesis-Stress Model. An unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Manitoba: Winnipeg, Canada.

________. 1996. Controversy within family violence research. In R.J. Simon (Ed.), From Data to Public Policy. Lanham, MD.: University Press of America.

Sommer R. and Fekete J. July, 1995. How Stats Canada distorted the perception of violence against women in Canada. A paper presented at the Fourth International Family Violence Research Conference: Durham, New Hampshire

Sommers C. H. 1994. Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women. New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster.

Star B. 1983. Helping the Abuser: Intervening Effectively in Family Violence. New York, N. Y.: Family Services Association of America.

Statistics Canada 1994. Violence Against Women Survey: Public Use Microdata File Documentation and User's Guide: Ottawa, Ontario.

Statistics Canada 1994. Family Violence in Canada. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.

Steinmetz S. K. 1978. The battered husband syndrome. Victimology 2 (3-4): 499-509.

Stets J. E. and Straus M. A. 1989. The marriage license as a hitting license: A comparison of assaults in dating, cohabiting and married couples. Journal of Family Violence 4 (2): 161-80.

Straus M. A. 1979. Measuring intrafamilial conflict and violence: The Conflict (CT) Scales. Journal of Marriage and the Family 41: 75-88.

__________.1990. The Conflict Tactics Scales and its critics: An evaluation and new data on validity and reliability. In M.A. Straus & R.J. Gelles (Eds.), Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.

________. 1993. Physical assaults by wives: A major social problem. In R. J. Gelles and D. R. Loseke (Eds.), Current Controversies of Family Violence. Newbury Park, CA.:Sage.

Straus M. A., Gelles R. J. and Steinmetz S. K. 1980. Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family. Anchor: New York, N. Y.

Straus M. A. and Gelles R. J. 1990 (Eds.). Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.

The Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women 1993. Changing the Landscape: Ending Violence-Achieving Equality. Ottawa, Ontario: Minister of Supply and Services Canada.

Walker L. E. 1979. The Battered Woman. New York, N. Y.: Harper & Row, Publishers.

Yllo K. A. 1993. Through a feminist lens: Gender, power and violence. In R. J. Gelles and D. R. Loseke (Eds.), Current Controversies on Family Violence, Newbury Park, CA.: Sage.

url: www.reenasommerassociates.mb.ca/dv_canada.html

GIRLS AND AGGRESSION

2005-10-11T10:59:00.000-04:00

What about girls? Are they really not aggressive?

Many of the books or papers on aggression in children focus primarily on boys. Most people assume that boys are more aggressive than girls, which leads to problems for boys, but not for girls, in their peer relationships. In fact, many of the research studies that examine aggressive children only include boys.

A MORE SUBTLE AGGRESSION

In her recent work, Dr. Nikki Crick of the University of Minnesota has challenged the assumption that girls are not aggressive (Crick, 1996; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995; Grotpeter & Crick, 1996). Dr. Crick argues that girls have not been found to be aggressive in previous studies because researchers have been looking at the wrong kind of aggression.

Most of the previous research, as well as interventions with aggressive, peer-rejected children, define aggression as either physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt another person. Crick believes that girls, in general, do not engage in this type of aggression against their peers. They do, however, employ relational aggression. Relational aggression is behavior specifically intended to hurt another child's friendships or feelings of inclusion in a peer group. An example of relational aggression would be a child spreading hurtful rumors about another child so that other children are less inclined to be friendly toward her. Or, a child might retaliate against another child by not including her in the play group. Relational aggression, then, is deliberate manipulation on the part of a child to damage another child's peer relationships.

Crick's work with elementary school children has demonstrated that the degree of aggressiveness exhibited by girls has been underestimated, mainly because it is difficult to measure. Clearly, when one child hits another, that child is behaving in an overtly aggressive way. In contrast, how do you tell when one child has started a rumor about another?

Because adults are not always privy to the comings and goings of children's peer groups, they may be unaware of any relational aggression. Although Crick detected overlap in teachers and children's reports of relational aggression in the classrooms where she conducted her research, she did not detect complete overlap. In other words, relational aggression occurred without the knowledge of the teacher.

LINKS TO PEER REJECTION

Using measures completed both by teachers and children, Crick found that girls engaged in higher levels of relational aggression than boys. Girls who engaged in relational aggression exhibited a number of adjustment difficulties, and had self-reported higher levels of depression, loneliness, and social isolation than their peers. In addition, peers disliked relationally aggressive girls more than other girls.

Girls who engaged in relational aggression early in the school year were more likely to be rejected by their peers later in the school year than girls who did not engage in relational aggression early on. Not surprisingly, children who demonstrated relational aggression at one time point were likely to continue using it throughout the school year.

Because research finds relational aggression to be a relatively stable behavior in children, Crick's research has implications for practitioners who conduct interventions with peer-rejected children. Clearly, children who engage in relational aggression are candidates for peer relationship intervention programs to prevent future peer rejection.

FRIENDSHIP CHARACTERISTICS

Previous research on children's peer relationships has shown that having at least one friend buffers a child from some of the negative effects of peer rejection. Because relational aggression involves manipulating friendships, Crick and Grotpeter (1995) were interested in examining the friendships of relationally aggressive children. Friendships of relationally aggressive children did not differ from those of nonaggressive children on measures of caring, companionship, and helping one another. Relationally aggressive children's friendships did differ from nonrelationally aggressive children in several ways, however. First, relationally aggressive children and their best friends reported higher levels of intimacy in their friendships than did other children. This high level of intimacy probably puts the nonaggressive friend at risk because the relationally aggressive child has ready access to important, private information about the other child. A relationally aggressive child could easily use threats to disclose the information to manipulate her friend. Second, a high level of exclusivity exists in the friendship with the relationally aggressive child. Again, this may put the other friend at risk to be manipulated because she may have limited friends to turn to as alternatives. A final feature of these friendships is their high degree of internal relational aggression. Relationally aggressive children direct many of their aggressive behaviors toward their friends. These findings are dramatically different from those of overtly aggressive children and their friends. Overtly aggressive children tend to behave aggressively toward those external to the friendship rather than toward each other. The aggressive behavior is directed outside the dyad.

This line of research clearly will be of interest to practitioners as it develops. Although no interventions have been developed to date using this information, practitioners should develop prevention interventions with relationally aggressive children.

By Nina S. Mounts, Ph.D.,
The Ohio State University
Human Development and Family Life Bulletin
A Review of Research and Practice
Volume 3, Issue 2, Summer 1997
URL: http://www.hec.ohio-state.edu/famlife/bulletin/volume.3/bull26b.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
Crick, N. R., & Grotpeter, J.K. (1995). Relational aggression, gender, and social-psychological adjustment. Child Development, 66, 710-722.

Crick, N. R. (1996). The role of overt aggression, relational aggression, and prosocial behavior in the prediction of children's future social adjustment. Child Development, 67, 2317-2327.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT IS ANTI-MEN

2005-10-10T23:41:00.000-04:00

Congress Should Kill Discriminatory Domestic Violence Act
The Violence Against Women Act is a living symbol of anti-male bias in law

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) will expire this September if it is not reauthorized by Congress. Largely viewed as an anti-domestic violence measure, VAWA has become a flashpoint for the men's rights advocates who see it instead as the living symbol of anti-male bias in law.

Although a significant number of domestic violence victims are male, VAWA defines victims as female. As one result, tax-funded domestic violence shelters and services assist women and routinely turn away men, often including older male children.

Estimates vary on the prevalence of male victims. Professor Martin Fiebert of California State University at Long Beach offers a bibliography that "summarizes 170 scholarly investigations, 134 empirical studies and 36 reviews."

It indicates that men and women are victimized at much the same rate. A lower-bound figure is provided by a recent DOJ study: Men constituted 27 percent of the victims of family violence between 1998 and 2002.

Accordingly, men's rights activists accuse the VAWA of not merely being unconstitutional for excluding men, but also of dismissing the existence of one-quarter to one-half of domestic violence victims.

The criticism should go deeper. In many ways, VAWA typifies the legislative approach to social problems, which arose over the past few decades and peaked during the Clinton years.

The legislative approach follows a pattern: public furor stirs over a social problem; Congress is pressured to "do something;" remedial bureaucracy arises, often with scant planning; the problem remains; more money and bureaucracy is demanded; those who object are called hostile to "victims."

VAWA arose largely from the concern stirred by feminists in the '80s. They quite properly focused on domestic violence as a neglected and misunderstood social problem. But their analysis went to extremes and seemed tailor-made to create public furor.

As an example, consider a widely circulated claim: "a woman is beaten every 15 seconds." The statistic is sometimes attributed to the FBI, other times to a 1983 report by the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. But neither the FBI nor the DOJ sites seem to include that statement or a similar one.

Men's rights activists contend that the elusive statistic derives from the book Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family (1980) by Murray Straus, Richard J. Gelles and Suzanne K. Steinmetz. The book was based on the first National Family Violence Survey (1975), from which the FBI and other federal agencies drew.

The survey does support the claim that a woman is battered every 15 seconds but also indicates that men are also victims. By omitting male victims from their efforts, however, domestic violence activists create the impression of a national epidemic that uniquely victimizes women who require special protection.

In response to public outcry, Congress was pressured to "do something." It passed VAWA in 1994, granting $1.6 billion to create a bureaucracy of researchers, advocates, experts, and victim assistants, which some collectively call "the domestic violence industry."

Reauthorized in 2000, VAWA's funding rose to $3.33 billion to be expended over five years. Now, VAWA 2005 seeks more money.

Voices like the National Organization for Women insist that "the problem" remains. To argue for the "growing problem of gender-based violence," however, NOW reaches beyond traditionally defined violence against women and seeks to protect high school girls from abusive dating experiences. NOW states, "Nearly one in three high-school-age women experience some type of abuse -- whether physical, sexual or psychological -- in their dating relationships."

Without expanding the definition in such a manner, it would be difficult to argue for more funding.

Data indicates that traditionally defined violence against women has declined sharply. The rate of family violence reportedly "fell from about 5.4 victims per 1,000 to 2.1 victims per 1,000 people 12 and older," according to DOJ statistics.

VAWA 2005 faces much more opposition than its earlier incarnations. One reason is that men's rights activists have been presenting counter-data and arguments for over 10 years.

Advocates of VAWA 2005 have responded with pre-emptive accusations that paint opponents as anti-victim: for example, "If Congress does not act quickly to reauthorize the legislation, they are putting women's and children's lives at risk."

But most of the anti-VAWA arguments are not anti-victim. Many are anti-bureaucracy and could apply to any of the so-called "industries" created by the legislative approach to social problems. (The Child Protective Services is another example.)

Some anti-bureaucracy objections focus on the billions of dollars transferred into programs, often with little oversight or accountability attached.

Other objections point to those dollars being used for political purposes rather than clear and immediate assistance to victims. The misuse of tax dollars is most often alleged on the grassroots level, where men's rights activists often face VAWA-funded opposition to political measures, especially on father's rights issues.

One incident in New Hampshire illustrates the point. Earlier this year, The Presumption of Shared Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act was defeated by vehement opposition from the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. The coalition both wrote to and spoke before the Legislature. Accordingly, father's rights advocates in New Hampshire are seeking language in VAWA 2005 to prohibit any VAWA-funded agency from "legislative lobbying, advertising, or otherwise supporting the endorsement of, or opposition to, any state proposed legislation" which is not explicitly related to the prevention of domestic violence.

I think they should seek to kill the act entirely. I believe VAWA is not only ideologically inspired and discriminatory, it is also an example of why bureaucracy-driven solutions to human problems do not work.

I hope VAWA becomes the Titanic of the legislative approach to social problems. I hope it sinks spectacularly.

By Wendy McElroy, ifeminists.com
30 June 2005
SOURCE: http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article4434.html

UNIQUE GROUP OF RARELY MENTIONED MEN

2005-10-10T23:30:00.000-04:00

Remembering America's War Dead - Who Never had the Right to Vote

Sadly, our societal institutions are a little misandrist these days, respecting the sacrifices of millions of men who died in our nation’s wars with questionable sincerity. The lack of respect appears to extend to all male veterans, living and dead. Ironically, some say hypocritically, a large segment of our nation chooses to blame men for the violence that plagues the world, and our society at home. Our nation is a little “gender short sighted” in embracing a gender feminist movement that says, “Men are prone to violence and use violence to have power and control ,” then passes laws so the male gender is almost exclusively the only one required to serve in combat situations.

Historically, it is men who almost exclusively make up the millions who’ve been “asked” to die for their country, and in that group of millions is a select group of men seldom mentioned. Sadly, that group of Americans (all male) from a recent time in our history, were asked to make the supreme sacrifice for their country (and did so) without having ever been granted the sacred right of voting in their own country (America). Their story is a sacrifice, not fully told or honored as we ring the sacred bell of freedom in patriotic celebration for our most revered heroes, the honored dead, this Memorial Day.

Much has been written and talked about in gender feminist, women’s studies circles about the privileges that males in American society enjoy, and the historic oppression that women have endured. Here is one example: http://wgst.intrasun.tcnj.edu/newsletter/archives/april2002.html

“Over the course of a semester in any Women’s and Gender Studies course, students become aware of how, despite extraordinary advances in recent decades, gender inequality still permeates our society. Every male in the U.S., no matter his age or race or class, finds his path made just a bit smoother every day because he happens to have an X and Y chromosome.” - Women's and Gender Studies Newsletter, The College of New Jersey, April 2002, Male Privilege, Men’s Responsibility, by Michael Robertson

I have heard nary a word in any college class, about the historical oppression that males have endured as a group. The historical, “Patriarchal” oppression of women’s voting rights never fails to occupy a significant amount of curriculum time in these classes. Yet, there are few if any women who lived in the 20th century who endured the oppression of their voting rights on a scale comparable to the thousands, or tens of thousands of men who died fighting for their country in war (without ever having had the right to vote).

The 19th amendment to the U. S. constitution, giving women the right to vote, was ratified on Aug 26, 1920. http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/hancock/pol204/history.htm

Many states were even allowing women to vote before this date. Within the time parameters of the date of passage of the 19th amendment, it is fairly safe to say that, no woman, born in the 20th century, was ever denied the right to vote in America in her lifetime (at least because of her gender). My own dear Mom who was born in 1908, and who died in 1997 at 89 years of age, was never without her right to vote upon reaching the eligible age of 21.

In the 60’s and 70’s the Vietnam conflict was raging, and once again, males only were required by law to register for the draft when turning age 18 (Selective Service has no requirements for females to register, but many harsh penalties for men who fail to register). http://www.sss.gov/regist%20information.htm Once again, males only were being drafted and sent to fight in this nation’s war. Once again, men comprised over 99.99% of the dying and wounded, and as history shows, many of them didn’t even have the right to vote. I’m sure young men of less than voting age died, or were wounded, or served in WWI, WWII, and the Korean War as well, but from what I’ve read it appears the age of the American Serviceman was as young as it’s ever been during the Vietnam conflict.

I can only speculate that the reason for the spike in the number of deaths in the 19 and 20 year old age groups (see below) was due to the fact that at age 19, often on a man’s birthday, he would receive a letter from his draft board beginning with the salutation, “Greetings.” He really didn’t need to read the rest. Translating that into simple terms, “Your drafted buddy!” I know. I got one of those letters.

Often at this point, many guys would enlist in a favorite branch of the service, sometimes trying to negotiate some civilian transferable job training out of a recruiter, but often a guy just waited for the inevitable paper work giving instructions as to where he was to report for boot camp.

On the web page listing the names of the people whose names appear on the Vietnam wall there is a wealth of information detailing the lives of those who died. http://thewall-usa.com/

The information appears far better documented than that from earlier wars, and there’s even a search engine to make doing research a whole lot less time consuming. The sad truth of the matter is that there were so many names that came up, when I put in the search criteria, that I kept getting “There were too many matches,” as an “invalidating” response. I swallowed the lump in my throat, narrowed my search to just include California men who died in the Vietnam conflict (who were not 21 years of age), then I was even more saddened to see how many of them were so very young. The results are as follows:

There was one (1) - 17 year old.

There were two hundred twenty eight (228) - 18 year olds.

There were eight hundred twenty five (825) - 19 year olds.

There were one thousand three hundred seventy two (1,372) - 20 year olds.

That makes for a sub total of 2,426 men, but we must subtract the men who died after July 1, 1971. On July 1, 1971, the 26th amendment to the U.S. Constitution became law and 18 year olds were given the right to vote. I rechecked the dates for all 2,426 California men who died in Vietnam and subtracted 45 of them, under 21 years of age, who died after July 1, 1971. After subtracting those 45 men, I wound up with a great grand total of two thousand three hundred eighty one (2,381) California men who died in Vietnam without ever having the reached legal voting age.

All eight (8) American women who died in Vietnam where over the age of 21 at the time of their deaths. http://thewall-usa.com/women/ However, all those who died serving their country in Vietnam (without ever having the legal right to vote) were male.

There were many, many other 20th century, American men, and a few women, who didn’t have the right to vote while serving their country in the military in time of war (because they were less than 21), who are still alive today. I’m one of them. I was in Vietnam, or Southeast Asia in 67, 68, 69 and 70 for a total of 21 months, and I was first allowed to vote in the Nixon/McGovern election of 1972 after I was honorably discharged from military service.

Please remember, the male deaths I am citing are only from one state (California) and one war (conflict), Vietnam. There are names from 49 other states on the Vietnam Wall memorial. There are thousands, or more likely tens of thousands, of young men who died in Vietnam without ever having had the right to vote. There are men, many men, from other wars in this century who gave their lives for America without ever having been given the right to exercise their choice for the leadership and direction of their country.

The further back we go in time, the more difficult it becomes to get detailed information concerning America’s war dead, but this site offered relevant data concerning the lives of twelve courageous Marines who where involved in one of the most famous and celebrated events of WWII, the flag raising on Iwo Jima

http://www.findagrave.com/php/famous.php?page=pr&FSctf=176

It bears mentioning that there were actually two flag raisings on Iwo Jima, but it is the second one that is most often remembered due to a photograph that has become nothing short of an American icon, http://www.iwojima.com/raising/lflage.gif

The lives of the second flag raisers at Iwo Jima are chronicled on this web site, http://www.iwojima.com/raising/raisingc.htm

One key piece of information that can be gleaned from the information given on the “Find A Grave, Claim to Fame: Flag Raisers at Iwo Jima” web page is the age of those flag raisers at the time of their deaths. Of the twelve flag raisers, six died in the war, and four of those six died having never reached America’s legal voting age of 21:

Block, Harlon Henry, November 6, 1924 d. March 1, 1945 (age 20 years, 3 months)

Charlo, Pvt. Louis Charles, September 26, 1926 d. March 2, 1945 (age 18 years, 5 months)

Sousley, Franklin, September 19, 1925 d. March 21, 1945 (age 19 years, 6 months)

Thomas Jr., Boots (Ernest Ivy) March 10, 1924 d. March 3, 1945 (age 20 years, 11 months)

Considering the present, politically correct, gender feminist climate in America’s educational and governmental institutions, I guess I really don’t expect much recognition concerning the historical voting oppression experienced by America’s apparently ten’s of thousands of eternally silenced American males.

In California, where I live today, we don’t talk about men’s historical oppression in any college classroom that I’ve seen, and we sure don’t bring it up in the politically correct halls of our government buildings. On a trip to Sacramento (California’s Capitol) a few years back, I visited a local museum in “old town.” I was appalled to see an exhibit honoring the contributions of Californians to WWII, where a woman stood prominently in the foreground in military garb and a male G.I. stood obscurely behind her, almost as an afterthought.

Today in Iraq, women comprise roughly 3% of America’s war dead and casualties, and they are exempted by current law from the vast majority of combat. From this Time Magazine Cover of 2003 (Person of the Year) it appears some journalistic paradigms don’t require nearly the same sacrifice of women before they are honored in standing in front of, instead of beside, men.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3338809.stm

Special services and privileges for women, and special duties and responsibilities for males seems to be the forte in all areas of life in America today (not just in the military), especially in politically correct California. By California law there is no recognition of men as victims of domestic violence (only females) - even if you‘re a male veteran and victim of a battering wife. Shelter services for battered men are virtually non-existent.

For years some male California veterans have been horribly targeted and cheated by Paternity Fraud, http://hometown.aol.com/vetsvspf/ while California governments at all levels do everything they can to consider the rights of California’s male veterans last.

For the men of California who died serving their country in Vietnam (having never enjoyed the privilege of voting), all the recognition I’ve ever seen them receive in “Academia” is that they where patriarchs (prone to violence) who where unfairly entitled with privilege by fact of their male birth. I find it ironic that our liberal colleges plaster billboards in the hallways of classroom buildings with posters asking, “What can men can do to stop their violence against women,” while hypocritically doing nothing to see that males aren’t unfairly targeted by law for military service, and the violence the ensues subsequently. I find it hypocritical that Title IX, especially in California, spends so much effort worrying about equity in sports programs, but ignores combat roles for females. When will that playing field be leveled?

Under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), billions have been spent to help women who’ve "allegedly" been victims of violence, while purposely, systematically, egregiously ignoring male victims of heterosexual, intimate partner violence. Much of VAWA’s money has come to California, yet there’s pitifully little money available under this program to help the many men who are victims of heterosexual, intimate partner violence. Shockingly, the sexist, anti-male VAWA is coming up for billions more in reauthorization money. Where is a Violence Against Men Act (VAMA) for our returning war vets? At last count, about 97% of America’s war dead and wounded in Iraq were men. Historically, that number has been 99.999%. Spending billions more on a fraudulent Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that does nothing for men, and is heavily lacking in any kind of scrutiny or accountability is a gross misspending of taxpayer’s money. When we consider that our returning male war veterans have been intimately exposed to the most horrific experiences of violence, that flagrant fraud known as VAWA is all the more despicable for its anti-male, anti-veteran sexism. VAWA is not only a California disgrace, it’s a National disgrace.

On the web site of the National Coalition of Free Men, Los Angeles, NCFMLA addresses the issue of the position of Deputy Secretary of Men’s Veterans Affairs, or rather the lack of that position. NCFMLA’s insight speaks volumes about the lack of respect and honor that the State of California shows to its current male war veterans: http://www.ncfmla.org/past_activities.html

“In the matter of veteran's affairs, California has established a "Deputy Secretary of Women Veterans Affairs" that has responsibility over women's veteran affairs. Nevertheless, male veterans are apparently seen by California as being war chattel that is to be consumed in battle and returned in a casket. Otherwise, California would recognize the equal need for a "Deputy Secretary of Men's Veterans Affairs." It seems clear that California presumes that males have no need for a "Deputy of Male Veterans Affairs," because of their gender and their absence of value - except that derived from being war chattel.”

Let us place our hands over our hearts, face the flag and give a special salute to those “overlooked” American men who never got the chance to vote in their lifetimes. Let us salute all the brave Americans who gave their all for the freedom our country enjoys today. Let us not forget this Memorial Day how actively our country works, especially in California, to disenfranchise America’s male military veterans for the sake of an un-American gender feminist agenda. The un-American gender feminist agenda that bigotedly strives to undermine the constitutional guarantees of equal protection, equal rights, and equal justice for all (including men) honors no one, but instead, harms us all.

by Ray Blumhorst, May 28, 2005
SOURCE: http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/a-b/blumhorst/2005/blumhorst052805.htm

PRONE TO VIOLENCE

2005-10-10T22:06:00.000-04:00

Prone to Violence
by
Erin Pizzey

Erin Pizzey founded the first refuge for battered wives in 1971. As a result of that work there is now refuge all over the world. She is also a writer and a journalist. She has two children and two grandchildren from her first marriage. She has written: Scream Quietly or the Neighbors Will Hear, Infernal Child and The Slut's Cookbook.
The events and incidents referred to in this book are based on the authors' personal experience and information given to them. The names of the persons referred to in the text work have been altered and all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that they are not identifiable.

AUTHORS' PREFACE

The premise of our work is that every baby needs to feel love and happiness. A baby will bond these instinctive feelings to whatever people and situations are available. It is the birth-right of every child to be surrounded by nurturing and loving parents in an atmosphere of peace. In a non-violent family, a child grows up in such an atmosphere, and then, working from the secure base of being loved, will develop an independent and choosing self that is able to recreate happy love both in future relationships and with its own children. In a violent family, however, this birthright to love and peace is betrayed, because from the moment of conception the child lives in a world where emotional and physical pain and danger are always present. The child then bonds to pain. This bonding becomes an addiction to pain. The child then cannot grow to form an independent self, because he or she is slave to this addiction. Throughout life, the person then recreates situations of violence and pain, for those situations stir the only feelings of love and satisfaction the person has ever known.

Whether the children of violent families learn to find satisfaction through the inflicting or the receiving of emotional and physical pain, the violence that these people live on is merely an expression of pain. The role of the caring community is to undo this fundamental betrayal of people who have been emotionally disabled by their violent childhoods. By creating a loving environment in which deep internal work can be done to help violence-prone people to understand and to overcome their addiction to pain, these people can then learn to trust and be happy in love instead of pain.

This book records ten years of work in such a community, along with the techniques and insights gained through these years.

The work now continues in Britain through Women's Aid Ltd., which runs a house in Bristol.
The Author 19 February 1982

INTRODUCTION

The idea of a meeting place for women and their children grew out of my disastrous brush with a local group of the newly emergent Women's Movement in 1971. I was then feeling lonely and isolated, with two small children to care for, and a husband frequently away. When I first began to read the articles that other women were writing, I felt they were writing about me. It was certainly a liberation to find I was not the only woman who could not knit or sew, and that there were other women out there who shared my pathological hatred of housework. I began to look out for our nearest group.

Unfortunately that group, in particular, seemed to be more concerned with world politics than with my day-to4ay problems, like how to cope on my own with two children, two dogs and a cat - for the loneliness was sometimes dreadful. Luckily I did meet some women like myself who wanted not only to bring up their children properly at home, but also to use their energies and talents in improving our community life, so that we would no longer feel so cut off and isolated that we lived our lives on valium. Therefore we left it to the women's group to decide the solution for world problems, and got on with the more immediate task of finding a place where mothers could meet each other and bring their children.

So with two of my friends I began to scout round Hounslow for a little house to use as a women's centre. Eventually Hounslow Council wrote to me about No.2 Belmont Terrace, and I collected the keys. When I first opened the door, I burst into tears -it was derelict. But it was ours! By now our group had grown quite large, and we
determinedly got on with the work. Harry Ferrer, our plumber, showed us how to fit pipes and mend washers, and we completely renovated the building until one day it was ready for occupation.

Mothers living locally began to call by on their way to and from school. They would stop in for a chat or to share a problem with us. Gradually we all pooled our knowledge and began to learn the complex Social Security laws. We discovered that many women would come to see us who could not face anything as authoritarian-seeming as a town-hall or a Social Services department. We had created a very happy little community of people from all walks of life, who knew that any time they were lonely or in need of company they just had to go down to No.2 Belmont Terrace, and someone was almost sure to be there to talk to. And even when no one was there, it was still a warm, welcoming place to take your kids. Then home did not seem so much like a prison.

All this changed the day the first battered woman walked through the front door and showed me her bruises. 'No one will help me,' she said. Those words took me back to a time in my own childhood when no one would help me - as I begged them to bury my mother because my father refused to. 'I will help you,' I promised her, and refuge was born.

Within weeks there were at least forty mothers and children packed into four tiny rooms. Fortunately for me, our predicament was high-lighted in a small piece written by a journalist for the Observer. After that a man called by one day and, sitting himself down on a mattress, asked me what I most needed. 'A new house,' I told him. 'Go and find it,' he said. I did. This man was Neville Vincent, the Managing Director of Bovis Ltd. In November 1974 we acquired a much larger house in Chiswick High Road. However, we were still not out of the woods. Even as we moved in, our numbers were already too great. We were still officially overcrowded. Because at that time there was nowhere else for women to run to, I insisted that no one should ever be turned away. As a result, although we were legally allowed to house only thirty-six residents, our numbers sometimes went as high as one hundred and fifty mothers and children.

My colleague Anne Ashby agreed with me over the 'open door' principle, and we enshrined it in our policy that the door would remain open day and night. This, of course, created an unbearable tension between ourselves and our local Borough, who quite rightly were worried by the overcrowding, the ensuing health hazard, and the possibility of fire. On 29 April 1976 the Borough first took me to court for overcrowding.

Just before I was to appear in the Acton Magistrates' Court, I was invited to tour America with Tina, Nikki, and Annie, who were working with me at the time. I was genuinely startled and moved that anyone should consider that we had anything valuable to offer, so I accepted at once. We flew into New York on 12 March 1976, and visited sixteen other cities to raise funds for new refuges springing up all over the USA. I remember that I was particularly interested in finding if anyone else had come to similar conclusions on why some people actually choose violent relationships - which is the major theme of this book. But in response I mostly met again the hostility of those people who insisted that all women were simply victims of male oppression.

It seems to me that America's Women's Movement is much more broadly based than its British counterpart. It was with members of the National Organization of Women that we had the best dialogues - at seminars and meetings where people wanted to share a sense of bewilderment arising from the fact that now there were established refuges, so many women seemed to be merely using them like revolving doors. They would come to the refuges when the level of violence got too much, only to return to their violent men for another few weeks, and then come back to the refuges again for help.

Some of the refuges dealt with this problem by allowing such women three visits only. As they explained to me, this rule meant that the staff could concentrate their efforts on the women who genuinely wanted to get out of violent relation-ships. But they knew, just as we did, that if you wanted to do effective work in a refuge, the problems attached to women who seemed unable to stay away from violence would have to be fully explored sooner or later.

Our trip ended with a lunch of honour in Washington DC, sponsored by Congresswoman Lindy Boggs and Congressman Newton Steer. As I stood to give my speech in a lovely room surrounded by members of Congress on Capitol Hill, it was bard not to feel bitter that back home, within a few weeks, I would be facing charges in an English court for carrying out the refuge work I was now describing to a supportive audience.

Thanks to a brilliant manoeuvre on the part of our barrister Stephen Sedly and David Ormondy, a public health adviser, the Acton Magistrates' Court found me not guilty of overcrowding. The good news was followed immediately by bad news. Hounslow appealed, and got ready to take me to the High Court in the Strand.

During this time, through a series of fortuitous events, we managed to persuade the reluctant civil servants to give us a grant of £2,000 a month. This generosity could have had something to do with the threat of our group arranging a sit-in outside 10 Downing Street. We numbered about one hundred and twenty mothers and children, and we were already well known for our immediate ability to get on the streets with our placards and demand action where necessary. We had received a reassuring letter saying that our application for a grant would be considered. However, we heard nothing for several months, and it was not until October 1974, the day before the publication of my book Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear, that a cheque arrived by taxi, with a letter from the Department of Health and Social Security.

Meanwhile, during the Conservatives' period in office, I had been encouraged by Sir Keith Joseph to apply for an Urban Aid Grant of £10,000 a year. The Urban Aid scheme was a very new idea in those days. Hounslow had many other schemes to put forward to the Government, but due to local pressure and the continued support of a local Labour councillor, Jim Duffy, they did put my scheme in. To their surprise and my amusement, it was granted. By this time, help came from another direction. David Astor had resigned from the Observer and offered me his services. He brought with him the kindly and powerful figure of Lord Goodman. Now, at least, Anne Ashby and I were no longer on our own.

We had a curious mixture of dedicated staff and volunteers. We scoured London, taking possession of empty houses belonging to other boroughs which refused to take financial responsibility for their own families, who turned up on our doorstep. We took these houses over by night, to create new communities for such additional families. By the time of the court cases, Chiswick Women's Aid had established twenty-two squats, and had also acquired the Palm Court Hotel (forty-five private suites), three Greater London Council properties, and a large vicarage in Bristol. Even so, at our main refuge we had to erect large garden sheds in the backyard to cope with the overflow of one hundred and fifty mothers and children living in the house.

As the case in the High Court approached, the battle lines were set, but I was no longer powerless, or fighting in a vacuum. We had Lord Gordon on our side, and I felt very much more confident. In the late spring of 1976, Hounslow took me to the High Court, where I was found guilty of the charge of overcrowding. We appealed this decision, and the matter went to the House of Lords in March 1977. There the five Law Lords reluctantly found me guilty, and I returned to Acton Magistrates' Court for sentencing.

During this time, and responding to so much publicity, other groups had formed to take up the idea of refuge for women and children. Many comprised good, loving people, both men and women, who sincerely wanted to help, but there were also the usual faces seen around all social movements, and I was wary enough to stay clear of their politics. I never saw Women's Aid as a movement that was hostile to men, but The National Federation, which quickly formed, made it quite clear that men were the enemy. This view totally rejected our own philosophy - which cannot be encapsulated in a political theory, but which recognises that the basis of the problem is a human one: violence occurs in both men and women. That is not a politically fashionable view in certain quarters, and, indeed, for them we were outcasts from the very beginning because we had always employed male workers at our Refuge - and we also ran a special house for the men of the problem families who sought our help.

The civil servants, who hated our open-door policy as much as they hated our evidence of the mistreatment of problem families by the various State-run agencies saw their opportunity to get rid of us. They removed our grant on the grounds that we were not a national organisation, even though we had been officially declared so by the Charity Commissioners and our mothers and children came from all over Britain. They handed the grant to the National Federation instead. At about the same time, Hounslow Council voted to remove our Urban Aid Grant, thus hoping to starve us into submission. Fortunately, they did not know that I had been given a sum of £50,000 by an anonymous well-wisher, which I had tucked away in bonds for just such an occasion. Those staff that could afford to all gave up their meagre salaries. Most of us were volunteers, so that presented little problem, and we soldiered on.

The final court case was my sentencing at the Acton Magistrates' Court on 6 October 1977. The following February, in response to a letter from one of our mothers, the Queen intervened and saved the Refuge.* The war was over, and the rest is history. This book is not about the politics of survival for pressure groups, because that is a whole book in itself. This book is about the problem families and my (and later Jeff's) work with them. Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear is about how people are violent. Infernal Child, my autobiography, is about how a violent childhood affects children. Prone to Violence is a book about why people are violent. In these pages we can all recognise parts of ourselves, and hopefully, in gaining understanding, we can learn compassion, and in turn help to persuade our society to refrain from further brutalising already brutalised people.

*The Court sentencing and the letter from Buckingham Palace (quoted in full) are described in Chapter Five.

SOURCE URL: http://www.bennett.com/ptv/index.shtml

RADICAL FEMINIST CANCER

2005-10-10T21:53:00.000-04:00

How Will We Cure the Radical Feminist Cancer?

A malignancy spreads by invading its neighboring cells, taking over their internal control processes, and inducing the cells to assume grotesque shapes and sizes.

This is an apt metaphor for radical feminism, which seduces intelligent, caring young women; plies them with warmed-over Marxist slogans; and turns them into gender crusaders who seemingly have lost all semblance of reason and compassion.

By its own admission, radical feminism seeks to curtail or destroy the most cherished values of democratic free market societies: the traditional family, limited government, and the culture of life itself.

Even the notion of truth itself has come under attack by postmodern feminism, which claims that truth is simply another tool for the patriarchal subjugation of women. "A set of subjective views has emerged as sacrosanct, beyond criticism," Howard Schwartz concludes in The Revolt of the Primitive. "The result is that a vicious bias has triumphed over fact."

Left to itself, feminism will eventually collapse under the weight of own logical inconsistencies, social intolerance, and reluctance to assure the continuation of the species. But our generation would still have to answer to our children and grandchildren who one day will ask us, "Why did you sit by and do nothing?"

Thirty-five years after bra-burners captivated the nation's campuses, radical feminism has become firmly entrenched in our society. In order to cure a cancer, you have to attack the root of the problem.

The Sisterhood operates from three strongholds: the academy, the government, and the mainstream media. And this is where we need to apply the tincture of truth.

1. The Academy. Women's studies programs serve as the base camp for feminists to recruit a new crop of well-educated women. Noting the factual errors and myths that pervade women's studies courses, Christine Stolba issues a cautionary note that "revolutions often end up devouring their own children."

The cure? Students need to file lawsuits demanding that these universities establish men's studies programs to serve the dwindling male student body. After all, Title IX of the Civil Rights Act was intended to benefit men and women alike.

2. The Government. Over the past 15 years our elected officials have enacted a bevy of laws intended to appease their female constituents. Problem is, many of these laws weaken the nuclear family, violate men's civil rights, and make women beholden to government hand-outs. Case in point: the controversial Violence Against Women Act, which comes up for its five-year renewal in Congress later this month.

The treatment of choice: Male voters need to start demanding that their politicians answer to their concerns and needs. And lawmakers need to consider whether their chivalrous instincts are unfairly biasing the laws they enact.

3. The Media. Our feminized society is seemingly addicted to stories that serve up a daily diet of victimization and gender grievance.

Recently I came across this 72-point headline in USA Today: "Abuse Found in Military Schools." The article goes on to recite this shocking statistic: "The report cited 2004 Pentagon data showing 50% of women at all three academies were harassed, mostly verbally but dozens suffering physical abuse."

But exactly how did the Pentagon researchers assess abuse and harassment? Was bruising a female cadet's feelings considered abusive? Was it exactly 50% of women, with identical percentages at all three military academies? What is the title of this report, so the reader can verify its conclusions? Why wasn't anyone interviewed to provide balance to the doubtful claim of rampant harassment?

And come to think of it, how many male cadets experienced any form of abuse?

The answer to these important questions is left to the reader's imagination. Bottom line, this article bears all the telltale signs of a journalistic snow job. But that didn't stop the USA Today editors from running the article on the front page of its August 26 edition.

The treatment? The public needs to contact editors and tell them we're sick and tired of being force-fed with feminist agitprop.

Once we challenge the feminist cultural hegemony and remind them how many privileges and advantages the average American woman enjoys, the gender warriors may come to realize that much of their sense of oppression is self-inflicted.

Thanks to the advances of medical science, cancer is now a curable disease. Still, surgery is always painful, and recovery may be slow. But this we know for certain: acquiescence to the rad-fems' ever-escalating demands is the formula for the continued unraveling of the social order.

September 7, 2005
by Carey Roberts
SOURCE: http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/0907roberts.html

WHAT'S BEHIND TEACHER-STUDENT SEX?

2005-10-10T21:07:00.000-04:00

Several cases involving alleged or proven sex between female teachers and male students have been hitting front pages across the nation.

It all seemed to begin with Mary Kay Letourneau. The Seattle teacher served seven years in prison for molesting a sixth-grade student. That relationship eventually produced two children. Letourneau and the now 22-year-old were recently married.

Unlike Letourneau, Pamela Turner, a Tennessee gym teacher, pleaded no contest to having sex with a 13-year-old student and is serving a nine-month sentence that resulted from a plea deal.

Sandra "Beth" Geisel, a former New York Catholic high school English teacher out on bail on statutory rape charges involving a 16-year-old student, was arrested Friday for alleged drunk driving. The Albany-area mother of four is the wife of a bank president.

And in Florida, middle school teacher Debra Lafave, has offered an insanity plea for her alleged affair with a 14-year-old boy.

What's behind the seeming spate of teacher-student sex?

Lafave's ex-husband, Owen Lafave, discusses it with co-anchor Julie Chen on The Early Show Monday, along with Dr. Julia Hislop, a clinical psychologist and author of the book "Female Sex Offenders."

Lafave says his ex-wife has never told him why she (allegedly) did it "and that's one of the hardest things that I've had to go through, is that I've never received a reason why."

He says he had "no idea" anything was going on "and hindsight is 20-20. I can look back now and see some things that were peculiar about her behavior. But I had no idea anything like this was going on."Hislop observes that there probably aren't more cases of teacher-student sex of this type these days than there used to be; it's more likely that there are just more being reported.

Why are women finding themselves in these types of relationships?

"One of the more common findings," Hislop explains, "is that they tend to have fairly severe sexual abuse histories themselves. That won't be the case with every woman, but (it's) a fairly common finding. They also tend to have mental health difficulties, not generally severe mental illnesses, but things along the lines of depression, anxiety, sometimes drug or alcohol problems or personality problems.

Asked about the insanity defense his ex-wife plans to use, Lafave told Chen, "With insanity, the burden of proof is on the defense. They have to prove that she didn't know what she was doing was wrong.

"However, in her particular case, she was being treated for depression, she was being treated for anxiety, as well as an eating disorder. So a lot of the characteristics that the doctor just described did fit her.

"(But), I mean, I think we've all heard the audiotapes and we can all draw our own conclusions. But it sounded like she knew what was she was doing was inappropriate and wrong."

Hislop says there are numerous signs parents can pick up on that a relationship of this sort might be developing.

"The dynamics," she points out, "can run the gamut between very violent assaults, just as with a male offender, and things that progressively cross boundaries. So, when teachers or other female grownups are progressively crossing boundaries, engaging in more and more inappropriate touch, more and more alone time with the children, are bringing up sexual material or personal disclosures into conversations with kids, those would be warning signs.

"Usually, when those warning signs are there, however, the person isn't a sex offender, but the progression can go in that direction from the mildly to more increasingly inappropriate interactions."

Lafave says the 15-year prison sentence Debra could get if convicted is "excessive," but some jail time is in order.

Hislop agrees, saying, "I don't know this case particularly. I have not been involved with the case. But the women who've done these things to children put them in high-risk situations and at high-risk for emotional difficulty, and certainly just as with males, some degree of punishment is probably indicated if guilt is found. Also, they tend to have a great deal of treatment needs. So, a combination of the two."

August 22, 2005
SOURCE: CBS NEWS http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/22/earlyshow/printable789087.shtml

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGANIST MEN IGNORED

2005-10-10T20:38:00.000-04:00

Just as likely as women to be battered, says researcher

EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada -- Husbands and boyfriends are abused by their partners far more often than most Canadians realize, yet there is virtually no support for battered men, attendees of a two-day conference heard Saturday.

"All we hear about is violence against women and children," says Grant Brown, an Edmonton lawyer who helped organize the conference, held at the Edmonton Art Gallery.

"They just ignore the fact that men are just as likely to be victims of domestic violence. ... They just refuse to address the issue."

The conference, which highlighted the gender bias in Canadians' understanding of domestic violence, was organized by the Gender Issues Education Foundation, an Edmonton-based organization.

"Remember Wayne Bobbit? He actually became a comedy routine," said University of British Columbia forensic psychologist Donald Dutton.

"But we know that young women these days are more violent than their boyfriends. That's what the data shows."

While it is true that women are more often victims than men, Dutton says the number of men is not as small as many believe. According to his research, 4.2 per cent of abused women and 2.6 per cent of abused men report "repeated, severe battering."

He says researchers routinely ignore this fact because of pre-conceived ideas about domestic violence -- namely, that men are always the abusers and women are always the victims.

This unwitting bias in domestic violence research has influenced policing, custodial hearings and even public policy, Dutton says.

A researcher for 31 years in the field of domestic violence, Dutton was not invited to the Alberta-government-sponsored World Conference on the Prevention of Family Violence, which will be held in Banff at the end of the month.

He and organizers of Saturday's conference say that is a sign of the one-sided approach the province is taking to domestic violence policy.

Psychology professor John Archer from the United Kingdom's University of Central Lancashire also studies aggressive behaviour, and his most recent work also shows women and men are equally violent in relationships.

"More of the women than men were injured," he says, "but there is still quite a large number of men who were injured in domestic incidents."

Archer's study found nearly two-thirds of abused women suffer injuries, compared to roughly one-third of men. That number may be low, however, because men are less likely to seek medical help.

"You can't base public policy on half of the data," Archer says.

"If you're going to do something about partner violence then you can't ignore a big group of the victims."

SOURCE: The EDMONTON JOURNAL, October 09, 2005
http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/news/cityplus/story.html?id=e9c72d55-39d6-4fe6-8a3b-285b980a7459

kkleiss@thejournal.canwest.com

SEXUAL ABUSE CASES FACE DOUBLE STANDARD

2005-10-10T20:17:00.000-04:00

When a female teacher in Tennessee was charged this week with having sex with a 13-year-old male student, the case focused attention on a type of sexual abuse that often goes unreported.
While there is a greater awareness of such crimes, the Tennessee prosecutor pursuing the recent case, along with several psychologists, say such incidents are still viewed less seriously than those involving grown men and girls.

"Unfortunately, they look at it as the 'Mrs. Robinson syndrome' and think everything is OK," says Dale Potter, district attorney for Warren and Van Buren counties in Tennessee. He was referring to the woman in the 1967 film The Graduate who seduces a younger man.

"But it's my understanding there are some long-term effects for male victims in this kind of situation," he says. "And from my perspective, a sex-abuse case is a sex-abuse case. We don't look the other way as to who the victim is and who the suspect is."

Pamela Turner, 27, an elementary school teacher in McMinnville, Tenn., was charged Monday with having sex with a student at his home and at school.

One of the most publicized cases involved Mary Kay Letourneau, an elementary school teacher in suburban Seattle who spent 7½ years in federal prison for having sex with a student that began when he was 12. Letourneau, 43, had two children with the boy, Vili Fualaau, who is now 21. She was released from prison in August.

Another teacher, Debra Lafave, 23, in Florida was arrested in June on charges that she had sex with a 14-year-old student. The number of female sex offenders is "significantly smaller" than male offenders, says Dale Bespalec, chief psychologist at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility and a former sex offender specialist for Wisconsin's Department of Corrections. He says the ratio of male-to-female offenders is about 500-to-1.

Bespalec says some female sex offenders have a deviant sexual attraction to children or are severely mentally ill. But the largest number have "boundary issues" about crossing the edges of appropriate behavior. "And they're frequently involved in care-giving or situations where those boundaries are more easily traversed," such as teaching, he says.

Boys are also less likely to report abuse than girls, Bespalec says. That's often because boys in general are discouraged from complaining. They could be embarrassed if the abuser is a male. And society is disinclined to believe that women are sexual abusers, he says.

But the impact of sex abuse on boys can be just as devastating as it is for girls.

"There's a betrayal of trust (by) an adult who violated boundaries," says Louis Schlesinger, a forensic psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

Effects of the abuse can vary, he and other psychologists say, from difficulty forming healthy relationships to sexual problems. Boys may also suffer among their peers.

"They're subject to humiliation and being made fun of in ways that a female victim may not be," Schlesinger says.

Female offenders also tend to be treated more leniently by the criminal justice system than their male counterparts.

"In some ways, males are likely to be seen as more predatory and females more likely to be seen as having a mental health issue," Bespalec says. Women are frequently referred to counseling, while men typically serve some time in prison and attend a treatment program for sex offenders, Bespalec says.

Letourneau, for example, was initially given conditional release and told to seek treatment. She had to serve her prison term after being caught again with the student.

Some psychologists also note that Letourneau, Lafave and Turner are attractive women — a factor in the amount of publicity their cases received.

"I think people can't quite fathom why somebody so attractive wouldn't go for somebody who has more status and power," says Miriam Ehrenberg, a psychology professor at John Jay College who has specialized in the psychology of women. "So it's a story that piques people's interest."

SOURCE: USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-02-11-sex-crime_x.htm
By Charisse Jones

THE MYTHOLOGY OF MALE BRUTISHNESS

2005-05-20T11:51:00.000-04:00

Androphobia: The only respectable bigotry

Did you know that over 98 per cent of the men in the United States today have never been convicted of any violent crime or served time in prison? That, even though the U.S. imprisons a higher percentage of its citizens than any other nation, over 98 per cent of our men have never been convicted of rape, child molestation, assault, battery, breaking and entering, or any kind of violence? And almost half of the men who do land in prison are convicted of non-violent crimes (usually drug possession)?

These basic statistical facts about male nonviolence have been hidden from us by an ideology/mythology which I call androphobia -- fear and hatred of the male. Androphobia has also hidden such facts as these:

Important Feminists of the past include such males as Clarence Darrow, John Stuart Mill, Henrik Isben, Robert Dale Owen, James Joyce, and Bertrand Russell.

Psychologists who measure IQ have never found any statistical difference between the intelligence of men and women. High, middle, and low IQs are found in both sexes! There is no scientific proof of male inferiority!

The mythology of male brutishness and stupidity has been spread by the androphobes without a single shred of statistical evidence.

Do you believe men are innately brutal? When no other human being was willing to nurse the lepers on Molokai Island, it was a male, Father Joseph Damien, who went there to care for those unfortunates.

Or consider these further suppressed facts about maleness:

Although they were men, Michaelangelo, Sir Christopher Wren, and Frank Lloyd Wright are almost universally considered great architects.

The first Feminist pamphlet published in this country was written by a man -- Tom Paine (who also wrote the first anti-slavery pamphlet.)

The most original music of this century, Jazz, was created almost entirely by Black males.

Free public libraries, which made more knowledge available to more people than any invention before the computer-net, were founded on gifts made by Andrew Carnegie, who was not just male but a rich white male!

Leonardo da Vinci made hundreds of great contributions to both science and art despite the triple handicaps of being Gay, left-handed and male.

Men including Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Sean McBride have played important roles in the struggle for world peace.

Although Shakespeare, Dante, and Homer were males, they wrote poetry generally considered as good as anything by Hilda Doolittle.

Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach were men and yet they wrote music at least as good as that of Hildegarde of Bingen.

Males such as Newton, Einstein, and Archimedes made contributions to science as important as those of Marie Curie.

The cure for yellow fever, saving the lives of millions, was found by a man, Major Walter Reed.

Despite the androphobic mythology/ideology, at no time in history except the present was maleness considered a shame, a disgrace, or a sign of inferiority.

All the "major" religions (those having millions of followers) were founded by males born in Asia (Confucius, Lau-Tse, Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed.)

Men were responsible for such basic discoveries as the sailing ship, the compass, the steam engine, the electric light, the AC generator, the computer, and many others. And males created over 90% of mathematics.

All of this sounds strange, bizarre, almost unbelievable, I know. We have all had so much brainwashing by the androphobic meme that we scarcely can believe males have ever done anything but shoot one another, rape women, and blow people up. Androphobia is the one respectable bigotry -- the only form of group-libel that is "politically correct" and goes unchallenged almost everywhere. Male achievements, thus, have been systematically excluded from "the universe of discourse" -- i.e. what "nice" people talk about.

Let us clarify the ideology of androphobia. I think androphobia can be defined as the transfer to all males of the negative stereotypes that the Ku Klux Klan and other neanderthal types assign only to black males -- mental inferiority, of course; emotional childishness, or "inability to think rationally;" brutality -- i.e. sub-human status, criminality, sexual violence, etc. (You see? All the old racist clichés except "a great sense of rhythm.") I thus regard androphobia as merely a transmutation from racism to sexism, an "advance" that is not an advance at all.

Let me make this very clear. I do not oppose Feminism; on the contrary, I reject all forms of group stereotyping and dehumanization. Androphobia (or male-bashing) has no intrinsic or necessary link with Feminism, and many Feminists utterly reject androphobia. To use an analogy, Marx said that "anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools." Similarly, I regard androphobia as the Feminism of imbeciles.

I oppose androphobia as psychological gendercide. I believe it underlies the wide spread male depression (which psychotherapists recognize as "epidemic") and also explains much of the soaring suicide rate among boys and young males.

The suicide rate among boys aged 16 to 19 is four times that of females, and the suicide rate of men between 20 and 24 soars to six times that of females (according to the U.S. Department of Health Statistics.) This self-destructiveness has increased steadily, among males, for 30 years -- since the rise of the androphobic ideology. Few want to grow up male in a society where maleness is defined as a sign of incurable inferiority or criminality.

Androphobia has created the kind of tension that psychologists call a "double-bind." A classic double-bind, as Gregory Bateson defined it in his pioneering work on the subject, involves (a) an impossible situation one cannot escape, and, (b) just as crucial, a social rule that forbids verbal comment on the impossibility of the situation. Gays, blacks, Hispanics, and all other minorities retain the freedom to comment on their situation -- even to comment angrily or to protest in the streets.

However, one cannot comment on androphobia these days. It is not only "politically incorrect" but virtually unthinkable. To talk about the subject at all remains under a very big taboo -- while millions of boys and men stagger from depression to suicide annually.

For instance, in 1979, psychologist Roy Schenk attempted to give a workshop on men's oppression at the annual conference of the Association for Humanistic Psychology. He announced in advance that the seminar would investigate what it does to the psyche of boys and men to grow up "being perceived as morally inferior to women." The AHP would not allow the workshop. This year, I tried again, offering a similar workshop at a New Age conference that had had me as workshop leader several times in the past. They also would not allow this subject to be discussed at all.

Consider the "logic" of androphobia, and how it deliberately contradicts known facts. Remember: 98% of the men in this country have never been in prison or committed a violent crime, but the androphobe insists that all men are "violent." Some of the most tender, beautiful music in the world was written by men such as Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, but the androphobe insists all men are "insensitive." To repeat: all the major religions based on justice and love were founded by men (Asiatic men, in fact) -- but the androphobe insists all men are "greedy" and "competitive." This kind of "logic," based on totally ignoring all inconvenient facts, is common to all forms of racism, xenophobia and bigotry.

In fact, if you listen to the rantings of any leading androphobe (such as Andrea Dworkin, Carol Hemingway, or Robin Morgan) and mentally change the word "male" to "Jew" every time it appears, the result would be totally indistinguishable from the rantings of Hitler, because the "logic" of bigotry is the same in all cases. It is the "logic" of ascribing one essence to a miscellaneous group, which is only possible when all real-world daily facts are replaced by generalized abstractions. but this flight into abstraction is "politically correct" and virtually nobody dares to challenge it.

Thus, the "evil" of maleness in our society today, like the "evil" of witchcraft in medieval days, is beyond debate or discussion. The "no comment" taboo applies, leading directly to the double-bind that triggers mental breakdowns. Males, thus, have become the only minority that can be slandered and demeaned with any and all group stereotypes, in "respectable" media, and with no rebuttal allowed. All other minorities can "fight back" against group libel, but men who try to fight back against stereotypes and group libel are regarded as crazy, or "in denial," or beyond the bounds of reasonable discourse.

Fortunately, this is beginning to change -- a little. We look forward to a day when sanity and common sense triumph over bias, and all men and women, all people of all races, are judged one at a time and not condemned by group stereotypes. Meanwhile, anti-Semites (and most other bigots) can only circulate their lunatic rantings through badly printed journals with tiny circulations, while the androphobes still have free access to all major media and can endlessly spout the most idiotic forms of sexism while claiming to oppose sexism.

As Shakespeare said (with a few minor revisions and updates):

"I am a man. Hath not a man eyes? Hath not a man hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed, and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a woman is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"

Written by Robert Anton Wilson

Source: http://www.backlash.com/content/gender/1996/4-apr96/wilson04.html

MOTHER CONVINCED GIRLS TO LIE ABOUT THEIR FATHER DURING CUSTODY CASE

2005-05-19T11:11:00.000-04:00

Bridget Marks: Mommy Dearest

Bridget Marks convinced her four-year-old twin girls to lie about their father during their custody case. This was not just any old lie she wanted them to tell. It was a pernicious lie - one that could send their father, casino mogul John Aylsworth, to jail.

Marks wanted her kids to say their father was sexually abusing them. Lies do not get much worse.

Fortunately, the State of New York’s Family Court recognizes that if one parent would be so hate filled as to influence young kids to tell such a malicious lie that parent is not considering the best interest of the children. A parent so willing to damage the emotional and mental well-being of their kids should not have custody.

Aylsworth was awarded custody of the twin girls. However, the “anti-fatherhood brigade,” is mobilizing to help Marks. Who is this brigade? Among them are the pro-motherhood men like journalists for the New York Daily News, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, and anthrophobic feminists like Fox News legal analyst Wendy Murphy.

O’Reilly referred to the blatantly choreographed televised scene of the transfer by Marks of the kids to Aylsworth as emotionally disturbing. Ironically, even Fox News pundit feminist Susan Estrich said that this was an obvious publicity ploy by Marx.

The New York Daily News was worse. They painted a very sympathetic portrait of Marks. The Daily News wrote, “Heartbroken mom screams 'I love you' and runs after car as fat-cat father takes custody of 4-year-old twins.” The report described Marks as a “B-Movie actress” and “romance novelist.”

The New York Daily News omitted mentioning that Marks was a former Playboy model. Probably because she would not be such a sympathetic figure. Women who pose nude rarely elicit sympathy. Yet, calling Aylsworth a “fat cat” was demonizing him.

However, the most egregious example of anti-fatherhood bias was the statement of Wendy Murphy. She went so far to say she knows personally that men who abuse or rape their kids get custody of them in divorce cases because she tracks such cases. Of course, she did not cite any specific evidence.

This is the same Wendy Murphy who filed a complaint against Harvard University alleging that the sexual assault policy violated Title IX. Why? Because the policy required students to provide evidence of sexual misconduct before administrators will investigate it. The US Department of Education dismissed the suit stating, “Harvard's new procedures cannot be unlawful, since the law does not prohibit the use of due process."

Obviously, Murphy believes that men should not be permitted due process. One can only speculate the kind of “evidence” Murphy has concerning her claim.

A Google search of the “abusive father’s obtaining custody claim” referred to a pilot study done by some organization called California Protective Parents Association and Mothers of Lost Children.[1] A visit to these websites revealed only a self-selected survey as their research. Self-selected surveys are not very credible.

The lies told by the feminists about custody cases are similar to the feminist lies exposed by Christina Hoff Somers and others. If it were not for their willing accomplices in the liberal media these lies would be totally dismissed. However, the liberal media proves Orwell’s point that only educated people could believe a lie so stupid.

The fact is the former Playmate, Marks, had a four year affair with a wealthy married guy, became pregnant by him, and wanted him to divorce his wife and marry her. When he refused and terminated the affair, she refused to let him see his kids. It was only then he filed for custody.

Ayslworth is not a model father or husband – although he is certainly no worse than Jesse Jackson. However, Marks was and is manipulating her kids. She wanted a wealthy husband and went nuclear when she did not get one. She has demonstrated there is nothing she will not say or do to get what she wants from Aylsworth – her kids be damned. Why the Daily News, O’Reilly, and Wendy Murphy are advocating returning the kids to her is incomprehensible.

However, the bias against divorced fathers obtaining custody of their kids is nothing new. I recall twenty years ago being told by my attorney that even if my wife were a heroin addicted prostitute, she would still obtain custody of my two pre-school age children in court. He told me that fathers are never required to prove that they are better parents during custody cases, they are required to prove that the mother is unfit.

Although this has evolved somewhat during the years, nonetheless the presumption of custody is still with the mother. The case of Bridget Marks and the reaction by the media validates this.
If what Bridget Marks claims is true then fathers would be the first to help her get the kids. However, a female Family Court judge and several nonpartisan experts believe she is not telling the truth.

Few believe Marx credible. Among them are liberal feminist, and conservative “pro-motherhood” journalists.
___________________________________________________ [1] http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/641 ret fm w/s 6-10-04

Written by Michael P. Tremoglie

Source: http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/t/tremoglie/2004/tremoglie061204.htm

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MYTHS ARE VIOLENT

2005-05-18T18:23:00.000-04:00

The gap between public perception about domestic violence (DV) and its reality is astonishing. DV was recruited as a weapon in gender wars, but those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

In 1984, Diana Russell claimed that 54% of women were the victims of sexual abuse. In 2000, an advocacy group claimed that one in three women around the world have been physically assaulted by their partner. The horrifying statistics keep coming, and varying, but all insist that men are an inherently serious problem.

We rarely hear of the hundreds of serious, academic studies on intimate violence that have been done over the last 35 years. They do not serve those using violence for their own abuse of others. The most authoritative studies are the three Nation Incidence Surveys commissioned by the Department of Heath. While the rate of mild violence, such as slapping or throwing a magazine, are about the same per year for each gender (around 20%), women commit over twice the severe partner assaults as men: punching, kicking, and threat or use of a weapon: 4.6% of women and 1.9% of men.

Why has domestic violence been an effective tool for women when there has always been very little and women commit more than men of what does exist?

Because of the morality. Men are supposed to protect, especially protect women. Women are not. Men do not perceive women as a threat, so rarely complain even when seriously abused. But male violence against women, however rare, has a high emotional impact, especially upon those same, allegedly villainous men. Female violence is ignored, while all are horrified by men’s until it seems the only kind that exists.

As Patricia Pearson documents in her book, When She Was Bad, this means women get away with murder. Literally. And when everyone only reacts to male violence you can bully legislatures into special provisions for women and no protection for men, a dangerous imbalance that invites still more female abuse of men.

The natural bias is understandable, but is a bias and should be so regarded. Is female violence less bad? Murray Strauss is one of the academic researchers who feels that, to a child, it doesn’t matter which gender it sees hitting which. It models violence as a response.

And should women get away with crimes we don’t tolerate from men? Gender double standards were considered bad when women took their brunt. Do we want our laws and practices based upon emotion, or real threats?

Erin Pizzey established the first battered women’s shelter in the world, but by 1998 was so alarmed at the political use of DV that she wrote a scathing article for the London Observer. “Unfortunately, at this time the feminist movement – hungry for recognition and for funding – was able to hijack the domestic violence movement and promptly set about disseminating dubious research material and disinformation.”

This is a disservice for real victims of DV, who can be anyone. The wrong thing is targeted, wrong solutions provided, and provided to the wrong people. Advocates do not care about reducing family violence. They seek the power in vilifying others.

So far I’ve been nice.

Women commit 55% of spouse murders, 64% of all child abuse including 78% of what results in death, 81% of parent murders, and 55% of sibling murders. Mothers commit 55% of child murders while natural fathers commit 6.9%. Yet the more common forms of female aggression are relationship violence and emotional bullying.

In divorce, to protect children from violence, perhaps we should always award sole custody to fathers.

Want to play gender politics with DV?

[Statistics are cited from the DHHS National Incidence Report on Child Maltreatment, and DOJ 1994 report, “Murder in the Family”]

Source: http://www.wheres-daddy.com/clm_archive/0412_dv.htm

FEMINIST VICTIMOLOGY

2005-05-18T08:49:00.000-04:00

How feminists use victimology to unleash tyranny...

Some time ago I became the darling of a fierce band of mostly American feminists, middle-aged, trained in the humanities, standing on the cultural left. In their eyes they saw a green and sensitive guy, bristling with perceived feminine virtues - one said, `.your soul radiates pure energy' - and they enlisted me as a crony in their row with patriarchy. They weaned me on their ideology: in the difficult path to liberation (which these feminists had achieved), each woman had to break out of patriarchal conditioning and find her voice and sensuality. They acted motherly, and they warned me of the hostilities I would have to grapple with, even from other male-voiced women. I would be, they exhorted, another victim of maleness that is supplanted in my women lovers, too. One of them wrote in an email that my intensity of emotions, my bare soul, my quest for the truth (whatever that might be) would at once attract and repulse women. She wrote, `Most people will feel uneasy in your presence, and you can become a target and a scapegoat, but trust the universe because you will find a partner who will embrace your truth telling and intensity, but it will be a rare bloom.'

In her epic 1982 book In a Different Voice, the Harvard social psychologist Carol Gilligan argued that women's distinct `moral voice' is stifled by a `male-voiced' culture. She amasses empirical evidence that paints a bleak picture of young girls who, at around puberty, become reticent and withdrawn - and she wields this as proof that women's voices are silenced at an early age. What's more: young boys are victims of their own nature too, and she insinuates that young boys have to be disinfected from their toxic masculinity. Gilligan's book made Jane Fonda cry, and jumpstarted a wave of rallying by women enraged by a sense of injustice, some valid, others more feudal.

Now Harvard is opening a gender studies centre that will use In a Different Voice as its starting point and blueprint, and Jane Fonda has donated $12.5 million to the effort. The gender studies centre will investigate how patriarchy conditions gender norms, then tweak curriculums to fight sexism. This means, in the ethos informed by Gilligan's work, a psychological re-engineering of the self to knead the persona in young girls and boys according to feminine strictures.

By now I had started to feel that some feminist proposals unfairly give women an arbitrary advantage over men. My feminists, for example, want the rape laws changed into something resembling a female autocracy: if a woman feels raped, even if she did not resist at the time, then the man is by extension guilty. I told them the status quo in child custody where the mother almost always wins custody of the children is unfair; they replied that the women should always get custody because females are superior nurturers of children than males. I found these attitudes patronising, more so because they are packaged in that conservative pretence of compassionate salvation (we are only rescuing you from yourself).

When I lamented that most of the women I have loved have been as tyrannical as many men in relationships, they admonished me to be patient. Women's anger, they said, are the spasms of thousands of years of oppression, the feminine prisoner thrashing in its cage. (Oh, what about personal responsibility?) They reminded me of what poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote: `What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.' My feminists abhorred the penis, which, with its rape accusations, symbolises the stick that beats women into submission: it is eager, probing, and invasive.

All the same, I started to sit uncomfortably with the concept that maleness is pathological. Is there anything inherently wrong with masculinity as long as it's fair and non-violent? Perhaps masculine traits - competitiveness, emotional indifference, libido - are innate characteristics shaped by evolution to hone humanity's chances of survival and propagation? Perhaps the young girls' alleged uncommunicative stance that Gilligan paints is simply a normal state of reassessment in their development?

Christina Hoff Sommers, an American dissident feminist and philosopher, raises these questions in her book The War Against Boys published last year. Sommers dismisses Gilligan's research as anecdotal and argues that overzealous feminism, rather than silencing girls, is actually scarring boys with existential guilt for their male characteristics. She points out the harm done to a six-year-old boy in the US who, in 1996, was disciplined by his school for kissing a girl on the cheek, and stigmatised as a sexual harasser. It's boys who are in crisis, Sommers argues, and you only have to consider that in the western world more girls are graduating than boys to acknowledge that. Sommers fears the `increasingly aggressive efforts to feminise boys,' especially now that Harvard is legitimising Gilligan's work with its stamp of approval; when Harvard squeaks, the world pays attention.

It seemed that my feminists look at every strand of women's torment and conflict and blame it on patriarchy. There is historical basis for this, but now, after thirty years of feminism, we have to move on, and we have to dissipate our anger as a prerequisite for reconciliation (not entrench the battle, like my feminists). Also, believing that society is in a quandary because of a perceived loss of innocence of femininity is simplistic, the crunch of nostalgia projecting a lost, imaginary utopia.

`Young women are unhappy,' they argued.

`So are young men,' I said. `Maybe the problem is that in the western world, with our premise that the self can be cultivated, we expect unrelenting happiness and when we are unhappy we perceive a problem. What if our search for happiness is misguided? What if we are simply animals programmed to survive and propagate, and survival is a struggle that by definition can't produce happiness? Isn't happiness an abstraction?'

All my feminists are estranged or frustrated in their love relationships, past or present, and they feel abused at the hands of their male partners. In her 1999 book Rebels in White Gloves, Miriam Horn tells the story of women whose lives were broken by the lies and infidelity, and lack of support, attention and compliments in their love relationships, then goes on to argue that the politicisation of these personal feuds empowers women to find strength for their anguish through `public solidarity.' Yet this kind of empowerment has nothing to do with gender politics, with respect, with equality. It's simply the collective rage of women who have turned the tensions inherent in intimate relationships into a political struggle that seeks to implant a feminine mindset in men, so that men would think like women and harmony would ensue. This is a misguided, one-sided theory.

Men in relationships suffer from the same kind of misdemeanours induced by women (in two-thirds of marriage separations in the West, it's the woman who deserts the man due to dissatisfaction with the quality of the relationship). There is always a danger in politics to politicise personal struggles and flog personal vendettas. Relationships are power struggles and their hierarchical nature triggers resentment, but you cannot blame patriarchy for that. You can't say, Men, you just can't trust them, because using the same measure you can't trust women either, at least not the women of my generation and my world, who are independent and successful.

My feminists all watched The Vagina Monologues, written by Eve Ensler. It's a story of personal anguish and anger, but the anger is not objectified: it takes the form of an anti-male tirade. In the fallout of rejection by a partner, we often mutter generalised attacks on all males or all females. We fall into that trap now and again, but now an extreme band of influential feminists - exactly because they have a voice now, not vice versa - want to make the issue public policy. Fight sexism, fight condescending treatment, fight for an equal voice in the workplace and in personal relationships, fight for better communication between the sexes, fight for more emotional openness by both sexes. But don't project personal retribution into public retribution because that's the politics of tyranny under the guise of victimisation.

Written by Victor Paul Borg

From: http://www.victorborg.com/html/feminist_victimology.html

WOMEN ARE MAJORITY OF PERPETRATORS OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT

2005-05-18T08:38:00.000-04:00

Who are the perpetrators of child abuse and neglect? Who typically abuses and neglects children?

Answer

Most States define perpetrators of child abuse and neglect as parents and other caretakers” (such as relatives, babysitters, and foster parents) who have harmed a child in their care. It is important to note that States define the term “caretaker” differently. Harm caused to a child by others (such as acquaintances or strangers) may not be considered “child abuse” but rather may be considered a criminal matter.

According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System’s most current report, “Child Maltreatment 2003,” of the approximately 906,000 child abuse and neglect victims in 2003, the largest percentage of perpetrators (79.7 percent) were parents, including birth parents, adoptive parents, and stepparents. Other relatives accounted for an additional 6.4 percent, residential staff for .2 percent, and day care providers for .8 percent. Unmarried partners of parents accounted for 4 percent of perpetrators while foster parent accounted for .5 percent of perpetrators.

In 2003, 58.2 percent of child abuse and neglect perpetrators were females and 41.8 percent were males. For the most part, female perpetrators were younger than male perpetrators; of the women who were perpetrators, 43.8 percent of females were younger than 30 years of age as compared to 33.1 percent of males.

Approximately 83.9 percent of victims were abused by at least one parent. An estimated 40.8 percent of child victims were maltreated by their mothers acting alone; another 18.8 percent were maltreated by their fathers acting alone; 16.9 percent were abused by both parents. Victims abused by nonparental perpetrators accounted for 13.4 percent of the total.

“Child Maltreatment 2003” is available on the Children’s Bureau website: http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/cmreports.htm.

MISANDRY

2005-05-18T08:13:00.000-04:00

Misandry, sometimes called Androphobia, is the hatred of men, for being men. While usually ascribed to women, it is also theoretically possible for males themselves to be misandrist. Unlike misogyny (a pathological aversion towards women), misandry has been little discussed or investigated. Some masculists maintain that misandry has been rampant for thirty years, due to feminist advocacy, and has become a social pathology. Some feminists believe that, while misogyny is a social disease, misandry does not exist. Others in both feminist and masculist camps consider the "war of the sexes" arising from traditional gender roles to be a powerful source of both misogyny and misandry.

This term is sometimes used interchangeably with misanthropy.

1 Forms of misandry
2 Misandry in popular culture
3 See also
4 Links
5 Bibliography

Forms of misandry

There are many different forms of misandry. In its most overt expression, a misandrist will openly hate all males, and will hurt them simply because they are male.
Other forms of misandry may be more subtle. Some misandrists may simply hold all males under suspicion, or may hate males who do not fall into one or more acceptable categories. Entire cultures may be said to be misandric if they treat males in ways that can be seen as hateful

Misandry in popular culture

The common view of men as being sex-crazed and overbearing
The typical sit-com male's bumbling ineptitude
The common view of men as unable to take care of themselves, but rather needing a woman (in the form of a mother or a wife) to take care of them

See also

Misanthropy
Valerie Solanas

Links

The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture (http://www.lbduk.org/spreading%20misandry.htm) book review

Bibliography

Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture; Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, 2001; ISBN 0-7735-2272-7

Extracted from: http://encyclopedia.lockergnome.com/s/b/Misandry

DISABUSING THE DEFINITION OF DOMESTIC ABUSE: HOW WOMEN BATTER MEN AND THE ROLE OF THE FEMINIST STATE

2005-05-17T20:34:00.000-04:00

Over the last twenty-five years, leading sociologists have repeatedly found that men and women commit violence at similar rates. The assertion that "the phenomenon of husband battering" is as prevalent as wife abuse is confirmed by nationally representative studies, such as the Family Violence Surveys, as well as by numerous other sources. However, despite the wealth and diversity of the sociological research and the consistency of the findings, female violence is not recognized within the extensive legal literature on domestic violence. Instead, the literature consistently suggests that only men commit domestic violence. Either explicitly, or more often implicitly, through the failure to address the subject in any objective manner, female violence is denied , defended and minimized.

Written by Linda Kelly, Professor of Law, Indiana University of Law
(Florida State University Law Review, Volume 30)

Complete report found at: http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/304/kelly.pdf

RADICAL FEMINISM

2005-05-16T09:52:00.000-04:00

It is basic to our premises to understand that we are not speaking here of those persons who consider themselves "feminists" because they support equal rights under the rule of law, equal opportunity in employment and education, equal protection under law, and protection from violence for all persons. These positions are supported by those on the right and the left.

As Jim Kalb states on his Anti-Feminism page:

"In place of family ties based on what seems natural and customary, and supported by upbringing and social expectation, [radical] feminism would permit only ties based on contract and idiosyncratic sentiment, with government stepping in when those prove too shaky for serious reliance. There is no reason to suppose the substitution can be made to work, let alone work well, and every reason to expect the contrary. Feminism does not care about reason, however, or even about experience of the effects of weakened family life. It wants what it wants, and that is the end of anything like the traditional relations between men and women. It is thus ideological and radical to the core; there can be no commonsense feminism, because doing what comes naturally gets a [radical] feminist nowhere.

The harsh things that can be said about anarchism and communism can be said with yet more force about [radical] feminism, because the latter seeks to eliminate something that touches us far more deeply than private property or the state. Like the other two ideologies, [radical] feminism can be presented as a lofty and necessary ideal set up in opposition to a long history of dreadful injustice. After all, things like gender that are implicated in all social life are necessarily implicated in all social injustice. Nonetheless, the practical implementation of [radical] feminism, especially by force of law, can only lead to catastrophe. Like anarchism it calls for categorical opposition to authority and hierarchy, and like communism for ceaseless radical reconstruction of all aspects of life, and consequently for absolute bureaucratic domination of society. Both principles are thoroughly destructive, and the fact they contradict each other does not render them harmless.

The result of the victory of [radical] feminism has been disorder cascading from America throughout the world, from the most immediate personal relationships to high culture and international politics. Feminism has meant suspicion and hostility where mutual reliance is an absolute necessity. It has meant growing deceit, heartlessness and brutality in daily life, resulting in particular suffering for the weak. It has meant confusion and misery for the young, who have been deprived of stable family life and concrete ideals of adulthood. It must therefore be opposed as a destructive fanaticism based on a gross and wilful misapprehension of human life."

There have been many attempts to understand and explain the current state of feminism but that proves impossible.

Radical feminist theory is an unstable dialectic.

Truth, justice, reason, logic, history, scientific evidence, repeatable results, reproducible research, observations of natural phenomenon, all these are simply words to radical feminists. Words that they believe are designed to cover up a monstrous oppression of women under masks of religion, marriage, and motherhood that cloak the patriarchal family.

The only acceptable theories are those that give power to women. For example, "gender equity" is propounded in order to achieve statistical equity in political positions and the workplace by force of law. The disasters that result are dismissed as the result of patriarchal oppression, or necessary evils on the path to a matriarchal cultural revolution.

As Erin Pizzey has repeatedly pointed out, radical feminists are commonly Neo-Marxists. Radical feminists find great comfort in arguments of Engels and Marx that class distinctions and oppression first arose between man and woman in monogamous marriage. Therefore, "class struggle" began when men discovered or insisted on the recognition of their fatherhood, enslaved women in marriage, created the patriarchal family, and established private property.

According to radical feminist's interpretation of Marxist theory, the family is the root cause of oppression.

After the 1917 Russian revolution, the Communists are reported to have tried some of Marx's and Engels' theories regarding the patriarchy, but are said to have retreated in the face of disasters caused by a frontal attack on the family. However, that failure, and many subsequent ones, have not deterred the true believers in a matriarchal society of peace and love.

According to Dale O'Leary in "The Gender Agenda" (p. 103):

"The radical women of the sixties saw in Marx's and Engels' analysis the justification of their own dissatisfaction with liberal reforms. They became convinced that previous Marxist revolutions had failed because they had failed to target the family. If Marxist analysis was correct, the family was the cause of oppression and would have to be eliminated."

Make no mistake, we are engaged in an epic battle between two incompatible ideologies with fundamentally different views of the rights of the individual and the power of the state, with the future of civilization at stake.

The competing ideologies are generally categorized under the headings of "patriarchy," representing the present system, and "matriarchy," representing the return of the goddess and earth mother, and a more primitive relationship between man and woman and their children.

Examples of matriarchal societies can be found in the ghettoes of any major city in America. Such warrens are hardly inspiring examples of progress, peace, and love, but true believers are undeterred by evidence.

Conversely, we believe that families are the foundation blocks of civilization, and that all progress ultimately rests on a father working to make a better world for his wife and children. Thus, we regard such radical feminists as the ultimate abomination.

Radical feminism as a psychological disorder

Dale O'Leary author of "The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality"

I would like to propose the hypothesis: Radical Feminism is a psychological disorder caused by two generations of unforgiveness in the maternal line.

I want to make it clear from the start that I am not speaking of those persons who consider themselves "feminists" because they support equal rights under law, equal opportunity, equal protection under law, and protection from violence for all persons. These positions are supported by those on the right and the left.

It is the radical, anti-life, anti-family, deconstructionist, neo-Marxist Radical Feminism that is rampant on campuses and the government bureaucracies to which I object. I believe that the founders of this movement and those who are deeply committed to forwarding its ideology are seriously psychologically troubled.

A positive supportive relationship with one's father is essential to the proper development of the male and female personality. All those who have not had such a relationship need some form of repair or remediation. Such wounds can be healed, but it requires special intervention. Abusive, or even seriously inadequate fathering can have devastating consequences.

One path which leads to Radical Feminism begins with the grandmother. The grandmother of a radical feminist is frequently married to a man who is an inadequate father. The grandmother may have had a positive relationship with her father and tolerate a certain level of misbehavior from her husband. She fails, however, to see the effect her example has on her daughter.

If a daughter (the future mother of the radical feminist) is mistreated by her father, if he is an alcoholic, physically abusive, sexually abusive, deserts the family, is an adulterer, divorces his wife, or simply has a cruel disposition, the woman grows up with a warped idea of what a man should be and how a woman should be treated. This daughter is highly likely to marry a man who abuses her. She does this because subconsciously she is trying to repair the father-wound — trying at last to win her father's love, by winning the love of a man like her father.

But history repeats itself, the father-replacement husband is often equally abusive, and sometimes more abusive because the damaged daughter-now-wife is used to being abused and has learned to accept abuse. Some of these damaged daughters interpret abuse as love. In some cases the husband is just an ordinary male, but the damaged daughter-now-wife is so angry and unforgiving that she misinterprets simple sex differences as abuse. Often these women are masters of the passive/aggressive style of behavior. They may appear to others as victims, while underneath they wage a stealth campaign against their husbands.

Additionally, although the damaged daughter longs for father-love, and father affirmation, she is also angry and bitter toward her father and has not forgiven him. She transfers this anger to her husband and communicates it to her daughter. If the daughter-now-wife is unable to protect her children from an abusive father or teaches her daughters that ordinary male behavior is abuse, the daughters grow up with a distorted image of masculinity and anger towards men.

This daughter of a damaged daughter has been betrayed by both parents. Her father, who might — had he had a strong wife who had been able to motivate him and draw out his potential virtue — been an adequate father, betrays the daughter through abuse, but the mother also betrays the daughter by not protecting her and by fueling her resentment toward her father.

As the daughter of a damaged daughter grows up, at some point she rejects her mother as a model and mother's passive/aggressive behavior, and decides to become aggressive, but she holds on to the deep seated bitterness and resentment. Voila! We have a Radical Feminist.

The moment when she decides to exchange passive/aggressive behavior for aggressive behavior is viewed as the moment when her "consciousness was raised." From then on she tends to see all masculine behavior as evil and she recruits other women — who may have been only slightly damaged — into her army of angry, unforgiving women. To her, now fully converted to Radical Feminism, any woman who doesn't see men as evil is still under the oppression of men and needs to have her consciousness raised. The opinions and desires of these women are of no value because they haven't had their consciousness raised.

The Radicalized Feminist is filled with rage against "patriarchy" which is Fatherhood writ large, because she is filled with rage against her own father and afraid to express it. And she turns her rage on any man that comes within her purview. Yet at the same time she too longs for repair — for father-love which will heal her wound. But as much as she may want to put her world back together her refusal to forgive blocks the way. She insists that the reconciliation must be on her terms — total capitulation of the father principle. Thus the Radical Feminist dreams of a utopia where the differences between men and women do not matter. Fathers are the enemy and therefore fatherhood will be wiped out.

Mothers are also guilty because mothers are perpetual victims of fathers, therefore motherhood will also be eliminated. In the feminist dream world, there will be only non-gender identified parents, or no parents at all, only a nanny state which will create a perfect childhood, and children will at last be safe.

Because many of these angry women were sexually abused, sought male love in all the wrong places, or were victims of statutory rape, they tend to have an extremely warped view of sexuality. They use sex to gain power, to self-comfort, to seek father and mother love, and their relationships almost always disintegrate, leaving them more angry and bitter. They may marry, they may have children, but because they are totally unhealed these marriages are for the most part doomed. Their daughters are the real victims — the daughters are forced to choose between two bad examples. Usually they cling to their dysfunctional mother, because the need for mothering is even more powerful than the need for fathering.

They may be fiercely loyal to their angry mother, yet underneath know how damaged she is.

This, I believe, is the genesis of the psychological disorder that drives Radical Feminism. I wrote a column several years ago encouraging forgiveness, in particular I stressed the need for women to forgive the fathers. Four local feminists shot back responses, rambling raging attacks on me which failed to address the points I had made. Their scream was — we will not forgive, if you ask us to forgive, you are asking us to go back to being abused.

This, of course, is not true. When we forgive, we are free from the behaviors which set us up for abuse. Not forgiving perpetuates the resentment — the "re-feeling" of the original trauma. Resentment is a destructive form of self abuse, but these angry women could not, or will not hear the truth.

Radical Feminism is a psychological disorder (psyche is the Greek for soul) because unforgiveness is a disorder of the soul. When a soul is trapped in unforgiveness, the person's thinking is clouded and the behavior self-destructive. These unforgiving women are modern Medea's, who will sacrifice their own children to satisfy their need for revenge against unfaithful men.

These women will destroy the child in the womb to bring down "patriarchy".

They will rip their children away from their fathers and cause permanent damage, because they weren't properly fathered.

They will pull down every societal support for families, for motherhood, and for love, in order to create an impossible dream of a gender-neutral world.

The only answer is forgiveness. I have seen it over and over again, if a woman caught up in Radical Feminist ideology, a woman spouting Radical Feminist nonsense, can be shown how to forgive, and is willing to forgive, the disorder is healed. The Radical Feminist nonsense disappears.
.
Radical feminist agenda

We don't need taxpayer-funded feminist groups with an anti-male, anti-family political ax to grind destroying our communities. We stand firmly opposed to policies that:

• Forcibly separate men from their women and children.
• Destroy families.
• Eliminate our civil liberties.
• Put men in jail without trial.
• Support debtors prisons.
• Provide an environment for our children that is proven to make criminals of the boys and whores of the girls.

That agenda is destroying our civilization.

Recognizing radical feminist rhetoric

Feminist politicians, male or female, certainly don't say these things in plain English, but you can recognize the rhetoric:

• They don't mention violence against men.
• They support increased use of restraining orders against men.
• They support mandatory arrests and "no drop" policies in domestic violence cases.
• They advocate increased funding for battered women's shelters but nothing for men.
• They make divorce profitable for women.
• They blame men for violence but ignore female mayhem and murder.

Countering the radical feminist program

You cannot change something that remains hidden from you. In order to stop these one-sided programs you will need to:

• Find out what kind of family violence programs you have in your community?
• Find out whether the local program encourages the healing of families, or do they take the 'divorce' approach?
• Find out whether the local program demands the separation of a man from his wife and children or works to keep them together and fix the problem whenever possible.
• Find out if program literature makes reference to the Duluth model, or DAIP. You can be certain that it is promoting gender feminist goals if they do.
• Find out how much attention the family violence prevention program in your community devotes to violent females? As much as it does to violent males? If not, why not?
• Find out if the program promotes the idea that only men batter, women are always victims paradigm. If so Big Sister is at work.
• Ask your state representatives why your tax dollars are being used to promote divorce and the destruction of families with these draconian laws?

These are your tax dollars and no problem gets solved if you concern yourself with less than half the issues.

Women's shelters are commonly feminist-front organizations funded with your tax money. Do you think that is true in your community? If so let your state representatives know. We need family-friendly agencies in our community that deliver services to all family members and attempt to recognize and solve the problems many couples have. Our objective is to preserve families, not tear them apart.

Source: http://www.dvmen.org/dv-108.htm

BATTERED MEN - THE HIDDEN SIDE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BATTERER TREATMENT PROGRAMS

2005-05-11T16:24:00.000-04:00

The Faulty Duluth Model
What's Wrong with the "Duluth Model"?

Blame and shame, not help. Ideology, not science. It ignores drinking, drugs and pathology. Only one cause, only one solution. There's no real evidence it works. It ignores domestic violence by women. Women who need help can't get it. It's taught by "wounded healers." It's gender-polarizing-perpetrates the "battle of the sexes"

Batterer treatment programs around the world are adopting the "Duluth model," perhaps the most widespread of the male-patriarchy batterers' programs, with trainings in hundreds of cities across the country and a recent series of Marine Corps contracts. It promotes a gender-polarizing view that battering is a conscious strategy by men to assert male dominance over women.

What is the Duluth Model? It was created by the Duluth, Minnesota Domestic Abuse Intervention Project. It's described in detail in Pence, E., and Paymer, M. Education Groups For Men Who Batter: The Duluth Model. The "Power and Control Wheel," central to the model, "depicts the primary abusive behaviors experienced by women living with men who batter." There's no doubt that it reflects a feminist ideology of male oppression of women.

What's wrong with it? Here's what experts have to say:

It's about blaming and shaming men, more than giving them the insights and support to help them stop their abusive behavior.

The Duluth Model preaches that men who batter don't have a personal problem, but are simply reflecting "a culture that teaches men to dominate." John Everingham, co-author of Men Healing Shame and a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, calls this "shame of male for being male." But shaming is a cause of rage, not a cure for it.

Is wife-beating an accepted cultural norm? Think about it: do you know any man who thinks that beating your wife is "normal" or "OK"? Psychologist Donald G. Dutton, author of five books about spousal abuse by men and expert witness in the O.J. Simpson trial, says, "Men who have been convicted of wife assault do not generally feel that what they did was acceptable. Instead they feel guilty, deny and minimize the violence, and try to exculpate themselves in the manner of one whose actions are unacceptable to oneself." He points out, "the vast majority of men are non-assaultive for the duration of their marriage." And as violence escalates beyond pushes and slaps, "the size of this minority group of perpetrators shrinks."

The Duluth Model is a "blame and shame" behavior modification approach, focusing only on the perpetrator's role. This approach is used often with prisoners. Rule infractions result in punishment, and "good behavior" (absence of rule-breaking) results in early release. A different approach sees anger and violence as part of a "dance" between two people in an intimate relationship. The approach is to examine the role of each party, so that both may be empowered to make decisions in their own lives. This model is used in many successful prison rehabilitation programs and in AA, which holds people accountable for their lives without "blaming and shaming."

It's based on ideology, not science.

The authors of the book on the model make no bones about it:

The tactics used by batterers reflect the tactics used by many groups or individuals in positions of power. Each of the tactics depicted on the Power and Control Wheel are typical of behaviors used by groups of people who dominate others. They are the tactics employed to sustain racism, ageism, classism, heterosexism, anti-Semitism, and many other forms of group domination. Men in particular are taught these tactics in both their families of origin and through their experiences in a culture that teaches men to dominate. ...We use gender-specific terms not only because the curriculum is for men who batter, but because battering is not a gender-neutral issue.

The model was developed, not by a team of psychologists and research scientists, but in consultation with "a small group of activists in the battered women's movement," and "more than 200 battered women in Duluth." The Power and Control Wheel names eight factors contributing to domestic violence, including "using male privilege" and "using economic abuse." It relies heavily on Dobash & Dobash, Violence Against Wives: A Case Against the Patriarchy, who state: "[The] long patriarchal tradition... was explicitly established in the institutional practices of both the church and the state and supported by some of the most prominent political, legal, religious, philosophical, and literary figures in Western society... They believed that men had the right to dominate and control women and that women were by their very nature subservient to men. This relationship was deemed natural, sacred and unproblematic and such beliefs resulted in long periods of disregard and/or denial of the husband's abuses of his economic, political and physical power."

The model rejects treatment through insight models, family systems theory or cognitive-behavioral models in favor of what supporters call a "sociopolitical model" and San Jose therapist Eric Towle calls a "radical feminist re-education camp," where battery is equated with masculinity. The goal of sociopolitical therapy is to "challenge sexist expectations and controlling behaviors that often inhibit men and motivate them to learn to apply newly learned skills in a consistently non-controlling manner." Intervention deals with sexist expectations and attitudes.

Psychologist Dutton wrote an article outlining all the evidence feminist researchers and proponents of the model had to overlook, because it contradicted their ideological paradigm. As he put it, "Paradigms direct research, but they also serve to deflect critical analysis of the paradigms' own central tenets through diverting attention from contradictory data.

A form of 'groupthink' ensues whereby dissent is stifled by directing attention from potential contradictory information." Amy Holtzworth-Munroe, associate professor of psychology at Indiana University, says, "states are basing rigid treatment policy on rhetoric and ideology, not data."

What evidence is overlooked? For starters, the fact that most men are not violent to their wives or lovers. Dutton estimates that 80% of the men who do beat their intimates have drinking or drug problems, Borderline Personality Disorders, or other diagnosable psychological pathology.

It ignores drinking, drugs, Borderline Personality Disorder and other serious psychological problems.

As Cathy Young, author of Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality states, "Dutton and other researchers have found that wife-beating is far more strongly associated with 'borderline personality disorder' (characterized by proclivity for intense relationships, insecurity, and rage) than with patriarchal attitudes; drugs and alcohol are major factors as well."

Dr. Dutton's concern is echoed by Paul T. Mason, M.S. and Randi Kreger, authors of Walking on Eggshells, who see Borderline Personality Disorder at the heart of a lot of domestic violence.

And, they point out, 75% of the people with BPD are women. A focus on "male oppression" must, be definition, overlook this important contributor to domestic violence.

Yale psychiatrist Sally L. Satel uses the case of "Don" for an example. "Don's group leaders were adamant that alcohol was never a cause of violence. Feminist theory downplays the relevance of alcohol abuse, and as a particularly foolish result in Don's program, failed to make sobriety a condition of the treatment for domestic batterers." The National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors' Nov/Dec 1998 issue of The Counselor raises concern about this issue.

It says there is only one cause for domestic violence, and only one solution.

This approach rejects joint therapy in all cases, even when the woman feels safe and wants to keep the marriage together. San Diego judge William Cannon says, "It's ridiculous. We treat women as brainless individuals who are unable to make choices."

Washington state specifically prohibits joint therapy, even in conjunction with the Duluth Model. One Bellevue therapist almost lost his license for merely proposing joint therapy to another therapist.

Satel states: "In at least a dozen states, including Massachusetts, Colorado, Florida, Washington, and Texas, state guidelines effectively preclude any treatment other than feminist therapy for domestic batterers."

Satel points out that these policies would outlaw, for instance, the kind of help that saved the decade-long marriage of a midwestern couple we'll call 'Steve and Lois M.' After their last fight, in which he gave Mrs. M. a fractured arm, she gave him an ultimatum: unless he went with her to marriage therapy, she would take their nine-year-old son and leave. He agreed, and the couple saw Eve Lipchik, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin expert in family therapy. 'One can still deplore the aggression and be an advocate for the relationship when two people want to stay together and are motivated to make changes in the relationship,' says Lipchik. 'It's too easy to stuff people into boxes labeled villains and victims.'"

Satel asserts, "Many advocates are also apparently so blinded by ideology that they are unable to draw distinctions between types of abusers. Some men, for example, are first-time offenders, others are brutal recidivists, others attack rarely but harshly, others frequently but less severely, and many are alcoholics. Such a heterogeneous population cannot be treated with a one-size-fits-all approach."

There's no real evidence it works.

The best we have is one-month follow-ups. Satel points out that women are advised to leave their husbands; the programs have no faith that the indoctrination they offer actually works.

It ignores domestic violence by women.

The (U.S.) National Violence Against Women survey estimates that each year 1.5 million women and 835,000 men are assaulted by intimate partners. The (U.S.) National Child Abuse and Data System reports that over 55% of the physical abuse of children is by women. Dr. Dutton points out that lesbian relationships were significantly more violent than gay relationships; rates of verbal, physical and sexual abuse were all significantly higher in lesbian relationships than in heterosexual relationships; and in one sample of women, 78.2% had been in a prior relationship with a man: reports of violence by men were all lower than reports of violence in prior relationships with women.

All of these findings refute the notion that family violence is caused by male control of women. They are ignored by domestic violence "experts" and the media because they contradict the ideological paradigm of these programs, that family violence is men's efforts to control women. One result is that there is virtually no public education, victim outreach and education, or help for battered men.

Is domestic violence by women in self-defense? Dr. Martin Fiebert of the University of California at Long Beach surveyed almost 1,000 women, 280 of whom had initiated an assault on their partner. The most common reasons? "My partner wasn't sensitive to my needs." "I wished to gain my partner's attention." "My partner was not listening to me." These all ranked above "My partner was being verbally abusive to me."

Women who need help can't get it.

A Detroit News special report on battered husbands provides a dramatic example.

For 13 years, Karen Gillhespy was the abuser. She says she broke her husband's ribs, ripped entire patches of his hair out, scratched him, bit him, beat him with a baseball bat and kicked him. He never hit back -- and he never filed charges. But more shocking to Gillhepsy are the reactions she encountered telling her story. "They told me I was the victim," said Gillhespy. "Here's no way any of this was his fault."

Cathy Young, author of Ceasefire, quotes a letter from a shelter that gives as an example of assault by the husband, "In an argument, 'Mrs. C. grabbed Mr. C. by his necktie (and) he pushed her away. Mrs. C. then punched his face and her nail cut his neck.'" Domestic violence researcher Suzanne Steinmetz says this is common, and is simply one more way that a woman's experience is devalued. "The bottom line is that women get the short end of the stick anyway.

When we say women can't possibly be violent, she must have done it for some reason, we are in essence denying women services."

And programs that preach that male oppression is at the heart of domestic violence have nothing to offer to women who batter.

It's taught by "wounded healers."

Shelter staffs and perpetrator treatment programs are often dominated by women who have been victims themselves. Maurice Oates, who co-founded a highly successful Native-based Circle of Harmony Healing Society in Terrace, British Columbia that works with couples on a voluntary basis, says: "We don't really give a damn about what white people think. All participants are considered equal and not adversaries. All our programs avoid sexual bias. Local gender feminists were telling us it would be a disaster. We call those people the 'wounded healers' because they try to help people, but they have not yet dealt with their own pain and agony."

It's a gender-polarizing approach that only serves to perpetrate the "battle of the sexes."

Cathy Young, author of Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, states:

The most obvious casualties of the War on Domestic Violence have been men, particularly men involved in contentious divorces. But it has also hurt many of the women who are its intended beneficiaries. Part of the problem is the one-size-fits-all approach to domestic violence. For many couples in violent relationships, particularly those involved in mutual violence, joint counseling offers the best solution. But if they have come to the attention of the authorities, it's one form of counseling to which they are unlikely to be referred. Couples therapy is vehemently opposed by battered women's advocates--ostensibly out of concern for women's safety, but also because of the implication that both partners must change their behavior.

Yale psychiatrist Sally Satel states:

Like so many projects of the feminist agenda, the battered women's movement has outlived its useful beginnings, which was to help women leave violent relationships and persuade the legal system to take domestic abuse more seriously. Now they have brought us to a point at which a single complaint touches off an irreversible cascade of useless and often destructive legal and therapeutic events. This could well have a chilling effect upon victims of real violence, who may be reluctant to file police reports or to seek help if it subjects them to further battery from the authorities. And it certainly won't help violent men if they emerge from so-called treatment programs no more enlightened but certainly more angry, more resentful, and as dangerous as ever.

Written by Bert H. Hoff, 1999

Extracted from: http://www.batteredmen.com/batdulut.htm

LESBIAN AND FEMALE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

2005-05-11T13:37:00.000-04:00

Some interesting information about lesbian Domestic Violence with implications re the reality of some women's potential and actual abuse and violence, which is both denied and minimised by feminists who only see the violence of some men.

(The URLs shown below can be used for abstract searches for other issues.)

[Summary: No difference in the level of male & female DV.]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=9403987&amp;amp;amp;amp;form=6&db=m&Dopt=b

Violence Vict 1997 Summer;12(2):173-84

Victimization and perpetration rates of violence in gay and lesbian relationships: gender issues explored.
Waldner-Haugrud LK, Gratch LV, Magruder B.
Department of Social Sciences, University of Houston-Downtown, TX 77002, USA.

This study explores gender differences in victimization and perpetration experiences of gays and lesbians in intimate relationships. A sample of 283 gays and lesbians reported on their experiences both as victims and perpetrators of gay/lesbian relationship violence by completing a modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980).

General results indicate that 47.5% of lesbians and 29.7% of gays have been victimized by a same-sex partner. Further, lesbians reported an overall perpetration rate of 38% compared to 21.8% for gay men. Other findings were as follows: (1) lesbians were more likely to be classified as victims and perpetrators of violence than gay men; (2) lesbians were more likely to report pushing or being pushed than gay men; (3) lesbians reported experiencing a greater number of different victimization and perpetration tactics than gay men; and finally, (4) when items were weighted to create an indicator of severity, no significant differences between lesbians and gay men were found.
PMID: 9403987, UI: 98067773

[Summary: Feminist theories of patriarchy and DV used for control are misguided and wrong.]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=7696196&form=6&db=m&Dopt=b
Violence Vict 1994 Summer;9(2):167-82

Patriarchy and wife assault: the ecological fallacy
Dutton DG
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia.

A critical review is made of feminist analyses of wife assault postulating that patriarchy is a direct cause of wife assault. Data are reviewed from a variety of studies indicating that (a) lesbian battering is more frequent than heterosexual battering, (b) no direct relationship exists between power and violence within couples, and (c) no direct relationship exists between structural patriarchy and wife assault. It is concluded that patriarchy must interact with psychological variables in order to account for the great variation in power-violence data. It is suggested that some forms of psychopathology may lead to some men adopting patriarchal ideology to justify and rationalize their own pathology.
PMID: 7696196, UI: 95210181

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=9403983&form=6&db=m&Dopt=b

[Summary: Counsellors tend to maximise male violence and downplay female violence. This is a current societal norm and seen in government, law, police and judiciary.]

Violence Vict 1997 Summer;12(2):127-35

Comparison of beginning counselors' responses to lesbian vs. heterosexual partner abuse
Wise AJ, Bowman SL
Depart. of Counseling and Psychology and Guidance Services, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana 47306, USA.

This study compared responses of masters and doctoral level counseling students to two domestic violence scenarios. Participants read a two paragraph description of a battering incident involving either a heterosexual or lesbian couple and then gave their impressions via a series of open and closed ended questions. Scenarios were identical save the manipulation of sexual partner as same or opposite sex. Experience and/or education with battered and/or gay/lesbian clients is also examined.

Results indicated that subjects perceived the heterosexual battering incident as more violent than the lesbian battering incident and would be more likely to charge the male batterer than the female batterer with assault. Differences in treatment recommendations were made according to sexual orientation of the victim. Less than half of the respondents had coursework or practical experience pertaining to domestic violence and/or gay/lesbian concerns.
PMID: 9403983, UI: 98067769

[Summary: Women commit acts of DV and this needs to be studied further, in particular violence may be an (individual) human issue not a gender issue.]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=7696194&form=6&db=m&Dopt=b
Violence Vict 1994 Summer;9(2):139-52

Lesbian battering: the relationship between personality and the perpetration of violence
Coleman VE

The occurrence of violence in lesbian relationships challenges societal stereotypes of women and traditional, sociopolitical theories of domestic violence. This article proposes that a multidimensional theory of partner abuse, which incorporates an emphasis on individual personality dynamics, is needed to more fully understand the heterogeneity of batterers. The relationship between psychopathology, sociocultural factors, and battering in lesbian relationships is examined and dynamics related to the borderline and narcissistic disorders are highlighted. In order to improve our understanding of domestic violence and provide effective treatment, we must continue to pursue critical thinking and research regarding the role of personality dynamics, and the relationship between these dynamics and other variables.
PMID: 7696194, UI: 95210179

See also:
Lesbian DV brochure
Lesbians are more violent (more studies)

Source: http://www.fathersforlife.org/feminism/female_dv_1.htm

CONTROVERSY WITHIN FAMILY VIOLENCE RESEARCH

2005-05-10T18:51:00.000-04:00

I have been involved in the study of partner abuse for the past eight years. My interest in this issue began with my concern about violence against women. Initially, my examination of partner abuse focused on courtship violence and spouse abuse perpetrated by men. My sense of curiosity led me to go against what I believed to be the essence of partner abuse and examine the prevalence of abuse perpetrated by women. Quite to my surprise, I found that women too, abused their male partners at equivalent rates. This led me to search out other research examining this issue, and again to my surprise I found my findings were not an anomaly, but had considerable support.

Considerable controversy has emerged as a result of studies finding equivalent rates of abuse for males and females. The rift within family violence research centers on how researchers have approached their investigations. On one hand, there is the unidimensional approach to partner abuse advanced by feminists. They view abuse between intimates as a problem of women being abused by men whereby the abuse is perceived as a dichotomous variable (abuse/no abuse) and seen in its most sever forms. On the other hand, sociologists and family researchers view partner abuse as being gender neutral and occurring along a continuum with no abuse at one end and very severe abuse at the other end.

I would like to address this controversy by first providing a backdrop to how the divisiveness in the study of partner abuse developed, and then by discussing some of the methodological and practical issues that have contributed to it.

Long before the first reference to violence within the family was made in academic circles -which was actually not that long ago - somewhere around 32 years ago - the goings on within the family took on a very different tenor than they do today. Back then, family problems were considered private and were no one's business but those directly involved. This is not to say that the outside world was totally oblivious to the problems that some families experienced. On the contrary, family problems were often quite apparent, however they were defined somewhat differently and were viewed as issues that were to be resolved without outside interference.

I'm sure those of us old enough to remember those simpler times and as well as those too young to remember that era in history will recall stories about families whose children were not adequately fed, unclean and sent to school without warm enough clothing. There were also stories about husbands and wives who quarrelled a little too much and whose houses echoed with sounds of yelling, screaming and items hitting the walls. We may recall husbands who were labelled as boors and wives who were labelled as hen peckers because they didn't treat their respective spouses with the respect or consideration they deserved. We may also recall stories of elderly people stranded in their homes, not being able to adequately care for themselves while their able children only rarely came to visit them but for a few minutes each time. I would venture to suggest that when we reflect back on these stories, the notion of abuse never crosses our minds. Instead, we probably thought about how unfortunate these families were and how thankful we are that such things did go on in our own families.

The explosion of research in family violence as well as the work done by the women's movement has redefined not only how we look at family violence, but how we approach family issues, in general. During the past three decades, the family has been placed under the social science microscope and has been examined in many different ways. We have learned about the division of labour within households, different child rearing practices and alternative lifestyles, to name just a few. What was once considered a troublesome, but private problem is now defined as abuse in its various forms and is subject to the scrutiny of numerous social agencies. In the case of family violence, this move toward deprivatizing the family has been positive in many respects and has led to the protection of those unable to protect themselves. Today, we have very strict guidelines about the reporting and handling of child abuse cases and legislation concerning protecting the elderly is currently in place in many U.S. states and Canadian provinces.

Twenty-five years ago, the problem of wife abuse went virtually unnoticed by the legal, medical, social and research communities. Up till that point, women caught in abusive relationships were left to suffer in silence with no where to turn to for help or understanding. Little support was provided by their own families because of strong adherence to the notion of "to death do you part". Much of the credit for the increased public knowledge about wife assaults is attributed to the women's movement which, through its tireless efforts, has brought the issue of wife battering to the forefront. Today, wife abuse has been identified as the single most important dimension of family violence. In fact, lobbying efforts by women's groups have been so successful that the issue of wife abuse has taken precedence over other social problems such as poverty, alcoholism, and unemployment.

However, the lobby for the protection of women has been at the expense of protecting other family members also at risk for abuse. In some quarters of both popular and media cultures, as well as the legislative culture, violence against women by men has literally squeezed out recognition of other forms of family violence, including the violence perpetrated by women against other women (siblings, daughters, mothers and lesbian partners), against children, and indeed against male partners and elderly fathers. Especially noteworthy is research which reports that female perpetrators commit between 3% and 13% of all sexual abuse. The tunnel vision view of domestic violence where women are the victims and men are the perpetrators is built on the patriarchal model which conceptualizes abuse as resulting from men's overt attempts to dominate women. This conceptual framework argues that men are socialized into violence, and is supported by many of our social institutions, most notably the institution of marriage. Feminist writers maintain that violence by men is pervasive and normal, and some have gone as far as to equate violence against women with jungle warfare.

At the centre of the debate on family violence is the argument over who is the biggest victim. Feminists would have us believe that women are unquestionably the greater victims and men are the greater perpetrators - even at the cost of invented figures, illogical arguments and suppressed empirical data which dispel this position. It has been suggested that feminists fear that what is perceived as the more serious problem of wife abuse will be impeded by drawing attention to other forms of domestic violence. In other words, it is believed that by sharing the victim spotlight with men, funds will be diverted away from women's shelters and advocacy and toward the needs of men and others suffering abuse. Is it is too naive of me to suggest that by viewing family violence - and specifically spouse abuse - as a much larger problem than has been until now, more funds could be directed to domestic abuse programs which recognize the role of both partners. These funds could then be used to bring about long term solutions by working with couples and their families instead of the current band aid strategies that shelters offer to women alone.

It is only recently that the presentation of domestic abuse as solely a matter of the victimization of women by men has begun to be questioned by academics, government officials, the media and the public. More and more often, stories about women assaulting their family members appear in our newspapers. Although the story of Susan Smith shocked the nation, a perusal of newspaper articles reveals that she is not the first woman to harm her children. Still, examples of women's violence are continually dismissed as rare events while examples of violence by men are held as symbols of their innate violent make-up. As a consequence, challenges to the patriarchal model of spouse abuse have not been well received by women's advocates, and in fact have been labelled as the "backlash" in the violence against women struggle.

The controversy over the salience of the feminist stance on wife assault has been discussed by only a few academics. The penalties against criticizing feminist ideology are varied but nevertheless, severe. They range from personal attacks such as name calling and malicious rumours, to threats to academic careers, to threats to their family members. Because of this, many academics feel the price of speaking out is too high to pay. On the other hand, those who have braved the consequences and spoken out, have gained public attention and given many reason to rethink what has till now become accepted truths in our societal consciousness. Those who have dared to question the myopic, unidimensional view of domestic abuse have done so because of their commitment to see that the issue of violence perpetrated by women is brought to the forefront after being hidden as wife abuse was 20 years ago.

I want to shift gears now and talk about some specifics. While there is no shortage of official statistics, emergency room reports and anecdotes from shelters supporting the claim that women are very often severely abused by their male partners, these claims in no way: 1) describe the condition of all women in society, nor 2) do they address the issue of abuse sustained by men that has already been demonstrated by several large general population surveys.

With respect to my first point concerning the generalizing of findings from one population to another, I will begin by stating that we must remember that the cases that are described by these clinical data sources (that is the shelters, police and hospitals) reflect the tale end of domestic abuse cases. In other words, these are the most serious examples of domestic abuse.

On the other hand, surveys conducted on random samples of men and women in the general population find equivalent rates of abuse in which the abuse is relatively speaking more benign in nature. By that I mean, the tactics used during incidents of abuse have a lower probability of producing injuries. This is supported by the low rates of injuries reported.

Much of the confusion in the debate over whether or not women are the sole victims of male perpetrated abuse centers around the data source used to report cases of abuse. To resolve this debate, we must begin by asking, "why do women overshadow men in cases of severe abuse?" Based on the information that has flooded the media, the most obvious answer would be "because that is the way it is; these statistics reflect reality". However, there is an alternative explanation which is: "women overshadow men in reports of severe domestic abuse because the sources from which we gather data do not adequately reflect cases of abused males". Think about it, how many abused men can we expect to find in battered women's shelters?

You might argue though that police and emergency room statistics have likewise failed to produce large numbers of male victims of domestic abuse. How do I explain that? My answer is, "look at the cities that have instituted zero tolerance domestic abuse policies". If you compare pre policy male/female arrest ratios with those at present, you will undoubtedly find that the gap between male/female arrests is quickly closing. In fact, in my home town of Winnipeg, Manitoba, the number of arrests of females is escalating faster than the number of arrests of males. Unfortunately, data on emergency rooms is not as convincing in that few men report domestic abuse as the cause of their injuries. However, based on the anecdotal reports of injured men many say they often lie because they fear they will not be believed.

The bottom line is, we do not have a comparable clinical population of abused men. Appropriate comparisons cannot yet be made between clinically abused males and females, nor can the issue of injuries sustained be appropriately addressed without a parallel population of abused men. Until such time, the motivations for the abuse as well as its associated factors within this high risk population remain unresolved. For now, valid comparisons of male and female abusers should be limited to research conducted on either random samples from the general population or convenience samples drawn from a number of sources including therapy groups.

Unfortunately, this is something that is rarely done and is certainly not reflected in media reports.

In terms of my other point concerning the abuse sustained by men, I will say again, there is ample empirical evidence demonstrating that the perpetration and victimization of spousal abuse within the general population is shared by both men and women. Spousal abuse is not exclusively a woman's issue. Yet this notion of domestic violence as being solely a women's issue still persists. In addition to what I has already been said, the strong adherence to female victimization by males centers on women's use of violence as being motivated only by self defence as well as men's greater relative physical strength over women.

Research by Straus and colleagues has demonstrated that an equal proportion of men and women initiate episodes of domestic abuse. This suggests that self defence is not likely a factor in these cases. My own research goes a step further by straight forwardly asking "was the abuse perpetrated in self defence?". Results indicated that only 9.9% of women and 14.8% of men said they perpetrated abuse in self defence during the year prior to the survey. In other words, for the vast majority of men and women, the abuse they perpetrated was for reasons other than self defence.

To date, there are no data that take into account height and weight as a factor involved in the perpetration of domestic abuse. As a result, comments regarding men's greater relative physical strength as a predictor of perpetrated abuse are strictly speculative. While it makes intuitive sense that a person of greater stature and strength will have the advantage in a physical assault, it would be a mistake to believe that one's greater relative strength is the only determining factor in the outcome of a domestic assault. Anecdotal reports from abused men suggest that small framed women exert considerable fear and intimidation by threatening to take their children away and by other forms of emotional abuse such as insults and degradation. We know all too well that anyone can compensate for a lack of strength with a weapon. The case of Lorena and John Bobbitt speaks to that issue quite well.

My point is that we should not automatically jump on to the band wagon that discredits the other reality that men like women can be victims as well as perpetrators of abuse. Regardless of our gender, we are all members of the same human species with the same innate drives of flight or fight. Each one of us has the ability to react violently given the right set of circumstances. What the literature on spousal abuse has shown us is that there is considerable variability in what triggers violent responses to marital conflicts. Some of abusers are triggered by stress, while others are triggered by alcohol, unemployment, family background or poor coping skills.

In most cases, it is a complex combination and interaction of these factors that predispose men and women to use violence to resolve conflicts in their intimate relationships. The job of research is to identify these triggers and be able to accurately predict who is most vulnerable and under what set of circumstances. Once accomplished, the road to effective intervention may be at hand.

I want to conclude this talk by making a plea for honesty during future discussions on domestic abuse. As a woman who is deeply concerned about the well being of all women, I cannot help being frustrated by attempts to resolve the abuse that many women suffer by turning a blind eye to other women who inflict serious physical and emotional abuse on their loved ones. By denying this aspect of many women's existence, we do little to help women cope with life's stressors, or assist them in building more satisfactory intimate relationships. In our efforts to improve the lives of all women, it is incumbent upon us to see all aspects of their reality. Even more damaging to the image of women is the self imposed label of victim. In doing so, we deny ourselves the empowerment that we have long strived toward. As long as women subscribe to the notion of universal victimhood, they will never experience the freedom that goes along with having control over their lives.

The truth is, thank goodness, we are not all victims. Research shows us that 89% to 97% of couples report no violence during the year prior to the surveys conducted. In light of these findings, it seems that it would be more appropriate to examine the factors associated with women who have risen above the abuse and have made positive changes in their lives instead of continuously focusing on the small subset of women who have been unable to free themselves from extremely violent relationships. An approach such as this may provide the needed insight to help those still caught in abusive relationships. If not for ourselves, then we need to think about our children and do what is necessary to improve their lives. Since domestic abuse is often handed down from one generation to the next, the only way we can protect our children's future is to stop the abuse they witness and experience in their lives today. Let's take off our politically correct blinders and see the problem of domestic violence for what it really is. Domestic abuse involves and affects all family members!

Written by Dr. Reena Sommer
University of Manitoba

Source: http://www.reenasommerassociates.mb.ca/a_wfn.html

RECOGNIZING MEN ABUSED BY WOMEN

2005-05-10T18:46:00.000-04:00

The willingness to recognize male victims of violence by women may mark the beginnings of a change in societal perceptions of domestic abuse. In the same month, a conference on male victims of abuse held by the Battered Men's Helpline in Portland, Maine, received positive coverage in the local media. Also in Portland, a photography exhibit by victim advocate Donna Galuzzo, "A Celebration of Surviving: Celebrating the Strength, Success and Diversity of Survivors of Domestic Violence," open until Dec. 6, features photographs of gay men and lesbians who have been abused by their partners, as well as women battered by men (though not of men abused by women). Nationwide, a group called Stop Abuse for Everyone, which addresses violence in same-sex relationships and against men by female partners, has been gaining recognition in the victim advocacy community.

It would seem that broadening outreach to a more diverse group of victims should be an unequivocally good thing for those concerned with domestic violence. But that's not the way many advocates see it. Nancy Scannell, legislative director of Jane Doe Inc., a Massachusetts-based domestic violence coalition, has told The Boston Globe that the recognition that men are sometimes victimized did not in any way affect the organization's basic outlook on the causes and nature of domestic violence: "It happens because of sexism and power and control of men over women in our society."

This ideology has dominated the battered women's movement since its inception in the 1970s and still remains powerful. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and its member coalitions in various states require participating organizations to endorse it.

Yet a vast body of research suggests that the reality of family violence—which includes child abuse and elder abuse as well as spousal or partner violence—defies this simplistic gender analysis.

Ever since the 1970s, most domestic violence studies have shown that men and women are equally violent toward their spouses. Reports of female violence were initially dismissed as self-defense by battered women. Yet subsequent research has found that women are as likely as men to admit being the aggressors, and only slightly more likely to cite self-defense as the reason for their violence.

A cumulative analysis of dozens of domestic violence studies, published by British psychologist John Archer in the November 2000 issue of the journal Psychological Bulletin, found that overall rates of violence were roughly equal for men and women. While women were more likely to be injured in domestic assaults, a third of those sustaining such injuries were men.

The numbers remain a subject of heated dispute. Battered women's advocates point to Justice Department surveys which find that only 15 percent of domestic assault victims every year are male. But because of the context of these surveys, they may miss many attacks that the victims do not regard as crimes. (They also find considerably lower numbers of female victims than the 2 million or 4 million a year commonly cited by the advocates.) The National Violence Against Women Survey, co-sponsored by the Justice Department and the Centers for Disease Control, estimated about 1.3 million women and 900,000 men are assaulted by spouses or partners every year.

Studies also consistently show that violence is no less likely to occur in gay and lesbian relationships than in heterosexual ones—which also undercuts the notion that domestic violence is a product of male oppression of women.

Yes, some batterers believe that a man should keep his wife "in line." But domestic violence has many other causes, ranging from drug and alcohol abuse to economic stress to dysfunctional relationships and emotional disorders.

Battered women's advocates claim that female violence toward men is too much of an aberration to warrant a change in social policy. Yet today, our domestic violence policies are all too often influenced by an outdated, one-sided, and sexist view of abuse. The result is pressure on police and prosecutors not to arrest or charge violent women, lack of support for domestic violence counseling programs that do not toe the party line, and lack of meaningful assistance for male victims as well as gay victims of domestic violence. It is indeed time for a change.

Written by Cathy Young

This column appeared in the Boston Globe on November 11, 2002.

Extracted from: http://reason.com/cy/cy111202.shtml

MEN HAVE HAD IT WITH BIASED VIEW OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

2005-05-10T18:33:00.000-04:00

When women attack

From media portrayals of women slapping up men as comedy to cops who don’t arrest the chicks, men’s-rights groups have had it with a biased view of domestic violence.

“This idea that males are physically aggressive and females are not has distinct drawbacks for both sexes. Defining men as the perpetrators of all violence is a viciously immoral judgment of an entire gender. And defining women as inherently nonviolent condemns us to the equally restrictive role of sweet, meek and weak." --Katherine Dunn (author and feminist)

He was hurt. He was the victim. The only reason he never fought back is because he thought he could help the woman he married. That didn’t happen.

“One night, I was sleeping in bed, and she got mad,” John said. “She hit me over the head with a pan. The next day, she sent me flowers at work. I bet she sent me flowers eight times or so over the few years we were together. It’s weird being a guy and getting flowers at work. It’s even weirder when you have a black eye.”

John’s wife seems, by his accounts, to fit the profile of a batterer. She took charge of the family finances. She lied to John and other family members. She humiliated him.

“It was a nightmare from the very beginning,” said John, whose name, like those of other victims of domestic violence in this story, has been changed. “I should have learned.”

In 1997, after knowing each other for about two weeks, the two ended up in bed. John recounted the episode as the first of many such stories in which he was blamed for troubles he said his wife actually caused.

“It was the first time we made love, and afterwards, for the next 30 minutes, she cried hysterically. Now, this is not a typical reaction. I couldn’t even understand what she was saying. I tried to get her to calm down.

“Finally, she told me the problem. She told me she had a sexually transmitted disease, and that she’d had a breakout. She’d given it to me.”

The 41-year-old financial analyst from Colorado paused and took a deep breath.

“Now, who was the victim here? She gave me herpes, absolutely.”

In domestic frays, it’s hard to know who’s telling the truth. When men and women are asked by researchers and pollsters whether they’ve been abused or abusive, both say they have been victims or perpetrators--at fairly equal rates. From this, some infer that women use violence in relationships as much as men do. That’s not something you hear much about. Most calls for help come from women. Arrest records tend to show that the majority of those being arrested for domestic violence are still men.

This is one of many issues bugging some groups of men who’ve banded together to counter what they consider the unfair effects of feminism on society. Though many men don’t agree, some men’s organizations say the legal system treats men--husbands, partners and fathers--like second-class citizens.

“People hit and abuse family members because they can,” begins a paper titled “Controlling Domestic Violence Against Men,” authored this year by researchers Charles Corry, Martin Fiebert and Erin Pizzey. Though the paper is well circulated online at various men’s Web sites, it hasn’t been published yet in a peer-reviewed, scientific journal. One of the authors, Fiebert, is a psychology professor at California State University at Long Beach.

“In today’s society, as reflected in TV, movies and feminist doctrine, women are openly given permission to hit men,” the paper states. “For example, a woman slapping a man in the face is rarely, if ever, viewed as domestic violence. We are fighting a losing war against family violence until society withdraws permission from women to hit their intimate partners.”

Women, the paper contends, are given permission to be aggressive in a way that men never have. The authors complain of “primary aggressor” laws that usually result in the arrest of the man in spite of evidence the authors say shows 50 percent of domestic assaults are mutual-combat. The researchers cite studies showing that women admit to being more violent than men are in dating relationships--80 percent for women and 20 percent for men--and allege that women use weapons more often in assaults than men do.

“Almost every heterosexual man I know has been slapped by a woman,” said Frederic Hayward of Men’s Rights Inc. in Sacramento. He calls himself a victim of domestic violence. “I’ve been to the police bleeding, and they won’t make an arrest. ... Domestic violence by women against men is so common in the media that we don’t even notice it. It’s become a staple of comedy.”

Still, arrest records tend to show that the majority--about four out of five in 2001--of those being arrested for domestic violence in Northern California are men. The majority of calls for help to Sacramento’s domestic-violence agency Women Escaping a Violent Environment are from women. When men do call WEAVE, they are often angry.

“They say, 'I’m a victim, and there’s literally no one to help me,’ ” said Mae Terry, lead counselor for WEAVE. “For a man, there’s a lot of shame, a lot of embarrassment associated with that.”

Many of these men share their stories online at Web sites hosted by organizations like Stop Abuse For Everyone, http://www.safe4all.org/. A chapter of the organization started in Northern California in April.

In a bulletin-board posting accessible from the SAFE site, one tall, athletic 45-year-old told of constant abuse from his 115-pound wife.

“She has punched me, kicked me, slapped me, scratched me, pushed me and thrown drinks at me,” said Mike. “I could easily make her the first German satellite, launching her into orbit! I know a few hand and wrist holds that I can usually apply to stop her long enough to run. The thought of hurting a woman makes me sick.”

One night, his wife pulled a knife on him. Mike called the police, and his wife was arrested. But he remains married to her, in part for the sake of his infant son.

“She thinks nothing of arguing, yelling and swearing with the baby in her arms. I point out that she shouldn’t do this, but it only makes it worse. I now move through the house in a state of red alert. I sleep in another room with the doors locked.”

Fiebert, one of the authors of “Controlling Domestic Violence Against Men,” has delved into battered-men studies several times in the past decade and has co-authored studies such as “Why Women Assault,” published in Psychological Reports. His interest in the topic was piqued after he was asked, several years ago, to appear on a TV talk show. It was domestic-violence week, and the show featured a panel with several women who were all victims of domestic abuse, counselors of abused women or members of the legal community.

At the time, Fiebert taught a class at CSU Long Beach called Psychology of Male Roles, and he’d found information showing that men were victims of female aggression, as well. This, of course, went over like a sack of dirty diapers.

“I went on the show and presented the information, but [the participants] doubted the validity of the studies,” Fiebert recalled. “They doubted that the findings were representative of what went on.”

He went to work to assemble studies that proved his point. In the late 1990s, he published a paper that summarized the findings of 85 studies that showed a surprising number of men view themselves as victims of female aggression. Now, the list of studies has grown to 132 articles, studies and reviews.

Here are just a few recent examples from the list of smaller studies spanning the past couple of decades:

A 2000 study published in Psychological Bulletin showed evidence that women were more likely than men to use physical aggression, though “women were somewhat more likely to be injured, and analyses reveal that 62 percent of those injured were women.”

Frederic Hayward, of Men’s Rights Inc., believes the media encourages biased gender stereotypes.

A 1999 study in Behavioral Sciences and the Law reviewed other studies that “clearly demonstrate that within the general population, women initiate and use violent behaviors against their partners at least as often as men.”

A 1998 study of verbal and physical abuse in dating relationships that was presented at a meeting of the American Psychological Association examined a survey of college students that showed “women were significantly more physically aggressive than men, particularly in the areas of pushing, slapping and punching.”

Men who feel they’ve been victimized respond positively, of course, to Fiebert’s work.
“They feel personally validated that they aren’t the only ones,” Fiebert said.

Young researchers just starting out in the field find Fiebert’s compilation of research valuable, as well. In fact, he hears few complaints.

“I think people who are not into sort of a--I don’t know--political agenda or radical feminist agenda are interested in the facts,” he said.

Sometimes, folks e-mail him suggestions for works to be added to his compendium of studies. Others tell him personal stories, many of which begin: “My girlfriend used to hit me.”
It seems that his work is being accepted now more than it was when he first began citing studies that showed equality in the numbers of male and female victims.

“[Years ago], there was a strong reaction, with some thinking that I was betraying feminism by presenting this information,” he said, “but not anymore.”

Some things, though, haven’t changed. Like the cultural taboos that look down on men’s aggressiveness toward women, he said. And that the reverse--women hitting men--is somehow seen as acceptable.

“Women being aggressive to men is seen as, 'So what?’ So what if she throws something and hits him? There are no major sanctions. If an adult guy hits his partner, he could be thrown in jail or lose his kids.”

In the past 12 months, some 29,717 calls for services were made to WEAVE’s office in Sacramento. About 92 percent of the calls for help, or 27,340, were calls from women seeking services from WEAVE, such as emergency shelter or job-referral assistance. Only a couple thousand calls came from men.

That number probably doesn’t reflect the real number of men seeking help, said Nicolette Bautista, WEAVE’s executive director. She’s careful to point out factors that might cause men not to call WEAVE. For one, there’s a stigma attached to being a man who gets beat up by a woman. Also, some men feel angry about what they view as the scope of the agency.
“WEAVE is identified as a women’s organization,” she said. “Men call and say, 'You’re there to serve the woman. What about me?’ ... We could change the name to 'We Help You Escape a Violent Environment.’ ”

“Who knows who’d be calling then,” added Terry, the lead counselor for WEAVE.

Bautista said services are available to victims of domestic abuse from an intimate partner regardless of gender or sexual orientation. The agency doesn’t offer a support group for men, but that’s because it has not seen a demand for such a thing.

Earlier this year, the Sacramento agency began receiving calls for help from older men, senior citizens. Because WEAVE only offers help to those in an intimate relationship, it doesn’t offer assistance to seniors who are abused by caretakers and instead refers them to other agencies. The agency can help older men who are being abused by their significant others, though.

And, as the men’s-rights groups would concur, abuse does not begin and end with physical violence in the home. The violence can extend into the legal realm, where some men’s groups say that husbands, partners and fathers can too easily become victims of non-physical female aggression that separates them from their families, challenges parental rights and forces them into making outrageous child-support payments.

“Navigating through the legal system is hard for both,” explained Stephanie Eschoo, WEAVE’s managing attorney. No matter the gender of an individual, it’s the victim who’s going to be at a disadvantage in a legal environment--almost without exception.

“Because of power and control issues, the victims are at a disadvantage because they already feel like lesser people. They are told many lies by the controlling partner. So, they feel like they can’t stand up for themselves.”

Because a perpetrator of domestic violence is a controlling person, that person often controls finances. The perpetrator can access money for an attorney, who may further intimidate the victim--and can end up “re-abusing” him or her.

The cycle of violence is the same--regardless of gender.

“The bottom line is power and control,” said Terry.

Whether it’s from a man or a woman, every call that comes into WEAVE’s hotline is screened. Workers find that only a small percentage of the men who call and are screened qualify for assistance. Workers first do a “conflict check” to make sure that the agency is not already helping the man’s intimate partner. The agency also runs a police background check on all callers.

“We will not help a perpetrator,” Bautista said, turning to ask Eschoo a question. “How did things turn out with the man who called the other day?”

“We denied him,” Eschoo said. He had two convictions and has been incarcerated twice for domestic violence. His wife has had two restraining orders in the past.”

In addition to these pragmatic checks, the victim is questioned. A decision to help can be made based on the gut feeling of the person taking the call.

Still, some men make it through these checks. And help is available for them, Terry said.

Nicolette Bautista, executive director of Women Escaping a Violent Environment, said the majority of the calls her organization receives are from women but that WEAVE can help men, as well.

“They’ll be given equitable treatment,” Bautista said. “We’ll provide all of the same services with the exception of group counseling.”

“Abuse is abuse is abuse,” Terry said.

“If two people started fighting over there,” Hayward said, gesturing across Java City Café to a half-dozen busy tables, “and I saw a knife or a gun lying nearby, the first thing I’d do is pick it up and put it away so that no one can use it.”

A longstanding domestic dispute is similar, he said. Instead of removing weapons, though, some agencies are adding them to the fray.

“Two people are fighting, and the system goes up to one--the woman,” he said, tapping his hand on the table, “and says, 'Here are some weapons you can use. We trust you not to misuse them. And if you lie in court, we will not prosecute you for perjury.’ ”

Domestic-violence laws protect women. Shelters are created for battered women. Workers at agencies like WEAVE believe women’s stories--and not those of men, contends Hayward, who founded Men’s Rights Inc. in Sacramento in the 1970s.

Years ago, Hayward hosted a cable-access TV show called SacraMENshow. He’s appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show three times. The first time, he was kicked off for what he called “pointing out her hypocrisies on sexism and men.”

Some years ago, he learned that a local TV station was running a made-for-TV movie called Men Don’t Tell. He called the station to see if they wanted to do a local story on men who’d been abused. He asked six men to come with him to the station. At the last minute, the station changed the time. None of the male victims could make it at the new time, so Hayward was left with no sources. On a whim, he told men at a unrelated meeting about the panel and asked, “Have any of you been slapped by women?”

“Every single heterosexual man raised his hand,” Hayward recounted.

Sometimes men contend that they are in the same place that women were 40 years ago, Hayward said. He disagrees.

“I never remember domestic violence against women being a staple of comedy in sitcoms when I was growing up.”

Hayward took his newly found sources to the KXTV-10 studio. After the broadcast of the panel discussion, Hayward received about 60 calls within a few hours, he said. He started a men’s support group based on the phone calls. The movie, he said, pulled in calls of a different kind.
“The producer of the movie got a lot of heavy flack with people who did not want this to get out,” Hayward said.

These days, Hayward’s been minding his own business and enjoying shared custody of his 8-year-old son. It’s been a while since he’s been in people’s faces about unfair attitudes toward men. He said he fears retribution from the legal system for speaking his mind.

But that doesn’t keep him from being observant. Hayward, who makes his living as a videographer of weddings and special events, has been tracking male-bashing lately.
One common toast at weddings, he said, involves placing the man’s hand over the woman’s and then saying to the man, “Enjoy this. It’s the last time you’ll have the upper hand in this relationship.”

“They say things like, 'Men are like grapes; you have to stomp on them and hope they mature into something you want to have dinner with,’” Hayward said.

People learn this kind of behavior from the media. Hayward has collected eight hours of clips from television sitcoms that show female-on-male violence. He’s only been able to find about 30 seconds of male violence toward women.

“Our society condones this, encourages it. We are horrified by violence against women, horrified by it. But when a man gets hurt, we are applauding like it’s the funniest thing in the world. ... What planet do the media live on?”

Not all men’s groups complain that men aren’t getting the kind of help they need to respond to angry, irate women. There are plenty of men who are looking for someone to blame for their family problems, said Pete Giannini, director of ManAlive programs in Sacramento, Roseville and Auburn. ManAlive is a year-long counseling and accountability program for men that helps them acknowledge their role in family violence. Men need to learn to take responsibility, he said, even if they do feel like victims.

Does Giannini know any battered husbands?

“Me and every other man I’ve met,” he said. “You shouldn’t have any trouble finding a victim.”
Giannini talks a mile a minute. Once you get him going on the topic of gender equity, he’s likely good for hours. He feels traditional patriarchal attitudes that men should control and women should sit back and be controlled work fine--as long as the controlled party accepts this system.

“The problem is you’ve gotta be a second-rate citizen,” he said. And women, he acknowledged, are awfully tired of this.

Yes, ManAlive is a feminist group that acknowledges that power and control long have been in the hands of guys, who’ve been taught that they need it.

Giannini was turned on to ManAlive himself after his wife ended their 15-year marriage.
“My wife opened the front door and suggested I relocate,” he said. “She wasn’t mad. She just said, 'You stop screaming at me and the kids, or you get out.’ ”

By that time, he’d tried just about everything--anger management, counseling, therapy and Al-Anon.

Pete Giannini, director of ManAlive programs in the Sacramento area, helps abusers to change their behavior patterns by accepting responsibility for their actions.

“I was heavy into blame. Everybody else was responsible for my behavior. I was filled with rage and straight-up bullshit blame,” he said.

He went through the ManAlive program in San Rafael. It took a year for him to break the cycle of anger and blame. It took another two years for his family to believe that he had really changed.

Now, he’s worked with “zillions of guys.” He’s taken the ManAlive program to jails in San Francisco. He’s seen changes in men who were incarcerated in San Quentin for violence.
“They say to me, 'I’m not going back,’ and damned if they weren’t right. ... Change is possible, but it’s a lot of work to change behavior patterns.”

In the program, a man progresses through various phases in which he works on specific behavior patterns. If he’s violent in any way during a phase, if he even slams a door, that buys him two months more in whatever phase he’s in.

“I clean up my physical violence--diminishing words, sarcasm, objectifying--and operate for two months without doing that stuff.”

Men have to hold themselves accountable, he said.

“I’m not giving up competitive skills; that would be stupid,” Giannini said. “I’m just learning new sets of skills and learning which skills are appropriate for which situation. ... And it’s not about rolling over and becoming a victim. Some guys come in and say, 'Now what am I supposed to do? Be led around with a ring in my nose?’ No. We believe that victims eventually persecute. When we are doing controlling behavior, we are absolutely convinced that we are the victims, until we realize that we victimize the hell out of everyone.”

Unlike Hayward, Giannini said he doesn’t see a gender bias against men in the way the system handles domestic violence. If anything, men are still protected far too often, he feels. “Unless I rip your head off, I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. “Finally, after years, if I threaten to kill you, that’s against the law.”

He’s seen many instances of a man who’s “slapped the holy hell out of his wife” end up in front of a judge, plea-bargaining the offense down to disturbing the peace.

“If I hit a bartender, do you think I could plea-bargain down? But I own the Ford, the Chevy and the wife.”

The idea that patriarchy is still the root cause of domestic violence is outdated, said John Hamel, a licensed clinical social worker and court-approved domestic-violence treatment provider with practices in Greenbrae, Berkeley and Pleasant Hill. It’s “old-school,” he said, to contend that even today, power and control are imposed on women by men who systematically exclude women from powerful places.

“The women’s-shelter people and their advocates have made the laws so that they’re lacking,” he said. “Society has changed a lot since the 1970s. Women have more power than they used to. And, in domestic incidents, they have more power, often, than men, with the police and courts on [women’s] side. I have nothing against [battered-women’s advocates]. They are doing a great service. But they have to get with the times. ... They’re still living in the ’70s and not willing to move along.”

Hamel recently worked with a male client who was referred to Hamel for an anger-management program, though he’d never touched his wife in an abusive manner. The man had supervised visits with his children. A mediator in the case had never asked the man or his wife about the wife’s behavior. When Hamel did some probing, he found that the wife had punched and kicked her husband frequently. The husband’s worst offense was yelling back at her.

Based on this yelling, which his wife called “threatening,” she received a protection order against her husband, which allowed him only supervised visits with his children. Now, with Hamel on his side, the man has appealed the decision. But the wheels of justice grind slowly.

“By the time this man goes back to court, he will have missed months and months of visits with his kids,” Hamel said. “Those are the kinds of frustrations we’re up against.”

Hamel said he doesn’t consider himself a men’s-rights advocate exactly, but he understands the cause.

“Men are getting screwed to some extent,” he said. “Society is not handling the problem in a very effective way. Men and women get in an argument, push, shove and occasionally slap each other. The kids see this and see that Dad goes to jail. When he gets out, Mom says, 'Do it my way, or I’m going to call the cops.’ ... And that arrest counts against [the man] in a divorce action. If you’ve been arrested for domestic violence, that will count against you in getting custody of your kids. Guess who’s getting the shaft when it comes to custody?”

Bob, who told his story at the SAFE Web site, is 28 years old. He’s married to a woman who enjoys violent sex and has held sharp objects to his throat whenever it turns her on.

“When I called a rape hotline, I was laughed at! I feel so worthless and feeble but mostly humiliated. Yet, I can’t bring myself to try to get out of the relationship for fear of retaliation. My wife claims that if I try to leave her, she’ll cut me ’til my blood won’t stop flowing and watch me die.”

One woman, Joannie, posted a story explaining how she became abusive in one instance: “I don’t know what happened. I suppose it all went by too fast. One moment, I was on the verge of leaving, and the next, I had lurched my arm back to slug him one in the face, causing massive bleeding at the jaw, [and] then in the chest multiple times. I didn’t stop throwing punches--and even kicked him once--until he fell back against the bed, eyes gone wide ... the shock, hurt, then almost disgust, that crossed his face jarred me to the very core.”

In a response to Joannie’s post, another woman attempted to reassure the worried spouse: “You did the right thing: taught him who’s boss. Works with my husband at least. Right on, sister! Don’t feel guilty, feel proud!”

That’s the kind of attitude that smacks of unfairness to advocates like Hayward of Men’s Rights Inc.

When a battered woman tells a story of domestic abuse, feminist workers listen to her story with the assumption that she’s telling the truth, he said. Domestic-violence laws appear to be based on the assumption that women won’t abuse power.

“People need to understand that women are just as human as men,” Hayward said. “They are just as capable of abusing power as men.”

On the other hand, Giannini, with the feminist ManAlive group, holds that many of those men who complain of being victimized are merely incapable of a relationship in which control is shared.

“It’s about power and that we’ve been convinced that the only way we have it is to take it away from someone else,” he said. “[Society] peddles violence in every aspect of our lives. ... But there are choices; change is absolutely possible.”

Written by Deidre Pike

Source: http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2002-12-26/cover.asp#

HUSBANDS AND WIVES ASSAULTING EACH OTHER AT NEARLY SAME RATE

2005-05-10T17:54:00.000-04:00

What domestic violence presenters don’t tell you

How many know that the same research which is used to say that a woman is severely assaulted by her husband/boyfriend every 15 second in this country, also indicated that a man is severely assaulted by his wife/girlfriend every 14.6 seconds.
(Straus, M. A., 1977)

How many know that although most Archival research (data which comes from police arrest reports, hospital records, judicial reports, and domestic violence shelters usually set up to help female victims) indicates only a small percentage of male victims of domestic violence, that the vast majority of scientific Survey research continues to indicate that husbands and wives are assaulting each other at nearly the same rate, a range from 35 to 50 percent male victims.
(Straus, M. A., 1977; Steinmetz, 1978; Brutz & Ingoldby 1981; Makepeace 1981; Makepeace 1983; Elliot, D. S. et al., 1985; Straus, M. A., & Gelles, R., 1986; Meredith et al. 1986; Szinovacz, 1987; Barling et al., 1987; Mason & Blankenship, 1987; O’Leary & Arias, 1988; Malcolm, G., 1994; Dunn, K., 1994; Coochey, J., 1995; Carrado et al., 1996)

How many know that when Feminist groups and domestic violence workers are exposed to these facts they will immediately minimize the importance of these studies by raising the argument that even if women do assault their partner it is usually for reason of self-defense, yet they produce no scientific research to support this claim other than some case studies or anecdotal information. Although limited, scientific research data suggests that only 10-20% of women assault their male partners for reasons of self-defense. Domestic violence shelters are likely to see these women and are less likely to see the 80-90% of women who assault their husbands/boyfriends for reasons other than self-defense. Interestingly, about 30% of the men said they assaulted their partner in self-defense.
(Carrado, et al., 1996; Sommer, 1992)

How many know that survey research suggest that women who are assaulted are 9 times more likely to report to police and 5 times more likely to tell a friend/relative than men who are assaulted by their wives. (Stets, J. & Straus, M. A., 1990) In general only about 8-10% of women who are assaulted and 1-2% of men who are assaulted report the assault to an agency/authority. (Fontes, 1998) This is likely why archival data indicates more female victims.
How many know that most assaults between partners are mutual 48.6%, men only 25.5%, and women only 25.9%. Or that women are more likely to stick the first blow against their intimate partner, as reported by women themselves. (Straus, 1997) One study showed that 83% of the couples studies engaged in "bi-directional or mutual physical aggression."
(Jennifer Langhinrich-Rohling et al., 1996).

How many know that 60% of women who are arrested for domestic violence against their husbands have previous criminal records.
(Jurik, N. C., 1989; Jurik, N. C., & Gregware, P., 1989)

How many know that although women are seven times more likely to report they needed to see a doctor as a result of being assaulted by their husband (Gelles, 1996), one does not know if they are seven times more likely to actually be injured by their husbands than husbands are by their wives. Only 3% of the women reported they needed to see a doctor and only 0.4% of the men reported they need to see a doctor as a result of being assaulted. (Straus, M. A., 1997) Women are nearly twice as like to use an object when she assaults a male partner which can equalize the level of injury he receives.
(Straus & Gelles, 1986)

To learn more about male victims of domestic violence the following literature is suggested:

Abused men: The hidden side of domestic violence by Philip Cook, publisher: Praeger, 1997. ISBN: 0-275-95862-0

When she was bad: Violent women and the myth of innocence by Patricia Pearson, publisher: Viking, 1997. ISBN: 0-670-85925-7

Ceasefire: Why women and men must join forces to achieve true equality by Cathy Young, publisher: Free Press, 1999. ISBN: o-684-83442-1

Who stole feminism: How women have betrayed women by Christina Hoff Sommers, publisher: Simon and Schuster, 1996. ISBN: 0-684-80156-6

The myth of male power by Warren Farrell, publisher: New York: Berkley, 1993. ISBN: 0-425-15523-4

Violent Touch: Breaking Through the Stereotype.
(45 page paper) by David L. Fontes, Psy.D., 1998.
$12.50 per copy includes shipping and handling.

Battered by their wives. ABC 20/20 video, September 19, 1997, $29.95, call 800-913-3434

1999, by David L. Fontes, Psy.D., CEAP

Source: http://www.safe4all.org/essays/2page.html

WHY ARE MOST MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ALLEGED TO BE HOMOSEXUAL?

2005-05-10T17:39:00.000-04:00

As a participating member of my democratic society, a while back I attended a committee meeting of the Los Angeles Domestic Violence Council. At the meeting, the subject of male victims of domestic violence came up. After a few minutes of discussion one of the female shelter personnel adroitly inserted the term "gay men" into the conversation, and proceeded to infer that when male victims of domestic violence were being discussed we were talking about gay men only. I voiced my opinion that there was an abundance of heterosexual male victims who were battered by their female partners or wives, and that such a selective use of terms was erroneous. From the unfriendly, unresponsive looks of the committee, they appeared even less receptive to that fact, than the fact that any male could be a victim of domestic violence. My experience at the Los Angeles domestic violence council meeting was not unique. The attitude they had, about male victims of intimate partner violence, appears to be pervasive throughout California's domestic violence community as this author's experience further supports, "...then they paraded out the token gay guy. I had seen this trick before when I took a 40-hour volunteer course for the Family Justice Center, where, to offer up a victim and show gender inclusiveness, they paraded out a gay guy..." "...they had a gay guy who abused another gay guy, and a woman abused by many men, but no lesbian who abused another lesbian, or man abused by many women. No women who abused anyone? Now how did that happen?"

In some Internet blogs and chat rooms, we likewise find the expressed opinion, that most male victims of domestic violence are gay, repeated again and again. Are such statements accurate? Are most male victims of domestic violence homosexual?

There were 92,748,000 adult males and 100,697,000 adult females living in the United States, when the survey below was conducted. According to the United States Department of Justice, July 2000: Findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey - Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, approximately 834,732 men and 1,500,000 women are victims of intimate partner violence each year.

In other words, men are approximately 36% of annual Intimate Partner Violence victims and women comprise approximately 64%. For the purpose of satisfying the question raised in the title, I will be concentrating primarily on the statistics pertaining to gay and heterosexual men victims.

I need to point out at this juncture that the survey, in its own words, consisted of: "telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 8,000 U.S. women and 8,000 U.S. men about their experiences as victims of various forms of violence, including intimate partner violence."

A few sentences later this key extrapolation jumps forth from the page, "Analysis of the survey data produced the following results." It says, "1.5 percent of surveyed women (120 women) and 0.9 percent of surveyed men (72 men) said they were raped and or physically assaulted by a partner in the previous 12 months. According to these estimates approximately 1.5 million women and 834,732 men are raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States."

At the beginning of the section Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence in Same Sex Couples, the report offers this critique of existing research, "Research on violence in same-sex relationships has been limited to studies of small, underrepresented samples of gay and lesbian couples. Results from these studies suggest that same-sex couples are about as violent as heterosexual couples. (1)"

The study went on to document that:

(A) One percent (1%) of surveyed women (79 women) and eight tenths of one percent (0.8%) of surveyed men (65 men) reported living with a same-sex intimate partner at least once in their lifetime. Of the 65 gay or bisexual men, 23.1% reported being raped, physically assaulted, or stalked. Of that twenty three point one percent (23.1 %), twenty one point five percent (21. 5%) were physical assaults alone.

(B) Ninety percent (90%) of surveyed women and eighty six percent (86%) of surveyed men reported marrying/living with an opposite-sex partner but never with a same sex partner.
According to the survey, "for brevity's sake," the former are referred to as same-sex cohabitants and the later are referred to as opposite-sex cohabitants."

If one does the extrapolation, which at this point the survey curiously does not, we see that 23.1% of eight tenths of one percent (.8%) of same-sex men cohabitants, out of the estimated 834,732 men victims of intimate partner violence, works out to about 1,543 same-sex men who were victims of intimate partner violence annually.

Without going one-step further, it is a simple mathematical proof to state that 1,543 same-sex men do not comprise "most" of the estimated 834,732 men who are annually male victims of intimate partner violence. In fact, for every one (1) "same-sex" male victim of intimate partner violence there are an estimated five hundred forty one (541) "opposite-sex" (heterosexual) male victims of intimate partner violence. Therefore, to say that most male victims of domestic violence are homosexual, bi-sexual, or gay is an egregiously gross misrepresentation of existing information. Even if every "same-sex" man in the survey reported being battered, that total number would still be only about 6,678. In light of all the anecdotal evidence, mathematical proof, and sound logic it is ridiculously fallacious to contend that heterosexual men are not the vast majority of male victims of intimate partner violence.

In no way is the above information intended to minimize the intimate violence that gay victims of domestic violence experience. They too deserve vital services to meet their needs. In addressing this topic I'm hopeful that all victims of domestic violence are put in a more accurate and honest focus so that grossly under represented male victims no longer go on being almost totally ignored by America's taxpayer funded domestic violence industry.

It's too bad this survey didn't spend some statistical effort on documenting the level of service and shelter provided to members of each group to show the gross under funding of services for all male victims of domestic violence, including same-sex men. If heterosexual men (intimate partner victims) received only the attention given gay men by the domestic violence industry, services for all male victims of intimate partner violence would be vastly improved. Why does this rampant discrimination through politicization of domestic violence resources exist? Why does the domestic violence industry so grossly misrepresent the number of heterosexual male victims of intimate partner abuse?

Even though I repeat an explanation from an earlier article, I believe it vitally important to do so. Perhaps if it is repeated often enough it will begin to be heard and understood by an ever-wider segment of American society, and lawmakers.

It is my opinion we find the reason for misleading statements about heterosexual and gay men victims in an explanation given by Linda Kelly.

Linda Kelly writes in her scholarly research paper, "Disabusing the Definition of Domestic Abuse: How Women Batter Men and the Role of the Feminist State,"

"Domestic violence represents the prized gemstone of feminist theory's fundamental message that our legal, social, cultural norms are fashioned in a manner which permit men to engage in a constant and pervasive effort to oppress women by any and every available means. A successful challenge to the Patriarchal definition of domestic violence may thus undermine feminism itself. To remain true to feminist theory, no aspect of male-female relations can be considered without first accepting the male as all powerful and the female as powerless. (119) The gender hierarchy is omnipresent. (120), Pp. 818"

The above mentioned methodology does appear to be present in quotations below from Paula Petrotta, Vice-Chair of the Los Angeles City Domestic Violence Task Force. Nowhere do we find mention of male victims of domestic violence "In one year alone, almost four million American women are physically abused by their husbands or boyfriends."

"...the epidemic of violence against women is not new. Unfortunately, the physical subordination of women, often with the convenience of the law, has been a tragic theme of our past."
"...if we truly want to eradicate domestic violence, we must eliminate the underlying beliefs and fears that allow the oppression of women to thrive."

It appears that the domestic violence industry views heterosexual male victims of domestic violence as a threat to funding it gets to further its gender feminist, domestic violence agenda. The agenda purports to serve the needs of women, but as I've elaborated in previous articles, it doesn't do that very well either. When the domestic violence industry intentionally ignores the needs of violent women, they don't get the batterers programs they desperately need to help them. However, let's not forget heterosexual male victims, who by now we could refer to as the most forsaken of all domestic violence victims.

I find it the height of cruelest irony to see that all other groups in need of domestic violence service are being politically used present the appearance that heterosexual male victims of intimate partner violence don't exist, or exist in numbers so small as to be insignificant. How many other major misrepresentations exist in America's domestic violence industry?

When heterosexual male victims are widely misrepresented, while same-sex male victims are widely misrepresented, while violent female batterers are also widely misrepresented, what does that say about the integrity of America's domestic violence industry? Should such an industry continue to receive the heavy funding it does under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)? In my opinion, no social institution (heavily subsidized by taxpayer funding) should be allowed to misrepresent itself to the taxpayers. No social institution should operate on principles, where any misrepresentation is allowed to pass for truth, until the truth is revealed, thereby forcing misrepresentations into the light of day. The "catch me if you can" attitude of the domestic violence industry is responsible for many of the domestic violence myths existing today. The domestic violence industry should not receive one more penny to continue to foist the misrepresentations it has worked so hard to perpetuate.

To provide billions of dollars in funding for a whole industry that is based on misrepresentation of such critical needs is not only unethical, in my opinion it harms every member of our society. One can only wonder how much longer a system of laws, possessing laws flagrantly devoid of integrity, can continue to survive. In a country like America, where government is said to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people," with laws like VAWA on our books, our nation is already existing in a relative state of anarchy.

March 30, 2005, Ray Blumhorst

Source: http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/0330blumhorst.html

LEADING CAUSE OF INJURY TO WOMEN IS NOT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

2005-05-10T16:10:00.000-04:00

Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between ages 15 and 44 in the United States - more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.

The statement is false.

These were the leading causes of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the United States in 1996:

Number
Per Cent

Motor Vehicle Accidents
1,504,119
21.2%

Accidental Falls
1,243,538
17.5%

Other and unspecified environmental and accidental causes
1,162,272
16.4%

Accidents caused by cutting and piercing instruments or objects
515,986
7.3%

Sports injuries
483,223
6.8%

Injuries purposefully inflicted by other than spouse or intimate
399,240
5.6%

Overexertion and strenuous movements
339,014
4.8%

Drugs, medicinal and biological substances, in therapeutic use
166,687
2.3%

Injuries purposefully inflicted by spouse or other intimate
153,555
2.2%

Injuries caused by animals
137,639
1.9%

Accidental poisoning by drugs
131,928
1.9%

Misadventures during surgical and medical care
124,230
1.7%

Suicide and self-inflicted injuries
102,392
1.4%

Struck accidentally by falling object
87,485
1.2%

Caught accidentally in or between objects
74,995
1.1%

Foreign body accidentally entering orifice other than eye
69,590
1.0%

Accidental poisoning by other solid and liquid substances, gases, and vapors
57,846
0.8%

Non-transport machinery accidents
56,455
0.8%

Venomous animals and plants
50,111
0.7%

Accident caused by hot substance or object
49,766
0.7%

Foreign body accidentally entering eye and adnexa
47,788
0.7%

Other
147,889
2.0%

This data is taken from the 1996 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Data File, which can be downloaded via ftp from the National Center for Health Statistics. Domestic violence, referred to in the table as "Injury purposefully inflicted by spouse or other intimate", accounts for 2.2% of injuries to women in this age group. Rather than being a larger cause of injury than "car accidents and other things combined", domestic violence causes only one-tenth as many injuries as motor vehicle accidents alone. And as any thoughtful person might expect, as a source of injuries domestic violence is well behind such everyday occurences as accidental falls and cuts.

Domestic violence is a problem. It is not, however, the leading cause of injury to women. It is not even remotely close to it. In the long run we will all be better off if discussion of this subject has some relationship to the real world.

Source: http://www.responsibleopposing.com/facts/leadcaus.html

MEDIA ATTACK ON MEN, AND COVERUP OF VIOLENCE BY WOMEN

2005-05-10T14:16:00.000-04:00

From Baby Killers to Wife Beaters

The recent titillating spate of ghastly stories on military wife beating[1] carried by services as Reuters is part of the open hypnotism of the American Public now underway.

During the Vietnam war men were excitedly characterized as baby-killers — and no doubt there were shocking things covered up by military fat cats — but this has spread throughout the culture so by the mid-eighties police forces began training courses on the assumption that married men, especially any with guns, military background, or self-defense skills (though apparently not the police) were inherently abusers. In one course in Pittsburgh that I reviewed, that was the phrase: “…marriage is an inherently abusive male dominance relationship.”

The truth is the US is suffering an epidemic of husband beating, false accusations, robbery, abuse and murder of males by women with legal and cultural impunity. They no more view what they do as a crime than the old oppression of peasants was thought a crime, even by the peasants.

Many men, afraid of being accused as “abuse enablers” and led by false chivalry, are joining in their own destruction like Eloi running to serve the Morlochs. And beware — the US is exporting this epidemic of social hysteria to foreign countries through incessant TV shows, UN meetings, and scholarly blarney. This is not to say abuse of females does not occur. But that I have to make sure to include that disclaimer tells you that the culture waved bye-bye to rational discussion of these matters years ago, and is slowly dragging the rest of the world with it.

Take the most scary sounding feminist tract you can find, reverse the use of male and female, multiply by perhaps 10, and brother, you will have the truth. Like Blacks demeaned decades ago, men have become accustomed, habituated to an open prison and constant indignities — while the Whites who inflicted them were convinced they were the Black‘s best friends.

An experiment: Show a video of a woman hitting a man to both sexes. Most will perceive male abuse, or justified female attack. Try it, take a scene from TV. My experience is that more men think they see the man hitting the woman.

When many, vaguely hearing the soothing voice of the hypnotist, look at a potato and see an apple, that is the classic definition of mass hypnosis.

Do You Believe Your Lyin' Eyes?

Forget the additional narcosis of academic studies, news reports, and endless government pronouncements. Use your head to observe. Try this experiment: Go to your cable TV tomorrow afternoon around 4 PM (prime time female viewing hours) and jot down on a legal pad, one line for each channel, a summary of what you see. Just look for 15 seconds or so per channel till you get the gist. This is what consultants call a “Gilson snapshot” — typically, you will find over 80 percent of the channels portray abuse, devaluing, or demeaning of men. See if you experience highlights similar to these as you flip the channels, one by one:

An afternoon cartoon: the girls push around the boys, who somehow just can‘t get science. Barney appears afterward to say let’s all be friends.

A show on financial empowerment for divorced women

A wife in a movie discovers her husband is involved in an affair and sets out to kill him to everyone’s approval

A man is slapped by a woman

A woman screams at her son and calls him a loser. She is then praised by the talk show host for attending anger management class. The boy is told it is up to him to keep her calm by a guest therapist.

A man is shot by a woman

“The More You Know” series of ads warns abuse can happen to anyone, so call for help immediately when he, repeat he, does it

A man says he is wildly in love with a woman who just kicked his testicles and insulted his father
A news report on forced or fraudulent government castration of men in India — focus? The emotional effects on the women, unhappy with their subsequent sex lives …but who are learning they can now remarry, and many of whom targeted their unsuspecting husbands for such “radical birth control” to government bureaucrats in the first place. “Improvements must be made based on experiments there before this can be rolled out to America,” says the commentator.

A woman shoots her boyfriend for buying a stereo without consulting her

A woman throws off her wedding veil and abandons the groom to have what looks like a personal erotic moment while driving a car

Another abandons her boyfriend and steals his car after discovering a soft drink is all she needs in life

A court case is interrupted when a woman begins to shampoo her hair and is happily pursued by sex maniacs, cheer-led by a psychotherapist

A government panel determines more funds are needed for “violence against women”

A man bursts on the screen saying "There is a plot by the government to use women to take over the world!” That one made be pause. Alas, it was an old comedy — the man is soon characterized as mad

Barry Scheck is interviewed with his discovery that DNA shows, in apparently those few cases where the police did not screw up the evidence, that 1/3rd of those serving time for rape (in many states until recently still a capital offense) were falsely accused. The panel afterward speculates on the “growing problem” that this fact may discourage women from making domestic violence accusations. The commentator continues, “Of course there is the rare case as we saw with Barry Scheck, maybe one in a million cases, where the woman lies.” “Or much more likely just made a mistake because she was upset,” says the other. The two women both nod, satisfied with the math that turns one third into a million to one shot.

A rerun of Donahue. He says under no circumstances should you hit a woman, even if she attacks you or must fight back. This is followed by a news story of the pardon by the Governor of a woman who dug through several walls to beat her disabled husband to death while he repeatedly called police who felt his call was insignificant. She felt abused, said the Governor. It is a victory for women, said several women’s shelters and advocacy groups.

A man comes home to discover his girlfriend has cleaned out the house and run off with a lesbian. He sets out to win her back after she hits him over the head with a bat
A woman throws a drink at a man who says she looks better in the blue dress
In the final episode of Star Trek, Captain Kirk finds his body stolen by a sympathetically portrayed woman

A woman fakes a rape scene to frame her lover and makes off triumphantly with her husband’s money, whom she has just murdered. Her husband is bad as he deals drugs, unlike her, who wants a better life.

Boys are embarrassed by a smug teacher because they can’t give the birthdate of Susan B. Anthony or name when votes happened for women. They are not taught when, or by whom, votes were won for men

A man tries to help an eccentric and distressed visiting professor by inviting him to stay over. His wife leaves him

On a nature show, a female praying mantis eats the male while mating

In Afghanistan a desperate father whose home was destroyed by American bombing has his young daughters take in piecework. This, says the reporter, is a vestige of Moslem male dominance the US is trying to correct. The reporter patronizingly asks the wife why she doesn’t leave him since he won’t send the daughters to school and continues luridly on the custom of polygamy. The reporter has apparently forgotten she also reported the US bombs had pulverized the school to flinders.

A man is slapped and hit by his girlfriend and called an abuser because he did not tell her that he was adopted.

Psychologists discuss the “controversial” proposition that fathers are beneficial

A CNN reporter reveals the shocking fact that in Arab countries, women do not automatically get custody. Tune in tonight for the courageous story of a woman who kidnapped her son to America after leaving her husband to avoid the custom of the country where the boy has grown up.

A man gets twenty years for consensual non-vaginal sex with his wife. She gets therapy

A raped 12 year old boy is ordered to pay child support to the rapist, his teacher

A story on deadbeat dads features a man who must, under antique laws, pay support even though the child was by the man with whom his wife was two-timing him. “Women are fighting back against the many men who seek to avoid their legal obligations,” intones the reporter
“You worm!” a woman tells a befuddled Curly, slapping the icon of male power.

What message do young girls watching with their mothers, or police who work the night shift and watch this, get?

If some satirist came up with this it might be denounced as exaggerated and showing more the anxieties of the satirist. But it is normal US TV fare at the beginning of the Third Millennium. Some days are worse, others better. If one looks at the programming of 20 years ago when cable first came out, it is hardly much different.

Is this TV fare, fed every day into homes, by current definitions the real pornography and feeder of sexual or domestic violence? Or is the attack on “pornography” in part an attack on any attempt by men to understand in images the social reality and define it independently?
In contrast, a recent show where a man dates a series of women with a prospect of marriage (or at least a 6 month relationship, they are legally the same these days in most States; uh, that wasn‘t a joke) — that is, the 20-odd women simperingly chase the man — is considered so daring it is a nightime sensation. But it confirms the devaluing attitude of violence: What sort of female-dependent, short-sighted, uncritical, superficial, self-devaluing wretch would make a marriage choice — of the mother of his children to be — this way?

America’s ideal date who works and doesn‘t mess about the house if he knows what‘s good for him, that’s who.

Go through this TV list and reverse the genders. What do you see now? Put any minority group — or any group — in place of the men. How does it all sound now? Would it not be a miracle if there was no violence against men? Conversely, what attitudes are making such TV fare attractive?

Go to any newstand, Look, really look, at the titles of the Women’s magazines: “Show him who’s boss,” “How to turn him on — and off,” “Faking Sex”[2]. Reverse the genders and imagine Popular Mechanics running such titles.

Not that the articles are particularly objective: in “Faking It” L. Featherstone at Columbia Journalism Review describes how facts are re-arranged in magazines for women to suit the prevailing ideology.[3]

It need not be arcane. In an article on sexual enjoyment, a married couple were having relations 5 times a week. The editor changed it to three times since such happy marriages where women revel (perhaps in “the inherent abusive relationship” of marriage) were “impossible.”
Not to worry — it is editorialized that such fraud in truth-telling is just: “women's magazines sometimes seem like they feel afraid…” Of what? Male violence? Ask a woman if she makes the tacit association.

But there’s more.

Doesn't Fit the Paperwork

It seems forgotten today that the term domestic violence was originally used in the ‘60s to describe female abuse of males. In 1972 when I started college it was not taught as a gender problem but one of counseling involving aggravating factors such as illness, mental disorders, or alcohol. A policewoman who came said both women and small men were far more violent and more of a problem for police to handle than men or large men. This attitude had changed radically as graduation approached.

Ask any police old timer what was really going on in domestics then — and today. But wait till he retires or will speak off the record: Police who say inconvenient things have little doubt they will be dismissed. Indeed, as one officer told me, female violence is rarely reported because, quite simply, it doesn’t fit the paperwork. Plus there are no promotions for what is not tracked.

Consider:

Most police departments do not track female versus male abuse. This inevitably influences both behavior and data.

In many jurisdictions police may be reprimanded for not arresting the male

According to several police departments that I contacted, all domestic violence training and awareness programs presume there is no abuse of men. Programs teach that if a woman denies she was abused, that is evidence of domestic violence

Open your phone book. Tell me how many centers for violence on males that you see
In Pennsylvania a heavyset woman raped and beat a man with a cola bottle to insensibility, screaming for sex even as several police wrestled her off. Was she tried for abuse or rape? Was she even arrested? No, she was initially summonsed for disorderly conduct as the man was rushed to the hospital. Police told the man he was lucky police arrived and he was not charged with rape. There is no reporting box for rape or abuse of males on the police reports, it seems.

The attitude is summarized by this: it got nationwide coverage in “News of the Weird” comic section.

This is not weird or funny. It is sinister reality. An Arab woman who is about to be stoned for plotting the murder of her husband with a paramour is subject to sympathetic international headlines. (No, I do not advocate government death penalties). In contrast? Violence against an American man is a comic strip.

Tell me, were you among the millions of American males who righteously denounced OJ so there would not be any suspicion you — shudder — sympathized with woman-beaters? Even as you admitted to friends you thought the evidence was a little screwy?

Ask yourself, is one reason we are seeing this epidemic of accusation is the subconscious guilt over abortion? (Sure there’s a right to abortion. But when you have hundreds of thousands of abortions, the problem isn’t abortion, it’s a symptom.)

Could it be that people in academia and government now devalue their own instrumentalities, such as the military, as a remnant of independence — in favor of the nebulous all-problem solver, the abstraction “government”?

The only reason the Federal government even reports female abuse of men is that a few libertarians, led by me, conducted a 10 year letter writing campaign until they did. As the statistics show, under the most charitable interpretation, wives and girlfriends are murdering and beating men with abandon. And why not? The practical legal consequences are less, police will readily arrest a man on mere accusation, but only a woman in many places (by formal or informal policy) if they see it with their own eyes. If anything males vastly under-report attacks compared to assumptions of female under-reports. Why? Women are psychologically supported, relatively; men endure ridicule.

Janet Reno Is Just a Klepto

Now realize the shocking figures do not reflect that police — and police I have spoken to estimate that over 95 percent of violence is female initiated — often cannot or are discouraged from reporting female violence. These are figures that got through the filtering system. And then realize that the worst violence of all, false accusations, is not tracked by the government.
Worse, Federal procedure when I last checked in 1998 was that even if a crime was found to have been a hoax, the FBI still reported it as a crime.

Indeed, we often enable a female criminal class in all respects, not just one crime type.

Increasingly, the language itself seems to be making female crime invisible:

A woman who steals expensive clothes is not a thief, but a kleptomaniac in need of counseling. A man who takes a slice of pizza as a joke gets life under the three strikes law.

A woman who murders her child is distraught. A man who shoots a deer to feed his family is a violent gun nut.

A woman who conducted an audacious embezzlement scheme for millions gets probation as “having a difficult past.” The boyfriend who reported the crime to police the next day gets 1 year for not reporting it soon enough.

A woman against a male who makes a false accusation for profit is rarely prosecuted. Her victim finds even if he wins the case that no crime is reported

One day I went to court to observe a domestic violence trial. The couple had been married several years. The man claimed the woman tried to poison him, beat him as he slept, and then called the police and cried rape when he recovered. He was arrested. She immediately raided the bank accounts, her children’s trust funds, and tried to seize the house though she had just sold her own. She had a history of allergic mental instability. She had a court appointed free attorney (with whom she admitted she was having an affair) as the money she was spending from her husband was still legally his. He had no attorney as the money she had, still technically his, disqualified him from legal aid. As he struggled to tell his story and presented evidence such as her tampering with his insurance policies in the last few months, the judge kept saying it was not important or interrupted. When the woman on cross examination was caught in palpable lies the judge said it didn’t matter — she was “upset.” The man left with a three month sentence, forbidden to see his children and $400 child support on an $800 salary if he could get it. From his jail cell the next day he could hear a parade of women chanting against domestic violence.
Eventually his wife got off the allergy, snapped back to normal and disavowed the whole thing. Last I knew they were still trying to pick up the pieces.

Where was the violence here? Who were the perpetrators? Where was it reported so academics can study it?

Increasingly, thanks to the Internet, a variety of eccentric but informative sites have emerged as men begin to talk to one another and realize that if the Nation had been invaded by psychopathic infiltrators from Mars who had jimmied the entire legal system and brainwashed their very families, things could scarcely be worse.[4] In the last year a startling array of men and women from all parties, religious beliefs, and secular persons are focusing on this as a major item among humanity’s woes. Amazingly, these sites regularly collect hard-to-find government statistics, collate similar stories from many sources and countries, and act as an intellectual underground for academics who go to them to track down contrarian information that has disappeared from State University research libraries — and, as I found recently, which sites are censored so they cannot be accessed from some Public Libraries.

A Victimless Crimewave

Government academics tell us that men dominate the US Prison population and order studies to find out what is wrong with the men, as they design ever more Byzantine prison and sentencing proposals. What is wrong with the men is they put these academic twits in power in the first place.

Such Academia doesn’t want to hear any of it, particularly now that this is becoming an industry. When an occasional academic does a study that challenges the status quo, or as happens revisits studies to find that the raw data proves the reverse, they are picketed, attacked by colleagues, reviled on TV, denounced as “enabling abuse” — as happened to researchers in 1994 in western Pennsylvania, as reported in a series in the Pittsburgh papers.[4] As a commentator, J. Lester, noted, a piece describing the “path breaking” and “controversial” research was entitled “Girlfriends Strike Back.”

Forget draconian or outdated laws on smoking funny cigarettes or reading Playboy as the most common victimless crime. St. Petersburg, Florida police tell me they now spend over 65 percent of their time on domestics — and with lawyers in the act, many of these are obvious set-ups, with police joking women have their divorce attorney’s name right there.

But the police nonetheless arrest the man.

And under the Nurenburg-style domestic violence court system, she immediately gets half of the income, the house, seizes the bank accounts, and moves on to the next victim.

Academics piously report this as an income loss to the female. What bilge.

So for some time I have been expecting the military would be the next target in the culture of substituting scandalous accusation for thought. Why? Because people I know in the military have been complaining of an epidemic of violence and false accusations against men . The honest career Officers feel powerless to act, except by dragging their feet, or meet the problem by resigning before they as well are accused of something. And why not? An accusation earns:

Sympathy

A cushy divorce or settlement

Blackmail to drop the charges for a payment

They even get his gun — men lose the right to own a gun if accused

In Korea, they had classes at USO’s for prospective military brides. An officer who monitored them one day was shocked to discover the material was about how women had the right to refuse sex, divorce anytime, make unsupported sexual accusations, and seize marital assets in wonderful America. “But isn’t that a sort of slavery of men? Isn’t that a sort of prostitution of marriage?” said one bride to be. Others passed around cards of domestic violence and divorce lawyers in the US.

“If you kill your husband while he is trying to have sex, even kiss you, against your will, in the right circumstances it isn’t murder,” said the facilitator brightly.

The officer canceled the wedding.

I also learned of stories like the pilot who came home literally from a mission in Europe, was told by his wife to take out the garbage, said he wanted a glass of water first — so she stabbed him. ”We tell soldiers if they’re real men they’ll take it. Unofficially. Stuff like that happens everyday," said my informant, “So I suspect sooner or later the men will be blamed.”

Indeed. The government has announced a zero-tolerance policy for domestic violence of soldiers — male soldiers.

I thought this seminar in Korea must be some Naderesque church-ladies’ program gone wild until a year later I tuned in PBS and saw a presentation on Korean military brides. There was the program, or one much like it, and running commentary on how marrying an American Soldier was exploitation of these women. So no wonder they murder their wives — they’re already exploiters.

Other officers and soldiers over the years have told me of similar discoveries of these seminars — including near US military bases.

Were there any near the bases in question? What, exactly, is going on?

If soldiers are murdering their wives, this is terrible. But is it a social problem? Is it worse than anywhere else? What happened behind closed doors? Is imprisoning somebody or orders of protection really an insulting incitement to violence that does far more harm than good? Can any of this even be discussed honestly while the government universities and controlled media churn out questionable data inlaid with hard-luck tearjerkers? What, really are we looking at behind the headlines? Does the military track women murdering husbands (I know the answer on that but will leave to you the pleasure of making a few enlightening phone calls to find out) and how does it compare?

No. This is murder, not some domestic violence or anything else, and should be coldly analyzed as such — or for factors such as upbringing, alcohol or other favorite government causes that have quietly become has-beens paving the way for the new social crusade. That other things going on are studiously ignored tells a different tale of managed social hysteria. It is like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, when the mundane offense became a “social crime” and suddenly almost everything, bad or good, was also — so real mass crimes in plain sight became invisible.

I often discuss at Libertarian events that part of the task is defusing social hysterias. The first step is identification, recognition, naming the unnamable. Such hysterias do not take hold without tacit co-operation of go-along “scientists” and scholars with a variety of motives, none noble. Thus people with legitimate problems best handled by counselors have seen their suffering politicized by things like the marital rape laws and “no means no” (except for the bottle wielding female rapist, apparently) violence standards championed by people like then Governor Ridge, which, in the debates in Pennsylvania, happy legislators described as “full employment acts.” Are academics paid by taxes from the families they destroy, as we may well have in the article cited[1] , who grab a headline while irresponsibly using government statistics they know, or should know, are misleading — instead of getting out there and doing real academic research that can benefit the public — the worst abusers, and enablers, of them all?
America, face it: By using numbskull government self-righteousness, you have created a nightmare in plain sight of encouraged and sanctioned female violence — on boyfriends, husbands, children that make the most hair-raising feminist allegations against men pale. And other countries, beware: America is exporting this nonsense to you. Ask yourselves: What is “domestic abuse” where academics who dissent are terrorized as “abusers“ while police look the other way?

And yet — violence, schmiolence. What we are seeing as a growing number of women, and their male cohorts, use this as a racket. It is really and simply a pandemic of self-righteously legalized theft, mass looting and extortion rarely seen in history.

And many people today may subconsciously recognize this — but are afraid to investigate, or uncertain how to admit it — as they flip the channel to watch the next man being slapped by a woman and told he is an abuser.
.
References[1] http://www.rense.com/general32/epi.htm
[2] Here.
[3] http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12543
[4] http://www.vix.com/men/battery/battery.html

Written by Michael Gilson De Lemos

Source: http://www.freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/baby_killers_wife_beaters.htm

REFERENCES EXAMINING ASSAULTS BY WOMEN ON THEIR SPOUSES OR MALE PARTNERS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

2005-05-10T13:22:00.000-04:00

SUMMARY: This bibliography examines 169 scholarly investigations: 133 empirical studies and 36 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 152,500.

Compiled by Dr. Martin S. Fiebert, Dept. of Psychology, California State University, Long Beach, 2005.

Bibliography may be downloaded at: http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

WAGE GAP MYTH

2005-05-10T12:48:00.000-04:00

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median income for all women is about three-quarters that of men, although the results vary significantly among demographic groups. Feminist organizations and some politicians point to these statistics as evidence of the United States as a patriarchal society that discriminates against women. But a closer examination leads to a different conclusion.

The Good New

When women behave in the workplace as men do, the wage gap between them is small. June O'Neill, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, found that among people ages 27 to 33 who have never had a child, women's earnings approach 98 percent of men's. Women who hold positions and have skills and experience similar to those of men face wage disparities of less than 10 percent, and many are within a couple of points. Claims of unequal pay almost always involve comparing apples and oranges.

Lifestyle Choices

Women make different choices, and those choices affect how they work. Women often place more importance on their relationships - caring for children, parents, spouses, etc. - than on their careers. A study by the Center for Policy Alternatives and Lifetime television found that 71 percent of women prefer jobs with more flexibility and benefits than jobs with higher wages, and nearly 85 percent of women offered flexible work arrangements by their employers have taken advantage of this opportunity.

Entry and Exit from the Job Market

Women are more likely to enter and leave the workforce to raise children, take care of elderly parents or move with their families. Working mothers are nearly twice as likely to take time off to care for their children as are working fathers in dual-earner couples. Yet time out of the workforce is an enormous obstacle to building an attractive resume and working up the corporate ladder. Women 25 years of age and over have been with their current employer 4.4 years, on average, compared to 5.0 years for men.

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey reveal that women between the ages of 18 and 34 have been out of the labor force 27 percent of the time, in contrast to 11 percent for men. Women ages 45 to 54 who have recently re-entered the workforce after a five- or 10-year break are competing against men who have had 20 years of continuous experience.

Part-Time Work

Women are also more likely to work part-time. In 2000, one-quarter of all women employees worked part-time, compared to less than 10 percent of men. Nearly 85 percent of those who worked part-time did so for non-economic reasons; e.g., to spend more time with the family or to further their education. In general, married women would prefer part-time work at a rate of 5 to 1 over married men.

While part-time work usually increases flexibility, the part-time worker loses out on promotions and pay increases. Part-time work also tends to mean lower hourly pay. Shorter labor stints and part-time work contribute to the probability of working for the minimum wage. Nearly two-thirds of minimum wage earners are women.

However, women's wages hold up quite well to men's wages when comparing specific job categories. Among adults working between one and 34 hours a week, women's earnings are 115 percent of men's. Among part-time workers who have never married, and who thus confront fewer outside factors likely to affect earnings, women earn slightly more than men. These statistics suggest that skill level, tenure and working hours - not gender - determine wages.

Occupational Choices

Beyond work behavior, women gravitate to sectors of the economy that compensate workers at lower levels. While women hold 53 percent of all professional jobs in the United States, they hold only 28 percent of jobs in professions averaging $40,000 or more in annual compensation. For example, fewer women have chosen to enter such technical fields as computer sciences, math and science teaching, medicine, law and engineering. In 1998, women earned only 26.7 percent of computer science degrees.

Closing the Gap

Despite all these factors, the gap between men and women's wages has been closing. Figure II illustrates that over the last 20 years women's earnings have jumped at least 12 percentage points relative to men's earnings, closing the wage differential at every level of education. A change in women's work expectations also has tended to close the gap. Until the 1970s, a minority of women expected to work after marriage. Today, almost 75 percent of young women expect to be working at age 35.

Changing work expectations are an apparent cause of women's increased focus on education, and the enrollment of women in higher education has grown much faster than that of men. Women were awarded more than 50 percent of associate's, bachelor's and master's degrees in the 1990s. Women currently earn more than 40 percent of Ph.D.s, medical and law degrees.

The narrowing of the gender wage gap approximately one percentage point a year since 1980 is particularly significant, since during the 1980s and '90s the overall wage level rose little and the wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers grew. Without enhanced skills, women's wages likely would have fallen further behind men's. However, market pressures have helped to generate corrective mechanisms, and as the costs of denying employment to women mounted, prejudices were set aside.

Conclusion

Women's work-life patterns and their occupational preferences are significant factors in determining wages. Rather than being "funneled" into low-wage, low-prestige and part-time positions, women often choose these occupations because of the flexibility they offer. After adjusting for these factors, scholars find that the difference between men's and women's earnings is very narrow.

Those who still cite women's 76 cents for every male dollar as evidence of sexism fail to take into account the underlying role of personal choice. The "wage gap" is not so much about employers discriminating against women as about women making discriminating choices in the labor market.

April 12, 2002, Denise Venable, Research Assistant
National Center for Policy Analysis
Brief Analysis No. 392

extracted from: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba392/

THE MISDIRECTED PASSION OF ANDREA DWORKIN

2005-05-10T09:11:00.000-04:00

WRITING ABOUT Andrea Dworkin, the radical feminist author and activist who died on April 9, is no easy task. Decorum requires accentuating the positive when speaking of the recently deceased; here, there is little positive to accentuate, except for a badly misused talent and a badly misdirected passion.

Still, with Dworkin's admirers hailing her as a titan of modern feminism, obituaries describing her as a controversial but noble crusader against pornography and violence, and even some of her feminist critics paying homage to her alleged achievements, it's important to set the record straight.

To put it plainly: Dworkin was a preacher of hate. Her books are full of such declarations as, ''Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman." (''Patriarchy," of course, covers contemporary Western societies.) ''Male sexuality, drunk on its intrinsic contempt for all life, but especially for women's lives, can run wild." ''Hatred of women is a source of sexual pleasure for men in its own right."

In Dworkin's world view, the Marquis de Sade and Jack the Ripper seem to be representative of all men (though she made an exemption for some men in her own life). Meanwhile, women who defend their right to enjoy heterosexual sex are branded ''collaborators, more base than other collaborators have ever been: experiencing pleasure in their own inferiority."

Dworkin's defenders insist that she has been unfairly maligned as equating all heterosexual sex with rape when she merely assailed male sexual dominance. Yet in her 1987 book, ''Intercourse," Dworkin argued that penetration itself is a form of ''occupation" and ''violation of female boundaries," however enthusiastically enjoyed by ''the occupied person." She wrote that ''intercourse remains a means or the means of physiologically making a woman inferior" and is ''the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women." ''All sex is rape" is fairly accurate shorthand for these ravings.

While allowing that intercourse could survive under gender equality, Dworkin was skeptical (''intercourse itself may be immune to reform"). In the 1976 book ''Our Blood," she proclaimed, in language too blunt to be reproduced here, that the feminist transformation of sexuality requires male impotency -- though how she would achieve this goal remains unclear.

Dworkin's admirers laud, and wildly exaggerate, her role in the battle against domestic violence and rape; if she deserves ''credit" for anything, it's helping infect feminist activism on these important issues with antimale bigotry and paranoia. Her biggest ''contribution" to the women's movement was to redirect a lot of its energy into a futile, divisive crusade against pornography.

While Dworkin spoke passionately on behalf of women who are battered and raped, her advocacy was undercut by her bizarre claims -- for instance, that the high rate of Caesarean sections in the United States is driven by the sexual sadism of doctors. Her melodramatic assertion that the everyday life of women in our culture is an ''atrocity" could only trivialize real atrocities. Her depiction of all women as perpetual victims -- ''Being female in this world is having been robbed of the potential for human choice by men who love to hate us" -- is profoundly demeaning.

On some level, Dworkin deserved compassion as a troubled woman with a history of sexual and physical abuse. Unfortunately, she took her battle with her private demons into the public square, and ended up doing far more damage to feminism than any right-wing cabal. (Ironically, some right-wingers eagerly embraced not only Dworkin's antiporn zeal but her argument that sexual liberation has hurt women.) Men, too, have been casualties of a climate in which a Vassar College official could tell Time magazine that a false rape charge might be a beneficial consciousness-raising experience for male students.

Critics of radical feminism have been often accused of exaggerating the importance of a handful of male-haters in the movement. Yet Dworkin was never relegated to the lunatic fringe where she belonged: Her texts have been widely assigned in women's studies courses, and prominent feminists from activist Gloria Steinem to philosopher Martha Nussbaum have offered their praise, treating her hatemongering as extremism in defense of the oppressed. (I prefer the view that hate is hate.)

Even ''pro-sex" feminist Susie Bright, a frequent target of Dworkin's, now gushes that she ''loved it" that Dworkin dared to ''attack the very notion of intercourse" and name men as the problem. If this is feminism, no wonder it's become an f-word.

Andrea Dworkin is dead. Maybe feminism won't live again until it has exorcised her sad ghost.

April 18, 2005, Cathy Young, The BOSTON GLOBE

Source: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/04/18/the_misdirected_passion_of_andrea_dworkin?mode=PF